[language] language development

[H. Mark Hubey]

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Orphans likely to be eaten

          BY NIGEL HAWKES, SCIENCE EDITOR
  THE legend of the child raised by animals is found in the
  folklore of many cultures:from Romulus and Remus to
  Mowgli and Tarzan.

  Alas, science cannot corroborate a single instance. "A
  chimpanzee is more likely to eat an abandoned child than
  raise it," Phyllis Lee, a primatologist from the biological
  anthropology department at Cambridge, said. "I know of
  no case of a long-term adoption of a human infant by
  another primate. Gorillas will sometimes pick up and
  cuddle a child and if a female chimpanzee found a baby
  she might try to be motherly, but a male would almost
  certainly kill it.

  "In any case, there is no way a human child could survive
  in chimpanzee society. Babies can't cling to a female
  chimp's fur and a human infant couldn't follow chimps
  through the jungle searching for food. Anyway, most of
  the food the chimps in Uganda eat contains things that are
  toxic to human beings."

  From time to time, children do emerge from the woods
  apparently untouched by human company. In 1800, a boy
  was captured in the woods of Aveyron, southern France.
  Naked, filthy and unable to speak, the Wild Boy of
  Aveyron had no family and no history.

  Dr Lee, who has visited Uganda, said that there are many
  children there orphaned by war or Aids. She suspects that
  John may fall into this group. If it is true that he lacked
  human company from an early age, then experience
  indicates he will find it difficult to catch up.

  The boy from Aveyron was befriended by a young
  doctor, Jean-Marc Itard, who tried to civilise him. He got
  him to wear clothes and use cutlery, but he never truly
  learnt to speak.

  The same was true of Genie, a girl from Temple City,
  California, imprisoned by her father until she was 13. She
  could say only "Stopit" and "Nomore" and never
  constructed sentences. The key period for learning
  languages had passed by the time she emerged.


http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/99/09/23/timfgnafr01002.html?19967
--
Sincerely,
M. Hubey
hubeyh at mail.montclair.edu
http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
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---Simplicity of character is the result of profound thought.--
Anonymous

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