15 ms·

A girl was found living among monkeys in an Indian forest

365 points by mrb 10y ago

266203 10y ago
The Washington Post called for Edward Snowden to be denied a pardon and put through a trial. This, because of the secrets he shared with them and which they published. I see no reason to give them business, even for unrelated freak stories like this one. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/edward-snowden-doesnt-deserve-a-pardon/2016/09/17/ec04d448-7c2e-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html?utm_term=.379175c37df9 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/edward-snowden-doesn...
narrator 10y ago
Now the battle begins to shape her story such that it can be used to reconfirm one of a number of different competing narratives about man's relationship with nature, nature vs nurture, theories about language acquisition, the "critical period" and early childhood development. Did I miss any?
kumarm 10y ago
Hope her integration to society is handled carefully. So far she has been treated like an animal in zoo by humans too (Check the photos of groups of people looking at her): http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/eight-year-old-girl-found-living-with-monkeys/articleshow/58037884.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/eight-year-old-girl... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4386060/Mowgli-girl-living-monkeys-India.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4386060/Mowgli-girl-...
- nnnfff 10y ago
  i have a tiny dick and even smaller balls. the balls are above the dick also. the balls hand down around the dick like the ears on a basset hound. the dick stinks and i hate it. the balls do not smell. however, i also hate the balls. thank you.
- microcolonel 10y ago
  Aside: Interesting that the Malayam and Bengali versions of the article censor the girl's face from the header photo, and exclude the mid-article photo (the Hindi and English versions have both pictures fully intact). I could see that for the Malayam version, but I didn't totally expect it for the Bengali version.
  - gjkood 10y ago
    Did you mean "Malayalam"? EDIT: For those who don't understand the reference, "Malayalam" [1] is the official language of the South Indian state of Kerala. The question was asking if the parent post mistyped "Malayam" instead of "Malayalam". Looks like some folks have misunderstood my post and reacted negatively. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam
    - microcolonel 10y ago
      Yeah, it was a typo introduced paradoxically by my spellchecker. Somebody misspelled Malayalam as Malayam on my Chrome, then added it to the dictionary (!). Anyway, yes, I meant Malayalam.
    - vorg 10y ago
      The wikipedia article says it's pronounced "mʌləˈjɑːləm" (3rd syllable stressed), yet don't people in Kerala say "mʌˈlɑːjələm" (2nd syllable stressed, last 2 syllables almost spoken as one). It's been 30 yrs since I visited, so maybe I remember wrongly. If so, then maybe writing "Malayam" instead of "Malayalam" isn't too far wrong.
      - amenonsen 10y ago
        > If so, then maybe writing "Malayam" instead of "Malayalam" isn't too far wrong. No, it's very far wrong. (I'm a Malayali.)
      - vorg 10y ago
        > The wikipedia article says it's pronounced "mʌləˈjɑːləm" (3rd syllable stressed), yet don't people in Kerala say "mʌˈlɑːjələm" (2nd syllable stressed, last 2 syllables almost spoken as one). It's been 30 yrs since I visited, so maybe I remember wrongly. Can anyone verify the correct pronunciation?
- tangoalpha 10y ago
  Don't even think about it. This is one reason I felt she was better left the way she was. Rehabilitation in India is a joke. The people attending to her neither have the knowledge not resources to cater to her. Mental asylums and health centers in India are filled with sexual predators. They know that she can't complain about it nor would someone lend an ear if she tried to say something. Which makes her an easy target. Sexual abuse is the norm in mental health centers here. Most mental health centers lack infrastructure, resources and fall short of trained personnel. It is a common sight to see patients chained, and thrown food at. My first reaction when I heard the news - She was better in the forest away from the predators. I hope she gets the right sophisticated care and compassion she needs at this point of time.
  - jwildner 10y ago
    I think you have been watching too many movies lately. Your blanket statement about health centres is far from the truth.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      It's not all that far from the truth in the US. Why should India be different?
  - sn9 10y ago
    A naked girl running through the wilderness isn't exactly safe from sexual abuse and predation.
    - titanomachy 10y ago
      Sounds like she had a cadre of monkeys protecting her. That would probably deter all but the most determined sexual predators.
      - linkmotif 10y ago
        Heh, that's what I was thinking.
- bingomad123 10y ago
  I feel there is a good chance that she was better off with monkeys.
  - linkmotif 10y ago
    Me too...
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  Thanks. The Daily Mail has quite a bit information than the posted article. Most interesting part: > 'She is still not able to speak, but understands whatever you tell her and even smiles,' Singh said
faitswulff 10y ago
I read somewhere that reintegration with human society mostly fails for feral children. Is it really a rescue if she dies at a young age, alone?
- saganus 10y ago
  This is truly heartbreaking. I had no idea this had happened before or even that it could happen. Is this not a very rare event? I'm guessing that the survival rate for feral children can't be very high, and even more so if the child gets to grow up. Fascinating subject albeit very... discomforting.
  - rangibaby 10y ago
    > I had no idea this had happened before or even that it could happen. Is this not a very rare event? You may be interested to learn about the founding of Rome. Check out the top of this poster: http://www.olympicartifacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/1960_s11.jpg http://www.olympicartifacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/1...
    - mrgreenfur 10y ago
      wat
      - gjkood 10y ago
        The reference is to Romulus and Remus, the legendary founding of Rome. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus
        bardworx 10y ago
        The story of Romulus and Remus is quite far fetched. Personally, I love the myth but it does enact a lot of doubt. From my recollection, the brothers became strong from drinking the wolf's milk; strong enough to build a city destined for greatness. (They were also saved by gods?) Considering that most early civilization formed around fresh bodies of water and the positive connotation that barbarians (feral children) were integrated into society to become Kings is rather pleasant. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus [1] http://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamia/ http://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamia/ [EDIT] I took too long to reply, I guess, and my comment was applied to the wrong thread. I apologize for the confusion. The comment was meant for @rangibaby
jacquesm 10y ago
The monkeys seem to have been doing a better job at parenting than the people here. Note how the text below one of the pictures says she's frightened of people and the picture right above it has a whole bunch of (all male cast) busybodies crowding into a little room with her in it.
- diziet 10y ago
  She has some access to hygiene, clean water and food, medical attention, etc. Her life expectancy is going to be much higher in human society, though she will likely have difficulty adopting to society and will be behind on language and other skill development. Of course she is frightened of people as it's still a new experience for her, and of course there's a cast of busybodies crowding her room, especially during a photo/camera op. However, it's wrong to say that the monkeys are doing a better job at parenting. There is no noble Mowgli fairy tale going on here.
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    Will she be happier? I doubt it.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    I don't mean to be rude but: (1) who decided to bring the media in? (2) who decided that she should have a whole pile of people crowding in on her other than those responsible for her immediate care? (3) who decided that all this has to be forced on her in record time? I can see so many things (besides the three listed above) that are wrong from just a common sense point of view that the humans are definitely not acting just in her best interest here. At least the monkeys did not turn her into some kind of media spectacle. Yes, hygiene, clean water and food are all good as is - probably - medical attention. But none of those trump an immediate barrage like the one described and visualized in the article, that's not for her benefit but for the benefit of the others present. So, this is not about there being a 'Mowgli fairy tale', this is about how fairly obviously this is not being done in a way that is calculated to be of the biggest benefit to her. Culture shock is real and this girl is currently forced into an extreme version of that.
malandrew 10y ago
Would have been interesting to have Jane Goodall involved. She could have left the child integrated but used the circumstance to bridge the communication divide between us and other primates because this girl surely knows things we never will.
baron816 10y ago
It's possible she could end up like this unfortunately: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)
- themgt 10y ago
  I want to quote at length because it's fascinating in the context of the left/right hemisphere concepts Iain McGilchrist has been best known for (especially the idea that left-hemisphere dominance is a relatively recent human adaptation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/blogs/rsa-divided-brain-divided-world.pdf https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/blogs/rsa-divided-b... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary Linguists also administered several brain exams specifically geared towards measuring Genie's language comprehension. On one such test she had no difficulty giving the correct meaning of sentences containing familiar homophones, demonstrating that her receptive comprehension was significantly better than her expressive language. Genie also did very well at identifying rhymes, both tasks that adult split-brain and left hemispherectomy patients had previously been recorded performing well on. During these tests an EEG consistently picked up more activity from the two electrodes over the right hemisphere of her brain than from those over the normal locations of the Broca's area and Wernicke's area, and found especially high involvement from her right anterior cerebral cortex, lending further support to the researchers' conclusion that Genie was using her right hemisphere to acquire language. As early as 1972 Genie scored between the level an 8-year-old and an adult on all right-hemisphere tasks the scientists tested her on, and showed extraordinarily rapid improvement on them. Her ability to piece together objects solely from tactile information was exceptionally good, and on spatial awareness tests her scores were reportedly the highest ever recorded. Similarly, on a Mooney Face Test in May 1975 had the highest score in medical literature at that time, and on a separate gestalt perception test her extrapolated score was in the 95th percentile for adults. On several other tests involving right-hemisphere tasks, her results were markedly better than other people in equivalent phases of mental development; in 1977 the scientists measured her capacity for stereognosis at approximately the level of a typical 10-year-old, significantly higher than her estimated mental age. The scientists also noted in 1974 that Genie seemed to be able to recognize the location she was in and was good at getting from one place to another, an ability which primarily involves the right hemisphere. Genie's performance on these tests led the scientists to believe that her brain had lateralized, and that her right hemisphere had undergone specialization. Because Genie's performance was so high on such a wide variety of tasks predominantly utilizing the right hemisphere of her brain, they concluded her exceptional abilities extended to typical right-hemisphere functions in general and were not specific to any individual task. They attributed her extreme right hemisphere dominance to the fact that what very little cognitive stimulation she did receive was almost entirely visual and tactile. While even this had been extremely minimal it had been enough to commence lateralization in her right hemisphere, and the severe imbalance in stimulation caused her right hemisphere to become extraordinarily developed. By contrast, Genie performed significantly below average and showed much slower progress on all tests measuring predominantly left-hemisphere tasks. Stephen Krashen wrote that by 2 years after the first examinations on her mental age Genie's scores on left-hemisphere tasks consistently fell into the 2½- to 3-year-old range, only showing an improvement of 1½ years. On sequential order tests she consistently scored well below average for someone with a fully intact brain, although she did somewhat better on visual than on auditory tests. The scientists especially noted that she did not start to count until late 1972, and then only in an extremely deliberate and laborious manner. In January 1972 the scientists measured her in the 50th percentile for an 8½- to 9-year-old on Raven's Progressive Matrices, although they noted she was outside of the age range of the test's design. Similarly, when the scientists administered Knox Cubes tests in 1973 and 1975 Genie's score improved from the level of a 6-year-old to a 7½-year-old, more rapid than her progress with language but significantly slower than that of right hemisphere tasks.
sandworm101 10y ago
The story is too good. The girl, the monkeys defending her, the policeman ... all Disney-level stuff but where are the non-disney facts? A real story always has dark sides. This one is too perfect. I'm not saying that it is all fake, rather that I don't think we are getting the entire story. I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually learn that this girl was only living with the monkeys for a very short while, that her issues are more long-standing. Perhaps the truth is that she was a disabled girl found amongst monkeys and the story has been elaborated from those simple facts. >>> "She behaves like an ape and screams loudly if doctors try to reach out to her." Like an ape or like a monkey? She was raised by monkeys but acts like an ape? A lay person perhaps wouldn't know the difference but by now someone with knowledge would be on site. I have been around several disabled children. The screaming and fear of being looked at or touched is not uncommon. No mention of how she reacts to being clothed? I'm no expert on feral children but I would expect that after eight years of being naked one would not be happy about clothing and that would deserve some mention ... unless of course clothing is nothing new to her. I want to see her feet, specifically her toes. If she really hasn't ever worn shoes then her toes will show it. http://www.drgangemi.com/kids-health/childs-shoe/ http://www.drgangemi.com/kids-health/childs-shoe/
- debt 10y ago
  If it's anything like most stories similar to this where feral humans are found without proper language development she's very likely severely developmentally handicapped for life.
  - jonbarker 10y ago
    Or she has some special mental capabilities due to the lack of linear thinking which is enforced by early language acquisition.
    - drdeca 10y ago
      Hm? Examples?
dmix 10y ago
Anyone know what kind of monkeys they were? I can't find any mention of it in this article or the original referenced source.
throw2016 10y ago
The story if true is discomforting, the mind ponders, and it does not completely add up. We know the 'facts' but we also don't. This is exactly the kind of story that needs fact checking, but to get that you need people on the ground, who are experienced and confirmation will take time which the attention span of the news cycle will not allow. The worst is turning it into some kind of circus. Hope that now with the global attention the Indian authorities will immediately retrieve her from the current facilities with people clearly not trained for this, and get her the kind of specialized care and sensitivity she needs.
johnb777 10y ago
Hillary?
- dfcab 10y ago
  More like when they calling Gloria Allred?
exabrial 10y ago
So she's a software engineer at a major Enterprise?
popol12 10y ago
How ethical is it to force her to leave the monkeys to become a "normal" human ?
- andai 10y ago
  It must have been awfully traumatic, to say nothing of ethics.
- EduardoBautista 10y ago
  How ethical is it to leave her and then be abused by the monkeys.
  - popol12 10y ago
    Monkeys defended her, who said they abused her? Now she's abused by humans, great.
bingomad123 10y ago
It is common in India for family members to put their autistic/badly born kids into a cage and display them in circus. I remember a family showing three of their kids in a circus as "animals" just because the babies were autistic and had tail like features.
pmoriarty 10y ago
This reminds me of the story of Kaspar Hauser[1] (which was made in to a movie by Werner Herzog[2]) and of the fascinating book Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks.[3] In his book, Sacks investigates various cases of children growing up without language, how they cope (or don't cope) with it, how they finally acquire language (if they do), and how differently they see the world in both the pre-linguistic and post-linguistic states. Hauser was one of the most famous cases of this sort, Helen Keller[4] was another. Reading this book inspired me to learn sign language, which I expected to be radically different from spoken and written language, and more powerful in many ways, as you can physically describe things in ways that has little parallel to spoken and written languages. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_hauser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_hauser [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enigma_of_Kaspar_Hauser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enigma_of_Kaspar_Hauser [3] - https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Voices-Oliver-Sacks/dp/0375704078 https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Voices-Oliver-Sacks/dp/0375704... [4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_keller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_keller
- sharun 10y ago
  Another fascinating read is Talking Hands by Margalit Fox about an Arab village in Israel where the deaf are a disproportionate part of the population. A sign language emerged that within a couple generations every hearing member of the village knew.
- Filligree 10y ago
  > Reading this book inspired me to learn sign language, which I expected to be radically different from spoken and written language, and more powerful in many ways, as you can physically describe things in ways that has little parallel to spoken and written languages. Was it?
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    Yes and no. Yes, it's really different from spoken and written language, that's true. But I was disappointed in that a lot of it was really obvious, and I didn't get much insight from it. For example, to make a sign for a house you take both hands and kind of make the shape of an prototypical house (a peaked roof and two walls)... hard to describe in words, but obvious when you see it. Or when making the sign for drive, you move your hands as if turning a car's steering wheel. Those kinds of signs didn't give me the aha moments I was yearning for. But perhaps part of my problem was that I only took a couple of introductory sign language courses. Maybe with exposure to more advanced sign language it would be different. I've considered taking some more courses to see what I'm missing.
smdz 10y ago
The first expression I had was: What rights do we humans have to take her back from her family(monkeys in this case) and her home (the forest)? Just because she is our kind, should we impose our culture, our values, our ways (and our governments) on her? But then - this feels more like a creative story. From the videos it looks like she might have been in the forest only for some time and needs rehab, but I am no expert here.
- andai 10y ago
  "rescuing"
- hobarrera 10y ago
  Yeah, right. I mean, this is pretty much like taking a child from a family just because the family is a different race/culture. Unless you can guarantee that the child will adapt and have a better life (better != longer), I think it's immoral to take her from her original surroundings.
unlmtd 10y ago
Fucking salvages. Too bad the monkeys didn't beat them to death. That's kidnapping and torture. Fucking goddamn salvages!
slitaz 10y ago
I feel it is a badly-written article. If the girl managed to survive for so many years, she should have been left with the trouppe of primates and get observed. This sudden change will probably be worse than any other less brutal change in the environment.
- TomMarius 10y ago
  She would likely die the moment she entered puberty.
  - slitaz 10y ago
    My way would be to observe and befriend the group of primates and gradually befriend them. The sudden removal is not in the benefit of the welfare of the girl. A gradual process in several months would be more successful. Time will show whether the sudden removal is going to work this time.
  - twobyfour 10y ago
    Why on earth would you think that?
    - TomMarius 10y ago
      Because animals in general (both male and female) start acting very violently when there's a child that starts secreting pheromones and looking like an adult. For monkeys in particular it's the beginning of fights between females that determine their future social status.
      - twobyfour 10y ago
        But the idea that monkeys would react to human pheromones is a bit of a jump. Especially considering the degree to which humans don't react to monkey pheromones.
        TomMarius 10y ago
aaron695 10y ago
No one else here disturbed that a intellectually handicapped girl who was abandoned by the system has been turned into a dancing monkey for HN's amusement. Surely the discussion here should be more about what a horrific system exists in parts of India that handicapped people are turned into stories. Do I really need to spell it out it's an abandoned handicapped girl found near monkeys???? The doctor says when she was brought in she was near starving (video)? Were the monkeys looking after her or not? This is a common fairy tale, seriously people, what is wrong with you that you can't see the real story here. It's about poverty, people not dealing with mental illness and broken systems??? The fact doctors even allowed her to be filmed for your amusement shows they are not very well trained.
- exolymph 10y ago
  Did you not read the comments? Plenty of people are discussing the issues you mentioned.
  - andai 10y ago
    Right, and they are only able to do so as a result of the media sensation the girl has been turned into.
  - aaron695 10y ago
    They are discussing things like look at her feet to see if it's true. It's not true, how could you ever ever believe that. It's a fucking fairy tail. About how people in poverty deal with mental retardation. They are not dealing with the issue at hand. Seriously, someone mentioned Jane Goodall, fuck.....
kazinator 10y ago
> Numerous stories of feral children ... "Feral children?" How amusing; is that an actual phrase? It evokes a domesticated species of rug-rat, bred in the wild.
- jwilk 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
mythrwy 10y ago
It's finally happened. Washington Post has completed the transition into a full blown supermarket tabloid.
DanielleMolloy 10y ago
This is the darker (and probably more truthful) variant of the story: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/08/indian-girl-found-in-jungle-was-not-living-with-monkeys-officials-say https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/08/indian-girl-fo... " 'In India, people do not prefer a female child and she is mentally not sound,' DK Singh said. 'So all the more [evidence] she was left there.' "
- devoply 10y ago
  They probably should have left her there. There have been a few cases of feral children found that were older and they did not end up well, in the end just pushed them into a mental institution. I think it's better living with the monkeys than living in a mental institution. We don't actually have much better solutions to the problem.
  - therealdrag0 10y ago
    Is there any evidence a human CAN be raised by monkeys? Are you suggesting it's better to leave her to die?
- Amanjeev 10y ago
  True. https://50millionmissing.wordpress.com/ https://50millionmissing.wordpress.com/
abrkn 10y ago
An observation that adds nothing to the story/discussion: DK Singh. Donkey Kong.
zaroth 10y ago
These types of junk-news stories seem to make their rounds on the Internet for several weeks before finally evaporating into the ether. What's interesting is that in the past they would seem to manage to stay off the HN front page. Now it seems like I see these stories start circulating on Outbrain or the other click bait networks and I think, well, that'll be on HN in a week or so! These stories are usually large part fake news, or reality tweaked or skewed with some angle to make it almost irresistible to read about. I personally have no use for these types of stories on HN but certainly understand they are created with a very compelling hook to want to share them.
achow 10y ago
‘Mowgli girl’ found in January, cop says was clothed, no monkeys. "There were no monkeys. She was not naked, and she wasn’t using her hands to walk. I don’t know how these stories are being spread. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/mowgli-girl-found-in-january-cop-says-was-clothed-no-monkeys-4605739/ http://indianexpress.com/article/india/mowgli-girl-found-in-...
srean 10y ago
Editor’s note: New information has been reported since publication of this story that raise significant doubts about the veracity of the initial accounts on which it was based. The story relied on reports by the Associated Press and the New Indian Express quoting local officials who came upon her, and a video interview with the physician who treated her. These versions of what happened to her are now being questioned by other officials quoted in the Guardian and the Hindustan Times. While the girl appears to have been abandoned near the forest in question, according to these new reports, these officials do not believe she had been living among monkeys. The original headline has been changed, and you can read about the new developments here. Whoah! An editor cautioning against sensationalism, I dont get to see that often.

365 points by mrb 10y ago

The Washington Post called for Edward Snowden to be denied a pardon and put through a trial. This, because of the secrets he shared with them and which they published. I see no reason to give them business, even for unrelated freak stories like this one. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/edward-snowden-doesnt-deserve-a-pardon/2016/09/17/ec04d448-7c2e-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html?utm_term=.379175c37df9 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/edward-snowden-doesn...

narrator 10y ago

Now the battle begins to shape her story such that it can be used to reconfirm one of a number of different competing narratives about man's relationship with nature, nature vs nurture, theories about language acquisition, the "critical period" and early childhood development. Did I miss any?

kumarm 10y ago

Hope her integration to society is handled carefully. So far she has been treated like an animal in zoo by humans too (Check the photos of groups of people looking at her): http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/eight-year-old-girl-found-living-with-monkeys/articleshow/58037884.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/eight-year-old-girl... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4386060/Mowgli-girl-living-monkeys-India.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4386060/Mowgli-girl-...

nnnfff 10y ago
i have a tiny dick and even smaller balls. the balls are above the dick also. the balls hand down around the dick like the ears on a basset hound. the dick stinks and i hate it. the balls do not smell. however, i also hate the balls. thank you.
microcolonel 10y ago
Aside: Interesting that the Malayam and Bengali versions of the article censor the girl's face from the header photo, and exclude the mid-article photo (the Hindi and English versions have both pictures fully intact). I could see that for the Malayam version, but I didn't totally expect it for the Bengali version.
- gjkood 10y ago
  Did you mean "Malayalam"? EDIT: For those who don't understand the reference, "Malayalam" [1] is the official language of the South Indian state of Kerala. The question was asking if the parent post mistyped "Malayam" instead of "Malayalam". Looks like some folks have misunderstood my post and reacted negatively. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam
  - microcolonel 10y ago
    Yeah, it was a typo introduced paradoxically by my spellchecker. Somebody misspelled Malayalam as Malayam on my Chrome, then added it to the dictionary (!). Anyway, yes, I meant Malayalam.
  - vorg 10y ago
    The wikipedia article says it's pronounced "mʌləˈjɑːləm" (3rd syllable stressed), yet don't people in Kerala say "mʌˈlɑːjələm" (2nd syllable stressed, last 2 syllables almost spoken as one). It's been 30 yrs since I visited, so maybe I remember wrongly. If so, then maybe writing "Malayam" instead of "Malayalam" isn't too far wrong.
    - amenonsen 10y ago
      > If so, then maybe writing "Malayam" instead of "Malayalam" isn't too far wrong. No, it's very far wrong. (I'm a Malayali.)
    - vorg 10y ago
      > The wikipedia article says it's pronounced "mʌləˈjɑːləm" (3rd syllable stressed), yet don't people in Kerala say "mʌˈlɑːjələm" (2nd syllable stressed, last 2 syllables almost spoken as one). It's been 30 yrs since I visited, so maybe I remember wrongly. Can anyone verify the correct pronunciation?
tangoalpha 10y ago
Don't even think about it. This is one reason I felt she was better left the way she was. Rehabilitation in India is a joke. The people attending to her neither have the knowledge not resources to cater to her. Mental asylums and health centers in India are filled with sexual predators. They know that she can't complain about it nor would someone lend an ear if she tried to say something. Which makes her an easy target. Sexual abuse is the norm in mental health centers here. Most mental health centers lack infrastructure, resources and fall short of trained personnel. It is a common sight to see patients chained, and thrown food at. My first reaction when I heard the news - She was better in the forest away from the predators. I hope she gets the right sophisticated care and compassion she needs at this point of time.
- jwildner 10y ago
  I think you have been watching too many movies lately. Your blanket statement about health centres is far from the truth.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    It's not all that far from the truth in the US. Why should India be different?
- sn9 10y ago
  A naked girl running through the wilderness isn't exactly safe from sexual abuse and predation.
  - titanomachy 10y ago
    Sounds like she had a cadre of monkeys protecting her. That would probably deter all but the most determined sexual predators.
    - linkmotif 10y ago
      Heh, that's what I was thinking.
bingomad123 10y ago
I feel there is a good chance that she was better off with monkeys.
- linkmotif 10y ago
  Me too...
dorfsmay 10y ago
Thanks. The Daily Mail has quite a bit information than the posted article. Most interesting part: > 'She is still not able to speak, but understands whatever you tell her and even smiles,' Singh said

faitswulff 10y ago

I read somewhere that reintegration with human society mostly fails for feral children. Is it really a rescue if she dies at a young age, alone?

saganus 10y ago
This is truly heartbreaking. I had no idea this had happened before or even that it could happen. Is this not a very rare event? I'm guessing that the survival rate for feral children can't be very high, and even more so if the child gets to grow up. Fascinating subject albeit very... discomforting.
- rangibaby 10y ago
  > I had no idea this had happened before or even that it could happen. Is this not a very rare event? You may be interested to learn about the founding of Rome. Check out the top of this poster: http://www.olympicartifacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/1960_s11.jpg http://www.olympicartifacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/1...
  - mrgreenfur 10y ago
    wat
    - gjkood 10y ago
      The reference is to Romulus and Remus, the legendary founding of Rome. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus
      - bardworx 10y ago
        The story of Romulus and Remus is quite far fetched. Personally, I love the myth but it does enact a lot of doubt. From my recollection, the brothers became strong from drinking the wolf's milk; strong enough to build a city destined for greatness. (They were also saved by gods?) Considering that most early civilization formed around fresh bodies of water and the positive connotation that barbarians (feral children) were integrated into society to become Kings is rather pleasant. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus [1] http://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamia/ http://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamia/ [EDIT] I took too long to reply, I guess, and my comment was applied to the wrong thread. I apologize for the confusion. The comment was meant for @rangibaby

jacquesm 10y ago

The monkeys seem to have been doing a better job at parenting than the people here. Note how the text below one of the pictures says she's frightened of people and the picture right above it has a whole bunch of (all male cast) busybodies crowding into a little room with her in it.

diziet 10y ago
She has some access to hygiene, clean water and food, medical attention, etc. Her life expectancy is going to be much higher in human society, though she will likely have difficulty adopting to society and will be behind on language and other skill development. Of course she is frightened of people as it's still a new experience for her, and of course there's a cast of busybodies crowding her room, especially during a photo/camera op. However, it's wrong to say that the monkeys are doing a better job at parenting. There is no noble Mowgli fairy tale going on here.
- bitJericho 10y ago
  Will she be happier? I doubt it.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  I don't mean to be rude but: (1) who decided to bring the media in? (2) who decided that she should have a whole pile of people crowding in on her other than those responsible for her immediate care? (3) who decided that all this has to be forced on her in record time? I can see so many things (besides the three listed above) that are wrong from just a common sense point of view that the humans are definitely not acting just in her best interest here. At least the monkeys did not turn her into some kind of media spectacle. Yes, hygiene, clean water and food are all good as is - probably - medical attention. But none of those trump an immediate barrage like the one described and visualized in the article, that's not for her benefit but for the benefit of the others present. So, this is not about there being a 'Mowgli fairy tale', this is about how fairly obviously this is not being done in a way that is calculated to be of the biggest benefit to her. Culture shock is real and this girl is currently forced into an extreme version of that.

malandrew 10y ago

Would have been interesting to have Jane Goodall involved. She could have left the child integrated but used the circumstance to bridge the communication divide between us and other primates because this girl surely knows things we never will.

baron816 10y ago

It's possible she could end up like this unfortunately: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)

themgt 10y ago
I want to quote at length because it's fascinating in the context of the left/right hemisphere concepts Iain McGilchrist has been best known for (especially the idea that left-hemisphere dominance is a relatively recent human adaptation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/blogs/rsa-divided-brain-divided-world.pdf https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/blogs/rsa-divided-b... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary Linguists also administered several brain exams specifically geared towards measuring Genie's language comprehension. On one such test she had no difficulty giving the correct meaning of sentences containing familiar homophones, demonstrating that her receptive comprehension was significantly better than her expressive language. Genie also did very well at identifying rhymes, both tasks that adult split-brain and left hemispherectomy patients had previously been recorded performing well on. During these tests an EEG consistently picked up more activity from the two electrodes over the right hemisphere of her brain than from those over the normal locations of the Broca's area and Wernicke's area, and found especially high involvement from her right anterior cerebral cortex, lending further support to the researchers' conclusion that Genie was using her right hemisphere to acquire language. As early as 1972 Genie scored between the level an 8-year-old and an adult on all right-hemisphere tasks the scientists tested her on, and showed extraordinarily rapid improvement on them. Her ability to piece together objects solely from tactile information was exceptionally good, and on spatial awareness tests her scores were reportedly the highest ever recorded. Similarly, on a Mooney Face Test in May 1975 had the highest score in medical literature at that time, and on a separate gestalt perception test her extrapolated score was in the 95th percentile for adults. On several other tests involving right-hemisphere tasks, her results were markedly better than other people in equivalent phases of mental development; in 1977 the scientists measured her capacity for stereognosis at approximately the level of a typical 10-year-old, significantly higher than her estimated mental age. The scientists also noted in 1974 that Genie seemed to be able to recognize the location she was in and was good at getting from one place to another, an ability which primarily involves the right hemisphere. Genie's performance on these tests led the scientists to believe that her brain had lateralized, and that her right hemisphere had undergone specialization. Because Genie's performance was so high on such a wide variety of tasks predominantly utilizing the right hemisphere of her brain, they concluded her exceptional abilities extended to typical right-hemisphere functions in general and were not specific to any individual task. They attributed her extreme right hemisphere dominance to the fact that what very little cognitive stimulation she did receive was almost entirely visual and tactile. While even this had been extremely minimal it had been enough to commence lateralization in her right hemisphere, and the severe imbalance in stimulation caused her right hemisphere to become extraordinarily developed. By contrast, Genie performed significantly below average and showed much slower progress on all tests measuring predominantly left-hemisphere tasks. Stephen Krashen wrote that by 2 years after the first examinations on her mental age Genie's scores on left-hemisphere tasks consistently fell into the 2½- to 3-year-old range, only showing an improvement of 1½ years. On sequential order tests she consistently scored well below average for someone with a fully intact brain, although she did somewhat better on visual than on auditory tests. The scientists especially noted that she did not start to count until late 1972, and then only in an extremely deliberate and laborious manner. In January 1972 the scientists measured her in the 50th percentile for an 8½- to 9-year-old on Raven's Progressive Matrices, although they noted she was outside of the age range of the test's design. Similarly, when the scientists administered Knox Cubes tests in 1973 and 1975 Genie's score improved from the level of a 6-year-old to a 7½-year-old, more rapid than her progress with language but significantly slower than that of right hemisphere tasks.

sandworm101 10y ago

The story is too good. The girl, the monkeys defending her, the policeman ... all Disney-level stuff but where are the non-disney facts? A real story always has dark sides. This one is too perfect. I'm not saying that it is all fake, rather that I don't think we are getting the entire story. I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually learn that this girl was only living with the monkeys for a very short while, that her issues are more long-standing. Perhaps the truth is that she was a disabled girl found amongst monkeys and the story has been elaborated from those simple facts. >>> "She behaves like an ape and screams loudly if doctors try to reach out to her." Like an ape or like a monkey? She was raised by monkeys but acts like an ape? A lay person perhaps wouldn't know the difference but by now someone with knowledge would be on site. I have been around several disabled children. The screaming and fear of being looked at or touched is not uncommon. No mention of how she reacts to being clothed? I'm no expert on feral children but I would expect that after eight years of being naked one would not be happy about clothing and that would deserve some mention ... unless of course clothing is nothing new to her. I want to see her feet, specifically her toes. If she really hasn't ever worn shoes then her toes will show it. http://www.drgangemi.com/kids-health/childs-shoe/ http://www.drgangemi.com/kids-health/childs-shoe/

debt 10y ago
If it's anything like most stories similar to this where feral humans are found without proper language development she's very likely severely developmentally handicapped for life.
- jonbarker 10y ago
  Or she has some special mental capabilities due to the lack of linear thinking which is enforced by early language acquisition.
  - drdeca 10y ago
    Hm? Examples?

dmix 10y ago

Anyone know what kind of monkeys they were? I can't find any mention of it in this article or the original referenced source.

throw2016 10y ago

The story if true is discomforting, the mind ponders, and it does not completely add up. We know the 'facts' but we also don't. This is exactly the kind of story that needs fact checking, but to get that you need people on the ground, who are experienced and confirmation will take time which the attention span of the news cycle will not allow. The worst is turning it into some kind of circus. Hope that now with the global attention the Indian authorities will immediately retrieve her from the current facilities with people clearly not trained for this, and get her the kind of specialized care and sensitivity she needs.

johnb777 10y ago

Hillary?

dfcab 10y ago
More like when they calling Gloria Allred?

exabrial 10y ago

So she's a software engineer at a major Enterprise?

popol12 10y ago

How ethical is it to force her to leave the monkeys to become a "normal" human ?

andai 10y ago
It must have been awfully traumatic, to say nothing of ethics.
EduardoBautista 10y ago
How ethical is it to leave her and then be abused by the monkeys.
- popol12 10y ago
  Monkeys defended her, who said they abused her? Now she's abused by humans, great.

bingomad123 10y ago

It is common in India for family members to put their autistic/badly born kids into a cage and display them in circus. I remember a family showing three of their kids in a circus as "animals" just because the babies were autistic and had tail like features.

pmoriarty 10y ago

This reminds me of the story of Kaspar Hauser[1] (which was made in to a movie by Werner Herzog[2]) and of the fascinating book Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks.[3] In his book, Sacks investigates various cases of children growing up without language, how they cope (or don't cope) with it, how they finally acquire language (if they do), and how differently they see the world in both the pre-linguistic and post-linguistic states. Hauser was one of the most famous cases of this sort, Helen Keller[4] was another. Reading this book inspired me to learn sign language, which I expected to be radically different from spoken and written language, and more powerful in many ways, as you can physically describe things in ways that has little parallel to spoken and written languages. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_hauser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_hauser [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enigma_of_Kaspar_Hauser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enigma_of_Kaspar_Hauser [3] - https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Voices-Oliver-Sacks/dp/0375704078 https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Voices-Oliver-Sacks/dp/0375704... [4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_keller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_keller

sharun 10y ago
Another fascinating read is Talking Hands by Margalit Fox about an Arab village in Israel where the deaf are a disproportionate part of the population. A sign language emerged that within a couple generations every hearing member of the village knew.
Filligree 10y ago
> Reading this book inspired me to learn sign language, which I expected to be radically different from spoken and written language, and more powerful in many ways, as you can physically describe things in ways that has little parallel to spoken and written languages. Was it?
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  Yes and no. Yes, it's really different from spoken and written language, that's true. But I was disappointed in that a lot of it was really obvious, and I didn't get much insight from it. For example, to make a sign for a house you take both hands and kind of make the shape of an prototypical house (a peaked roof and two walls)... hard to describe in words, but obvious when you see it. Or when making the sign for drive, you move your hands as if turning a car's steering wheel. Those kinds of signs didn't give me the aha moments I was yearning for. But perhaps part of my problem was that I only took a couple of introductory sign language courses. Maybe with exposure to more advanced sign language it would be different. I've considered taking some more courses to see what I'm missing.

smdz 10y ago

The first expression I had was: What rights do we humans have to take her back from her family(monkeys in this case) and her home (the forest)? Just because she is our kind, should we impose our culture, our values, our ways (and our governments) on her? But then - this feels more like a creative story. From the videos it looks like she might have been in the forest only for some time and needs rehab, but I am no expert here.

andai 10y ago
"rescuing"
hobarrera 10y ago
Yeah, right. I mean, this is pretty much like taking a child from a family just because the family is a different race/culture. Unless you can guarantee that the child will adapt and have a better life (better != longer), I think it's immoral to take her from her original surroundings.

unlmtd 10y ago

Fucking salvages. Too bad the monkeys didn't beat them to death. That's kidnapping and torture. Fucking goddamn salvages!

slitaz 10y ago

I feel it is a badly-written article. If the girl managed to survive for so many years, she should have been left with the trouppe of primates and get observed. This sudden change will probably be worse than any other less brutal change in the environment.

TomMarius 10y ago
She would likely die the moment she entered puberty.
- slitaz 10y ago
  My way would be to observe and befriend the group of primates and gradually befriend them. The sudden removal is not in the benefit of the welfare of the girl. A gradual process in several months would be more successful. Time will show whether the sudden removal is going to work this time.
- twobyfour 10y ago
  Why on earth would you think that?
  - TomMarius 10y ago
    Because animals in general (both male and female) start acting very violently when there's a child that starts secreting pheromones and looking like an adult. For monkeys in particular it's the beginning of fights between females that determine their future social status.
    - twobyfour 10y ago
      But the idea that monkeys would react to human pheromones is a bit of a jump. Especially considering the degree to which humans don't react to monkey pheromones.
      - TomMarius 10y ago

aaron695 10y ago

No one else here disturbed that a intellectually handicapped girl who was abandoned by the system has been turned into a dancing monkey for HN's amusement. Surely the discussion here should be more about what a horrific system exists in parts of India that handicapped people are turned into stories. Do I really need to spell it out it's an abandoned handicapped girl found near monkeys???? The doctor says when she was brought in she was near starving (video)? Were the monkeys looking after her or not? This is a common fairy tale, seriously people, what is wrong with you that you can't see the real story here. It's about poverty, people not dealing with mental illness and broken systems??? The fact doctors even allowed her to be filmed for your amusement shows they are not very well trained.

exolymph 10y ago
Did you not read the comments? Plenty of people are discussing the issues you mentioned.
- andai 10y ago
  Right, and they are only able to do so as a result of the media sensation the girl has been turned into.
- aaron695 10y ago
  They are discussing things like look at her feet to see if it's true. It's not true, how could you ever ever believe that. It's a fucking fairy tail. About how people in poverty deal with mental retardation. They are not dealing with the issue at hand. Seriously, someone mentioned Jane Goodall, fuck.....

kazinator 10y ago

> Numerous stories of feral children ... "Feral children?" How amusing; is that an actual phrase? It evokes a domesticated species of rug-rat, bred in the wild.

jwilk 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

mythrwy 10y ago

It's finally happened. Washington Post has completed the transition into a full blown supermarket tabloid.

DanielleMolloy 10y ago

This is the darker (and probably more truthful) variant of the story: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/08/indian-girl-found-in-jungle-was-not-living-with-monkeys-officials-say https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/08/indian-girl-fo... " 'In India, people do not prefer a female child and she is mentally not sound,' DK Singh said. 'So all the more [evidence] she was left there.' "

devoply 10y ago
They probably should have left her there. There have been a few cases of feral children found that were older and they did not end up well, in the end just pushed them into a mental institution. I think it's better living with the monkeys than living in a mental institution. We don't actually have much better solutions to the problem.
- therealdrag0 10y ago
  Is there any evidence a human CAN be raised by monkeys? Are you suggesting it's better to leave her to die?
Amanjeev 10y ago
True. https://50millionmissing.wordpress.com/ https://50millionmissing.wordpress.com/

abrkn 10y ago

An observation that adds nothing to the story/discussion: DK Singh. Donkey Kong.

zaroth 10y ago

These types of junk-news stories seem to make their rounds on the Internet for several weeks before finally evaporating into the ether. What's interesting is that in the past they would seem to manage to stay off the HN front page. Now it seems like I see these stories start circulating on Outbrain or the other click bait networks and I think, well, that'll be on HN in a week or so! These stories are usually large part fake news, or reality tweaked or skewed with some angle to make it almost irresistible to read about. I personally have no use for these types of stories on HN but certainly understand they are created with a very compelling hook to want to share them.

achow 10y ago

‘Mowgli girl’ found in January, cop says was clothed, no monkeys. "There were no monkeys. She was not naked, and she wasn’t using her hands to walk. I don’t know how these stories are being spread. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/mowgli-girl-found-in-january-cop-says-was-clothed-no-monkeys-4605739/ http://indianexpress.com/article/india/mowgli-girl-found-in-...

srean 10y ago

Editor’s note: New information has been reported since publication of this story that raise significant doubts about the veracity of the initial accounts on which it was based. The story relied on reports by the Associated Press and the New Indian Express quoting local officials who came upon her, and a video interview with the physician who treated her. These versions of what happened to her are now being questioned by other officials quoted in the Guardian and the Hindustan Times. While the girl appears to have been abandoned near the forest in question, according to these new reports, these officials do not believe she had been living among monkeys. The original headline has been changed, and you can read about the new developments here. Whoah! An editor cautioning against sensationalism, I dont get to see that often.