Suppose a person who couldn't write or speak raised two babies into their adulthood, would the two raised people create their own language?

Emperor Frederick II allegedly tried that. Reportedly the children died.

I think the two children would continue to communicate in the same way as the person who raised them.

I think they would develop their own language and also communicate in the way the adult taught them to communicate. I think the language would be very basic though, consistenting of very few words, and minimal sentence structure, maybe not even sentences, but just one and two word commands and references to objects and to convey thoughts.

There is strong evidence that we have an inborn capability to learn language. There is no group of people that does not have language. All languages have sophisticated rules of grammar. Steven Pinker wrote about this in his book The Language Instinct. Noam Chomsky wrote about there being a universal grammar. I don’t know if the two children will necessarily develop a language, but any large isolated group of people will eventually create their own language.

I thought they born in their own village and culture, could quickly caputure every things and their own language around them.

There was a group of deaf kids in Nicaragua (I think) who did develop their own sign language.

@Nullo What I was going to say, exactly.

These kids (and some adults) all came from different places around Nicaragua without any formal language access and zero schooling and were brought together at a deaf school. Over time, they developed their own language. Linguists have been watching them for a long time because it’s the only modern-day birth of a language scenario that they can study. Also, the development shows that the desire to communicate is probably innate. If that’s true, imagine the visceral frustration of not being able to or allowed to communicate?

I find it interesting that these kids couldn’t develop language in their own hometowns. They couldn’t access the language of their community and their community didn’t make language accessible, but the minute they were with others with similar needs and desires, they created a language. Simply amazing.

I remember reading an article where this actually happened. A set of twin girls were raised by a grandmother who kept them fed but that’s about it. The girls developed their own language. Scientists studied them and their language, and tried talking to them in their own language, but the girls just stared at them with blank stares. They didn’t seem to recognize the language they had invented when it was spoken by someone else. Interesting.

@Skaggfacemutt Reminds me of the movie “Nell.” I wonder if the girls didn’t recognize the language spoken by the scientists because the scientists didn’t speak their language as well as they though they did?? I wonder if the girls had vocal inflections or intonations that the scientists couldn’t copy. Would be interesting to find out!

@linguaphile You can get the frustration by moving to a foreign country and neglecting to buy the dictionary. It’s one of the major stressors in culture shock.

Would the two babies being raised be related or unrelated? and if they are related, what would their relationship be? Sibblings, cousins, etc.? I think whether they’re related or not would make a difference, unless they’re unrelated and raised believing they’re related..just a thought. That’s a really interesting question.
Also, I wonder if they’d be more likely to create their own language if the one raising them didn’t try to communicate with them by showing them nouns.
Or, would it be possible for one to simply create a new language through the two raised children? As in, creating new words, or even sounds, for objects, and teaching them these words/sounds as they grew up? Instead of having the children create a new language, create one through them.. hmm..

Oh, and for what it’s worth, there was a set of female twins in England that had their own language, but some say they just spoke English at an incredibly fast speed, their names are June and Jennifer Gibbons. They only communicated with each other and their younger sister Rose. The twins had made a deal that if one were to die the other was to live life normally and communicate with other people, this was agreed upon after being put in a mental hospital-cant remember the name- for like 14 or 15 years..something like that. After they were released in the 90s Jennifer gibbons killed herself and her sister lived a normal life after. Kind of strange, eh?

@Nullo I think the major stressor would be missing the cultural nuances and unspoken rules. I know that was my breaking point when I moved to a different culture.

I found the article that I read. It was called Poto and Cabengo. Here is the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poto_and_Cabengo