Talking Hands, Margalit Fox

Talking Hands is in part the story of the development of sign languages around the world, and in part an exploration of the development of language and how that might have occurred in human history. The little Bedouin settlement which is the main case study is a place where a sign language has arisen independently of other sign languages, and its development has mirrored that of the development of spoken languages in ways which may reveal important things about the way the human brain handles language.

Most of the neurological stuff wasn’t new to me, and it’s definitely on a level any reader can appreciate; it doesn’t go into massively technical terms, or dissect vast case studies about the way injuries affect the brain, etc. The historical context of sign language and how people treated deaf and dumb people in the past was newer for me. I wasn’t aware, for example, that for ages people — even deaf people — considered sign language inferior because it lacked the sort of grammar people recognised. It was even suppressed in favour of cumbersome sign language which followed word-for-word the pattern of spoken language, ignoring the potential for a spatial grammar.

Margalit Fox comes across as a science writer rather than a scientist, making the book very accessible — either on its own, or as a complement to more in-depth works about language like Steven Pinker’s. I didn’t find it as fascinating as her book on decrypting Linear B, but her writing is clear and concisely informative, and I enjoyed reading the book. I wasn’t always sure about the way she characterised actual people; I wouldn’t find some of those descriptions very flattering/respectful… but she did write it with the approval and help of the team working in the Bedouin village, according to her introduction, and it’s never disrespectful about disability or intelligence.

Rating: 4/5

The Ancient Paths, Graham Robb

The problem with this book is that, despite Graham Robb’s claims of having disbelieved the idea and sought extra hard for proof, etc, etc, it’s hard to believe something which is so broad and sweeping, which if true would change the perceptions of a whole period of history. Despite his attempts to methodically lay out the proof, it still reads kind of like someone excitedly believing in ley lines, or maybe better, imagining they can see the lines of intelligence-made canals on the face of Mars. It feels so massive and coincidental, especially because Graham Robb comes to this from the point of view of someone cycling across the ancient paths, rather than an archaeologist or historian.

Would I like to believe that the ancient Celts were this clever, this organised, this technologically advanced? Yes. And the idea of things being laid out along the solstice line isn’t so far fetched on its own: archaeologists like Francis Pryor have claimed similar for sites like Seahenge. But you don’t have to coordinate across the countryside to lay things out along solar lines, and place names could turn out to be a false signal — maybe it was just a common way to refer to places, maybe it was just a way of saying ‘the middle of nowhere’.

As far as I can tell, when Graham Robb links deities and folklore together, he isn’t going against the general wisdom, and that and the way some of his evidence hangs together makes me think that parts of his theory do have merit. It just seems overall too sweeping, and too much like wishful thinking — and sometimes his explanations of how x or y might have happened sound far too much like a story. In the end, I don’t have nearly enough knowledge of the field to make any real judgement on the theory.

Nonetheless, this does make for an interesting read, explaining the ways fairly advanced mathematics would’ve been possible, how communication might have been kept up across all the Celtic areas, and how some myths and stories might still connect to reality. It feels like a good story, regardless of whether the history and theory is sound.

Rating: 3/5