For those who believe that gorillas are "just this close" to writing Shakespeare, this book is a good wake-up call. In it, Anderson discusses the amazing communicative abilities of a number of animals, but concludes that we really can't call this "language," for a number of reasons. Like so many, I have enjoyed the Doctor Dolittle books immensely, and it is fun to imagine talking to animals. But it seems an impossibility. This is not just a religious or species-centric prejudice. As Anderson points out, "Actually …linguists would be delighted and intrigued to discover language in other primates – or cockroaches, for that matter. When we look closely, however (and experimenters have tried awfully hard), that is not what we find. It appears to be an empirical result, not just an anthropocentric prejudice, that human language is uniquely human." (page 4)
As a veteran professor of linguistics, Anderson is well qualified to discuss what the nature of language is, and he keeps this to a somewhat popular level. His chapter on Syntax is probably the most challenging for the non-linguist. His other chapters discussing the nature of language are more accessible, and give the layman a good idea of what we really mean when we talk about human language. One illustration is that human languages have syntax, words arranged in a particular order. We say "the red book," not "book the red." Beyond that, languages have more structure. We can say "The cat on the mat is sleeping," and "the cat on the mat" is a phrase that can move as a unit ("I see the cat on the mat") or we can substitute a single pronoun for this multi-word phrase ("It is sleeping.") Furthermore, we can have phrases within phrases ("The cat on the mat by the door in that room...") All human languages can do this type of thing. This is one of the two major themes of the book - what are we really talking about when we use the term "language"?
The other theme is a survey of some of the amazing animal communication systems out there - honeybees' "tail-wagging dance" that indicates whee other bees should go to find food, birdsong structure, and primates' communication in the wild. He concludes that none of these exhibit syntax and a number of other characteristics of language, when rigorously examined.
He also spends a chapter on attempts to teach apes sign language in experimental settings. This alone might be worth the price of the book, especially debunking the overblown claims about Koko the "signing gorilla." Koko's trainer, Penny Patterson, has never released her experimental data, and we are left with unsubstantiated claims and over-interpretations.
I would recommend this book as a good readable approach to the whole subject of what animals can and cannot do. They can do some pretty amazing things, and Anderson celebrates those. But let's not call it "language."
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