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TED’s "Language Genius of Babies" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6016 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 9 of 12 17 February 2011 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
There is something special about the child's brain -- you cannot deny this. The thing to take away from this is that attempting to learn like a child is futile -- attempt to learn (that's what we're all doing here) but don't expect to be able to do it like a child does. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6016 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 10 of 12 17 February 2011 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with you entirely. There is a body of evidence suggesting that there are two parts of the brain that deal with the syntax of languages: one that learns all childhood languages, and another than learns all adult languages. If this is true, it leads to an interesting (but completely logical) conclusion: When we first evolved language, it was within a very close-knit community. We only expected to learn one language, and we expected to learn it as infants. But as humanity spread, language diverged. Eventually, humans met other humans with radically different languages, and the lack of communication proved fatal to one or both of the tribes. Until, slowly, a genetic trait emerged that allowed mature humans to start again and learn a new language. This gave the opportunity to integrate with (and therefore impregnate the women of) other tribes, and to avoid wars. A gene like that would have been invaluable and would have spread quicker than any other gene in history. The advantage of such a gene would surely be enough to explain the apparent narrowing of the gene-pool of the so-called "mitochondrial Eves". 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 6125 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 11 of 12 18 February 2011 at 1:55am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know what people are talking about. young children are usually incoherent, barely intelligible, and have 2-300 word vocabularies. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| etracher Triglot Groupie Italy Joined 5339 days ago 92 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Modern Hebrew, Russian, Latvian | Message 12 of 12 18 February 2011 at 8:37am | IP Logged | |||||
It is not clear to me in what way the information in the video should be detrimental to language learners. Could you please elaborate?
I don't think that any scientist would claim that adults are not as intelligent as babies, however I can see how unfortunate expressions such as the "language genius" of children, or the general comparisons between child and adult abilities might imply such a claim. Rather than say that babies' brains are special or possess some sort of genius, it would be more accurate, in my opinion, to say that they are different. The brain changes just as the other parts of any organism change. There isn't anything controversial about this fact, as far as I can tell. Evidence seems to show that language is acquired differently by children and by adults. There are things that children's brains tend to do perhaps better and others that adult brains tend to do better, but this does not imply different levels of intelligence. I don't see anything detrimental or even discouraging in this, personally. Edited by etracher on 18 February 2011 at 8:42am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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