I've been using TH-cam for over 20 years and today it recommended Stephen Fry's channel to me. It's the only decent thing TH-cam has recommended to me in over 20 years. Greetings from Turkey Sir 🙏🙏
@YusufPiskin : "I've been using TH-cam for over 20 years"; As of today (7 January 2025) two days after your assertion, quoted above: "TH-cam" has STILL not been publicly active for a full twenty years as you seem to imply. The only people who were engaged in any form of input into, or passive observation of its potential for use as an Audio/Visual sharing platform, 20 years ago, were those individuals who were still developing or testing (what was eventually to become widely known as) "TH-cam" in the form of an early prototype that had not yet been released into the "public domain". I reject your claim as being factually implausible or, at best, a case of deliberate rhetorical hyperbole, the like of which is routinely used by the mendacious Russian officials, who incessantly spout their ludicrous bullshit, from their supposed safety within the "Kremlin".
@@jimhill4725 English is not my native language, just like over 7 billion people in the world… "Over 20 years, around 20 years…" That’s not the point here. If you got hung up on this part when I explained it, and English happens to be your native language, then maybe my English reading and writing skills are weak. However, my ability to comprehend English texts might just surpass yours.
@@YusufPiskin : ' "Over 20 years, around 20 years…" That’s not the point '; It may not be YOUR point, but it's EXACTLY my point. You CHOSE to post your comments (in English) about "Planet Fry's" eloquent English language video about the acquisition of language(s) in general. You either use YOUR current choice of language to express your opinions accurately & truthfully, or you inadverrtently do so erroneously (and should expect to be corrected by those who know better), ....or you deliberately behave like a Russian (or even Recep Tayyip Erdogan) and knowingly spout a pile of drivel in the forlorn expection that someone might occasionally take your meandering remarks seriously, whatever language you're misappropriating. No offence intended (except to filthy Ruzzian war-criminals and their cronies).
Such an erudite and charming man, Stephen Fry. And also quite hilarious. First saw him in Blackadder many moons ago. Such a gift he has, and I love seeing him expanding into documentaries. The case of Victor is famous; it was included in one of my Psychology textbooks when I was in college.
I have a friend who's twin sisters, who would now be in their late 60's, were institutionalized due to mental and physical handicaps. ( I am not making a value judgement on this) They spent all their time together and therefore developed their own language. They had entire conversations in what everyone else called Gibberish. My friend was the first person to point this out. Everyone thought they were just making noises. Cher, my friend, learned to sort of map their language and made some headways into understanding them.
I wish I could see/hear them speaking their language, that is awesome. I wonder about all the similarities and differences it has to the language(s) that the twins were exposed to.
My 7 yr old grandson came down stairs on Christmas morning to discover Santa’s snowy footprints and in his excitement he exclaimed ‘it’s a REVEALANT’ to describe his thought process . Clearly he made the word ‘revealant ’ up and it has now become our new perfect word for discovery.
Being fascinated with language, having the opportunity to observe my children’s language development was such a gift. I have always wondered why my children, and others’, would say, ‘My have it’… or ‘My do it’ instead of ‘I have it’ or ‘I do it’… or use their names, ‘Marcus have it’ or ‘Izzy do it’. Before I had children, I used to marvel at other parents’ ability to understand the babble their children produced, and their clear disappointment when I couldn’t make sense of it. I imagine I did exactly the same to visitors in my own house when my children were at the babbling stage. 😊
This broke my heart - my son is 9 and still can't speak. Autism. I would love to watch these - I have great interest in linguistics and psychology - but i simply can't. :(
Ohh buddy. I'm sorry. I'll say this. I have a nephew who is non communicative. Well in the classic sense. He still speaks in his own way. Such a lovely boy. He likes Nina Simones music. Hope you have a nice long life together regardless of what may come.
I worked with non verbal children for years. The book “The Forbidden Experiment” by Roger Shattuck is a better way. As a parent, you know more than many so called experts.
I’m so sorry! But try to find the joy that he has in his own personality! No two people are the same and he has things that only he does, knows, communicates! You gave birth to him and that was special so just love him and keep trying. Seek help from everywhere you can too. There must be some in tune person who knows how to overcome this problem! Good luck to you both☺️
@@cynthiafisher9907 Pity it can’t be used now. The term actually means “slow” and there’s a similar word used in music that means “slow down.” However, being slow has somehow over time come to mean being unintelligent.
I’m an Autistic. Did not know how to speak until I was almost 4. When I did start talking it was said by my parents and doctors I skipped over the usual baby preliminaries and was already using complete sentences. My dad taught me how to read immediately and by the time I entered grade school I was reading at the third grade level.
For me, (autism/adhd) it developed normally. For a long time my diagnose was "add", then it was "add/pddnos" and finally it became a mix pf Autism/ADHD. The only thing that really troubled me troughout my life was overwhelming situations and math.
2:10 Is it a correct conclusion that language needs to be learned from others just because Victor couldn't speak? Or is it more correct to say that language needs to be developed with others? You talk later about how children learn from their parents, but what would happen if an isolated group of feral children were raised together? I'm thinking of the case of the deaf children in Nicaragua who spontaneously developed their own unique sign language, and I wonder whether in a similar way a unique speaking language would be created by a group of isolated hearing children. (It does sound as though I'm advocating for one of those disturbing child-rearing experiments that some people in the 1960s were so fond of - I promise I'm not. This is purely a thought experiment!)
We would not really need a spoken language if we were on our own, whereas if others are present and we are isolated, I suspect we would tend to develop a way to communicate. Good thought experiment. :) Also interesting, what are the thoughts of a person who has never heard language? Would they be visual, auditory or what?
@@aoc8548 I don't think I can agree with your first point. On one hand, we are a 100% social type of animal, there is no way most of us could ever have survived on our own. And on the other: there are plenty animals that are the solitary type, but still have a highly developed means of communication at their disposal. Just look at our cats... Besides, since it takes us years to reach the age of being able to take care of ourselves, as humans, in order to educate their children the parents always would have had a language of some sort to intereact with the kids. And if you want to know what the thoughts of someone are like, who has never heard anyone speak, all you need to know is ask the first deaf person you'll meet, isn't it?
With nobody to communicate with he had no need to use that part of his brain, so it shut off and can't learn. Someone born with strabismus needs to have it repaired before they're two, or their brain will never be able to use the eyes as intended. Once that part of the brain shuts off its off forever
The physical structures used in sound making also develop during childhood. They develop differently according to the language learned, to accomodate the specific sounds and accents that the child is surrounded by. My bilingual son has the 'voicebox' of a Frenchman and of an Englishman, and cannot be distinguished from either, but although I have been learning French for almost the same period of time as he has, I still cannot reproduce the accent remotely well because I didn't really start trying until I was adult and my vocal chords were "set". And my French is still very faulty, while he has a Masters in translation... 😏
I thought this too. I remember reading about feral children years ago and thinking how strange it would be if a person could not speak. I was so ignorant. When my son didn’t develop language as expected I learned that there are lots of non verbal people and there are also a variety of ways people learn language. My son is now partially verbal and it’s lovely be is starting to be able to communicate his wants and feelings more easily.
Almost certainly, because by the time a child is old enough to be able to survive on their own in nature for some significant time, they would normally have started speaking long ago as long as they've had any exposure to language. And it's really unlikely that whoever raised them completely avoided communicating with them. Of course it could be that some of the historical feral children actually knew a sign language if their parents were deaf or maybe a foreign language but that the doctors and priests who later tried to teach them language didn't even recognise their gesturing or mutterings as "real language".
My oldest son 'created' his own language. He would learn a word, then go through a sequence of made up words until he settled on one he chose, then that would be his word from then on. It was frustrating because he clearly could say the proper word from an early age, but created a language just because. By four he acquiesced and began using 'our' imposed language. He was our first born, so it was a bit puzzling for us new parents.
WE have 6 years olds in Canada who cannot speak. Dispite have both parents and living in a house. They are also feral. AS they are the BOSS in the house.
A propósito, alguns neurocientistas afetos a várias universidades chegaram à conclusão de que as estruturas neurológicas que codificam a música são filogeneticamente mais antigas do que as responsáveis por codificar a fala. Steven Mithen (autor do livro “The singing Neanderthals : the origins of music, language, mind, and body”) especula que , para os Neandertais, a música poderá ter sido a sua protolinguagem.
I lost my hearing for about 18 months after I first started to talk and when it came back it was damaged. One thing I have always had trouble with was spelling due to not being able to hear clearly what each syllable sounds like. Effectively I have to memorize how each word is spelled without having the ability to fully hear why it is spelled that way...
We adopted our then 20 month old daughter from China. She had zero exposure to English and my wife and I cannot speak any dialect of Chinese. I was amazed that within a week of getting home, she was understanding English, and saying some common words.
Language is an anthropological, survival OPTION. Sure, you can learn it, but yout don't NEED TO. The proof is that you still communicate with those with whom you have shared words.
I think the feral children learned something from nature that has been replaced in our brains, that we long ago forgot. And that is why we can no longer remember, and probably why they would prefer to be as they were!
My sons were adopted by me and my husband at birth. They are half Thai half Chinese. My husband is Thai, and fluent in English. I am an English speaking American, relatively well fluent inboth Thai and Chinese. We live 8 months a year in Thailand, 4 months a year in the US, and every year we travel at least twice to China. We decided we would speak to our children in English when we were together at home - we knew we wanted to send our children to an English medium international chool, do English fluency was our priority. When one of us were alone with one of our sons, I would speak English, while my husband would speak Thai. When we were out and about, or with one of our groups of relatives we would all switch into Thai, Chinese, or English depending on the public context or the preferred language of the grandparents present. 7:47
Sorry sent too soon... Our older, who now at 22 has very advanced verbal skills - writing debating etc, decided from age 6 months that he would be an English speaker. He demanded to be read to in English and watched Disney cartoons in English. As baby talk, he was always practicing pronouncing English language consonant sounds -- p t k sh st pr sk -- sounds that don't exist in either Thai or Chinese, so we knew he was practicing speaking English. At age 12 months, he started to speak English words -- fish and star -- were his first two words. And he insisted that everyone in our extended family pronounce these words clearly and correcty. By 20 months he was speaking full, long complex sentences, in English. At home he always has spoken English, speaking Thai or Chinese only when with a non-English speaking relative, or at a shop or restaurant. At school, he learned to read and write in both Thai and Chinese, but has never been so very interested in either language, except when he spent 6 months as an exchange student in China. Our second son, 5 years younger (same birth mother and father as his brother, so same genetics) also prefers to speak English, but is nearly native-speaker fluent in Thai and more proficient in Chinese than his brother. When he was a baby, his babble was full of distinctly Thai sounds. And from a young age, he spoie the language of context, not differentiating between different language speakers in the family, assuming that we, like he, could all understand and converse in English, Thai, and Chinese. Nature? Nurture?
Should add, our younger son was about 6 months behind the older boy in developing full sentence speaking fluency. Now at 18, he is as highly articulate as his brother
Also, should add that our older son was always attached devotedly to me, while our younger son is a "equal opportunity" child afffectionate with me, my husband, and others in the family equally.
An added complication is the abandonment of children who show signs of intellectual deficit as has been suspected in at least some feral of isolated (locked away in isolation) children. Acquisition of language *and* accents appear to have a window. Henry Kissinger's younger brother was just two years younger and came to the US from Germany at the same time but has no accent at all (so I am told).
Aw, Stephen Fry. Pretty surprised my algorithm( good god I guess I have one looking at the sad rescue animals I have pop up) hasn’t recommended him before. I’ll watch or read, anything by him. I’m actually torn between the two because watching him, he’s just so, idk, with that speech pattern. Both are..Clever? Witty? Victorian, but set now? But one thing I do understand, is how people used to think that Oscar Wilde, Disraeli, etc., Were, well, who they were. People have lost the art of descriptive language.
I found the way the parents were shown "teaching" their child to talk quite odd. Children learn far more from their constant immersion in language than having "wa-ter" sounded out slowly and modelling correct pronunciation is more effective than correcting mistakes. I was surprised a linguist studying language development would have that approach. Maybe it is an American cultural thing to focus on teaching rather than just modelling.
I hate it when people misuse terms from linguistics they don't really understand. When an infant babbles, just making sounds like "ba" and "ga", they're not "speaking in simple phonemes", they're not "speaking" at all, they're just making sounds. They don't know any phonemes, because they haven't yet acquired a language.
@@Jo-yp8wyA linguist would tell you that "ain't" is legitimate language, while a grammarian would tell you it's not formal register. According to linguistics, if any native-speaker would say it, it's legitimate and correct use of the language. For example, "runs uphill water the runs Tom" is not a natural utterance for any native-speaker. But "Tom ain't running" is natural and comprehensible to any native-speaker of English. Grammar and linguistics do not have the same criteria for what makes correct language. And correct grammar is just a subsection of the whole topic of speech.
I’d guess the actual child was naked. Where would he have found clothes, why would he think to wear clothes instead of wrapping a blanket or something around himself? Nowadays nudity, except in buxom young women, isn’t quite kosher especially for the delicate sensibilities of YT viewers
That was the 1970s, when people were far less prudish and more accepting of reality than they are now. Plus it was made in France, where people are less prudish and less afraid of reality than Americans.
Everything I’ve read over the decades have said, if a child isn’t exposed to speech before the year five, they will never speak a language. The twins that had their own language that no one could ever understand, after one passed the other took up with English I believe. They were in their 40’s or 50’s I believe? My grandson just spoke banana to me at four months of age. If I wasn’t recording it, I would not have been believed 😮😊
That is just rude. Good dang thing he wasn’t discovered by Americans: they would have taught him to threaten the Canadians and Danish and be as rude as possible. 🇨🇦
The most terrifying moment of my life (and I’ve had a very awful, violent life) was when I had a stroke in my early teens, and temporarily lost my ability to communicate with language. Could not agree more about how intrinsic it is. However, some animals I’ve known with speech capacity, cats in particular, only use language when they are desperate to make their needs known. The rest of the time they meow or use non verbal communication. So it is fair to say that language is only essential for humans.
I’m not certain that only humans use words or sound to communicate. Varied species of animals use their own language, dolphins communicate with each other, whales sing, etc.
It's belived by most psychologists that Victor was autistic. His behaviours were recorded in great detail and several of his behaviours were typical of autism. For example, he used to take the hand of his carer and lead him to what he wanted, instead of pointing.
In 1798 before the first use of the word autism, French physician Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard described Victor the Wild Boy of Aveyron, a young boy who was found after being isolated in the woods for 11 years, as being socially withdrawn in addition to having language and intellectual disabilities. He recognized Victor as being developmentally different from other children his age. Itard’s description of Victor’s tendencies would later be formally characterized as autistic (Itard, 1932). Jackman, A. and Zwaigenbaum, L., 2023. The history of autism spectrum disorder. In Neurodevelopmental Pediatrics: Genetic and Environmental Influences (pp. 215-226). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
One such case is Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron (c 1788-1828), a feral child who was discovered when he was about 12. Victor was taken to Paris, and his case was taken up by a young physician, Jean Itard, who tried to instruct him and repeatedly assessed his sensory, intellectual, and affective progress over 5 years. Edouard Seguin 12 (1812-1880), a pioneer of the education of children with intellectual disability, first in France and afterward in the United States, recounted the various diagnostic hypotheses discussed at the time. According to Seguin, Pinel had declared Victor “idiotic” and therefore uneducable; Itard, on the other hand, asserted that the child was wild and entirely untaught. Itard’s observations over the following years suggest that both diagnoses might have been erroneous and that Victor might have been a child with autism, abandoned by his parents. As Itard reports, Victor demonstrated aberrant requesting strategies like the use of hand-over-hand (eg, Victor once seized Itard’s hand and directed it to a locked door to ask him to open it), he was using others as tools to satisfy his needs, a hallmark of the clinical picture was his difficulty initiating and maintaining social relationships, and even though he learned letters and some spelling, he could not use this knowledge in a regular interaction with others.
Pinker: "Even if you could somehow have a personal internal language, it would be useless, because no one would know what you're talking about." All of the professional and amateur translators in the world: 🙄🤦♂ I will always love SF, no matter what. And I enjoy him. Steven Pinker is a wooly thinker; always has been. I've never cared for his demeanor.
@moonbeamchaos He's a faux-progressive neoliberal technocrat, an apologist for the dominant world order which is built on imperialism and inequality. Many of his ideas for solving the world's crises are simply a continuation along the same trajectory which caused those crises. Then he's also an advocate for potentially catastrophic geo-engineering stunts. Don't get me wrong, plenty of the ideas he espouses have great value. But he promotes enlightenment ideals while totally misrepresenting them. He focuses on quantitative data but often misrepresents it. He fails to recognise that 'progress' comes with not just positives but also negatives. He frequently criticises people for making valid criticisms. He's vehemently anti-degrowth, while constantly demonstrating that he hasn't even bothered to understand the concept at its most basic level. And Bill Gates thinks he's amazing, which is a huge red flag in itself.
That jar on the table with the brain wobbling in yellow liquid has no real function at all, it easily triggers disgust. It does not add to the conversation, in fact l got totally distracted by it. I wonder who put it there, l wonder why.
7:52 The pickled human brain and plasticized [plasticised?] brain cross-section are clearly there to establish Dr. Stephen Pinker as the Authority in the field of neuroscience. Just like the academic who conducts Zoom meetings in front of his bookcase, or the actor whose home interview happens to pan past the fireplace mantel sporting her two Emmys
The man in the striped shirt had me looking away. He looked like he ought to be in a Saturday morning show, waving his fist in the air at "those rotten kids!" Scary.
I’m not familiar with the Steven Pinker guy, I see people suggesting he’s not necessarily very well renowned, but I would already begin to question his academic rigour when he said the phrase ‘all gone sticky’ is 2 words haha
All gone were the two words he was referring to. Sticky is the state. Is Pinker the benchmark for his profession? That is a matter of opinion. Is he much more acquainted with the field than the Commentators in this thread? Yes.
I've been using TH-cam for over 20 years and today it recommended Stephen Fry's channel to me. It's the only decent thing TH-cam has recommended to me in over 20 years.
Greetings from Turkey Sir 🙏🙏
Better late than never!😊
Only came into existence in July 2024
@YusufPiskin : "I've been using TH-cam for over 20 years";
As of today (7 January 2025) two days after your assertion, quoted above:
"TH-cam" has STILL not been publicly active for a full twenty years as you seem to imply.
The only people who were engaged in any form of input into, or passive observation of its potential for use as an Audio/Visual sharing platform, 20 years ago, were those individuals who were still developing or testing
(what was eventually to become widely known as) "TH-cam" in the form of an early prototype that had not yet been released into the "public domain".
I reject your claim as being factually implausible or, at best,
a case of deliberate rhetorical hyperbole, the like of which is routinely used by the
mendacious Russian officials, who incessantly spout their ludicrous bullshit,
from their supposed safety within the "Kremlin".
@@jimhill4725 English is not my native language, just like over 7 billion people in the world… "Over 20 years, around 20 years…" That’s not the point here. If you got hung up on this part when I explained it, and English happens to be your native language, then maybe my English reading and writing skills are weak. However, my ability to comprehend English texts might just surpass yours.
@@YusufPiskin : ' "Over 20 years, around 20 years…" That’s not the point ';
It may not be YOUR point, but it's EXACTLY my point.
You CHOSE to post your comments (in English) about "Planet Fry's" eloquent English language video about the acquisition of language(s) in general.
You either use YOUR current choice of language to express your opinions accurately & truthfully, or you inadverrtently do so erroneously (and should expect to be corrected by those who know better),
....or you deliberately behave like a Russian (or even Recep Tayyip Erdogan) and knowingly spout a pile of drivel in the forlorn expection that someone might occasionally take your meandering remarks seriously, whatever language you're misappropriating.
No offence intended
(except to filthy Ruzzian war-criminals and their cronies).
If I could pick 1 person in the world to have over for dinner, it would be Stephen Fry. His knowledge is outstanding. ❤
Such an erudite and charming man, Stephen Fry. And also quite hilarious. First saw him in Blackadder many moons ago. Such a gift he has, and I love seeing him expanding into documentaries. The case of Victor is famous; it was included in one of my Psychology textbooks when I was in college.
I have a friend who's twin sisters, who would now be in their late 60's, were institutionalized due to mental and physical handicaps. ( I am not making a value judgement on this) They spent all their time together and therefore developed their own language. They had entire conversations in what everyone else called Gibberish. My friend was the first person to point this out. Everyone thought they were just making noises. Cher, my friend, learned to sort of map their language and made some headways into understanding them.
ok that’s metal as hell, rip to those 2
I wish I could see/hear them speaking their language, that is awesome. I wonder about all the similarities and differences it has to the language(s) that the twins were exposed to.
Mr. Fry is a gift.
My 7 yr old grandson came down stairs on Christmas morning to discover Santa’s snowy footprints and in his excitement he exclaimed ‘it’s a REVEALANT’ to describe his thought process . Clearly he made the word ‘revealant ’ up and it has now become our new perfect word for discovery.
Its a proof, an evidence revealed
Makes perfect sense to me
I have four grown kids and a mini vocabulary of kid created terminology. My husband and I still use many of them. It’s a fun family nostalgia.
Someone who struggled with english once said "I'm confusant". And I still use that.
@@theothertonydutch Hey sometimes you just need a new word, ya know?
Being fascinated with language, having the opportunity to observe my children’s language development was such a gift. I have always wondered why my children, and others’, would say, ‘My have it’… or ‘My do it’ instead of ‘I have it’ or ‘I do it’… or use their names, ‘Marcus have it’ or ‘Izzy do it’.
Before I had children, I used to marvel at other parents’ ability to understand the babble their children produced, and their clear disappointment when I couldn’t make sense of it. I imagine I did exactly the same to visitors in my own house when my children were at the babbling stage. 😊
I didn’t know Steven had a channel, I’m a big fan of his work.
his planet has a channel.
Dammit i adore Mr Fry. His talks on how catholicism is not a force for good was beyond great. Thank you sincerely for your hard work.
I don't agree with Stephen's opinions of Catholicism, but he is interesting to listen to.
Is that surprising coming from someone supportive of an apartheid ethno-state?
I guess he's not a music lover then.
Do you prefer Calvinism then?
@@julierozo¿Palistan?
This broke my heart - my son is 9 and still can't speak. Autism. I would love to watch these - I have great interest in linguistics and psychology - but i simply can't. :(
Ohh buddy. I'm sorry. I'll say this. I have a nephew who is non communicative. Well in the classic sense. He still speaks in his own way. Such a lovely boy. He likes Nina Simones music. Hope you have a nice long life together regardless of what may come.
I worked with non verbal children for years. The book “The Forbidden Experiment” by Roger Shattuck is a better way. As a parent, you know more than many so called experts.
I’m so sorry! But try to find the joy that he has in his own personality! No two people are the same and he has things that only he does, knows, communicates! You gave birth to him and that was special so just love him and keep trying. Seek help from everywhere you can too. There must be some in tune person who knows how to overcome this problem! Good luck to you both☺️
I feel you, my autistic son’s language is very delayed. It’s very painful.
He knows how to talk. He’s absorbed every single sound and word and meaning. He needs the proper environment. ❤
I’m autistic. I was diagnosed as retired. I did not speak until I was five and then I spoke in complete sentences.
Retired?
@@cynthiafisher9907the real word is probably a no-no for comment guidelines
@@bonnitaclaus2286 Oh! I’m on the spectrum too and things are seldom obvious to me. Thanks!
@@cynthiafisher9907 Pity it can’t be used now. The term actually means “slow” and there’s a similar word used in music that means “slow down.” However, being slow has somehow over time come to mean being unintelligent.
@@cynthiafisher9907 Likely typing on a phone and word suggestion misfired.
I would love to hear Stephen discuss the recent use of 'talking buttons' with dogs and cats.
That last “ expert “ is wrong.
“ All gone sticky “ is a perfect sentence that communicates precisely what the child wants to say.
I think that that _was_ his point - that the sentence that effectively communicated the child's thoughts came entirely from the child.
I’m an Autistic. Did not know how to speak until I was almost 4. When I did start talking it was said by my parents and doctors I skipped over the usual baby preliminaries and was already using complete sentences. My dad taught me how to read immediately and by the time I entered grade school I was reading at the third grade level.
For me, (autism/adhd) it developed normally. For a long time my diagnose was "add", then it was "add/pddnos" and finally it became a mix pf Autism/ADHD.
The only thing that really troubled me troughout my life was overwhelming situations and math.
2:10 Is it a correct conclusion that language needs to be learned from others just because Victor couldn't speak? Or is it more correct to say that language needs to be developed with others? You talk later about how children learn from their parents, but what would happen if an isolated group of feral children were raised together? I'm thinking of the case of the deaf children in Nicaragua who spontaneously developed their own unique sign language, and I wonder whether in a similar way a unique speaking language would be created by a group of isolated hearing children. (It does sound as though I'm advocating for one of those disturbing child-rearing experiments that some people in the 1960s were so fond of - I promise I'm not. This is purely a thought experiment!)
My guess has always been that little Victor had to be autistic and was abandoned for that reason.
We would not really need a spoken language if we were on our own, whereas if others are present and we are isolated, I suspect we would tend to develop a way to communicate.
Good thought experiment. :)
Also interesting, what are the thoughts of a person who has never heard language? Would they be visual, auditory or what?
@@aoc8548 I don't think I can agree with your first point. On one hand, we are a 100% social type of animal, there is no way most of us could ever have survived on our own. And on the other: there are plenty animals that are the solitary type, but still have a highly developed means of communication at their disposal. Just look at our cats... Besides, since it takes us years to reach the age of being able to take care of ourselves, as humans, in order to educate their children the parents always would have had a language of some sort to intereact with the kids.
And if you want to know what the thoughts of someone are like, who has never heard anyone speak, all you need to know is ask the first deaf person you'll meet, isn't it?
@@aoc8548: Not everyone who has language thinks in it. Some people have no internal monologue.
With nobody to communicate with he had no need to use that part of his brain, so it shut off and can't learn.
Someone born with strabismus needs to have it repaired before they're two, or their brain will never be able to use the eyes as intended. Once that part of the brain shuts off its off forever
Excellent, another very interesting video, thank you, Mr Fry.
Oh wow! Im a huuge fan
,so stoked to find u here! Yayyyyy🎉
Here from RobWords and quite touched by this beautiful tale. 😢
The physical structures used in sound making also develop during childhood. They develop differently according to the language learned, to accomodate the specific sounds and accents that the child is surrounded by.
My bilingual son has the 'voicebox' of a Frenchman and of an Englishman, and cannot be distinguished from either, but although I have been learning French for almost the same period of time as he has, I still cannot reproduce the accent remotely well because I didn't really start trying until I was adult and my vocal chords were "set".
And my French is still very faulty, while he has a Masters in translation... 😏
Good chance he was feral because he was nonverbal, rather than the other way around.
I thought this too. I remember reading about feral children years ago and thinking how strange it would be if a person could not speak. I was so ignorant. When my son didn’t develop language as expected I learned that there are lots of non verbal people and there are also a variety of ways people learn language. My son is now partially verbal and it’s lovely be is starting to be able to communicate his wants and feelings more easily.
Almost certainly, because by the time a child is old enough to be able to survive on their own in nature for some significant time, they would normally have started speaking long ago as long as they've had any exposure to language. And it's really unlikely that whoever raised them completely avoided communicating with them.
Of course it could be that some of the historical feral children actually knew a sign language if their parents were deaf or maybe a foreign language but that the doctors and priests who later tried to teach them language didn't even recognise their gesturing or mutterings as "real language".
Arise, Sir Stephen!
Well deserved and even a little late 😊 Congratulations!
I moved from the UK to Germany when I was seven. I can't even remember learning german. Fully bilingual now.
Has anyone suggested that perhaps Victor was an autistic child, abandoned quite late or perhaps run away (likely from abusive people)?
He had a severe scar on his throat,
New subscriber here hi .
Impossible for anyone to know really
I first learned the story of Victor back in the early 70s; never forgot what it means to the well-being of children especially in the early years.
Fascinating! Thank you 😊
My oldest son 'created' his own language. He would learn a word, then go through a sequence of made up words until he settled on one he chose, then that would be his word from then on. It was frustrating because he clearly could say the proper word from an early age, but created a language just because. By four he acquiesced and began using 'our' imposed language. He was our first born, so it was a bit puzzling for us new parents.
WE have 6 years olds in Canada who cannot speak. Dispite have both parents and living in a house. They are also feral. AS they are the BOSS in the house.
A propósito, alguns neurocientistas afetos a várias universidades chegaram à conclusão de que as estruturas neurológicas que codificam a música são filogeneticamente mais antigas do que as responsáveis por codificar a fala. Steven Mithen (autor do livro “The singing Neanderthals : the origins of music, language, mind, and body”) especula que , para os Neandertais, a música poderá ter sido a sua protolinguagem.
That is fascinating!😀 Thank you for sharing. 😊
I lost my hearing for about 18 months after I first started to talk and when it came back it was damaged. One thing I have always had trouble with was spelling due to not being able to hear clearly what each syllable sounds like. Effectively I have to memorize how each word is spelled without having the ability to fully hear why it is spelled that way...
Francois Truffaut made a film about this, The Wild Child. It is one of my favorite films.
We adopted our then 20 month old daughter from China. She had zero exposure to English and my wife and I cannot speak any dialect of Chinese. I was amazed that within a week of getting home, she was understanding English, and saying some common words.
Language is an anthropological, survival OPTION. Sure, you can learn it, but yout don't NEED TO. The proof is that you still communicate with those with whom you have shared words.
Suggested text on the acquisition of language: Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Philosophical Investigations".
8:50 Example: "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers."
2:18
th-cam.com/video/vlKGODy0q0I/w-d-xo.htmlsi=3z5kdvegH0RLnSmR
Exactly 😂
Fascinating insight - like many explanations on the QI show
What an odd opening. Never thought I'd see Stephen Fry lean to the right!
I think the feral children learned something from nature that has been replaced in our brains, that we long ago forgot. And that is why we can no longer remember, and probably why they would prefer to be as they were!
👏👏
Fascinating subject.
Wow holy pareidolia! That scowling face in the trees at the beginning right above Stephen’s head.
Was Victor's story the one told in FrançoisTruffaut's The Wild Child?
Yes
Thank you!
My sons were adopted by me and my husband at birth. They are half Thai half Chinese. My husband is Thai, and fluent in English. I am an English speaking American, relatively well fluent inboth Thai and Chinese. We live 8 months a year in Thailand, 4 months a year in the US, and every year we travel at least twice to China. We decided we would speak to our children in English when we were together at home - we knew we wanted to send our children to an English medium international chool, do English fluency was our priority.
When one of us were alone with one of our sons, I would speak English, while my husband would speak Thai.
When we were out and about, or with one of our groups of relatives we would all switch into Thai, Chinese, or English depending on the public context or the preferred language of the grandparents present. 7:47
Sorry sent too soon...
Our older, who now at 22 has very advanced verbal skills - writing debating etc, decided from age 6 months that he would be an English speaker. He demanded to be read to in English and watched Disney cartoons in English. As baby talk, he was always practicing pronouncing English language consonant sounds -- p t k sh st pr sk -- sounds that don't exist in either Thai or Chinese, so we knew he was practicing speaking English. At age 12 months, he started to speak English words -- fish and star -- were his first two words. And he insisted that everyone in our extended family pronounce these words clearly and correcty. By 20 months he was speaking full, long complex sentences, in English. At home he always has spoken English, speaking Thai or Chinese only when with a non-English speaking relative, or at a shop or restaurant. At school, he learned to read and write in both Thai and Chinese, but has never been so very interested in either language, except when he spent 6 months as an exchange student in China.
Our second son, 5 years younger (same birth mother and father as his brother, so same genetics) also prefers to speak English, but is nearly native-speaker fluent in Thai and more proficient in Chinese than his brother. When he was a baby, his babble was full of distinctly Thai sounds.
And from a young age, he spoie the language of context, not differentiating between different language speakers in the family, assuming that we, like he, could all understand and converse in English, Thai, and Chinese.
Nature? Nurture?
Should add, our younger son was about 6 months behind the older boy in developing full sentence speaking fluency. Now at 18, he is as highly articulate as his brother
Also, should add that our older son was always attached devotedly to me, while our younger son is a "equal opportunity" child afffectionate with me, my husband, and others in the family equally.
The house is beautiful and stimulating. Must be something there too?
BTW- new subscriber.
An added complication is the abandonment of children who show signs of intellectual deficit as has been suspected in at least some feral of isolated (locked away in isolation) children.
Acquisition of language *and* accents appear to have a window. Henry Kissinger's younger brother was just two years younger and came to the US from Germany at the same time but has no accent at all (so I am told).
When and what is this from? Some context would be good.
After watching Stephen Fry elaborate about the printing press: this is a sure thing to follow!
Aw, Stephen Fry. Pretty surprised my algorithm( good god I guess I have one looking at the sad rescue animals I have pop up) hasn’t recommended him before. I’ll watch or read, anything by him. I’m actually torn between the two because watching him, he’s just so, idk, with that speech pattern. Both are..Clever? Witty? Victorian, but set now? But one thing I do understand, is how people used to think that Oscar Wilde, Disraeli, etc., Were, well, who they were. People have lost the art of descriptive language.
I found the way the parents were shown "teaching" their child to talk quite odd. Children learn far more from their constant immersion in language than having "wa-ter" sounded out slowly and modelling correct pronunciation is more effective than correcting mistakes. I was surprised a linguist studying language development would have that approach. Maybe it is an American cultural thing to focus on teaching rather than just modelling.
My mother was most unhappy with my father because he constantly corrected my speech thereby depriving her of "cute baby babbling". Thanks, Dad!
Does Stephen Pinker always chat to folk with a couple of extra brains on his desk. No wonder he is so smart.
Of course language is a learned skill what kind of redundant question is that
That "brain in the jar" prop is macabre... didn't hear a word that guy said just wondering WHY that brain was there 🤔
Love it!
Brilliant
I hate it when people misuse terms from linguistics they don't really understand. When an infant babbles, just making sounds like "ba" and "ga", they're not "speaking in simple phonemes", they're not "speaking" at all, they're just making sounds. They don't know any phonemes, because they haven't yet acquired a language.
Does Stephen still check or reply to fan letters?
He gets tens of thousands a month. He just can't 🤷🏽♀️
Tens of thousands? It ain’t 1987
@@tomwesley1170 "ain't"? Really? When this is about speaking? 😂😂😂😂
@@Jo-yp8wyA linguist would tell you that "ain't" is legitimate language, while a grammarian would tell you it's not formal register. According to linguistics, if any native-speaker would say it, it's legitimate and correct use of the language. For example, "runs uphill water the runs Tom" is not a natural utterance for any native-speaker. But "Tom ain't running" is natural and comprehensible to any native-speaker of English. Grammar and linguistics do not have the same criteria for what makes correct language. And correct grammar is just a subsection of the whole topic of speech.
Talking? No. Communication. Yes!
Of course, as one's language is the same that of one's caretaker, it must be a learned skill.
The separate self is created through language
In the 1970 movie Victor was nude. Here he's dressed. Which one was it?
I’d guess the actual child was naked. Where would he have found clothes, why would he think to wear clothes instead of wrapping a blanket or something around himself?
Nowadays nudity, except in buxom young women, isn’t quite kosher especially for the delicate sensibilities of YT viewers
That was the 1970s, when people were far less prudish and more accepting of reality than they are now. Plus it was made in France, where people are less prudish and less afraid of reality than Americans.
@meh8982 maybe covered as the child actor cannot give true legal permission to be filmed naked.
Everything I’ve read over the decades have said, if a child isn’t exposed to speech before the year five, they will never speak a language. The twins that had their own language that no one could ever understand, after one passed the other took up with English I believe. They were in their 40’s or 50’s I believe? My grandson just spoke banana to me at four months of age. If I wasn’t recording it, I would not have been believed 😮😊
Children pick up words as pigeons peas and scatter them just as they please.
8:15
Fascinating. But what cruel twist of fate led Victor to be discovered ... by the French.
😆
Lmfao im about to pee laughing over that one
In America, he would be in a zoo.
That is just rude. Good dang thing he wasn’t discovered by Americans: they would have taught him to threaten the Canadians and Danish and be as rude as possible. 🇨🇦
@@heidit8009 Heidi, we might share a flag, but I was raised on British humour - the one gift US military or economic pressure can never take away.
The Wild Boy of Aveyron
That little girl is very pretty.
The most terrifying moment of my life (and I’ve had a very awful, violent life) was when I had a stroke in my early teens, and temporarily lost my ability to communicate with language. Could not agree more about how intrinsic it is. However, some animals I’ve known with speech capacity, cats in particular, only use language when they are desperate to make their needs known. The rest of the time they meow or use non verbal communication. So it is fair to say that language is only essential for humans.
I’m not certain that only humans use words or sound to communicate. Varied species of animals use their own language, dolphins communicate with each other, whales sing, etc.
Ravens have an extensive vocabularly.
you cannot detach nature from nurture - they are intertwined and we have known this for decades - gene expression is affected by environment
It's belived by most psychologists that Victor was autistic. His behaviours were recorded in great detail and several of his behaviours were typical of autism. For example, he used to take the hand of his carer and lead him to what he wanted, instead of pointing.
In 1798 before the first use of the word autism, French physician Jean-Marc Gaspard
Itard described Victor the Wild Boy of Aveyron, a young boy who was found after being isolated
in the woods for 11 years, as being socially withdrawn in addition to having language and
intellectual disabilities. He recognized Victor as being developmentally different from other
children his age. Itard’s description of Victor’s tendencies would later be formally characterized
as autistic (Itard, 1932). Jackman, A. and Zwaigenbaum, L., 2023. The history of autism spectrum disorder. In Neurodevelopmental Pediatrics: Genetic and Environmental Influences (pp. 215-226). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
One such case is Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron (c 1788-1828), a feral child who was discovered when he was about 12. Victor was taken to Paris, and his case was taken up by a young physician, Jean Itard, who tried to instruct him and repeatedly assessed his sensory, intellectual, and affective progress over 5 years. Edouard Seguin 12 (1812-1880), a pioneer of the education of children with intellectual disability, first in France and afterward in the United States, recounted the various diagnostic hypotheses discussed at the time. According to Seguin, Pinel had declared Victor “idiotic” and therefore uneducable; Itard, on the other hand, asserted that the child was wild and entirely untaught. Itard’s observations over the following years suggest that both diagnoses might have been erroneous and that Victor might have been a child with autism, abandoned by his parents. As Itard reports, Victor demonstrated aberrant requesting strategies like the use of hand-over-hand (eg, Victor once seized Itard’s hand and directed it to a locked door to ask him to open it), he was using others as tools to satisfy his needs, a hallmark of the clinical picture was his difficulty initiating and maintaining social relationships, and even though he learned letters and some spelling, he could not use this knowledge in a regular interaction with others.
Pinker: "Even if you could somehow have a personal internal language, it would be useless, because no one would know what you're talking about."
All of the professional and amateur translators in the world: 🙄🤦♂
I will always love SF, no matter what. And I enjoy him. Steven Pinker is a wooly thinker; always has been. I've never cared for his demeanor.
That's not what Pinker said though. Internal language is a different concept from "a private language".
B V gan stephen❣
No. He probably had autism
Oh good grief.Even Stephen Fry is now doing that ridiculous thing with his arms when he speaks.
What thing?
What a stupid thing to say!
@ The superfluous OTT gesticulation.
The year could have been given. Only a fool could not have thought of it
7:39 Steven Pinker is a terrible choice to be your hero.
Just curious - what precisely do you find objectionable about him?
@moonbeamchaos He's a faux-progressive neoliberal technocrat, an apologist for the dominant world order which is built on imperialism and inequality. Many of his ideas for solving the world's crises are simply a continuation along the same trajectory which caused those crises. Then he's also an advocate for potentially catastrophic geo-engineering stunts.
Don't get me wrong, plenty of the ideas he espouses have great value. But he promotes enlightenment ideals while totally misrepresenting them. He focuses on quantitative data but often misrepresents it. He fails to recognise that 'progress' comes with not just positives but also negatives. He frequently criticises people for making valid criticisms.
He's vehemently anti-degrowth, while constantly demonstrating that he hasn't even bothered to understand the concept at its most basic level.
And Bill Gates thinks he's amazing, which is a huge red flag in itself.
@ Thank you.
For a free Palestine?
That jar on the table with the brain wobbling in yellow liquid has no real function at all, it easily triggers disgust. It does not add to the conversation, in fact l got totally distracted by it. I wonder who put it there, l wonder why.
7:52 The pickled human brain and plasticized [plasticised?] brain cross-section are clearly there to establish Dr. Stephen Pinker as the Authority in the field of neuroscience. Just like the academic who conducts Zoom meetings in front of his bookcase, or the actor whose home interview happens to pan past the fireplace mantel sporting her two Emmys
It triggers interest and intrigue for me.
Because this program is all about you and what you want
@@bonniemerchant-jj4xswow, that was totally unnecessary
The man in the striped shirt had me looking away. He looked like he ought to be in a Saturday morning show, waving his fist in the air at "those rotten kids!" Scary.
I’m not familiar with the Steven Pinker guy, I see people suggesting he’s not necessarily very well renowned, but I would already begin to question his academic rigour when he said the phrase ‘all gone sticky’ is 2 words haha
All gone were the two words he was referring to. Sticky is the state. Is Pinker the benchmark for his profession? That is a matter of opinion. Is he much more acquainted with the field than the Commentators in this thread? Yes.
you would think the reenactment would have the boy with super greasy hair, and significantly warmer clothing in the dead of winter....
What's the sense of this video? This is so superficial..