4 ms·

I think that's probably too broad a generalization. In much of the world multilinguialism is the norm, and monolinguialism the exception. Most people in India,

by compay 18y ago

I think that's probably too broad a generalization. In much of the world multilinguialism is the norm, and monolinguialism the exception. Most people in India, China and Africa speak 2 or more languages or dialects. This is also true for much of Europe and some parts of the Americas and Oceanea: there are probably far more multilingual people in the world than monolingual. If you look at a big sample I think it's very unlikely that the average American or Chilean (countries that tend to be largely monolingual) is less intelligent than the average Indian or Moldovan - they're probably the same.

dangoldin 18y ago
I think you're right to an extent - I don't think most parents speak multiple languages to the baby. Only when the baby grows into a child do they start learning multiple languages.
- pcc 18y ago
  I'm inclined to think most parents from multilingual households do speak multiple languages with one another and with other adults; hence the baby is exposed to multiple languages. (My interpretation of the article is that it pertains to languages heard by the baby, not per se the language(s) the parents choose to use when speaking directly to the baby). Also there is research that suggests that the sounds made by babies already copy the unique speech patterns of the parent's native tongue(s) at a very early age. In my own experience, when I could start to distinguish individual words spoken by both my children, these words were in fact from both my native language and English; to me it does not instinctively feel as if there is a demarcation from a baby growing into a child where there is suddenly a point at which they start absorbing multiple languages -- babies seem to absorb everything. In fact, thinking back to my own childhood growing up in South Africa, I never made the distinction in my mind about there being words from multiple languages, until a much later age (4 or 5 probably); I guess before that it felt simply more like a "continuum" of language, without it mattering that some words had different phonics/rules associated with them.

by compay 18y ago

dangoldin 18y ago

I think you're right to an extent - I don't think most parents speak multiple languages to the baby. Only when the baby grows into a child do they start learning multiple languages.

pcc 18y ago
I'm inclined to think most parents from multilingual households do speak multiple languages with one another and with other adults; hence the baby is exposed to multiple languages. (My interpretation of the article is that it pertains to languages heard by the baby, not per se the language(s) the parents choose to use when speaking directly to the baby). Also there is research that suggests that the sounds made by babies already copy the unique speech patterns of the parent's native tongue(s) at a very early age. In my own experience, when I could start to distinguish individual words spoken by both my children, these words were in fact from both my native language and English; to me it does not instinctively feel as if there is a demarcation from a baby growing into a child where there is suddenly a point at which they start absorbing multiple languages -- babies seem to absorb everything. In fact, thinking back to my own childhood growing up in South Africa, I never made the distinction in my mind about there being words from multiple languages, until a much later age (4 or 5 probably); I guess before that it felt simply more like a "continuum" of language, without it mattering that some words had different phonics/rules associated with them.