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I just picked up Stephen Pinker's, "The Language Instinct" at the library yesterday. Very interesting reading, thus far.
Do you think language is innate or acquired?
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Innate. Though I hope you'll list some things from the book; perhaps he has arguments for both? Technically, of course, it IS both: an infant of English-speaking parents isn't going to start talking in French! But the desire to communicate is innate: we are social animals. Once our brains develop sufficiently to discern and wonder about the world around us (usually by about 6 months), we demand interaction. (Prior to about 5 months old, even after good vision develops, infants are only truly "aware" of themselves, and that only in a rather amorphous way. They cry, yes, but in the earliest weeks are not capable of differentiating between, say, hunger and being too cold; all they "know" is that they're miserable in some way.) If somehow a group of 6-months-olds could be left completely on their own, I would predict that by 12 months at least some meaningful sounds would have developed and that by 18 months they would have a rudimentary vocal language of some kind. At least the equivalents of I'm hungry, I'm hurt, check this out, and hey, that's mine!
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The fact that there are thousands of languages seems to indicate that language is a spontaneous development.
Even other primates appear to have communication sounds that
qualify as language.
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re:If somehow a group of 6-months-olds could be left completely on their own, I would predict that by 12 months at least some meaningful sounds would have developed and that by 18 months they would have a rudimentary vocal language of some kind. At least the equivalents of I'm hungry, I'm hurt, check this out, and hey, that's mine!
twins have been known to do it... most of them drop their private language by age 5, but there is a famous case of twins who persisited in 'speaking their own language well into their teens..
as they got older the vocabulary stole shamelessly from english, but the rules of 'grammar' differed, (but were rather consistant)
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idio glossia, I believe is the term. our twins just spoke English... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Seems like a very interesting book, gh. Here's my two paise:
Speech is innate. Language as a tool of vocal/oral communication cannot develop without speech and is innate only in this reliance on speech as the stimulus. I would say that the language *instinct is therefore innate whilst language per se is acquired.
There was a lovely exchange on mynahs (dxb started it I think) just after I came here, and another that Jackie initiated on the neurbiology of language; you might want to read in the archives; Search is not working for me (!!??..that interrobang thing was created for me, don't know where to find it); I'd have posted the link otherwise.
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I've always liked the notion that we reinvent grammar every generation. It is learned without any formal training by somewhere around age two. Some people are better than others at relearning it at the prompting of the guardians of the earlier generations. I think this speaks for the innateness of grammar if not language per se.
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Good distinction, maahey. And Faldage, yes, what you're talking about would definitely fall under acquisition; that's precisely why I posed the idea of infants living on their own: they wouldn't have any examples to learn from. I hadn't really thought about grammar until I read your post (thank you); I think it would be fascinating, were it possible, to see what sort of grammar they developed! Maybe, "Hey! Mine that is!".
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I've heard it said, and have been unable to independently verify, that creoles tend to have remarkably similar grammars irrespective of their respective parent languages.
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I remember reading a study that showed that regardless of language, (2 of the many they looked at were English and Swahili) mothers tended to speak to their beginning-to-talk infants at a developemental level 1 stage ahead of the child's ability. If the child spoke in one word sentences eg "mine" then the mothers tend to respond with 2 word sentances eg "baby's ball". So not only the need to communicate and the ability to symbolize are innate but the ability to adjust communication is also innate.
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Brava, Zed. Thanks for the interesting datum.
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Here's a poser for you ... I had a college friend who spoke two languages fluently. Born in Egypt she spoke Arabic and English from babyhood.
Her Amah spoke to her only in Arabic, her parents only in English. So she spoke to each in the appropriate language. No "cross-overs" were allowed.
Now that's amazing! So was that innate or not?
I am befuddled.
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That IS interesting Zed. And if I think about it, I have seen every mom do just this and when I am around kids I do the same too. It probably is the strong sense of mentor that we get around kids that makes us constantly challenge them.
I however don't understand, how any of this suggests that language is innate? If anything, this should favour strongly, acquired learning, since, it is clearly the mother who is making the child *associate the two words. And so, the child who started with, 'mine', is challenged to make the connection with two new words - baby's ball. The mother is *teaching the child - acquired learning.
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If I remember the book correctly, Pinker was saying that the ability to learn language (i.e., the ability to acquire vocabulary and work out grammar rules) is innate, but that potential will never be realised without language input from the people around the infant. If children don't hear (or see in the case of sign languages) language being used before puberty it's too late.
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Sounds much like Noam Chomsky's theory, developed I guess about 40 years ago (I know, ICLIU).
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Sure, that's what the book is. Basically a popularisation of Chomsky's theories and setting them into a context of some more recent trends in psychology.
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From Encarta:
According to Chomsky, the human capacity for learning language is innate. He theorized that the human brain is “hardwired” for language as a product of evolution. By pointing to the primary importance of biological dispositions in the development of language, Chomsky’s theory dealt a serious blow to the behaviorist assumption that all human behaviors are formed and maintained by reinforcement.
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My two cents too.
I think language is innate. Every animal has a form of communication, whether vocal, visual (by movements, actions, colours), or waves (like elephants), and more that I am sure I'm forgetting.
Why would humans be any different than every other animal? We question this only because we arrogantly believe our form of communication, our language, is much more complexe than other animal species.
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Why would humans be any different than every other animal? We question this only because we arrogantly believe our form of communication, our language, is much more complexe than other animal species.
This has always been my view, too, on this subject. We like to think that "communication" is mediated by the accepted semantics of what we say - but at the same time our utterances, by their tone and timing, fulfill a lot of other functions related to defense of territory, mating, posturing etc., for which animals have specialised devices.
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A good concrete example of the innateness of language (and by extension, grammar) is apparent in any "normal" three-year-old child. I don't get the chance very often anymore [ sic], but I do enjoy listening to children developing grammar rules based on what they hear. When they make mistakes by analogy such as "I eated my dinner" you know they've got it all worked out, and now only need to refine. Edit: Oops, I see I sort of mantled Faldage and Jackie above.
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twins have been known to do it... most of them drop their private language by age 5, but there is a famous case of twins who persisited in 'speaking their own language well into their teens..
But would they have developed a language if held in silent isolation? Guess it would be an illegal experiment.
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re:would they have developed a language if held in silent isolation? Guess it would be an illegal experiment.
illegal would be the least of it... are you a closet psychopath? it would seem you'd have to be to suggest such an experiment.
there have been, throught the ages, 'jungle boys', children accidently left, lost, abondon, who have grown up with out human contact. when 'recovered', these children, never develop language beyond the grunts and noises they learned while living with out the benefits of human contact.-the experiment has been done (accidentaly)
similarly, a young man who was born with sever catteract, and other eye problems, and learned to live as 'blind'(he could see light/dark/shadows), was subject to surgery that removed the catteracts, repaired eye muscles, and was then fitted with glasses.. His eyes worked. but he never learned to see.. he never developed 3D focus, he could not tell a cat from a dog, or horse from a cow (with out touching them)
he 'stepped over shadows on the street as if they were obsticles.. he couldn't 'get' that cars looked smaller when further away.. and kept mistaking them for toys..
the case was 'written up' most recently by Oliver Sacks, (don't have the book title handy), but Dr. Sacks points out, this kind of surgery was been tried before, and the results are always the same.(and there was a broadway play 10 year ago on the same case (only the play turned the man into a woman, and took other dramatic licence.)
children not only learn to talk, they learn to see...
because of the past failures, 'corrective surgery' for blindness is limited to people who have developed sight (and then lost it)- or children under the age of 5. we don't need to experiment on children to learn what we already know.
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<i>llegal would be the least of it... are you a closet psychopath? it would seem you'd have to be to suggest such an experiment.</i> Excuse me, but I was kidding. In part it was a reference not to feral children cases like Kaspar Hauser, but to an alleged experiment that a king in Ancient Egypt ran: he had two children raised in silence with mute servants caring for them. They started speaking Phrygian after a while or one of them at least uttered the Phrygian word for bread. See <A HREF="http://www.feralchildren.com/en/language.php" target="_new">http://www.feralchildren.com/en/language.php</A> about "forbidden experiment". Guess I have to remember to put in all the smiley faces for implied sarcasm. Take care.
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jheem, I hope you don't mind: I'm going to make your link clickable. Fascinating! http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=genie[rueful smile e] At first I thought that "A HREF" was the Phrygian word for bread.
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Guess I have to remember to put in all the smiley faces for implied sarcasm.Or you have to wait (as I still am) for people to learn the silent language you're speaking.  
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Not a problem, I went back and fixed mine. I'm still getting the hang of AWADtalk's simplified markup. I think the word cited by Herodotus is bekos.
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of troy...if you do remember that book title, I'd really like to know. It sound like an interesting read. I find the idea fascinating.
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beuatiful bel, they gods must love you, the book was An Anthropologist on Mars, (pub 1995) and on Dr Sacks' web page, they very essay is presented... EDITtry it now-- then click on typewriter ((for writings), and find the book, then click on exerpt in left hand frame...http://www.oliversacks.com/you can read it for yourself! (sorry for not checking the link..) (i certainly would recommend the whole book--or anyone of his books.. and to meet him in person is a delight.. (just an informal book signing.. after a lecture.) he has a wonderful sense of humor and humanity about him.
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...they gods must love youPerhaps not as much as you think . I tried the link and it doesn't work right now. I did go to the net-site of our local English bookstore and found that they have two paperback copies. The review looked quite interesting so I'll pop in and get it. Thanks o.t.
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