Re: Teaching a child three languages


Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:

No, Thomas's point is that there would have been no language change --
an evolutionarily impossible scenario. (The group with the
language-is-mutable gene would survive better than the group with the
hard-wired communication system, since the latter couldn't adapt their
"language" to new circumstances.)


How about an allow-language-to-change-but-only-if-necessary gene? Once
language is mutable is it doomed to change even when circumstances
don't? In the real linguistic world, the answer appears to be yes but
we seem to be allowing unreal worlds for the moment.

Actually it's not a language-is-mutable gene. It's an
I-can-make-language-(especially-when-I'm-a-child) gene. By talking
about language change we risk confusing ourselves. The main motor in
what we call language change is that each child re-analyses any
language(s) heard and needed for communication, and, as a result,
creates one or more new languages, similar but never quite identical to
those heard. This is why we can tell people apart by their speech.
Obviously, the most difficult thing is to tell siblings (especially
twins) apart by their speech, because they tend to have had the same
influences and therefore to have created very similar languages. When
my daughters phone me they both begin the conversation with 'Hello,
Dad' and I find it just a bit difficult to identify them correctly. (I
think they do this on purpose.)

Andrew

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/dalby/

.

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