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Children raised in isolation will spontaneously develop language I don’t have a reference handy now (someone can probably do better) but I believe one way to s

by chubot 3y ago

Children raised in isolation will spontaneously develop language I don’t have a reference handy now (someone can probably do better) but I believe one way to see this is via the hearing impaired or hearing and sight impaired

justrealist 3y ago
There's really no good data to support this claim.
- romwell 3y ago
  >There's really no good data to support this claim. Fine. We know that languages did not exist at some point. We made them exist.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    Yes, I acknowledge that we have evidence that groups of tribal humans will evolve language constructs over tens of thousands of years. Whether that happens in 1 generation or 10,000 generations is completely unknown.
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      As others have mentioned in this thread, the Nicaraguan Sign Language shows it can happen in years, not even generations.
dr-detroit 3y ago
[dead]
akprasad 3y ago
The best example I'm aware of is Nicaraguan Sign Language [1]. > Steven Pinker, author of The Language Instinct, claims that "The Nicaraguan case is absolutely unique in history ... We've been able to see how it is that children—not adults—generate language, and we have been able to record it happening in great scientific detail. And it's the only time that we've actually seen a language being created out of thin air." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language
OskarS 3y ago
The classic example which I think you’re referring to is Nicaraguan Sign Language, which developed organically in Nicaraguan schools for deaf children where neither the children nor the teachers knew any other form of sign language. It’s a fascinating story, a complex fully developed language created by children. Seems to indicate that this is indeed a very inate capability among humans in larger groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language
- relativty 3y ago
  Yeah because all the other things are innate; visual/spatial awareness, touch, smell, vocalization… Humanoids went millions of years literally learning to navigate 3D space and sense “enough heat, food, water” etc Nomadic tribes had built shared resource depots millennia before language. I can see the color gradients of the trees and feel muscles relax without words. Human language beyond some utilitarian labels just instills mind viruses that bloom into delusions of grandeur. 90% of human communication is unspoken. Neuroscience shows our brains sync behavior patterns with touch and just being in a room. Reality is full of unseen state change every moment that we have no colloquial language for; human language is hardly the source of truth and the “North star” of human society in reality.
  - fooker 3y ago
    > 90% of human communication is unspoken. This is as scientific as the idea of humans just using 10% of our brains.
    - relativty 3y ago
      Of course it is; it’s just a comment on a social media forum. There’s just as little science language motivates me to work. Most of the language society relies on is hallucinations; fiat currency, nation states, constructs like “Senate” and Congress, corporatism, brands, copy-paste of historical terminology, not evidence they’re immutable features of reality. What we recite has nothing to do with what we are. I find the appeals to non-existent political truisms primate gibberish. It seems perfectly clear to me many facts of society are just memorized and recited prompt hacks. Language is the goto tool for propagandists, to obscure sensory connection to reality. There is over 100 years of propaganda research available, too much for me to sort through, but scientific measure of such is not new; new to anyone unaware of it but not to humanity.
gizmo686 3y ago
For obvious ethical reasons, we have never perfectly conducted this experiment, but Nicaraguan Sign Language comes close. The government created a school for deaf children who did not have a common language. Many of the children did not know any language prior to attending. Although, they did have "home sign" systems, which are basic signing systems spontaneously developed between deaf children and their speaking care takers. We can also look at creole languages. When distinct linguistic groups come into contact without a common language they will, in some cases, develop "pidgin" languages to communicate. These languages are created by the adults who are already fluent speakers of their native language. What is interesting is what happens with children born into such communities. They grow up hearing the pidgin language, but they do not learn the pidgin. Instead, the language they learn is a creole. It is based on the pidgin, but more complete and consistent with the way human language works in general. In effect, like all children, they are relying on their innate knowledge of language. The pidgin fills in the language specific parameters, but when the pidgin contradicts an aspect of innate language the children (for the most part), just don't aquire that portion of the language.
- OskarS 3y ago
  The common thread in both cases is (as you say) children: in both creoles and NSL, the early versions of the language are somewhat primitive (being developed by older children and adults), but when children are exposed to it from an early age, the languages acquire much more complexity and sophistication, becoming every bit as rich as "regular" languages. It fits well with the hypothesis that the early years of life are crucial for language development, and that there is indeed something innate in most humans for deep structural understanding of language. It's not just statistical pattern recognition.

by chubot 3y ago

justrealist 3y ago

There's really no good data to support this claim.

romwell 3y ago
>There's really no good data to support this claim. Fine. We know that languages did not exist at some point. We made them exist.
- justrealist 3y ago
  Yes, I acknowledge that we have evidence that groups of tribal humans will evolve language constructs over tens of thousands of years. Whether that happens in 1 generation or 10,000 generations is completely unknown.
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    As others have mentioned in this thread, the Nicaraguan Sign Language shows it can happen in years, not even generations.

dr-detroit 3y ago

[dead]

akprasad 3y ago

The best example I'm aware of is Nicaraguan Sign Language [1]. > Steven Pinker, author of The Language Instinct, claims that "The Nicaraguan case is absolutely unique in history ... We've been able to see how it is that children—not adults—generate language, and we have been able to record it happening in great scientific detail. And it's the only time that we've actually seen a language being created out of thin air." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language

OskarS 3y ago

The classic example which I think you’re referring to is Nicaraguan Sign Language, which developed organically in Nicaraguan schools for deaf children where neither the children nor the teachers knew any other form of sign language. It’s a fascinating story, a complex fully developed language created by children. Seems to indicate that this is indeed a very inate capability among humans in larger groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language

relativty 3y ago
Yeah because all the other things are innate; visual/spatial awareness, touch, smell, vocalization… Humanoids went millions of years literally learning to navigate 3D space and sense “enough heat, food, water” etc Nomadic tribes had built shared resource depots millennia before language. I can see the color gradients of the trees and feel muscles relax without words. Human language beyond some utilitarian labels just instills mind viruses that bloom into delusions of grandeur. 90% of human communication is unspoken. Neuroscience shows our brains sync behavior patterns with touch and just being in a room. Reality is full of unseen state change every moment that we have no colloquial language for; human language is hardly the source of truth and the “North star” of human society in reality.
- fooker 3y ago
  > 90% of human communication is unspoken. This is as scientific as the idea of humans just using 10% of our brains.
  - relativty 3y ago
    Of course it is; it’s just a comment on a social media forum. There’s just as little science language motivates me to work. Most of the language society relies on is hallucinations; fiat currency, nation states, constructs like “Senate” and Congress, corporatism, brands, copy-paste of historical terminology, not evidence they’re immutable features of reality. What we recite has nothing to do with what we are. I find the appeals to non-existent political truisms primate gibberish. It seems perfectly clear to me many facts of society are just memorized and recited prompt hacks. Language is the goto tool for propagandists, to obscure sensory connection to reality. There is over 100 years of propaganda research available, too much for me to sort through, but scientific measure of such is not new; new to anyone unaware of it but not to humanity.

gizmo686 3y ago

For obvious ethical reasons, we have never perfectly conducted this experiment, but Nicaraguan Sign Language comes close. The government created a school for deaf children who did not have a common language. Many of the children did not know any language prior to attending. Although, they did have "home sign" systems, which are basic signing systems spontaneously developed between deaf children and their speaking care takers. We can also look at creole languages. When distinct linguistic groups come into contact without a common language they will, in some cases, develop "pidgin" languages to communicate. These languages are created by the adults who are already fluent speakers of their native language. What is interesting is what happens with children born into such communities. They grow up hearing the pidgin language, but they do not learn the pidgin. Instead, the language they learn is a creole. It is based on the pidgin, but more complete and consistent with the way human language works in general. In effect, like all children, they are relying on their innate knowledge of language. The pidgin fills in the language specific parameters, but when the pidgin contradicts an aspect of innate language the children (for the most part), just don't aquire that portion of the language.

OskarS 3y ago
The common thread in both cases is (as you say) children: in both creoles and NSL, the early versions of the language are somewhat primitive (being developed by older children and adults), but when children are exposed to it from an early age, the languages acquire much more complexity and sophistication, becoming every bit as rich as "regular" languages. It fits well with the hypothesis that the early years of life are crucial for language development, and that there is indeed something innate in most humans for deep structural understanding of language. It's not just statistical pattern recognition.