Re: Do Children Learn Languages at Different Rates?

In article <43BE6E97.748C@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Joseph W. Murphy wrote:

>> It might mean that there are some languages that children find easier to
>> learn than others.

>In that case, why haven't all languages evolved to be like Turkish? (Or,
>more to the point, why would languages have evolved away from the
>Turkish pattern?)

Why? For one thing, evolution of language is not always in
the direction of simplicity. Also, what is simplicity?
And in the evolution, would the adults pay much attention
to how quickly children learn it?

The languages may never have had the Turkish pattern. Is
SVO or VSO or SOV or any of the others simpler? Which is
easier to understand?

The same holds with respect to number systems. The oldest
of which we have any record is the Sumerian, base 60, with
the same symbols used in every place. There were quite a
few others, base 10, with different symbols in the different
places. One could consider the Egyptian as the simplest
of these, with the symbol for each power of 10 repeated the
relevant number of times. None of the various methods with
different symbols in different places seemed to be affected
by the various contacts.

It was not until the middle ages that the present Hindu-Arabic
numerals reached Europe, and it was difficult to convince
the merchants that it was any easier (if in fact it was) to
use rather than the Roman numerals. For their purposes, it
might well have been the case. Many believe that the Hindu
derivation was from contact with the Babylonians, who used
the Sumerian version, which is still with us in minutes,
seconds, etc.



--
>Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
.

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