2020/1 PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

Wild and isolated children and the critical age issue for language learning

It seems that people have always wondered about whether language is something that is as natural to humans as walking and smiling. They have also wondered whether, even without experiencing language, children are able to produce speech on their own. People are still very much interested in these and in other related questions as well, such as whether there is an age beyond which a person is unable to learn a first or a second language. Since ethical considerations today should deter scientists from conducting language deprivation experiments with children, scientists have been on  the lookout for cases that occur naturally, so to speak, i.e. without their intervention, such as through peculiar circumstances or the perversity of human behaviour.

Over the past few centuries there have been a number of reported cases of children raised by wolves, dogs, pigs, sheep, and other animals. (A fascinat- ing collection of such cases is described in Malson’s 1972 book Wolf Children.) These children are known as wild or feral children. There are even more recent stories about children being raised by animals, such as the account of two girls raised by wolves in India (Singh and Zingg, 1942), and the recent  cases of Ukrainian children who survived with dogs (discussed later in the chapter). On a different level, there are cases of children who have been kept in confinement or isolation by their parents or others, and consequently were not exposed to language. Studying such cases might provide insight into certain psycholinguistic questions.

1.1             Victor: the Wild Boy of Aveyron                   

Scientific investigation into the matter of wild children increased dramatically in January of the year 1800 when a boy was captured by hunters in the woods near the village of Saint-Sernin in the Aveyron district of France. (For detailed accounts of Victor see Lane, 1976, and Shattuck, 1981.)

The boy appeared to be 11 or 12 years old, was naked except for what was left of a tattered shirt, and he made no sounds other than guttural animal-like noises. He seemed to have survived on his own for years in the wild. Probably he had been abandoned originally, but at what age or by whom could not be ascertained.