forgotten Russian - how to restore it?

[Helen Halva]

I have no true research to support this, but anecdotal experiences 
support the theory that (as with the boy cited earlier with "repka") 
subconscious language "knowledge" is retained and merely needs to be 
summoned somehow. I think that immersing the child in the linguistic 
medium, for example  in another family situation where Russian is 
spoken, via movies, etc. or whatever might be possible, will aid in that 
gradual process of recalling "lost" language capabilities. I doubt that 
this would work with children who were removed from the home language 
before developing active language skills, say before the age of 3 or so, 
but for an older child who left at 7 or older, I think this would be 
worth the effort to test.
HH

On 3/14/2011 10:01 AM, Alina Israeli wrote:
> For several years I worked with Russian orphans here in Washington DC. 
> at their pre-adoption stage. Those were "unadoptable" children, i.e. 
> too old or with health problems (many of them had unoperated cleft 
> lip). The youngest were 5-6 that usually had older siblings. Most were 
> 9-14, a few were 16.
>
> One summer they would not know a word of English and would need me as 
> interpreter, the next summer their English would be excellent and they 
> could not remember practically any Russian. Some none at all. The only 
> family where a year later Russian was still in use was a family that 
> adopted three children from Kazakhstan (they already had one of their 
> own), one Russian and two Kazakhs.
>
> Something interesting is going on at the cognitive level and I 
> suggested to my colleagues who do language acquisition to study such 
> cases (similar cases were observed in Scandinavia). Their reply was: 
> who is going to fund a research that studied forgetting the language 
> instead of acquiring one?
>
> But I think studying those mechanisms would be very useful for our 
> understanding of language function.
>
> (One similar testimony I had quite recently from a prospective 
> student, she was adopted at age 12 as was her girl-friend from the 
> same orphanage; and six month later they were discussing that they did 
> not remember any Russian. In high school she took it as a foreign 
> language. Her pronunciation is obviously better than that of her 
> peers. but that's about all. )
>
> AI
>
> Mar 14, 2011, � 2:10 AM, Emily Saunders �������(�):
>
>> I had an odd experience with a young boy in a summer camp for typical 
>> U.S. kids aged 5-10.  He'd been adopted at the age of 2 (and was 
>> about 5 or 6 at the time of our camp) and had completely forgotten 
>> all of his Russian.  We looked for glimmers of understanding with 
>> certain basic vocabulary words (����, ����, �����, ������), but 
>> nothing until we introduced to the kids a simplified version of the 
>> fairy-tale ����� (Repka).  While the presenter was telling the story 
>> started to interrupt with corrections -- not ������/sobaka but 
>> �����/zhuchka, not ����� but ������ and so on.  I'll bet you that she 
>> has childhood rhymes and stories kicking around in her memory banks 
>> that could be triggered.
>>
>
> Alina Israeli
> Associate Professor of Russian
> LFS, American University
> 4400 Massachusetts Ave.
> Washington DC 20016
> (202) 885-2387     fax (202) 885-1076
> aisrael at american.edu
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------