Language universal from "summary" of Decoding the Universe by Charles Seife
The idea of a language universal is a tantalizing one. It suggests that there may be a fundamental language that underlies all human communication—a common grammar that is shared by every language on Earth. This concept is not as far-fetched as it may seem at first glance. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that there are certain universal features that are present in all human languages. One of the most famous proponents of the idea of a language universal was Noam Chomsky, a linguist who argued that all human languages share a deep structure that is hard-wired into the human brain. According to Chomsky, this universal grammar is what allows children to learn language so quickly and effortlessly, no matter what language they are exposed to. While Chomsky's theory has been the subject of much debate, there is some empirical evidence to support the idea of a language universal. For example, all languages have nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and all languages use recursion to create comp...
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