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babies' ability to learn any language

SusanB-M1

Incurable Optimist
SusanB-M1
Joined
Jul 17, 2006
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In the book I am reading at the moment, 'Bird Sense'* by Prof Tim Birkhead, (published2012) I am on the seconde part about Hearing. At one point he talks about a discovery in bird hearing which, when shown to be so, immediately showed that babies do not, as was previously thought, have the inborn ability to learn different languages at the start of their lives.


I find this difficult to believe, as it is well known that children brought up to speak two languages are able to do so and become efficiently bi-lingual, providing both parents continue to use both languages of course.

As it is a braille book, it is quite difficult to find the exact words the author uses, although I will try to do so later,, but I wondered if anyone here knows the current best knowledge on the subject.

* Although it's not exactly a page-turner, I have already learnt quite a bit about birds' vision from the first section. it is very interesting.
 
I don't have any additional sources for you but I will share my experience with raising children in a bilingual household.

My stepdaughter was 3 1/2 when I married her mother. They move to the US from France. Upon arriving my stepdaughter spoke no English. Within six months she spoke English as well as any other four year old. Throughout grade school she attended a French immersion school in New Orleans, spent the summers in France, and spoke both French and English with her mother. She speaks French without an American accent (i.e., can pass for a French person in France), and speaks English with an American accent.

My son was born four years later. He was also raised bilingual and attended the same French immersion grade school. He speaks fluent French but in France he is recognized as an Amercian by his accent.
 
Is this the part you mean?:

"It was once thought that children were able to learn any language they were exposed to because they started life as a blank slate. The study of birdsong dispelled this idea by demonstrating that, although young birds are capable of learning almost any song they hear, they actually possess a genetic template that determines both what they learn and how they hear"(Birkhead, 2012, p41).

I know a little bit about this topic but only at a very basic level. I find the statement rather unclear and would probably need to read the rest of the chapter to see if it makes more sense. My understanding is that babies' brains are specialized for extracting statistical properties of the language(s) they are exposed to as soon as they are able to hear, so they can learn any human language. However, the ability to make certain types of discrimination between different speech sounds may be lost if those sounds are not used in the language(s) they are exposed to, as the brain adapts itself to the environment partly by losing connections that are not used. Therefore the best way to ensure a child can become a fluent bilingual is to expose them to a second language from early infancy, especially if the second language contains sound features not used in the first language.

It is possible that what Birkhead means is that babies could not necessarily learn an artificial language that has different fundamental properties from any human language. That is, babies' brains are not truly 'blank slates' because they are born predisposed to discriminate human speech from other sounds and to extract properties of human languages specifically. I believe there was some research on birds attempting to teach them artificial languages which may be behind this. I can't locate the reference at the moment.
 
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Jungle Jim said:
I don't have any additional sources for you but I will share my experience with raising children in a bilingual household.

My stepdaughter was 3 1/2 when I married her mother. They move to the US from France. Upon arriving my stepdaughter spoke no English. Within six months she spoke English as well as any other four year old. Throughout grade school she attended a French immersion school in New Orleans, spent the summers in France, and spoke both French and English with her mother. She speaks French without an American accent (i.e., can pass for a French person in France), and speaks English with an American accent.

My son was born four years later. He was also raised bilingual and attended the same French immersion grade school. He speaks fluent French but in France he is recognized as an Amercian by his accent.
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Thank you - that is very interesting. As some people are naturally more able to pick up accents and inflexions better than others, I wonder whether the fact that your step-daughter has a flawless French accent and that your son's accent is American when speaking French is anything to do with that.
 
Elaedith said:
Is this the part you mean?:

"It was once thought that children were able to learn any language they were exposed to because they started life as a blank slate. The study of birdsong dispelled this idea by demonstrating that, although young birds are capable of learning almost any song they hear, they actually possess a genetic template that determines both what they learn and how they hear"(Birkhead, 2012, p41).

I know a little bit about this topic but only at a very basic level. I find the statement rather unclear and would probably need to read the rest of the chapter to see if it makes more sense. My understanding is that babies' brains are specialized for extracting statistical properties of the language(s) they are exposed to as soon as they are able to hear, so they can learn any human language. However, the ability to make certain types of discrimination between different speech sounds may be lost if those sounds are not used in the language(s) they are exposed to, as the brain adapts itself to the environment partly by losing connections that are not used. Therefore the best way to ensure a child can become a fluent bilingual is to expose them to a second language from early infancy, especially if the second language contains sound features not used in the first language.

It is possible that what Birkhead means is that babies could not necessarily learn an artificial language that has different fundamental properties from any human language. That is, babies' brains are not truly 'blank slates' because they are born predisposed to discriminate human speech from other sounds and to extract properties of human languages specifically. I believe there was some research on birds attempting to teach them artificial languages which may be behind this. I can't locate the reference at the moment.
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Thank you very much for finding the exact quote and for an interesting poste! I thought I might try asking the Professor directly by phone, and if that fails, I'll send an e-mail. I do like to know things!
 
That “blank slate” idea has long since been debunked; Stephen Pinker wrote a book of that title pretty much dismissing the idea.
As to language acquisition, it was of course famously maintained by Noam Chomsky that humans had a specific “organ” or structure in the brain specifically for the acquisition of language.
Others have dismissed that idea, of course.

I know my wife learned fluent Polish as a toddler from the family’s Polish Nanny, and that drove her parents nuts.... They didn’t know what she and the nanny were talking about.....
 
I do know that you can teach babies/toddlers to sign before they develop verbal abilities.They learn to communicate at a very young age. And so become better communicators. My sister did it with her two. The youngest is an author, pen name E.C. Ambrose.
 
Bikewer said:
That “blank slate” idea has long since been debunked; Stephen Pinker wrote a book of that title pretty much dismissing the idea.
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Thank you, I didn't know that. I read one or two ofStephen Pinker's books, but I did not like his manner of writing.
As to language acquisition, it was of course famously maintained by Noam Chomsky that humans had a specific “organ” or structure in the brain specifically for the acquisition of language.
Others have dismissed that idea, of course.
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Quick google of Chomsky - I see he is nearly 100 now! I wonder what he thinks nowadays!

I know my wife learned fluent Polish as a toddler from the family’s Polish Nanny, and that drove her parents nuts.... They didn’t know what she and the nanny were talking about.....
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To be able to speak two languages right from the start of life must, I think, give an advantage in life; for a start, such a person has a useful skill to offer, either for written translation, or as a simultaneous translator at International Conferences.
 
casebro said:
I do know that you can teach babies/toddlers to sign before they develop verbal abilities.They learn to communicate at a very young age. And so become better communicators. My sister did it with her two. The youngest is an author, pen name E.C. Ambrose.
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Thank you. I have heard of that but never investigated further. Do you think it slows down the use of voice speech at all
 
Looking again at the sentence "It was once thought that children were able to learn any language they were exposed to because they started life as a blank slate", I do think it is ambiguous. My interpretation is that the idea that they start life as a blank slate was dispelled, not the idea that they can learn any human language.

There is an interesting Ted talk by Professor Patricia Kuhl on language learning in babies:

 
Bird song and language.

My field is cognitive neuroscience so I have some knowledge of the issues here. The analogy to bird song is partly faulty. A baby song bird has a genetic program that contains the basic outline of it's species's song. Under normal conditions, it is exposed to it's species specific song during development and so comes to sing that song. However, if it is exposed to the song of a different, but similar, species, the song it develops will be a combination of the two. But this is very different from a baby learning two languages. Different languages are not spoken by different species of humans. The human brain is genetically programmed to learn language. But this does not mean that it is programmed for any specific language or that a child can't learn two languages at the same time. There is no evidence for that latter claim and lots of evidence against it.
 
Elaedith said:
Looking again at the sentence "It was once thought that children were able to learn any language they were exposed to because they started life as a blank slate", I do think it is ambiguous. My interpretation is that the idea that they start life as a blank slate was dispelled, not the idea that they can learn any human language.

There is an interesting Ted talk by Professor Patricia Kuhl on language learning in babies:

Click to expand...
Thank you - I clicked on the 'I agree' and a black rectangle came up but nothing happened. Could you please post a link, as I would very much like to listen to it.
 
thines said:
My field is cognitive neuroscience so I have some knowledge of the issues here. The analogy to bird song is partly faulty. A baby song bird has a genetic program that contains the basic outline of it's species's song. Under normal conditions, it is exposed to it's species specific song during development and so comes to sing that song. However, if it is exposed to the song of a different, but similar, species, the song it develops will be a combination of the two. But this is very different from a baby learning two languages. Different languages are not spoken by different species of humans. The human brain is genetically programmed to learn language. But this does not mean that it is programmed for any specific language or that a child can't learn two languages at the same time. There is no evidence for that latter claim and lots of evidence against it.
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that is so very interesting - many thanks for your post. I was talking just now to my neighbour (carolenextdoor, who incidentally joined back in 2007 and tells me she checked the other day and found that she had made a total of 7 posts!!). Anyway, she was saing, what about Cuckoos? How is their song affected by the song of the bird in whose nest it grows?

I'm going to e-mail her a link to this thread.
 
I know of one case where a 3-year-old in a German-speaking household in an English-speaking neighborhood cheerfully mingled the two languages at home, and, I suppose, outside too. Interestingly, this drove her 7-year-old brother nuts. He kept German and English rigidly apart, to the point of declining to speak German with non-family.

Also interestingly, the boy's German was Allemanic-accented like his mother's, not American-accented like his father's.
 
Common sense tells one, kids (barring disabilities) can indeed learn any language they are exposed to at birth. If not then what would this 'template' mean? And how would it have evolved? We aren't different races.

That songbirds have an innate template makes perfect sense. They have evolved into different species. My dogs were born with a hunting template, no one taught them how to dig up voles in the yard but they knew how. That doesn't translate to humans.

In humans there is a language window, I believe it is to about the age of 5-7. That's when kids learn how to make certain sounds as well. For example I do not have the ability to roll my 'r's and some Spanish speakers I know cannot pronounce 'girl'.

After the language window we can still learn other languages but it is harder. And just like any skill involving intelligence, some people are better adapted than others.

These conclusions were supported with non-human primate language research. Teaching bonobos human language (via word boards, etc) was successful if started when they were infants.Teaching human language to adult non-human primates was less successful and led early researchers to conclude they couldn't learn.

IIRC that led to some assumptions that children not exposed to language (abuse situations) until they were beyond the language window could not learn it. But again, IIRC, that was debunked and such children could learn language.

I have read extensively in this field and there are a couple very long threads where I debated CFLarsen on this subject back in the day. ;)
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Common sense tells one, kids (barring disabilities) can indeed learn any language they are exposed to at birth. If not then what would this 'template' mean? And how would it have evolved? We aren't different races.

That songbirds have an innate template makes perfect sense. They have evolved into different species. My dogs were born with a hunting template, no one taught them how to dig up voles in the yard but they knew how. That doesn't translate to humans.

In humans there is a language window, I believe it is to about the age of 5-7. That's when kids learn how to make certain sounds as well. For example I do not have the ability to roll my 'r's and some Spanish speakers I know cannot pronounce 'girl'.

After the language window we can still learn other languages but it is harder. And just like any skill involving intelligence, some people are better adapted than others.

These conclusions were supported with non-human primate language research. Teaching bonobos human language (via word boards, etc) was successful if started when they were infants.Teaching human language to adult non-human primates was less successful and led early researchers to conclude they couldn't learn.

IIRC that led to some assumptions that children not exposed to language (abuse situations) until they were beyond the language window could not learn it. But again, IIRC, that was debunked and such children could learn language.

I have read extensively in this field and there are a couple very long threads where I debated CFLarsen on this subject back in the day. ;)
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Thank you for posting- very interesting. I wonder how many speech 'defects' are because a parent has not contacted a speech therapist so that the proper drills can be set in place and firmly but caringly encouraged to overcome the difficulty. I don't know the answer though!
 
sackett said:
I know of one case where a 3-year-old in a German-speaking household in an English-speaking neighborhood cheerfully mingled the two languages at home, and, I suppose, outside too. Interestingly, this drove her 7-year-old brother nuts. He kept German and English rigidly apart, to the point of declining to speak German with non-family.

Also interestingly, the boy's German was Allemanic-accented like his mother's, not American-accented like his father's.
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This is so nice - to read so many interesting posts, especially on these long, stay-indoors days! The grandchildren of a friend of mine who are French and English bilingual did a similar thing when they were younger.
 
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Of more interest to me was that there is a universality between species. Birds, dogs, people. A rising tone is begging, a flat tone is warning or merely "I am here". And a descending tone means "I am mad".

In my mind, some languages are tonal, much is based on inflections. I call those "analog". They use pictographs. Other languages use vowels and consonants, not so much the inflections. I call those "digital", they use the digits of an alphabet. I'm sure linguists have better distinctions/names.

Is "thinking in words" vs "thinking in pictures" an appropriate side track? And at what age the child's method is decided, or genetics? The author I mentioned above, her father thinks in words- computer programming is words, even if the alphabet is hexadecimal. Her mother thinks in pictures. can't play music worth a darn. (both have masters in sciences)
 
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