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Because the experiments to conclude the "natural" language by not teaching children any language at all are highly unethical.

by fosap 13y ago

jdminhbg 13y ago
But not unheard of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_deprivation_experiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_deprivation_experiment...
foobarqux 13y ago
I am sceptical of the claim that "mama" comes from the act of suckling. That claim is unsupported by evidence as far as I can tell from the links in the article and is reminiscent of behaviorism. Verifying that hypothesis does not require depriving anyone of language and may be able to be achieved through observational studies of babies of babies that are in pre-existing situations where they do not suckle breasts and in cases where they have no interaction with their mothers. Notwithstanding the above, if experimental evidence cannot be produce a hypothesis cannot be proven and the claim should be appropriately discounted.
- unhammer 13y ago
  But the hypothesis is that the word for mother _in a certain language_ comes from that situation. Those breast-deprived babies you observe would not be creating their own language (unless you do more than just observe :-/), so what would you be observing? A difference in frequency of ma-sounds from other babies?
  - foobarqux 13y ago
    > But the hypothesis is that the word for mother _in a certain language_ comes from that situation. No it isn't. The hypothesis described in the article explains the purported cause for the universality of the word "Mama". And yes you would observe if the frequency of "ma" was lower which would tell you if the "ma" sound is behaviorally induced by suckling which is the claim described in the article.
    - unhammer 13y ago
      It's still about words that are part of a language, not about sounds made by one baby. The universality was about the sounds becoming part of the language. The process of creating a new word in language is not the same as the process of interpreting sounds as belonging to a certain word in a language. So you still have that bridge to gap between "higher frequency of ma" and how the word "mama" was created. Perhaps it's convincing, I'm not sure.
foobarqux 13y ago
As an aside being deprived of language does occur to a very small number of children which does present some observational data. Chomsky talks about this in one of his recent lectures.

Because the experiments to conclude the "natural" language by not teaching children any language at all are highly unethical.

by fosap 13y ago

Because the experiments to conclude the "natural" language by not teaching children any language at all are highly unethical.

jdminhbg 13y ago

But not unheard of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_deprivation_experiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_deprivation_experiment...

foobarqux 13y ago

I am sceptical of the claim that "mama" comes from the act of suckling. That claim is unsupported by evidence as far as I can tell from the links in the article and is reminiscent of behaviorism. Verifying that hypothesis does not require depriving anyone of language and may be able to be achieved through observational studies of babies of babies that are in pre-existing situations where they do not suckle breasts and in cases where they have no interaction with their mothers. Notwithstanding the above, if experimental evidence cannot be produce a hypothesis cannot be proven and the claim should be appropriately discounted.

unhammer 13y ago
But the hypothesis is that the word for mother _in a certain language_ comes from that situation. Those breast-deprived babies you observe would not be creating their own language (unless you do more than just observe :-/), so what would you be observing? A difference in frequency of ma-sounds from other babies?
- foobarqux 13y ago
  > But the hypothesis is that the word for mother _in a certain language_ comes from that situation. No it isn't. The hypothesis described in the article explains the purported cause for the universality of the word "Mama". And yes you would observe if the frequency of "ma" was lower which would tell you if the "ma" sound is behaviorally induced by suckling which is the claim described in the article.
  - unhammer 13y ago
    It's still about words that are part of a language, not about sounds made by one baby. The universality was about the sounds becoming part of the language. The process of creating a new word in language is not the same as the process of interpreting sounds as belonging to a certain word in a language. So you still have that bridge to gap between "higher frequency of ma" and how the word "mama" was created. Perhaps it's convincing, I'm not sure.

foobarqux 13y ago

As an aside being deprived of language does occur to a very small number of children which does present some observational data. Chomsky talks about this in one of his recent lectures.