Re: Kids learning Lojban

[John Hodges <jbhodges@USIT.NET>]

At 03:39 PM 11/5/97 +0200, Ivan Derzhanski wrote:
>Chris Bogart wrote:
>> > > >Someone has to risk fucking their progeny up first.
>>
>> I'm curious if anyone here thinks this is a serious risk.
>
>I've been seen to mention it as a risk on sci.lang and possibly elsewhere.
>The fear comes from the conception (and I'm not sure whether there is any
>such thing as consensus on this matter these days, and what it is; this is
>not my bailiwick) that there is something about our hardware and something
>about natlangs (all of them) that makes it possible for any natlang to be
>natively acquired by the kid as a L1 during the critical period; but that
>chance must be taken advantage of, or else the kid will remain effectively
>speechless for life.  We have no explicit knowledge as to what properties
>of natlangs those are, which is why it is hard to estimate the probability
>that a learnable conlang will turn out to be natively acquirable as well.

>> But seriously, it has happened that kids have grown up with only exposure
>> to unnatural languages; like Signed English or pidgins; and as I
>> understand it they naturally flesh it out into something usable.
>
>Being English (except for the medium), Signed English is a natural language.
>Pidgins develop spontaneously, so they are not unnatural either.  (We should
>distinguish `unnatural' from `non-natural'.)  Those situations are hardly
>comparable to one where the kid's L1 is an a priori conlang.

>Ivan A Derzhanski                              <iad@banmatpc.math.acad.bg>

Greetings- JBH here- I seem to recall that Lojbab once (answering a critic)
said that all the grammatical features of Lojban can be found in some
natural language. The recent discussion of whether any natlang has
non-elidable terminators seems relevant; as I recall opinion an all proposed
examples was divided. But certainly the great bulk of Lojban is not without
precedent. The converse question is, are there any essential grammatical or
other linguistic features in natlangs NOT found in Lojban, such that a child
who heard ONLY lojban whould never be exposed to them? (Not a realistic
scenario anyway; in actuality, the kid would face the same challenge as kids
in other bilingual households.)
John B. Hodges, jbhodges@usit.net
Honesty will give you all the truth there is, and no more.