5 ms·

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 l

by 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.
- Natsu 10y ago
  > (1) who decided to bring the media in? I don't know, but I'd place my wager on whoever turns this into a movie.
AmVess 10y ago
If she was very young when she was abandoned, then it's likely her speech center never developed and will never develop.
- gfody 10y ago
  It's worse and somewhat fascinating. Instead of acquiring human language which leads to normal human consciousness, she'll have acquired the language of the apes and presumably developed a sort of ape-like consciousness. In theory she would exhibit visual memory and recall superior to what humans are normally capable of (like the apes in this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279528/Memory-chimpanzees-far-BETTER-human-study-reveals.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279528/Memory-chimp...). Cases like this are so extraordinarily rare that we will probably never really know for certain what the human brain is capable of in these extremes.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    Monkeys, not apes. English is a "language of the apes". And chimpanzees, who are in the same hominin family as we ourselves, are really no more similar or comparable to monkeys than we are.
- codyogden 10y ago
  Huh? Feral children can acquire language skills, but they will never have a full native fluency. Genie learned to communicate with language. In OP child's case, she'd be learning language like most people learn to speak a second language late in life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)
  - gfody 10y ago
    Cases like this are so rare and so unique that you simply cannot speak in general about "feral children". In the case of Genie she would have acquired some human language from her father in the first 20 months even if she only ever overheard him talking, enough apparently to seed a rudimentary semantic layer in her mind that facilitated her learning more advanced language later on (but nothing approaching full maturity).
3131s 10y ago
> of course there's a cast of busybodies crowding her room, especially during a photo/camera op But why is there a photo op in the first place?
- Neliquat 10y ago
  I can see the case for a small photo op to get them off their back and figure out what to do. But this does not look like that.

by diziet 10y ago

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.

Natsu 10y ago
> (1) who decided to bring the media in? I don't know, but I'd place my wager on whoever turns this into a movie.

AmVess 10y ago

If she was very young when she was abandoned, then it's likely her speech center never developed and will never develop.

gfody 10y ago
It's worse and somewhat fascinating. Instead of acquiring human language which leads to normal human consciousness, she'll have acquired the language of the apes and presumably developed a sort of ape-like consciousness. In theory she would exhibit visual memory and recall superior to what humans are normally capable of (like the apes in this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279528/Memory-chimpanzees-far-BETTER-human-study-reveals.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279528/Memory-chimp...). Cases like this are so extraordinarily rare that we will probably never really know for certain what the human brain is capable of in these extremes.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Monkeys, not apes. English is a "language of the apes". And chimpanzees, who are in the same hominin family as we ourselves, are really no more similar or comparable to monkeys than we are.
codyogden 10y ago
Huh? Feral children can acquire language skills, but they will never have a full native fluency. Genie learned to communicate with language. In OP child's case, she'd be learning language like most people learn to speak a second language late in life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)
- gfody 10y ago
  Cases like this are so rare and so unique that you simply cannot speak in general about "feral children". In the case of Genie she would have acquired some human language from her father in the first 20 months even if she only ever overheard him talking, enough apparently to seed a rudimentary semantic layer in her mind that facilitated her learning more advanced language later on (but nothing approaching full maturity).

3131s 10y ago

> of course there's a cast of busybodies crowding her room, especially during a photo/camera op But why is there a photo op in the first place?

Neliquat 10y ago
I can see the case for a small photo op to get them off their back and figure out what to do. But this does not look like that.