Question:
How long does it take an adult to learn to
speak a language totally unfamiliar (no
cognates, no similar grammar) without access
to dictionaries or teachers? Assume that
most cultural practices are different.
I only have three data points that
are close to my scenario:
Jose Maria de Zalvidea took less than 21
years as a missionary to those who spoke
the new language. (Between 1805-1826) I
don't know how much less than 21 years,
though.
Juan Ortiz took less than 11 years as a
captive of those who spoke the new language.
(Between 1528 and 1539) I don't know how
much less than 11 years, though.
Francisco de Chicora took less than 3 years
as a captive of those who spoke the new
language to be able to describe his home
country. (1521 to 1523) He took less than
6 years as a captive of those who spoke the
new language to be a translator. (1521 to
1526)
I have two data points that are not
close to my scenario, but which may
set a lower bound:
My children/babies learned to speak their
first language in less than 4 years, but
that was with two dedicated "teachers" and
the babies were highly motivated and had
few other priorities. This is unlike my
scenario in that the learners are children
with no other language.
Schoolchildren with teachers and
dictionaries become conversant in a year,
and take four to seven years to become
academically proficient. This is unlike my
scenario in that there are teachers who
speak both languages.
So it looks as though it takes at least
1 to 7 years, and at most 3 to 21 years.
Does anyone know better than this? Or
have any data?
Answer:
I gather you're assuming that this is a human language. If not: How
many of the similarities among human languages result from the workings
of the human brain? How many derive from a language ancestral to all
current spoken languages -- or were a feature of one very, very ancient
language which then was taken up by speakers of other languages?
And you're assuming that this is a _spoken_ language, rather than
signed or something else.
Even with much cultural similarity, access to teachers, etc., it can
vary greatly. Some anecdotal evidence:
My father found out that the reason he couldn't learn Italian was that
he was deaf. Nowhere near completely deaf; he could still handle
conversations in English, though he'd been complaining for years about
my mother and other people muttering.
My maternal great-uncle regularly learned one language every year. His
mother -- who arrived in the US able to speak three living languages
and possibly one religious language, never learned English. (For
decades, she didn't have to.)
My paternal grandfather once mentioned that his first job in the US had
been handling correspondence for a furniture factory. I asked him if
he hadn't had problems with spelling.
He hadn't. He explained that one year, the teacher at the Hebrew
school had been literate not only in Hebrew but in Polish -- and had
taught written Polish. Polish and English, being in the same alphabet,
were of course closely related. Obviously, anyone who could spell one
could spell the other.
I can read (with some difficulty) several languages whose spoken forms
I have much more trouble understanding. I can even make some sense out
of written languages I don't know at all, by looking for cognates.
(Note: This works much better with Finnish than with Icelandic, even
though Icelandic is much more closely related to English.) In
languages which don't use the Roman alphabet, I can't usually do this
-- but I can manage things which translate as "Hellenic Emporium" or
"Ukrainian Apocothery."
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