Re: Please welcome . . .

>> > Someone tried that with tlhIngan Hol. The child rejected it at the age
>> of 3.
>>
>> I remember that.  I wonder why the child rejected the language?
>> Does it
>> violate some universal that made the kid reject it as a valid language,
>> or did he pick up something from the attitude of those around him
>> indicating
>> that they didn't treat it seriously?
Learning a language is always hard, even for a child. Mastering any
language takes years. At the age of three, children can speak a bit of
their mother language. But they are still far from mastering it
completely. It will take some more years.

If the child is taught 2 languages at the same time, the begining is
even harder, and he will be at the beginning learning slower than the
avergage child. Until the age of 6 IIRC, when he catches up, the then
takes the lead.

The reason why a child learns a language is quite different from a
conlanger. He does it for the only sake of communication. Because he
needs it. If he is placed in a bilingual environement, he needs both
languages, so he will make the efforts needed to learn. But if he
discovers he can drop one of the language, and lose no communication
possibility, he will do it for sure. It is MUCH easier. No child is
masochist enough to do hudge pointless efforts willingly.

I a child is raised in, let's say, english and spanish, and he realize
that he never meets anyone that speaks spanish but not english, he will
most probably stop speaking spanish.

So i think that if the child you mentioned rejected tlhIngan Hol, it is
just that he felt it was to tiring to learn it. I doubt he ever met
anyone to whom he had to speak tlhIngan Hol to be understood. Neither
were they TV programms in tlhIngan Hol, and so on.

The day he rejected tlhIngan Hol, it had no influence on his
communication possibilities, but his life became a lot easier, not
having to spend so much energy in learning a language. Not such a bad
choice, in his point of view, isn't it?


Florian