Das Königreich der Sprache

In the past 150 years, colossal advancements have been made, from the discovery of penicillin to the decoding of human DNA and the detection of the Higgs boson. However, science has yet to answer one of humanity's most pressing questions: What is the origin of human language? As Tom Wolfe delightfully illustrates, this has not prevented leading researchers, from Charles Darwin to Noam Chomsky, from proclaiming grand successes that were not actually achieved, defaming competitors instead of admitting their own mistakes, and generally describing the emperor's new clothes in the most vibrant colors. In "The Kingdom of Language," Wolfe argues that language is humanity's first cultural achievement and thus cannot be explained by evolutionary theory or scientific systematics.