From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Tue Sep 15 20:36:30 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:36:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MnlJl-0005Vj-Ot for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:36:30 -0700 Received: from mail-ew0-f216.google.com ([209.85.219.216]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MnlJi-0005V5-8G for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:36:29 -0700 Received: by ewy12 with SMTP id 12so4965548ewy.0 for ; Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:36:19 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=ugRxkvh9XqA3Ll5pGMZ1QumjL4xeUuVxQm2HiKWngLU=; b=p6Sm+sEhCFo4oNM+GnqjOooHg9BNYqu/bR/70ARZ1dCnzhC2IjZMvHMee1lDqdGhdp rIuYdjhBn4bySiPbXFHQr0GG3RRrmrvOikktsjC9b9+sRnlzuOaB5JgtpC8vD1PZGIXE XkDa0J2NktgnLKL4ixEedx39drzwrhEchGqJI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type; b=uywCMBKsWisOkSdhFwFZdcL0PgSBkHt6Z+nyGOzK9H9EeNkmp4ednYuC/OSF+EtzlD mxYX+vPO9p/LroeqliwM8gJsajdWLbVC6f3AQMgih1ZlPCF5UzHQNsmAgbtsISuvwZsv MOVaUuI3QpdyERG+W/WLiorEzhH1s43lV7olU= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.216.36.9 with SMTP id v9mr1639809wea.21.1253072179805; Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:36:19 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:36:19 +0200 Message-ID: Subject: [lojban] Re: Fwd: lojban and raising a child bi-lingual From: Ivo Doko To: lojban-list@lojban.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-archive-position: 16196 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: ivo.doko@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list 2009/9/15 Adam Raizen : > If you were immersed in a foreign-language culture for all your waking hours > with no other possible language to communicate with, and in a culture that > you saw yourself as a part of, you too would learn the language fluently, > and in far less than the approximately 6 years that children take to attain > fluency. I'm not so sure about that. I'm pretty sure I either saw a documentary or read an article about an experiment on how children learn languages quite differently than adolescents and grown-ups. There is a certain part of the human brain dedicated especially to languages and in children that part of the brain is, for the lack of a better word, active, meaning that it learns and changes and all the languages a child learns are "learned" in that part of the brain. But it seems that, at the age of 6 or 8 or something like that, that part of the brain becomes "inactive", not in the sense that it shuts off but that, although it is still capable of processing what it has learned, it isn't capable of learning anything new any more. In a brain of an adolescent or a grown-up, any new languages learned are "learned" in the part of the brain dedicated to learning rules. As the adolescent or the grown-up refine their knowledge of the language they are learning and attain fluency in it, the only thing that happens is that the number of neural connections between the part of the brain dedicated to learning rules and the part of the brain dedicated to languages drastically increases as they get closer to being fully fluent in the language. So no matter how hard grown-ups try, it's never going to be as easy to learn a new language to them as it is to children. I'm positive that I either read or saw this somewhere, but I'll gladly try to dig up some links and references if you don't believe me. To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.