Re: The Forbidden Expariment

"Alex C." wrote:
>
> Well, many of you are perhaps bold conlangers lucky enought to have just
> a conlanger as husband/wife. I admit I'd love to marry a conlang-freak
No such luck here. My husband is NOT a language person. We do,
however, speak a rather non-standard version of English in our
household, though.
For instance, "food" is "the foodins". "to eat" is "to have the
foodins". You don't take a bath, you have the baffins. We call
our dog named Gandalf "The Gandalfins". My infant daughter
usually wants "the nursins" before bed. And that is just for
starters. It is a miracle my kids can speak English correctly at
all.

> lady but I've never met one "in real life". I'm not married nor have
> children but I guess some of you share your lives with conlang-loving
> partners and have thought on the possibility of performing what I call
> "the forbidden experiment". I know this sounds somewhat like "final
> solution" or a Dr. Mengele experience but it's nothing to do with that.
> In ancient times the forbidden experiment consisted in keeping a baby
> away from human presence and see whether a sort of innate behaviours
> arise. That is, when we speak about language, to see if the child starts
> speaking a sort of non-taught language. The reason why this experiment
> is regarded as forbidden is obvious.
>
It seems from various bits of evidence that babies need to have
some language exposure to start on the language journey. I can't
see doing this to one of my kids though... I don't think I could,
since my urge to talk to them constantly is really strong. It's a
mommy thing.

My kids make up words for things all the time. I think all kids
do that, but I think that mine do it more because I do it, and I
don't discourage them or treat them like I think it is a "cute
little kid game".

> I have a new version of the FE (Forbidden Experiment). I wonder whether
> any of you has thought about teaching his/her conlang to his/her baby
> (apart from the national language, of course). I wonder if any of you
> has decided to achieve a "different" family in this way. I can see my
> son asking if he can go out with girls... in lojban!! (for example)
Lots of kids are raised with two languages, or in a
minority-language only household, and most of them seem to get
along pretty well. I don't think that it would be particularly
different if the minority language was a conlang. I have thought
about it, but I am not happy with my fluency in any one of my
conlangs.



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Mia Soderquist (tuozin@dmv.com)
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