Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!osu-cis!tut!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ptero@zwicky From: ptero%zwicky@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Why can't my cat talk? Message-ID: <938@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Date: Tue, 3-Nov-87 10:57:19 EST Article-I.D.: tut.938 Posted: Tue Nov 3 10:57:19 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Nov-87 06:20:36 EST References: <11967@decwrl.DEC.COM> <1697@cognos.UUCP> <849@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Computer and Information Science Lines: 46 In article <849@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> ruffwork@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU.UUCP (Ritchey Ruff) writes: >In article <1697@cognos.UUCP> roberts@cognos.UUCP (Robert Stanley) writes: >>In article <11967@decwrl.DEC.COM> glantz@yippee.dec.com (26-Oct-1987 2000) >> writes: >>> ...during which basic linguistic ability can be acquired would be limited >>> to this ``crystallization'' period... >>If it can be shown that feral children re-introduced into society *cannot* >>acquire natural language skills after they are a certain age... > >It seems that Helen Keller would be a counter-example to the >"crystallization period" theory, as she was a deaf and blind "feral" >child but was "educated" LONG after the normally >hypothesized "crystallization period". She could have just been an >exception, but... > >--ritchey ruff Helen Keller was *not* a feral child, nor did she learn langauge after the crystallization period. Feral children are children who have been deprived of all human contact; Helen Keller was by most accounts much loved. The crystallization period for human language has been pretty well determined as ending at puberty. The data for this comes primarily not from children abandoned in the wild, but from children abused and deprived by human beings. The most famous of these was Genie, who was found just after puberty (because, as it turned out, her mother was willing to let her father keep her as a pet, but drew the line at having her killed, which was what her father intended to do when she became adult). Most of the linguists who worked with Genie to this day have difficulty lecturing about it without tears. I have heard people who never knew her claim that she was never fully human; the sad truth is that Genie was obviously an intelligent, loving human to all those who knew her, capable of charming strangers in the street, and with a love for learning and language. But she never learned the grammar of English, even though she gained an enormous vocabulary, and she never was capable of learning to behave like everyone else. This is in comparison to children found as late as 10 who learned English if anything faster than babies, and frequently caught up with their peers in a few years. Ameslan, by the way, is accepted in the linguistic world as a human language. Babies brought up in Ameslan-speaking households learn Ameslan with the same patterns as they would have learning English. There is some debate about its using some different neurological centers, but there is a great deal of overlap. Elizabeth Zwicky (zwicky@ohio-state.arpa, ...cbosgd!osu-cis!tut!zwicky)