Michael Tomasello is an American psychologist, world-renowned specialist in the development of communication and cooperation in the child and higher primates, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.The book "The Origins of Human Communication" (2008) shows that the ability to communicate grows on the basis of and along with the development of "the ability to participate with others in joint actions with shared goals and intentions", that is, on the basis of and along with the development of joint intentionality. Language, according to Tomasello, is not born ready-made, like Athena from the head of Zeus. The stages of the formation of a language are connected with the development of its pragmatics.The book is addressed to linguists, psychologists, specialists in the field of cognitive sciences about a person, as well as to the widest range of readers interested in the origin of intelligent behavior and language.