Publisher's Synopsis
This first and only work of non-fiction by the author of two novels, two collections of short stories and a collection of poetry, has an accessible and conversational tone, which perhaps disguises its enormous ambition. It not only deals with the origins of language to argue its centrality to humanity and the naturalness of bilingualism and multilingualism, but examines how writing and printing built on that centrality to develop the 'social mind' - the sum of knowledge within any given society.
