The Language Instinct

Language, in Steven Pinker's account, is an innate human ability produced by evolution, comparable to a spider's web-weaving or a beaver's dam-building, not a cultural invention like writing. He cites children who turn an inconsistent pidgin into a grammatical creole, deaf babies who babble with their hands, the specific impairments of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia, and signs of a critical period for language in childhood. Pinker treats Noam Chomsky's universal grammar sympathetically but rejects his doubt that evolution can explain the language instinct. He also disputes common beliefs: that children must be taught to speak, that most people's grammar is poor, that language is declining, and that vocabulary strongly limits thought. Geoffrey Sampson's Educating Eve was written in response.

Charlie Munger said Pinker makes his case pretty convincingly.