Re: OT: Helen Keller & Whorf-Sapir

Carsten Becker wrote:

> Hello!
>
> On Thursday 12 August 2004 01:46, Caleb wrote:
>
>  > If this is the case, then I wonder what Helen
>  > Keller's perception of the world would have been before
>  > learning to communicate.
>  >
>  > 1) One possibility, I suppose, could be that she came up
>  > with her own sort of internal 'language', completely
>  > different and independent of English and unrelated to
>  > spoken words.
>
> Who is Helen Keller and why hasn't she been able to
> communicate? To come up with an own language, you must have
> lived a while, so AIUI you cannot have meant the time where
> she has been a baby.
Here's her story: http://makeashorterlink.com/?F20312909

And it's not completely beyond belief that a group of people, or maybe
even just one, could come up with a method of communicating if given the
time, even if they had no prior knowledge of language. It's happened at
least once, after all: we all speak, and somebody had to invent it.

K.

--
Keith Gaughan -- talideon.com
The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

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