The Linguist’s Calendar: July 7

Canada’s House of Commons

July 7


1969: Canada’s House of Commons approves equality of French-English language across the country.
 
1971: The Californian confined child “Genie” moves in with her teacher, Jane Butler.

 
EXTRA for today from Mikael Parkvall's Limits of Language:

Oldest First Language Learner
There are reports in the literature of people having come into contact with a human language at ages as high as 21 (Jean of Liège, 17th century), 22 (the Sow-girl of Salzburg, early 19th century) or 23 (the Wolf-child of Kronstadt, late 19th century).

None of these cases, however, are well documented, and we know virtually nothing about how much language—if any—they acquired. Among the scholarly documented cases found after the onset of puberty, most, such as “Genie” (“discovered” at the age of 13), have not managed to learn any language well.
 
A possible exception is the legendary Kaspar Hauser, who was first exposed to lan­guage at age 16 in 1828, and who is reported to have learned to speak very well (but then, he is in some reports credited with some rather super­natural talents).

Sudam Pradhana, found at the age of 24 in Orissa, India in 2001, had originally learned to talk, but had forgotten this skill during his eleven years in the forest.
 
A 17-year old neg­lec­ted boy encountered in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2005, “could not talk, but only grunt”.
 
Since both these two cases are so recent, there is at present no information available on whatever linguistic progress they may have made.
 
An obvious problem in all feral child cases is that it is difficult to tell to what extent the failure to acquire language is due to a child having passed the critical period for normal first-language learning or to the psychological traumas connected with their unusual experience of childhood.