#adult language acquisition

[cardiac-agreste]

The linguistic richness of Himawari House is incredible. It's a story about a girl whose family moved from Japan to the US when she was little, and now she's taking a gap year to reconnect with her heritage.

But her Japanese is weak from all those years fighting to assimilate into American culture. Her new flatmates include a Singaporean girl, a Korean girl, and two Japanese guys. The first two speak good English, while the latter two do not.

The way the author visually depicts bilingualism, a lack of fluency, dialects, accents, and the process of language acquisition is amazing and a WHOLE ASS MOOD.

I see so much of myself in this story since I, too, moved to Japan from the US with decent but not great Japanese, and come from a household where I had to re-acquire my family's language in adulthood with great effort to preserve my culture.

I can't recommend this graphic novel enough.

[joshuaalbert]

how it feels to get more than three notes on a post

[liltizzymandarin]

Website : https://www.liltizzymandarin.com

Address : Tullgårdsgatan 8, 11668 Stockholm, Sweden

Lil' Tizzy Mandarin, located in Stockholm, Sweden, is a premier Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning in Scandinavia. Offering a range of Mandarin courses for toddlers, children, teenagers, and adults, both in-class and online, the school is dedicated to promoting Mandarin learning and Taiwanese culture. With a team of experienced teachers, Lil' Tizzy Mandarin provides a friendly and comfortable learning environment, focusing on engaging, fun, and authentic content to ensure effective language acquisition.

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[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Children's Dialogue

Language is extremely complex, yet children already know most of the grammar of their native language(s) before they are 5 years old.

BABBLING

Babbling begins at about 6 months and is considered the earliest stage of language acquisition

By 1 year babbles are composed only of the phonemes used in the language(s) they hear

Deaf babies babble with their hands like hearing babies babble using sounds

FIRST WORDS

After the age of one, children figure out that sounds are related to meanings and start to produce their first words

Usually children go through a holophrastic stage, where their one-word utterances may convey more meaning

Example: "Up" is used to indicate something in the sky or to mean “pick me up”

Most common first words (among the first 10 words uttered in many languages): “mommy,” “daddy,” “woof woof,” “no,” “bye,” “hi,” “yes,” “vroom,” “ball” and “banana”

WORD MEANINGS

When learning words, children often overextend a word’s meaning

Example: Using the word dog to refer to any furry, four-legged animal (overextensions tend to be based on shape, size, or texture, but never color)

They may also underextend a word’s meaning

Example: Using the word dog to refer only to the family pet, as if dog were a proper noun

The Whole Object Principle: When a child learns a new word, (s)he is likely to interpret the word to refer to a whole object rather than one of its parts

SYNTAX

At about two years of age, children start to put words together to form two-word utterances

The intonation contour extends over the two words as a unit, and the two-word utterances can convey a range of meanings:

Example: "mommy sock" = subject + object or possessive

NOTE: Chronological age is NOT a good measure of linguistic development due to individual differences, so instead linguists use the child’s mean length of utterance (MLU) to measure development

The telegraphic stage describes a phase when children tend to omit function morphemes such as articles, subject pronouns, auxiliaries, and verbal inflection

Examples: "He play little tune" or "Andrew want that"

Between 2;6 and 3;6 a language explosion occurs and children undergo rapid development

By the age of 3, most children consistently use function morphemes and can produce complex syntactic structures:

Examples: "He was stuck and I got him out" / "It’s too early for us to eat"

After 3;6 children can produce wh-questions, and relative pronouns

Sometime after 4;0 children have acquired most of the adult syntactic competence

PRAGMATICS

Deixis: Children often have problems with the shifting reference of pronouns

Children may refer to themselves as "you"

Problems with the context-dependent nature of deictic words: Children often assume the hearer knows who s/he is talking about

AUXILIARIES

In the telegraphic stage, children often omit auxiliaries from their speech but can form questions (with rising intonation) and negative sentences

Examples: "I ride train?" / "I not like this book"

As children acquire auxiliaries in questions and negative sentences, they generally use them correctly

SIGNED LANGUAGES

Deaf babies acquire sign language in the same way that hearing babies acquire spoken language: babbling, holophrastic stage, telegraphic stage

When deaf babies are not exposed to sign language, they will create their own signs, complete with systematic rules

IMITATION, REINFORCEMENT, ANALOGY

Children do imitate the speech heard around them to a certain extent, but language acquisition goes beyond imitation

Children produce utterances that they never hear from adults around them, such as "holded" or "tooths"

Children cannot imitate adults fully while acquiring grammar

Example:

Adult: "Where can I put them?" Child: "Where I can put them?"

Children who develop the ability to speak later in their childhood can understand the language spoken around them even if they cannot imitate it

NOTE: Children May Resist Correction

Example: Cazden (1972) (observation attributed to Jean Berko Gleason) – My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. – Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? – Yes. – What did you say she did? – She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. – Did you say she held them tightly? – No, she holded them loosely.

Another theory asserts that children hear a sentence and then use it as a model to form other sentences by analogy

But while analogy may work in some situations, certainly not in all situations:

– I painted a red barn. – I painted a barn red. – I saw a red barn. – I saw a barn red.

Children never make mistakes of this kind based on analogy which shows that they understand structure dependency at a very young age

BIRTH ORDER

Children’s birth order may affect their speech.

Firstborns often speak earlier than later-born children, most likely because they get more one-on-one attention from parents.

They favor different words than their siblings. 

Whereas firstborns gabble on about animals and favorite colors, the rest of the pack cut to the chase with “brother,” “sister,” “hate” and such treats as “candy,” “popsicles” and “donuts.” 

The social dynamics of siblings, it would appear, prime their vocabularies for a reality different than the firstborns’ idyllic world of sheep, owls, the green of the earth and the blue of the sky.

MOTHER'S LEVEL OF EDUCATION

Children may adopt vocabulary quite differently depending on their mother’s level of education.

In American English, among the words disproportionately favored by the children of mothers who have not completed secondary education are: “so,” “walker,” “gum,” “candy,” “each,” “could,” “wish,” “but,” “penny” and “be” (ordered starting with the highest frequency).

The words favored by the children of mothers in the “college and above” category are: “sheep,” “giraffe,” “cockadoodledoo,” “quack quack,” the babysitter’s name, “gentle,” “owl,” “zebra,” “play dough” and “mittens.” 

BOYS / GIRLS

One area of remarkable consistency across language groups is the degree to which the language of children is gendered.

The words more likely to be used by American girls than by boys are: “dress,” “vagina,” “tights,” “doll,” “necklace,” “pretty,” “underpants,” “purse,” “girl” and “sweater.”

Whereas those favored by boys are “penis,” “vroom,” “tractor,” “truck,” “hammer,” “bat,” “dump,” “firetruck,” “police” and “motorcycle.”

Tips for Writing Children's Dialogue (compiled from various sources cited below):

Milestones - The dialogue you write should be consistent with the child's developmental milestones for their age. Of course, other factors should be considered such as if the child has any speech or intellectual difficulties. Also note that developmental milestones are not set in stone and each child is unique in their own way.

Too "Cutesy" - If your child characters are going to be cute, they must be cute naturally through the force of their personality, not because the entire purpose of their existence is to be adorable.

Too Wise - It’s true kids have the benefit of seeing some situations a little more objectively than adults. But when they start calmly and unwittingly spouting all the answers, the results often seem more clichéd and convenient than impressive or ironic.

Unintelligent - Don’t confuse a child’s lack of experience with lack of intelligence. 

Baby Talk - Don’t make a habit of letting them misuse words. Children are more intelligent than most people think.

Unique Individuals - Adults often tend to lump all children into a single category: cute, small, loud, and occasionally annoying. Look beyond the stereotype.

Personal Goals - The single ingredient that transforms someone from a static character to a dynamic character is a goal. It can be easy to forget kids also have goals. Kids are arguably even more defined by their goals than are adults. Kids want something every waking minute. Their entire existence is wrapped up in wanting something and figuring out how to get it.

Don't Forget your Character IS a Child - Most of the pitfalls in how to write child characters have to do with making them too simplistic and childish. But don’t fall into the opposite trap either: don’t create child characters who are essentially adults in little bodies.

Your Personal Observation - To write dialogue that truly sounds like it could come from a child, start by being an attentive listener. Spend time around children and observe how they interact with their peers and adults. You can also study other pieces of media that show/write about children's behaviour (e.g., documentaries, films, TV shows, even other written works like novels and scripts).

Context - The context in which children speak is crucial to creating realistic dialogue. Consider their environment, who they're speaking to, and what's happening around them. Dialogue can change drastically depending on whether a child is talking to a friend, a parent, or a teacher. Additionally, children's language can be influenced by their cultural background, family dynamics, and personal experiences. Make sure the context informs the dialogue, lending credibility to your characters' voices.

Sources and other related articles: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Writing Notes: On Children ⚜ Childhood Bilingualism More: Writing Notes & References

[german-enthusiast]

In my L1-acquisition class two weeks ago, our professor talked about how only 9% of the speech a baby hears is single words. Everything else is phrases and sentences, onslaughts of words and meaning!

Thus, a baby not only has to learn words and their meanings but also learn to segment lots of sounds INTO words. Doyouwantalittlemoresoupyesyoudoyoucutie. Damn.

When she talked about HOW babies learn to segment words our professor said, and I love it, "babies are little statisticians" because when listening to all the sounds, they start understanding what sound is likely to come after another vs which is not.

After discussing lots of experiments done with babies, our professor added something that I already knew somewhere in my brain but didn't know I know: All this knowledge is helpful when learning an L2 as well:

Listen to natives speaking their language. Original speed. Whatever speaker. Whatever topic.

It is NOT about understanding meaning. It is about learning the rhythm of the language, getting a feeling for its sound, the combination of sounds, the melody and the pronunciation.

Just how babies have to learn to identify single words within waves of sounds, so do adults learning a language. It will help immensely with later (more intentional) listening because you're already used to the sound, can already get into the groove of the languge.

Be as brave as a baby.

You don't even have to pay special attention. Just bathe in the sound of your target language. You'll soak it up without even noticing.

[thisisgraeme]

Empowering Success: Transformative Foundations of ESOL Teaching for Tertiary Educators in Aotearoa NZ – Part 1

xplore the foundations of ESOL teaching in this comprehensive course module. Learn about second language acquisition principles, cultural diversity, challenges, and integrating first languages. Enhance your teaching practice today.

I’m writing a series of modules on the foundations of teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). This is long overdue as I was an ESOL teacher for many years, but it feels good to be looking at this content again with fresh eyes. I have roughly six chunks planned which I will draft and post here like I normally do with new content: Introduction to ESOL Teaching (this…

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

Fic things I will never have enough of/get over:

“Oh no, they’re hot.”

“Great, now there’s two of them.”

See above but with more swearing and feelings of dread and impending doom

BAMFs with swords

Old wise person causing 90% of the chaos

“They’ve never met in canon.” “Actually, they’re dating.”

“They’re mortal enemies.” “Actually, they’re married.”

The keeper of the braincell

Sharing one braincell but they lost it

The cinnamon roll goes feral

Tiny feral child and their supportive, enabling, non-parental background adults

“I’m your problem now”

“Welp, guess I’m a parent now”

Accidental world domination

Competence

Competence kink

Calmly sipping tea while everything behind them is on fire

Trying to be a good, supportive adult but you have no point of reference so you end up giving a sword to a ten-year-old

Time travel

Person A and person B start dating and when they tell everyone persons C-Q are confused because haven’t they been dating for like three years now and persons R-Z thought they were already married

*does something previously thought to be impossible* “What, like it’s hard?”

Platonic besties that will help hide the bodies

Fake dating

Accidental baby acquisition

Accidental baby acquisition but they’re a middle-aged to senior adult with like five thirty-something-year-olds that are now their children

Crossovers that shouldn’t work but do

“I need help” “I’ll grab the shovel” “Not that kind of help”

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

Well-written non-canon pairings for characters that have other firmly established canon pairings. Like, fully alters the entire story line non-canon pairings. But done in a way that feels like a reasonable possible outcome.

A protagonist with a million problems to solve still taking the time to be kind

Forehead kisses

Time traveller going apeshit and fixing everything preferably in as Mary-Sue a way as possible

OP character who is oblivious to the fact that they are indeed OP

Character who spouts off increasingly concerning details of their life while not realizing everyone else’s growing concern or the fact that they’re probably about to be mother-henned for the next decade

Character who chooses a parental figure and informs said parental figure of this new development with little to no forewarning

Strong, stoic character is actually the most chaotic one there

Everything in the chaotic portion of the alignment chart

Getting back at a bad guy in as petty a way as possible

Time travel with two or more time travellers who don’t realize they’re not the only time traveller

The guy everyone thinks is going to beat up all the bad guys sitting back and watching the person previously believed to be as strong as an uncooked noodle absolutely demolish them

Any situation where characters play hot potato with a position of great power. “Congrats, you’re king now.” “Not if you can’t catch me, I’m not.”

Unexpected language skills

Unexpected skills in general, particularly if they’re as niche as hell

Two extremely competent individuals who lose all brain cells when within a close proximity of each other

Fixing problems on accident

Fixing problems on accident while actively trying to cause problems on purpose

Surviving primarily due to spite

[morbidology]

The story of Genie is one of the most tragic cases in the study of child psychology and linguistics. Genie's life began in conditions of severe abuse and isolation that left her profoundly affected. She had been born in Arcadia, California, in 1957, and was the fourth child of Clark and Irene Wiley.

Her early life was marked by extreme abuse and neglect. Clark Wiley, her father, believed she was mentally disabled and imposed a regime of isolation and deprivation on her from a very young age. For over a decade, Genie was confined to a small room, often strapped to a child's potty chair or bound in a sleeping bag, unable to move freely. She was deprived of normal human interaction, rarely exposed to light, and subjected to severe physical punishment if she made noise.

Genie's diet was restricted to baby food and liquids, and she was denied basic medical care and personal hygiene. The isolation left her with severe physical and mental disabilities. When she was discovered in 1970 at the age of 13, she could not speak, was severely malnourished, and had the social and cognitive development of a much younger child.

Genie was discovered when her mother, who had been partially blind, finally sought help and left her abusive husband. Authorities were alerted to Genie's condition, and she was placed in the care of the state. She quickly became the subject of intense study by psychologists, linguists, and medical professionals, eager to understand the effects of her severe isolation and deprivation.

Initially, Genie made remarkable progress. She began to learn to speak, although her language development never reached normal levels. Her case provided invaluable insights into critical periods in language acquisition and the effects of extreme social isolation on cognitive development. Researchers such as Jean Butler and James Kent, along with linguist Susan Curtiss, documented her progress meticulously, offering both hope and new knowledge about human development.

However, Genie's story is also one of ethical controversy and further hardship. As she moved through various foster homes and institutions, her progress fluctuated, often hindered by the instability and further trauma she experienced. The initial optimism surrounding her rehabilitation turned into disputes among the professionals involved in her care. Questions about the ethics of the research conducted on her arose, particularly concerning the balance between scientific interest and her well-being.

Eventually, Genie was placed in a series of foster homes, some of which reportedly subjected her to further abuse and neglect. The promising advances she had made in her speech and social skills largely regressed. As of the last reports, Genie resides in a private care facility for adults with disabilities, her exact location and condition kept confidential to protect her privacy.

[max1461]

another linguistics question, do you guys make distinctions between the accents of non-native speakers and accent from within the native speaker group? if so, how do you tell yhem apart, and what are some distinctions between them? I assume there's some kind of structural difference between the two

Yeah, so the first thing I should clarify here is that there is no technical difference between a "language" and a "dialect". Linguists often use the term "language variety" to be maximally clear on this point. French is a language variety, Bavarian (traditionally called a dialect of German) is a language variety, California English is a language variety. One language variety can be part of another: California English is a variety of English, "English" itself being a broader variety with many sub-varieties. We might further split California English, perhaps into Southern California English, Northern California English, and California Central Valley English, or some such. In the extreme, we can look only at the speech of an individual person; this is called an idiolect. Every human being who speaks a language speaks in their own unique idiolect, which differs from the speech of other humans in various ways. An idiolect is also a language variety.

Now, linguists do make a distinction, a very important distinction, between native and non-native speech. Roughly, a native speaker is someone who acquired a language by exposure during childhood. They were not explicitly taught the language, but picked it up by virtue of being surrounded by people who speak it. Human children seem to have various sorts of special cognitive mechanisms for acquiring language in this way, many of which we lose as we get older. This early period of life in which humans are primed for language acquisition is called the "critical period". There is a lot of debate about what exactly defines the critical period and when it ends (it's more of a gradual taper than a sharp cutoff), but there is basically no debate over the idea that children and adults have at least some fundamental differences when it comes to language learning. A non-native speaker, then, is someone who learned a given language in adulthood, after the critical period of language acquisition.

When linguists speak of a language variety, by fiat they take that variety to be defined by the speech of its native speakers. That is to say: the grammar of English is defined to be that set of rules which describes the speech of native English speakers. Where different varieties of English disagree, a thorough descriptive grammar will make note of that variation, and researchers will zoom in and study on its own terms the grammar of each relevant sub-variety. Every human is, by definition, a perfectly fluent speaker of their own idiolect in any language they acquired during childhood.

So, you asked about the difference between native and non-native "accents". In light of all the above, there are two differences:

First, there is the difference between native and non-native speech in general. Non-native speech is characterized by certain artifacts of the adult language learning process, including carry-over from one's native language(s), which broadly do not affect native speech. Thus, a non-native "accent" is different from a native "accent" in various empirical ways which are pinned down and studied in the field of second language acquisition.

By virtue of the way we have set our definitions up, above, native "accents" differ from non-native ones in that a native "accent" is in fact synonymous with a language variety; rather than being an imperfect specimen of some predefined standard language, it is a definitionally perfect exemplar of a particular linguistic system in its own right.

You could, of course, take up the linguistic system represented by the speech of some adult learner as an object of study in its own right, and some people do. But by and large, the standard which is taken up in linguistics is "language varieties are defined by the speech of their native speakers". I think this is a quite reasonable place to draw a line, especially in light of the empirical differences, as mentioned, between native and non-native speech.

[paper-mario-wiki]

apologies if this question has been asked before, but how did you go about learning japanese? I want to learn, but don't know where to start besides learning hiragana/katakana so i can actually read

that's a tough question! because i dont really know how to quantify my japanese (it's not much, broken conversational at best, completely illiterate at worst), which is mostly due to how infrequently i study.

i can tell you one thing though, most people who learn language are trying way too hard to use their conscious mind to translate their mother tongue into their target language, and vice versa. to become fluent in a language, you must be able to speak it unconsciously. when you speak english (or any other language you know well), you're not needing to think about the things you say before you say them, right? and you also don't control the words being said by people in your dreams, right? that's because your brain understands the language as a tool for comprehending the world around you. that's why language immersion is so important. you have to have constant reinforcement that the color of the trees is 緑色, and that 緑色 means this color. the word "Green" should not come up even a single time in your mind.

this is the most important thing ive learned in language acquisition. you will not start by speaking adult japanese, or adult spanish, or adult german, or adult english. you always start by speaking baby language. even if you're only able to use the language in a broken way reflexively, if you keep it reflexive and keep training it through constant input, your skill will only become more and more refined.

hope this helps.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

So, fun detail I just noticed about Megamind:

Famously, throughout the film Megamind mispronounces certain words, most notably: "hello" ("olo"), "Metro City" ("Metrocity") and "school" ("shool").

Like many fans, I'd attributed this and other oddities— like not knowing what a window is— to his unconventional upbringing and general social isolation. His speech sounds a lot like the way people pronounce words that they've only seen written down, so maybe he just hasn't had enough practice talking to other people out loud.

Lovely theory, very angsty, makes sense that this would be what the film-makers intended.

Except…

You know who doesn't seem to have this problem with pronunciation? And who in fact attempts to correct Megamind's pronunciation of various words more than any other character?

Fucking Minion.

Minion was there for literally every step of Megamind's childhood. They were raised on Earth together and went through seemingly the exact same experiences. Yet somehow Minion came out the other end knowing how to answer the phone and what a window is and why people use codes, while Megamind didn't.

And I am just so fascinated as to why.

Top three theories:

1. Megamind isn't actually mispronouncing words due to lack of practice, but rather for some other reason.

Maybe there's something up with his ability to hear certain sounds, or his alien anatomy makes it harder to pronounce them. Maybe he's neurodivergent (I mean, he definitely is, but maybe that fact is affecting his speech).

2. Megamind is mispronouncing things due to lack of practice, but there's something about Minion that makes him need less practice to pick up new languages.

Possibly as part of their protective role, his species has advanced language acquisition programmed in so they can act as translators. Else, while Minion and Megamind landed on Earth together, it's not 100% clear whether they were actually at the same age/developmental stage when that happened. If Minion was an adult (or older child) when he became fluent in English, he might have consciously focused more on accurate pronunciation than Megamind did.

3. Megamind is mispronouncing things due to lack of practice, but Minion is getting more practice than him.

This is… honestly the theory with the most evidence behind it. Like, we know that Minion isn't in jail at the start of the film, so he's clearly mot spending the same amount of time in solitary confinement that Megamind is.

He also appears to be in charge of providing Megamind with the resources needed to carry out his plans, which would presumably require him to communicate with scrap merchants, crocodile breeders and Romanian outlet store owners (among others) on the regular.

And like… if he's not getting thrown in jail whenever Megamind does, and Megamind is spending a fair amount of time on the inside, then Minion has to be doing something to pass the time. He's clearly a bit of an extrovert, and seems to take more pleasure in interacting with people than Megamind does.

It seems unlikely that he'd spend all his time sitting in the Evil Lair waiting for Megamind contact him or escape. So what does he do?

I find it both sweet and hilarious to imagine that Minion actually does have his own social circle outside of Megamind.

Minion goes to DnD on the second Tuesday of every month.

Minion gets advice on making costumes for Megamind from his weekly sewing circle.

Minion has been going to university online for the past eight years and is currently working towards his PhD in Marine Biology.

Minion is a semi-regular at Metrocity Night Clubs.

Minion does volunteer work sometimes with kids at the Metrocity hospital.

Megamind has barely any idea about any of this. Like, he knows Minion goes places at various times.

He knows that when he's rampaging through the streets Minion will sometimes stop to wave hello to various people that Megamind has never met. He's seen the half-orc paladin costume that Minion made for DnD.

But he's never really asked about it, and Minion has never seen the need to tell him. So long as Minion's happy, Megamind's happy, and so long as Megamind's happy, Minion is happy.

Meanwhile Roxanna, post-movie, has to grapple with the fact that sometimes she'll go to visit her boyfriend only for him to ask if they can go out for dinner instead because Minion's book club is meeting in the Evil Lair, and he's been gently encouraged not to come back after what he said to Helen about her (wrong) opinions on To Kill A Mockingbird.

[mehilaiselokuva]

How much time 🪂 did it took you to learn Finnish?

To quote the Knowable Magazine:

"Children go from babbling, starting by about 6 months, to speaking their first words around the age of 1, to forming full sentences by their third year. This process, known as language acquisition, happens with hardly any structured adult guidance."

Hope this helps! <3

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

On the language debate, I personally headcanon that the main language spoken at NRC is a common one. (?) (Like how English is the business language, or like how generally Native Americans had a common language that they spoke when trading with other tribes.) And Crowley or the Mirror used magic so that You was temporary fluent in that language.

After the ceremony, Yuu has to learn the common language and picks it up really fast (as one would in such a situation). Therefore, Yuu can still speak it when away from NRC.

(I also headcanon English as an ancient language akin to Latin, because I heard that Arabic was canonically an ancient language.)

[Referencing this post!]

I’d buy that everyone at NRC speaks the common language to some level of proficiency; it’s like how international students typically need to speak the language of whichever country they hope to study in and need to prove their fluency in an exam beforehand. As I said in the original post, the light novel does mention a translation spell over the school, so maybe that’s part of the “magic” that helps Yuu to understand what the others are saying.

Now, it’s theoretically possible for Yuu to learn the common language of Twisted Wonderland in a year, but I don’t think immersion alone would cut it (especially since the main story is only up to like 2/4 to 3/4 of a year so far) . They’d probably have to put in significant effort outside of everyday conversations to pick up its rules (because remember that language isn’t just vocabulary but also grammar, syntax, and social conventions). Yuu would also need consistent feedback from people since that’s how one usually “fixes” their incorrect language use. It’s similar to how adults would correct a child learning their first language; ie a kid says “wadur” instead of “water”.)

One site I looked at suggested that, depending on the language categorization (I, II, III, of IV), it can take 24-92 weeks’ worth of time to become an “advanced” speaker. Realistically, just getting to the basic conversational level could be hundreds or thousands (700-2500+) of hours on its own—and Yuu has to do this on their own time between homework, going to classes, and managing all the issues that Crowley doesn’t 💀 To me, that doesn’t sound like a lot of free time. Counterpoint to my own point though, we also have to consider that Yuu is... well, technically Yuu can be any age you want, but most Yuus are implied or portrayed to be 16-18. The critical window for language acquisition is theorized to be anywhere from the first three years of life up to as late as 17-18 years. After this critical window, the ability for language development tapers off. So, thinking about that, Yuu's brain could still be very pliable and able to absorb new language (though they'd have to work quite intensely to pack in as much as they can before this ability starts to decline).

Something that I feel would be difficult for Yuu is that the characters often use slang (Cater, Floyd, Idia, etc.) and/or uncommon words (like Vil’s “pulchritude”). The former may not follow the standardized rules of a language or may be idioms (other non-literal meanings for common words), which could make it hard for a non-native speaker to understand. The latter would not be used that often, so Yuu would be forced to guesstimate what the word means. I’d imagine this would make fluency challenging, because as immersed as Yuu is in Twisted Wonderland, less frequently used words are harder to grasp.

Maybe Crowley cast a translation spell ON Yuu so that they can still converse with people in the common tongue whenever they leave NRC? Or, since the events basically occur in an AU, more than a year has passed so it has allowed Yuu more time to absorb the language. Language in TWST and how it works… It’s really interesting to think about!

[minecraftbookshelf]

One of the fun worldbuilding things I’ve been doing is figuring out how the different species life cycles work.

Like, humans are humans

Seafolk(mostly) hatch from eggs directly into a sort of toddler/older toddler stage. They have full mobility and gross motor skills and quite a few fine motor skills. Most species begin language acquisition while still in the egg, which is why it’s so important that they are cared for and spoken too in that stage (see: why Joel is kind of concerned that his new wife is maybe a little bit either crazy or possessed by a cursed artifact because she spends so much time sneaking away to go talk to and cuddle a vaguely glowing orb)

From there they usually grow very rapidly, reaching physical maturity in about half the amount of time it takes a human (this timeline does not apply to demi(?)-gods, who might, for example, be the equivalent of a pre-teen for a few hundred years at a time, to use a totally random example that has no bearing on the actual story at all 😇)

A lot of seafolk species don’t stop growing either, even after they reach maturity, growing larger and larger as they age. At all stages most Seafolk tend to both be fully capable of independent function and survival, while preferring to remain within a community and work together.

Most of these also apply to the Swamp Inhabitants, other than like, the witches.

And some more reptilian hybrid species or mollusk hybrid species.

-

Elves I took some inspiration from deer and combined it with Tolkein. Elves have very long childhoods, but their children are rarely seen, since they are fairly secluded for the first 60-70 years or so. During this time they do not tend to be very active and are quiet and mostly cling to their parents. They have a safe space, usually their room or a specific place in the family home and they Do Not leave that space. They are incredibly reliant on their parents during this time. Finding an unattended elvish child is a sign that something is Deeply Wrong. (Don’t think about smol bb Scott finding refuge in snowbanks nothing to see here :) )

After this stage they hit the development approximating puberty for humans (and it does have some of the same facets) and begin growing their antlers. Then they will begin to venture out of the home and into the greater world. This is also when ideally they begin socializing and engaging in the cooperative play and work. They tend to be very high energy and are usually raised extremely communally at this point, basically corralled together and passed from adult to adult in supervision shifts. It’s a stage that is entirely about building bonds with their peers and the adults around them. (Unless of course they never actually had a true safe space during their early development and so were never psychologically prepared for this stage and don’t deal with it by isolating :) )

That stage passes relatively quickly, lasting only 20 years or so and ending usually between the 90-100 year mark at which point their antlers mature beyond prongs and they are considered adults. (But like, baby adults. College kids. You don’t rate adulty-adult until you’re at least 150, which is usually also the age where courtships begin happening.)

[ozzgin]

Professor Payne reacting to finding pickles daughter in the salt with him. Also his reaction to the daughter hunting and bringing back an unconscious Katsumi back to her father. P.S what would the daughter be called?

Professor Payne would most likely be excited to see an ancient human in a different stage of life from Pickle. Having a sample of both adult and juvenile variations (especially male/female) allows one to determine the growth rate, development, differences in biology and many more things. From a scientist’s perspective he’s hit a gold mine. Instead of vague guesses and statistical hypotheses about the evolution of prehistoric humans, he has the concrete possibility of a longitudinal study that’ll give him most answers. Another advantage of a child specimen is that - at least in the case of modern humans - language acquisition is at its peak. A child’s brain will absorb lexical structures like a sponge. While Pickle might struggle to accommodate and require years of training for articulate speech, his daughter could master it in half the time or less. It’ll definitely remove some of the barriers in communicating with the Jurassic guests.

As for the latter scenario…I’m going to assume that Katsumi was caught off guard or was already in a vulnerable state. Pickle and his daughter are strong alright, but I wouldn’t go as far as to have Katsumi defeated into unconsciousness by a literal child. The poor man has his pride and value. Let us give credit where it’s due. Dr Payne would most likely have his sedating team on standby in case Pickle actually goes along with the offering, but I suspect Dad might not enjoy having to be fed by his own daughter. He’ll express his praise, but reassure her that she can rely on him still. She shouldn’t hurry to grow up. There’s a time for everything and for now she can allow herself to be spoiled by her dad.

I remember @rottmntrulesall discussing her name ideas for Pickle’s children and (Y/N) and I liked the suggestions, so I might leave the creative process to her (or anyone else interested for that matter). What would be a fitting name for Pickle’s daughter?

[queenofzan]

baffling to hear native japanese speakers uncritically repeat absolutely bonkers myths about their children with no basis in reality

"oh japanese children use their own name as a first person pronoun more often because that's how adults talk to/about them"

nice folk linguistic theory, be a shame if that was...completely unsupported by childhood language acquisition in every other language. which it is.

japanese children acquire this pronoun usage because this is a valid japanese pronoun usage. english speaking children do not acquire this pronoun usage because it is not a valid pronoun usage in english.

I WOULD BE INTERESTED in seeing if this IS the case in other languages with relatively "open" pronoun cases, because the way japanese has many first person pronouns and they come in and out of fashion and are just part of code-switching in japanese is not unique, but it is unusual afaik (with the caveat that. i'm an english speaker in a white western country and most of my linguistics teachers were white people speaking english + romance languages or english + germanic languages)

but to claim this is japanese children incorrectly projecting out a grammatical feature in a way no other children fuck up is...puzzling. weird thing to claim. weird way to feel about your language group's children?