written language as first language?

[Mark Mandel]

>From LINGUIST List #11-1696

**** Please reply to the poster, NOT to me. ****

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Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 12:56:54 -0400
From: Thomas T. Field <tfield at umbc.edu>
Subject: The Possibility of L1 Being a Written Language


Does anyone know of an individual whose L1 [= first language]
might have been some
written form of language? It seems to me that there may have been
profoundly deaf people whose primary linguistic input was writing
(whose caregivers might have begun by creating an elaborate set of
flashcards, for example).

Tom Field

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***************
Thomas Field
Center for the Humanities
University of Maryland Baltimore County
Baltimore, MD 21250

Tel. 410-455-6798     Fax. 410-455-1063