This Is a Rock
A witty history of how humans invented language, from grunts and pointing to grammar rules and linguistic science.
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Chapters
12 total- 01Chapter One - Before Words
- 02Chapter Two - Sounds of the Mouth
- 03Chapter Three - Naming the World
- 04Chapter Four - Whomst Hath the Right to Speaketh Good?
- 05Chapter Five - When English Went Goblin Mode
- 06Chapter Six - Writing It Down
- 07Chapter Seven - Language Gets a Makeover
- 08Chapter Eight - Colonizers, Translators, and Thieves
- 09Chapter Nine - The Lab Coat Shows Up Late
- 10Chapter Ten - If You Know, You Know
- 11Chapter Eleven - Translation and Loss
- 12Chapter Twelve - The Future of Language
Edition notes and short pages
This Is a Rock
This Is a Rock
How We Learned to Talk
by James Johnson
Dedication
For the first human who pointed at something, made a noise, and convinced someone else it meant something.
You started all this.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TO EVERY LANGUAGE that lived.
To every one that died.
To the speakers who were silenced, and the ones who kept speaking anyway.
To the kids who break grammar rules before they can tie their shoes.
To the people who invent new slang before the internet can catch up.
And to every generation that rewires the system.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JJ WRITES ABOUT the things humans built without realizing it. Language, systems, belief, memory, and meaning. His books don’t just explain how the world works. They peel back the surface and ask what’s really running underneath.
This one’s about language.
The original trick.
The first spell.
The oldest code we ever wrote.
COPYRIGHT
© 2025 JAMES JOHNSON. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of non-fiction, but it plays fast with form. Some details have been compressed, rearranged, or styled for clarity, rhythm, or storytelling flow. The facts are real. The format’s human.
No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from the publisher, except for brief excerpts used in reviews or academic work.
If you disagree with any part of this book, feel free to grunt.