Human communication is made of languages. Languages are made of words. Languages express different worlds and make possible human communication, interaction, understanding and development.

There is no exact explanation or evidence on how language is acquired.

Many scientists think that babies come to world having already a tongue: the mother tongue. They state that during pregnancy babies develop the ear sense and are capable to develop, acquire and repeat sounds and words they hear from outside.

Other scientists believe that we come to the world just with a physical and phonetic apparatus to be developed. This enables us to learn any language and not only the one from our mother.

Many studies and researches have been made to explain this complicated phenomenon but until today, there is not a consensus on it.

This is a really complicated topic since it entails not only the physical mechanism the body uses to pronounce a speech (mouth, tongue, nose, larynge) but also abstract explanations on how the brain acquires, organizes, selects words, images and retrieves important information and emotions for ever. What is well known is that all human beings possess the same neuro-physiological equipment with which to emit and receive sounds. (To this aspect I will point out just about one of the organs involved in this process).

A child will be able to construct and understand utterances which are new and which are at the same time acceptable sentences in his languages.

At every moment of our lives, we formulate and understand sentences different from any we have heard before.

Each individual on earth has somehow and in some form internalized grammar from which his but another language is or can also be generated.

According to Maria Montessori

The ear which is formed by nature in the mysterious condition of intro- uterine life is so delicate and complex, an instrument that it seems like the contrivance of a musical genius.

The central part of the ear reminds one of a harp, with strings that can vibrate in response to various sounds according to their length. The harp of our ear has sixty four strings arranged in gradation, and spirally as in a sea shell. Despite the limited space, nature has been clever enough to provide everything for the reception of musical notes.

But what is to make these strings to vibrate?

If nothing strikes them, they will remain silent for years, like an unused piano. But in front of the harp there is a resonating membrane like the stretched surface of a drum and whenever a noise strike this tympanic membrane, the strings of the harp vibrate and our hearing picks up the music of speech.

The ear does not respond to every sound in the universe because it has not enough strings, but those it has can resonate to complex music and a whole language can be transmitted in all its delicacy and refinement.

When a child is born at the seventh month the ear is already complete and is ready to begins its work.

The child fixes the sound and then the syllables following a gradual process as logical as the language itself. Words follow and follow and finally we enter the field of grammar and then a complete language is acquired.

How important is language and how easy its acquisition

Language is fundamental. We need language for everything. Without a language, there is no communication. Civilization is uniquely and specifically informed by its language, language is the unique and specific matrix of its civilization.

Language is a third universe, midway between the phenomenal reality of the empirical world and the internalized structure of the consciousness“ (Humboldt)

Being linguistically diverse, different cultures impose a different “form” „Gestalt“, “sello” on the same raw material. Speakers of different languages therefore inhabit different worlds.

The key to developing trust and building bridges is through communication and the key to communicate effectively is to understand each other language.

From the very beginning, children start to gain experience and information they retrieve for ever, it does not matter which is the language.

If the child is exposed to 2 or 3 different languages he/she will learn both with a perfect domain of grammar, phonics and syntax. When a child starts to build and say the first sentences, he/she is able to do it with a perfect syntax, word order and perfect grammatical rules, even though nobody shows how grammar or syntax rules function in the language.

At this period the phonetic apparatus is ready and able to try, repeat and adapt new sounds to the ones already learnt.

It is during this sensitive period of life „childhood“ when they learn their first words, sounds and sentences and all about its surroundings world, but the most important „they learn the art of communication“.

Teaching languages to infants is not only possible but it is a highly recommended practice specially at the age between birth and six years old.

At this age language can be acquired as one more play through visualization, repetition, music, emotional experiences and relationships.

The child reaches his knowledge of grammar by himself.

About a year and a half, the child discovers the fact that each thing has its own name. This shows that from all the words he has heard he has been able to single out the nouns and specially the concrete ones, the ones that he/she needs.

Babies and small children love playing with language. Before they can produce actual words, they will spend long phases repeating the same sounds apparently just for fun. Children who can only say very few words will use them to sing themselves to sleep.

Playing with sounds and words in this way seems to be a completely spontaneous activity in children, it is almost an important part of the learning process and it is an activity which the child will continue to perform with various degree of complexity. “Lullation “ as this behavior is sometimes called serves as much as the same purposes and gives the child much the same sort of pleasure as do nursery rhymes and all sorts of verbal activities and games. Among the purposes, there is obviously the learning through repetition of basic words, sounds and structures but the high proportion of non sense expressions like “ring of roses”, “Humpty Dumpty” and “Hey diddle diddle” is surely there at least as much for the fun of it

Studies have shown that learning foreign languages can increase IQ, improve Math abilities, increase creativity and improve overall school performance.

Children that study a second language exhibit superior first language development, greater cognitive flexibility, cultural awareness, concept formation and creativity.

“They are not learning about the language, they are learning in the language through using it”.

Giuliana Cerrutti

Talk on Language Acquisition

Fort Mitchell´s MOMS Club (Immanuel United Methodist Church)

May 19^th, 2008

Bibliography