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These two interpretations are being hotly debated in the case of language learning. Some scientists believe there is a critical period for language acquisition in humans—a biological clock that cuts off our ability to learn later on. The most dramatic evidence of this comes from the terrible natural experiments that create “wild children,” children
... See moreAlison Gopnik, Andrew N. Meltzoff, • The Scientist In The Crib: Minds, Brains, And How Children Learn
More importantly, making yourself an expert in another culture is not always appreciated by the members of that culture.
Tyson Yunkaporta • Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World
When a seventeenth-century missionary warned a member of the Innu tribe (in what is now Canada) about the dangers of infidelity, he replied, ‘Thou hast no sense. You French people love only your own children; but we all love all the children of our tribe.’15
Rutger Bregman • Humankind: A Hopeful History
It is not insignificant that the English language is 70 percent nouns, while Potawatomi is 70 percent verbs.
Perry Zurn • Curious Minds: The Power of Connection
The Interpreter
newyorker.com
En Afrique ou en Amérique du Sud c’est peut-être la langue de l’entourage, mais en Amérique du Nord la première langue parlée par un enfant c’est la langue de la gardienne.
Dany Laferrière de l'Académie française • L'art presque perdu de ne rien faire: Collection bleue (essai français) (French Edition)
Surprised the Terence McKenna admitted that Food of the Gods (which introduced the “Stoned Ape Theory”) was consciously a work of propaganda. This doesn’t mean he didn’t believe the theory, it just confirms that the main intention of the work was to change public opinion on drugs:
“Since I feel pretty much around friends and fringies here, it doesn’
This is one area in which early missionary or travellers’ accounts of the Americas pose a genuine conceptual challenge to most readers today. Most of us simply take it for granted that ‘Western’ observers, even seventeenth-century ones, are simply an earlier version of ourselves; unlike indigenous Americans, who represent an essentially alien, perh
... See moreDavid Graeber • The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
The Scottish writer James Kelman described the eloquence of unlettered people with a gift for language as ‘orature’, the capacity to compel and