How Infants Crack the Speech Code

scupper writes "Infants learn language with remarkable speed, but how they do it remains a mystery. New data shows that infants use computational strategies to detect patterns in language, according to UW's Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl in the Nature article "Early Language Acquisition: Cracking the Speech Code" [PMID: 15496861] Interesting excerpt from the article: 'There is evidence that infants analyse the statistical distributions of sounds that they hear in ambient language, and use this information to form phonemic categories. They also learn phonotactic rules -- language-specific rules that govern the sequences of phonemes that can be used to compose words.'"

Comments

Doesn't explain

[vivin]

It doesn't explain why they pick up swearwords much easier than normal words :)

ga ga goo goo.

Re:Doesn't explain

[NatasRevol]

Actually, my 3.5 yr old son is in his mimicing stage right now.

However, he seems to realize that he shouldn't repeat some 'bad' words that we use. He has never mimiced any curse words that he has heard, yet can spew whole phrases about what I'm telling my wife to do :-)

Re:Doesn't explain

[stanmann]

And THAT, is why you should lock your bedroom door. :)

Re:Doesn't explain

[Bloater]

Same reason people swear the moment they hurt themselves. Small children are pissed off.

They can't walk properly, they can't put objects where they want them, they can't stop themselves from pissing or worse. And above all, they keep getting picked up. You'd want to swear under those conditions.

Not all infants

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, George W Bush is 57, and he's still trying to learn English.

The Matrix

[RomSteady]

So in other words, if we create a Beowulf cluster of infants, and only allow them to hear sounds from "The Matrix" trilogy, the only words they would be able to say would be, "Keanu Reeves can't act?"

Sounds like a plan to me. [grin]

Someone needs to do something

[SeanTobin]

This is a problem. Children, not only in the US but all across the world are using simple statistical analysis to break and decypher our national language. Nearly all of our nuclear, biological, chemical, and conventional weapons are created and deployed using this language. We must act.

But what can we as a nation do? We do not need any additional laws, we must only enforce the laws we have. Reverse engineering of this and other national secrets is strictly forbidden by the DMCA. Just because they are minors doesn't mean we can't sue them.

Explains a lot

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

'There is evidence that infants analyse the statistical distributions of sounds that they hear in ambient language, and use this information to form phonemic categories.

No wonder babies are so socially awkward, they're statisticians.

Yeah

[DoctorHibbert]

That's pretty much how I remember learning to talk.

Re:How'd they figure this out?

[selderrr]

nope. They took a functional baby and analyzed its core dump :-)

What they dont explain

[antifoidulus]

is how Stewie can speak with a Rex Harrison accent and an articulate vocubulary depsite living in Rhode Island with a bunch of people who aren't exactly geniouses......

Re:grammar

[Haydn Fenton]

"FYI, infants do something early in life called "saying their first word"."

You must be new here. Here at slashdot we teach our young to do something early in life called "getting their first 'first post'". It earns them respect for many months onward and gives them time to culminate an emotional system, although it wont be used much, apart from to feel anger, disappointment and astonishment at the rate of articles with old or duplicated, often even multiple times, content. Oh, and not to forget jealousy and awe towards what we here call "pr0n". Then a few years down the line they learn how to type one handed and structure not only sentences with words consisting of 40 or so phonemes, but also 10 numerical digits, for example;

"7h15 c4k3 15 t45t3y m4n!!1!"

Although this habbit is soon dropped at later life when they realise how lame it looks, and how difficult it is to read. It is around this time that the child becomes aware to Microsoft's evil scummy contribution to the world and Linux/Mac gains another trusty young, propeller-headed, google-loving, virgin fanboy.

Re:Maybe that explains...

[chinton]

Speak for thouself...

Re:And for parents

[robsteele]

Not sure what the hell "la la da ta bwa bwa" means.

It means "I'll have what the dog is having."

Re:Confirms a suspicion I've had all along

[Random_Goblin]

Yeah, we're probably setting her up to get ostrasized in school, but then again, if she'd just pick up on some of those fighting techniques, that might not happen either!,

Indeed! Once she can master shooting fireballs from her fists and jumping over buildings, i doubt she'll have much trouble in kindergarten!

Re:How about children with two native languages?

[Lord Kano]

English and Malayalam are two radically different languages -- in sound and in grammar.

How do you say "Palindrome" in Malayalam?

LK

Introducing OEDSource

[xixax]

The Oxford English Dictionary Shared Source Programme, OEDSource.

We have invested huge amounts of Intellectual Property developing language as a tool that has greatly enabled the progress of science, literature, engineering and more. It is absurd that there aren't stronger safeguards to protect this investment and ensure that the rightful owners of this work are properly compensated for the benefits spoken language has brought to society.

As a Commonwealth nation with clear links to the United Kingdom, who originally developed English, we plan on vigorously enforcing our IP in this matter. We will give all US citizens a one-off opportunity to acquire English language licences, and thereby protect themselvs against future litigation. Conversational licences will cost $699 USD per node, whilst professional vocabulary and group discussion licences will start at $1399 per node.

Developers of slang or jargon will need to purchase our development tools, as will developers engaged in porting of forgeign language words into our core infrastructure.

We will be subpoena Webster's dictionary, and demonstrate that it contains millions of practically identical entries to the Oxford English Dictionary dictionary that we acquired when we bought our constitution from the United Kingdom.