Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language

Author: Robin Dunbar
Genre: Popular science

Robin Dunbar essentially elaborates on his theories of how and why language developed. Initially he discusses the why question and in this he talks about many of the characteristics that make us human: from language, bipedalism and big brains to gossiping. Later he talk about the ‘how’. Initially humans had one language which then split into many others. He discusses why there is a high rate of dialect formation and how it is important in maintaining kinship. Finally, he uses the theories of language development to explain some of the phenomena we often encounter in our social life and even goes on to predict how the society may evolve in the coming years.

There are several points that make this book an excellent read. First of all, I found the ideas proposed in this book quite novel but at the same time quite plausible. For example, Dunabar’s arguments about why we live in such large circles, correlating group number with size of neocortex and the idea that language developed to allow us to gossip and make social interactions; grooming serving the same purpose in other primates are concepts that are noteworthy. Dunbar himself is an excellent writer. Using numerous examples, both from the social life of the primates he has extensively studied and those from circumstances we come across routinely, he effectively drives his point home.

Overall, it is a fantastic book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in human evolution, psychology or sociology.