From: cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Animal Grammar
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 15 Apr 92 23:09:17 GMT

In article <8982@scott.ed.ac.uk> sharder@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Soren Harder) writes:
>
>When you are talking about critical periods in language
>learning for humans, you are actually talking about two different
>things; a) a critical period for cognitive development (e.g. Genie)
>and b) a critical period for (foreign) language learning. 

This brings up something I've always wondered about.  There are people
who CAN learn languages near-natively as adults.  There is one person in
the Social Sciences department here who, it is rumored, can learn any
language by flying over the country where it is spoken.  He learned 
functional Walpiri by having his jeep break down and being forced to
hang around the native speakers for a week.  He also learned one brand
of Chinese (don't know which) in record time, with, as a native speaker
reported, absolutely perfect tone.

I am not nearly as adept as this person, but have been told that my
accent in French is excellent, and that, after studying Spanish for ten
week, my accent was almost flawless Mexican (in the States, you do not
learn Castilian Spanish, with the "th's".  "Valencia" is pronounced
"balensia," not "balenthia.").  I have picked up a passable accent in
Japanese despite almost never hearing it, except a few words every once
in a blue moon from a friend who is a native speaker of that and
English.  (I'm learning it from a book, and right now my vocabulary
consists of "Thank you," "You're welcome", "What time is it?", and "That
red bag costs five thousand yen.") 

I'm not trying to blow my horn, here (god/dess, there's a pun there.
Think about, those who post frequently) but it does make me wonder what
the hell is different about my brain that enables me to suck up phonetic
systems like a sponge, and certainly for the aforementioned man, who
sucks up whole languages.  I am also musical, and began studying piano
at the same time I began studying French - at the age of ten.  (I should
mention here that the other kids in the French class did NOT pick up a
good accent, for the most part.)

I know that linguists usually tend to like music; what connection is
there?  I also know that I consider my study of a language to be
incomplete unless I also learn the accent.  It seems to be a central
part of studying any language; besides languages can be classified quite
nicely according to their musical quality.  Romance languages are very
melodic, Bantu languages are very sing-songy and rippling, Indian is
very soft and whispery, and Germanic type languages have a very
compelling drumbeat rhythm.  (I'm not talking about every single word
here, just the initial impression they give to an unschooled ear.)  

Any work done on this -- what it is about some people's brains that
makes them able to pick up languages near-natively and whether it is
connected to musical acuity?  God/dess, I'd love to get that guy under a
PET scanner and have him listen to an unfamiliar language . . .

Regards,
Janis C.
 
>Gotta run, the systems down in 5 min. :-)

My condolences.