Romantic view of Chomsky

John McWhorter, in Language Interrupted, quotes Orrin Robinson, author of the wonderful English and Its Closest Relatives, as saying, “He [Chomsky] has lost that wonder at the splendid multiplicity of language and languages which is at the other side of the wondering at language as a common human possession.”

McWhorter says of this comment that Chomsky is simply focused on others things than differences between/among languages, intuitively fascinating to the amateur language buff, which are a distracting illusion to argue away via revealing underlying unities.

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