Bastard Tongues

“Part memoir, part intellectual detective story and part linguistics primer. Bickerton is a spirited, clever writer.” —Nathaniel Rich, Los Angeles Times Book Review Bastard Tongues is an exciting, firsthand story of scientific discovery in an area of research close to the heart of what it means to be human—what language is, how it works, and how it passes from generation to generation, even where historical accidents have made normal transmission almost impossible. The story focuses on languages