this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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Given the success of foreign exchange students, I'm willing to bet the age factor is much less important than people claim.
People bring up the abused or abandoned children that had trouble learning to speak when introduced to society later in life, but usually fail to mention the reason they were neglected/abandoned as children was due to mental disabilities, so they aren't really a viable data point.
Genie was locked up at 20 months old. I don't think they locked her up because of her mental illness. They locked her up because of their mental illness. I reference Genie because she's the most documented "wild child," which is a completely disgusting term.
Language is universal to all humans, even though it is multifaceted. Humans also have massive brains that require extra care to bring to fruition in comparison to other animals. Language is one of those things. You can learn other languages at any age, but you first need learn a language.
I was going off old college memories - after looking it up, it sounds like her father thought she was mentally disabled and began/increased his neglect because of it, despite her only outward health issue being delayed walking due to a hip problem.
Also re: "wild child". I agree, and thanks for pointing it out. That's what they were called in my books, but catchy rhyme aside it's a horrible way to refer to a victim of such abuse. I'll edit my original comment.
It would be fascinating to know what inner thoughts look like without the construct of language to frame them in. Unfortunately there's no ethical way to find out, short of uplifting a non-sapient species and asking them.
To your last point: I don't think it's hard to figure out.
Unlike many people I don't always have an inner monologue. Like, right now I'm writing so I "hear" the words I'm putting on my screen. But if I'm programming or doing some other complex abstract thought? No sentence there, only a flow of abstract thoughts (words, images, nameless concepts, feelings, intuition, all meshing together in a way that is unique to my brain and would take several paragraphs to adequately explain). This occasionally makes it... challenging to communicate an idea I just had, because my thinking runs parallel to my formulating and going from one to the other is a significant mental overhead.
For sure language does play some structuring role in how I see the world. But there are lots of thoughts I have which aren't ever framed by language, and I imagine if I didn't speak any language that's how all my thoughts would be. Although that would obviously be very limiting, it certainly doesn't sound alien to me.
Adults that pick up new languages are rarely native fluent though.
Also being a "wild child" has to affect your brain's development a lot.