Genie: An Abused Child’s Flight From Science, by Russ Rymer. HarperCollins. 1993.
There are various discussions about language acquisition and linguistics in the book. On page 25, the author mentions accomplished linguists who work for Bible societies and travel to remote regions to "translate the Bible for newly discovered tribes." The next sentence reads:
"In a few hours' time they can be conversational in a new language, in a day or two they can be fluent, and after several weeks they can emerge from the jungle and begin at the Beginning in Hua or Yanomamo."
I found the above statement to be very startling. It seems like a remarkable skill to be able to be fluent in a new language in a few days.
Can trained linguists really learn new languages this quickly?
Thanks for any info you can provide.
There is a subject sometimes studied in linguistics programs called “field linguistics.” You learn the techniques necessary to go to a group of people speaking a little-known language and discover as much as possible about the language. It’s assumed that you have at least one informant who speaks a language that you know as well as the language you’re going to find out about. I think a reasonable goal is that starting from scratch with the language, within a year you can begin translating the Bible in that language. (It’s assumed that you will have already have created an alphabet specially for the language.) I use translating the Bible as an example because many of the people who have done this were missionaries who set out to translate the Bible into new languages.
This is a skill that can be learned, not so much a talent inborn in people. You would have had to have studied some more basic courses in linguistics already. Most people with degrees in linguistics would not be particularly skilled at this. I think the description given in the book you cite is exaggerated. I don’t think most skilled field linguists could work quite that fast.
Suppose our hypothetical linguist was so super-intelligent and familiar with general systems of syntax that they could understand the grammar of a new language within a relatively short period of time (a big supposition). Even then, it would be impossible to obtain a lexicon even near fluency within such a short period if for no other reason than learning new words from the language would require a vast set of experiences.
In any case, this term “linguist” is often misused in popular culture. A linguist studies linguistics, which may or may not entail studying other languages, or even studying the workings of the linguist’s primary language. Perhaps the most famous linguist, Noam Chomsky, studies neither–he primarily studies language acquisition (not English acquisition, or spanish acquisition, etc.). Hence, a linguist might actually be very bad at acquiring a second language.
Welln Hoshi in Enterprise can, but not in real life. Linguists do have an advantage in understanding how one language is related to another and how words vary in regular ways-- certain consonant shifts tend to be pretty predictable*. This would certainly facilitate the aquisition of languages, especially if they know a related one, but they’re not going to be fluent in any short period of time.
I have personal friends who have exactly that profession. It generally takes one of these extremely bright, trained people a year or so to become fluent in a given new language that is unrelated to any other language they already know.
They have an amazing “toolkit” of techniques for helping them learn, and they use them. And there are advisors (usually ones who have worked on two or more languages) who travel around as consultants, helping those currently studying a language. And they have an entire system of checking their work with both native speakers of a language and linguistics theory experts. One of the things they do to check accuracy is to take the text in the newly-written language and translate it back into English (Korean, Swedish), or back to the “original” (or at least the earliest versions available), and see if it still conveys the same meaning.
The entire process is highly - I might even say intensively - collegial, in that they try to have several (more is better) native speakers who have become literate in their “milk tongue” read the text and discuss its meaning, and they also consult with other linguists in their region working on related languages.
It’s worth noting that while most linguists probably do speak a second language, it is not necessarily the case that a linguist has to be fluent in any more than their native language. Many linguists don’t have the facility to conduct normal conversation in any language besides their first, even if they may have a more grammatical familiarity with quite a few languages.
Linguistics is a broad field, and depending what she’s studying, a linguist might well be working entirely on their native language. And while linguistics probably gives one the tools to learn a second language slightly more quickly, second language acquisition is an ability on its own that doesn’t necessarily correllate at all to knowledge of linguistics.
I have an MA in linguisitics and though I do not have any job related to the field–no, I do not have any ability to learn languages faster than anyone else. I am good with the theory behind languages–I can tell you lots of interesting facts about languages, and I have studied a few over the years. But I am not particularly good at any of them.
On the other hand, two people I went to grad school with could learn new languages very quickly. One managed to do it through complete anal retentiveness (reading in the target language and making vocabulary lists and diagrams of syntax); the other did it through sheer innate ability. (He was freaky. The office joke was, give him 10 minutes, he’ll give you a conversation in a new language.) But I don’t think their abilities came from being linguistis. I think what attracted them to the field was having these abilities.
I think a linguist’s language abilities are just like everyone else’s. Sadly, I may add.
The fastest language acquirer I have known is my brother, who received a PhD in Slavic Languages from Harvard. Once he learned Russian, he could easily learn other Slavic languages in days. He even spoke Old Church Slavonic.
For most languages, he taught himself thru total immersion and the aid of a book or two. He taught himself Norwegian (both types) in a couple weeks and then adapted it to Danish and Swedish in a few days. He also taught himself French and who knows how many other languages. (He also knew Latin from high school.)
So some foreign language experts, perhaps including some linguists, can learn languages quite quickly, but I doubt there are any that can learn a completely unrelated language in a couple days.
Learning your first language is always the hardest.
Learning a second language, especially as an adult, is a formidable challenge. Total immersion really helps, but isn’t essential to fluency. All one really needs (aside from the desire) is the opportunity to interact frequently in the target language with someone who is already fluent.
Once you’ve got two languages under your belt, the process of acquiring a third is a lot less daunting.
In short, the more languages you have at your command, the easier it is to acquire another. This is particularly true when the target language is of the same family as a language you already speak. I once knew a Cistercian monk who was originally Polish, but living in Budapest in the 1950s. He taught himself to speak Russian in a matter of weeks in order to escape from the Soviets, who were eliminating the intelligentsia of Hungary at the time. Oddly enough, he suffered from a stroke somewhere around 1986, and woke up in the hospital unable to speak anything but Russian.
The linguists who travel about learning nearly-extinct languages in order to translate the Bible (such as the Wycliffe Society) have probably already mastered different dialects that are extremely similar to the target language, and can therefore become reasonably fluent in a ridiculously short period of time.
My father spent his undergrad years at Harvard. While there, he was friends with a student who was taking Classical Hebrew (or possibly Koine Greek; I forget). The professor in this class was an ardent Christian; my dad’s friend was an atheistic Jew, and had an obviously disparaging view of the professors frequent pious claims that they were studying the language of God. This, along with the students immense laziness towards classwork, created a great deal of antagonism between the two, and the student was in great danger of flunking, despite being naturally proficient at languanges. In fact, the student was so proficient in languages, that in the days before the exam, he not only perfected his knowledge of the biblical language in question, but learned a bit of Aramaic and one or two other languages the professor knew. On the day of the exam, the student, in the middle of the test, suddenly sat bolt upright in his seat and bagan preaching in Aramaic, Hebrew, and whatever else he had picked up. The professor was convinced that the student had been baptized by the Holy Spirit and was speaking in tounges! Following his “conversion” all was forgiven, and the student passed with flying colors.
The question is what was meant by “conversational” and “fluent.”
Toss me into the jungle with motivation, aptitude and a cooperative and patient native, I could within hours, probably learn to say: I levdrakon. Eat. Hungry. Bird. You. I hungry eat bird. You hungry? Here, you eat bird.
That’s conversation, and could be learned within hours.
Fluent I have a problem with. In a day or two? That’s pretty generous.
I, as a native speaker of North American Mid-Western English, were to be tossed into a rural Appalachian community, I could within hours be very conversational and within days more or less fluent and could certainly translate the bible (but you wouldn’t want me translating the bible - fair warning) within several weeks. That’s because I already understand the language from which these Appalachian savages’ language has evolved.
