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From: murrayw@utai.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Degenerate Lang Learning Experiment
Message-ID: <4155@utai.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Nov-87 08:41:17 EST
Article-I.D.: utai.4155
Posted: Fri Nov 20 08:41:17 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 18:16:00 EST
References: <2273@k.cc.purdue.edu> <2776@bcsaic.UUCP> <725@russell.STANFORD.EDU>
Reply-To: murrayw@ai.UUCP (Murray Watt)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 20
Keywords: language acquisition
Summary: 

In article <725@russell.STANFORD.EDU> poser@russell.UUCP (Bill Poser) writes:
>In the Egyptian experiment reported by Herodotus, the word reportedly
>uttered by the children raised without linguistic input was "bekos",
>which the Egyptians determined to be the Phrygian word for "bread".
>It is in fact true that this was the Phrygian word for "bread".
Well....
James IV attempted the same experiment and the children "spak very guid Ebrew".
In the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II's experiment the children died.
The three experiments are mentioned in "An Introduction to Language" by
Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman.

    1) These experiments show that if people don't learn a language
       they may emit random sounds. If you listen long enough you hear
       one of Shakespeare's plays.
        
    2) They show how not to carry out a cognitive science experiment.

    Maybe Frederick's children died because they didn't know how to say
    "bread" in either Phrygian or Ebrew.