Re: Kids learning Lojban

[Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@MATH.ACAD.BG>]

Chris Bogart wrote:
> > > >Someone has to risk fucking their progeny up first.
>
> I'm curious if anyone here thinks this is a serious risk.

I've been seen to mention it as a risk on sci.lang and possibly elsewhere.
The fear comes from the conception (and I'm not sure whether there is any
such thing as consensus on this matter these days, and what it is; this is
not my bailiwick) that there is something about our hardware and something
about natlangs (all of them) that makes it possible for any natlang to be
natively acquired by the kid as a L1 during the critical period; but that
chance must be taken advantage of, or else the kid will remain effectively
speechless for life.  We have no explicit knowledge as to what properties
of natlangs those are, which is why it is hard to estimate the probability
that a learnable conlang will turn out to be natively acquirable as well.

> Certainly one's progeny would be pretty malselgle if they were
> deliberately kept isolated from any exposure to natlangs --
> they'd have to be raised in a basement and sleep on a mattress
> with the tag torn off (it has English on it!).

I don't think mine did.  We had (and still have) some towels with
Chinese on them, but they did not make me start speaking Chinese.

> But seriously, it has happened that kids have grown up with only exposure
> to unnatural languages; like Signed English or pidgins; and as I
> understand it they naturally flesh it out into something usable.

Being English (except for the medium), Signed English is a natural language.
Pidgins develop spontaneously, so they are not unnatural either.  (We should
distinguish `unnatural' from `non-natural'.)  Those situations are hardly
comparable to one where the kid's L1 is an a priori conlang.

--
`Meum est propositum in taberna mori;    Vinum sit appositum sitienti ori:
 Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori "Deus sit propitius isti potatori".'
                          (Archpoet of Cologne, `The Confession of Golias')
Ivan A Derzhanski                              <iad@banmatpc.math.acad.bg>
H: cplx Iztok bl 91, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria  <http://www.math.acad.bg/~iad/>
W: Dept for Math Lx, Inst for Maths & CompSci, Bulg Acad of Sciences