[MUD-Dev] DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...]

[Ilia Malkovitch]

On 20/09/05, Michael Sellers <mike at onlinealchemy.com> wrote:

>>> Nothing's innate about native language (it's all learned),

>> That may not be true. I've always wanted to read Chomsky's work
>> on linguistics, but I get distracted easily. But it turns out
>> that language is innate, so much so that a Japanese kid growing
>> up in the Bronx will learn English with an accent.

> In short, the capacity for language is innately and neurologically
> human.  The primary language we learn is set by what we hear long
> before we can speak it, and affects what we hear for the rest of
> our lives.

This is way off topic, and a completely non-scientific question,
but:

Does this mean that if you (somehow artificially) managed to
submerge a baby in an environment that contained "all" phonemes (or
at least the majority of the phonemes from around the world), then
this person would have a significantly easier time learning foreign
languages and hearing nuances within them?

This isn't a very well-formed question.  But the concept of having
no cortical pathways that recognize certain nuances in sound which
are completely apparent to a speaker from a different culture is
very intriguing.  Is there any interesting reading or research
someone from this list could recommend on the topic?

- ilia
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