Hagen Replies to Hirschfeld (2008)

Abstract

Hirschfeld's (2008) thoughtful comments on my article on the bilingual brain are a valuable contribution to what I find to be an exciting and fruitful interdisciplinary investigation in evolutionary linguistics. I think his reply will help us flesh out both the biological and the environmental forces that have led to the human endowment for language. Even so, Hirschfeld's conclusion — that the well-known difficulties which adults face in acquiring second languages are somehow proof of an environment in which early hominid bands frequently commingled - is at variance with virtually everything we know from the many disciplines that are now involved in the debate over the evolutionary origins of language.