>The Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) says you can never learn to speak another language at a native level if you started learning it post-puberty.>The most tragic (but scientifically significant) evidence for this theory comes from "feral children" like Genie, who was kept in isolation until age 13. Despite years of intensive therapy and teaching after her rescue, she was able to learn vocabulary but never mastered syntax or grammar. Her brain had missed the "critical window" to wire itself for the structure of language.
Cope.Those feral children will never learn to live properly in a society.
Not being able to understand anyone sounds like a blessing
>>219801313Grim
>>219801313The counterpoint to this is that many languages posses similar grammatical properties so the skills are transferrable. But yeah for languages like Chinese or Korean I heard of westerns living there for 10 years and they still struggle with basic grammar.
>>219801313I think more research needs to be done on this because there are just many cases where a person only becomes literate or capable of language after puberty or as an adult. I knew one such guy who was deaf and neglected as a result, not even learning sign language or reading and writing until age 15, and nowadays he seems as capable as any other person when it comes to reading and writing.
>>219804242It's a very easily disproven hypothesis. There are countless people who have achieved native level knowledge in a language even if they started learning post-puberty. The example likely has to do with other developmental problems
>>219801313bad hypothesis, the feral child never learned the very basics of languages which means they are attempting to teach her a form of communication that is entirely new to her. How can you compare this to, for example an adult male who does speak a language, is familiar with the concept of syntax and grammar and can have a structured approach to learning a lanuage? The greatest difference, between an adult or an child learning a language, comes down to environment, are you as an adult male exposed to a language for 16 hours a day with two parents constantly talking to you. no, you only spend an hour or two a day learning a language and have no further exposure to it.
A friend of my dad is a German guy who came here in his 20s and speaks absolutely flawless Swedish. No one would guess he's not native. That's a counterexample at least, even if he might be good at languages.
>>219804871Well, not everyone has the same level of ability and talent.
