acquiring a second language through exposure only

Is there anyone who has experience of acquiring a second/additional language through exposure only, as an adult? Or language teachers or anyone else who knows about this process?

Basically, in my current WIP set 40,000 years ago, I have a Homo sapiens character who is exiled from his people and ends up living with a small clan of Neandertals. Neandertals would've had a similar language ability to modern humans, but their language would likely be extremely different (more different than any two modern languages) due to the populations being separated for much longer. None of the populations in my story have any kind of written language and I don't think their languages would've had different registers (formal, informal, etc) so it would be equivalent to only learning everyday informal language and not any academic/formal language. He's also completely immersed in it, entirely cut off from any Homo sapiens people.

He's been there long enough to have acquired some of the Neandertal language - enough to understand most of their conversations, but he doesn't find it easy to speak, partly because he's learned it as an adult and partly because their language is so different I think he'd struggle to pronounce some sounds and there'd be interference from his native language in terms of grammar errors. But I'm not 100% sure about the grammar errors, as I know that young people who acquire another language speak it with good grammar, but I don't know if that's true for anyone who learned the language entirely as an adult.

How long roughly would it take him to reach the kind of level I want him to be at for my story? I need to know this for the timeline of the backstory.

Also, how does the process work, is it a kind of linear progression where you understand a little more each day or do you go for a long time not really understanding anything then suddenly it all clicks?

Do people who acquire a language through exposure only as adults have good grammar? Do they go through a phase of speaking without good grammar on the way?

Is there anything else that would annoy you if I get it wrong?

Thanks for your replies, extremely helpful Seems like it takes less time than I thought, which is good from a story timeline point of view.

Sorry for the delay replying, Kid 2's entire class has been locked down and working from home because someone got Covid-19, and we only have one working laptop in the house (mine) and Kid 2 needs it to access schoolwork - and Roblox (can't go to play outside and at least Roblox is social - several school friends are on it and they can talk to each other in game, plus my kids' half-siblings are on it as well). Then, in the evenings, Kid 1 whose class isn't locked down (but was last month) needs the laptop for homework. I originally booked this week off work to get some kid-free time to do some writing but that's gone right out the window now! I've managed to grab my laptop for a bit, lol.

(note: it is in line with restrictions for my kid to be going to school as it's only if any of us have any Covid-19 symptoms that we'd have to all self-isolate - kind of memorised the rules when Kid 1's entire year (which was later amended to only the kids who'd been in any of the same classes as the kid who got Covid-19) was locked down.)

On the plus side, I've got some DIY done that I've been procrastinating over for ages.

AW Admin said:

Second, one of the characteristics of older languages is that they are more likely to have courtesy forms (i.e. ways of addressing higher social class entities than you are yourself).

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That's interesting. They don't have social class but they do have a hierarchy based on age, with elders at the top, then adults (older = more important), then children. Would you expect them to have different ways of addressing elders? Would it be like vous/tu in French?

Thank you That's really interesting and helpful

Chris P said:

How important is it for him to be correct in his grammar, just out of curiosity? In my language experiences (French, Luganda, and tiny bit of Portuguese) it was sufficient to be understood, and not necessary to be correct. I think the same will be for you characters.

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Sorry I missed this question before.

From a plot point of view, it doesn't matter. However, for my Neandertal POV character I need to include some of his attempts to speak/understand their language.

One example that I've already written:

(wanderer = Neandertals' word for Homo sapiens people because they're nomadic and the Neandertals tend to stay in one place much longer)

“Hey,” Hunter waves at our wanderer, who looks at him. “Why do those wanderers look like wolves?” But our wanderer just looks back at him and smiles.
“He doesn’t understand your words,” I say.
“He knows a few,” says Hunter.
“Like when he hunted a badger and brought it back and called it a rabbit?” says Birdsong. Everyone laughs.

So it's whether stuff like that is accurate. Also I've got scenes coming up where he speaks more, including others wanting him to translate from one language to another, sometimes in Neandertal POV and sometimes in Homo sapiens POV (the exile isn't a POV character, but he's a central character). So when he's speaking to the Neandertals in the Neandertal POV scenes, whether to make his speech basic in terms of vocab but with correct grammar, or if he'd make mistakes, and what kind of mistakes (e.g. small kids go through a phase where they regularise irregular grammar - e.g. "goed" instead of "went"). Also I'd assume it would be easier for him to translate what he understands of the Neandertal language into his own language than vice versa, as he may not have enough vocab to explain what he means.

CWatts said:

This is extremely helpful for me also.

How does trauma complicate the learning process? Obviously this would be a factor for neandermagnon's exile though it may be subsumed through the sheer necessities of survival.

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I didn't even think of that. He is quite badly traumatised, not just from being exiled (which is basically a death sentence in palaeolithic times) but also the events leading up to it, i.e. persecuted by his own people.

I'm researching about immigrants in late 19th-century NYC with a political exile/war refugee character so there's a whole lot she's dealing with besides language, plus there's a small ethnic enclave where she can meet her basic needs. It's almost the opposite problem of not having enough immersion when you have a community and speak what was the most common second language of the period - probably a bit like the Spanish-speaking kids you taught. Thoughts? Feel free to PM me as I don't want to hijack this thread.

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I don't mind people answering in thread as although the situations aren't the same in every way, the information would still be really useful and interesting.

Thanks all Super useful

Snitchcat said:

IME, it takes about 3 months to become proficient enough to make oneself understood in the target language, albeit, the sentences and pronunciations are way off. Around the sixth month mark, I was able to understand approximately 90% of the target language spoken to me. And read/write more than 100 words. About 12 months in and I was correcting my own grammar as much as I could. I had also added to my vocabulary. Didn't count the number of words, however.

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3-6 months fits the timeline (set in late summer, character exiled probably around spring time but I'll not be too specific about the time - they measure it in seasons and lunar cycles) and with the level of proficiency the character has. Thanks

Really interesting Thanks My character has an additional problem in that he doesn't know he'll be able to learn the Neandertals language, so doesn't try. But humans are hardwired to acquire language and babies don't know they are able to acquire a language and still do. So it kind of surprises him when he starts to understand them. He's had a complete (and extremely traumatic) break from everyone who speaks his first language so the forgetting thing will affect him - not sure how much that would happen in 3-6 months. I'm wondering if the trauma would make him forget it faster, on top of having no contact at all with anyone who speaks it (until part way through the story). I think when he does finally come in contact with people who speak his language (the MC and his people speak a different dialect of the Exile's language as they are from different tribes but not too distantly related) he's probably going to take a moment to remember how to speak the language.

Thanks Snitchcat so much, that is really great info there.


The mixing languages thing is interesting. I learned some French and a little Arabic through classroom/academic style learning, and have never been much good at languages. I often find that when speaking one of these languages, words from the other language slip in. I'm not confident at speaking French because I never got the hang of the grammar though I can understand it well because I recognise lots of words. In Arabic I can only really do small talk and order food from restaurants sort of thing although the Arabic that I can speak I'm more confident at. Most of the problems I have with language learning seem to be due to limitations of classroom/academic learning, such as trying to memorise grammar and failing. I have been watching French you tube videos in an attempt to acquire some grammar.

WeaselFire said:

Keep in mind that language, such as it was, in the time you describe was extremely limited. Forget adverbs and pronouns, you get simple word like food, water, shelter, cold, hot, danger and so on. Nobody really has a clue but it's estimated that language of the time might have consisted of a hundred words or so beyond proper names.


Jeff

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This was widely believed in the past but one of my main motivations for writing prehistoric fiction (other than my general obsession with palaeoanthropology and evolutionary biology) is to correct a lot of these common misconceptions.

In case anyone else is as fascinated by this whole topic as I am, here's further info:

The level of language described above is less than the level of language that Kanzi the Bonobo and Koko the Gorilla (RIP) are/were capable of, albeit they don't/didn't "speak" it because non-human great apes don't have a human's vocal apparatus. Kanzi uses a lexicon (board with symbols that represent words) and Koko used signs from American Sign Language. Both have/had a vocab of 500+ words and can make simple sentences (e.g. "give me banana"). They can/could understand some basic sentence grammar too. For example, Kanzi understands sentences like "go into the garden and get me the ball" because it's command 1 + command 2, but couldn't understand "go and get me the ball from the garden" because one command is embedded in the other.

Kanzi and Koko both learned language from humans. How much language bonobos use in the wild isn't known but one recent study I remember reading about found about 15 different context dependent vocalisation (i.e. 15 words).

From an evolutionary point of view, if two other species of great apes (humans being a species of great ape) can attain this level of language in a single lifetime of exposure to human language, this would represent the baseline that humans started with before we evolved any specific adaptations for vocal language. As soon as humans or human ancestors started using language to communicate in ways that go beyond how other great apes currently communicate in the wild, they would've attained a Kanzi/Koko level very rapidly. Then, as random mutations result in characteristics that make individuals better at language occur, they'll be selected for and eventually become fixed in the population. And over enough time, the language capacity and complexity increases.

Modern cognition in Homo sapiens evolved around 70-100,000 years ago, long before my story's set. By that I'm talking about things like art, music, evidence of symbolic thought, ability to track lunar cycles and tides (e.g. for gathering shellfish at low spring tide), emerging rapid development of complex technology that started then and continues to the present day. It's likely they also had storytelling and a rich oral tradition, but evidence of this doesn't fossilise.

There are modern human adaptations for spoken language which evolved significantly earlier than this and Neandertals had these adaptations, suggesting that they could have been present in the common ancestor. (Things can evolve separately but where they are so similar this tends to be due to the common ancestor having it.) The date range for when the last common ancestor of the two species (before/not counting interbreeding) is 600,000- 1 million years ago.

Adaptations for complex speech shared between Neandertals and Homo sapiens people include:

1. Identical hyoid bones. The modern human hyoid bone is very different to that of other great apes and is specifically adapted for enabling the vocal chords to make modern speech sounds. This is why Kanzi and Koko can't/couldn't make the right sounds for human speech. Kanzi makes some weird noises (weird for bonobos) when communicating with humans - analysis of these noises confirm he's trying to imitate human speech, i.e. what human speech sounds come out like when put through a bonobo's vocal apparatus. There's a Neandertal skeleton that was found with an intact hyoid bone - it is so similar to modern human hyoid bones that the only reason they knew it was Neandertal is because it was found as part of a Neandertal skeleton.

2. Same FOXP2 genes in Neandertals and modern humans - this gene is very important for complex speech. Modern people who due to random mutations get a damaged copy of this gene have severe handicaps when it comes to speech and language. However this is not the only gene involved in speech/language.

3. The size of the spinal chord where the nerves for breath/diaphragm control (needed to speak in long sentences as opposed to the short sharp noises that most animals make) - as measured by the size of the space on the inside of the vertebrae at this part of the chest. Non-human great apes have a narrow space. The Narikotome boy, who lived 1.6 million years ago and is these days considered to be Homo ergaster, an early species of human (previously classified as Homo erectus), had a narrow gap here, like non-human great apes. Neandertals had a big gap, same as modern humans. This means they had sufficient breath/diaphragm control to speak in long, complex sentences. This doesn't mean the Narikotome boy couldn't speak, just that his speech would've been limited to short sentences/vocalisations. There are no surviving hyoid bones from his species so we can't see if this was like modern humans, other great apes, or somewhere in between. Shame, because we could learn so much from it. Maybe one might get discovered one day.

For these things to be selected for, humans would already need to be using language enough so that having them would give a selective advantage. They would've had a need to communicate in complex sentences - and already be speaking in as long sentences as they can manage. So it's possible that humans have been speaking in complex sentences with grammar for more than a million years.

Was their complex language as complex as modern language? There's no way to tell. But grammar rules are very flexible and vary massively between different modern languages. Sign languages evolve where people can't use spoken languages and new they quickly develop enough grammar and vocab to express the ideas that people want to express. More complex thinking would lead to more complex language - and human evolution has involved a steady increase in brain size and cognitive ability over a period of just over 2 million years. For the purposes of writing my story, using English to represent long dead languages, if my characters can conceive of an idea, they'd be able to express it in their own language.

If sign languages preceded spoken language or supplemented early spoken languages, the date when complex grammar evolved could be even earlier, for example if Narikotome boy's people used signing to express more complex ideas than they could through speech alone.

One thing I find really interesting is that in Clan of the Cave Bear, which was written by Jean Auel in 1980 therefore based on a 1970's level of scientific knowledge (it was very well researched for its time) is that she gave the Neandertals a sign language. It was thought in the 70s that Neandertals lacked any adaptations for complex language so she had them making simple vocalisations but using sign language. Basically, it's impossible to conceive that they had the level of technology they had without being able to communicate complex ideas with each other. And since the 70s we've learned that Neandertals had far more and better technology that what was known back then.

Examples of Neandertal technology include tanning hides for clothing and textiles, twisting/plaiting fibres together to make string/cord, using birch tar as glue for composite tools, e.g. hafting flint blades to make knives, spears, etc - to get the tar from birch you need higher temperatures that are possible with ordinary wood fires, which means they had the ability to make some kind of basic furnace. We don't yet know how they did this, but we know they had the birch tar as traces of it have been found on some of their tools. The first composite tools (using more than 1 material to make a tool) were done by Homo heidelbergensis - hafting a stone blade on a wooden spear.

Neandertals made tools that required gathering materials from different locations and being very precise about which materials they selected. Their flintknapping techniques required the ability to visualise the finished tool inside the rock before you start making it. They co-operatively hunted animals much larger than themselves, including mammoths and bears (although sometimes bears ate Neandertals, seems to have been a bit of competition regarding who the apex predator was) - one of the ways they hunted bears was to attack female bears when they had just given birth, when still vulnerable before they recovered enough to go "mama bear" on anyone who threatens their cubs. There's emerging evidence of Neandertal art and symbolic thought, and a disputed artefact that's thought by some to have been a flute. They cooked meat and vegetables. They buried their dead, possibly with flowers or grave goods - they may have believed in an afterlife, though no-one can say for sure what they believed as beliefs don't fossilise. They nursed people with broken bones back to health and may have used simple herbal medicine.

Also, it's not plausible that human language went from sub-bonobo level to modern human level in just 40,000 years and if it had, it wouldn't be found in all modern populations. Evolution is a slow process. Homo sapiens people from 40,000 years ago are basically the same as us. There were already Homo sapiens people in Australia at this time and they would've crossed significant amount of sea to get there. Evolution doesn't stop but it's very slow and all that's evolved since then are superficial ethnic differences. Neandertals were different, being a different species, but still very closely related and as I've shown there's a lot of evidence to suggest they had complex language.

CWatts said:

I have to wonder if there's a gendered component in how neandermagnon's Exile communicates with the Neandertals? We know they interbred, and hopefully it wasn't all rape like in CotCB. (Or maybe I've just seen The Croods one too many times courtesy of my 6-year-old...)

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Thankfully this is another myth that I'm intent on challenging. Rape is rare in hunter-gatherer populations for two simple reasons:

1. There is no rape culture: no puritanism, no men controlling women's sexuality, no expectation for women to not want or initiate sex, no double standards, no patrilinear inheritance (no possessions to inherit), no concept of virginity (never mind expecting women to be virgins or whatever), no fear of pregnancy or stigma of being pregnant "outside of wedlock" (or any concept of wedlock in some cases), etc etc. Because of this, men and women initiate sex with who they want to and if someone isn't up for it they'll move on to someone else. People may fall in love enough to not want to have sex with anyone else, but there isn't really the same expectations to be faithful as there is in many other societies. Enforced heterosexual monogamy isn't a thing.

2. Everyone knows everyone else and there's no law to stop the family and friends of someone who's been raped getting together and beating the rapist to death.

Patriarchy and misogyny are rather more late neolithic/bronze age things for reasons that are due to socioeconomic changes that happened as a result of humans being able to accumulate wealth and the need to have warriors to defend land, crops, herds and permanent settlements. This is an entire topic in its own right.

Hunter-gatherer societies tend to be either egalitarian or a little bit male dominated but not to the extremes of some agricultural and industrial societies. Hunter-gatherer societies aren't based on wealth - your knowledge is what enables you to survive. Hunters and gatherers both provide important foods. Hunters rely on the gatherers food (about 80-95% of what they eat) to have the energy to hunt. Mothers who gather (not all gatherers are necessarily women and not all women have babies, but if you are pregnant or have small children to care for you can't do most types of hunting) rely on the hunted meat for the iron and protein for healthy pregnancy and a good milk supply. This interdependence is what keeps the society largely egalitarian. The people with the most power tend to be the elders, valued for their knowledge and life experience. The least sexist society on the planet is a hunter-gatherer society where men and women hunt and gather together (their hunting method involves large groups of people can can be done with small kids in tow) and there have no gender roles.

I've based the populations in my story on modern hunter-gatherers, but generalised and without any distinctive cultural ideas that would be identifiable from any modern culture (I'm adding my own made up distinctive features back in) because I don't want to appropriate any modern culture and plus, it would be extremely anachronistic. I've combined this with what archaeological evidence tells us about their culture, tools, technology etc (all the stuff that survives in the fossil record) and interpreted it based on my generalised hunter-gatherer society.

I don't think there would be any reason for there to be a gendered component in their language, unless you mean things like different pronouns or objects having gender like in French and Arabic. Both societies in my story have gender roles (men hunt and women gather) but these aren't strictly enforced. I've also made some differences, for example in the Homo sapiens culture, elder women and some of the more knowledgeable younger women practice herbal medicine because as gatherers, they know all about plants and similar. However in the Neandertal culture, both men and women practice herbal medicine and basic first aid (given how many examples of healed broken bones there are in the Neandertal fossil record, I figured they'd be able to at least make a simple splint and bandage for a closed fracture).

The Exile is too traumatised by a combination of different factors to have much interest in relationships. His aim is simply to not die. He assumes that the Neandertals' acceptance of him is precarious and doesn't want to piss them off. Though through the Neandertal POV character I show that they are starting to accept him as one of their own - he won't have enough language yet to really be sure of this, plus it's going to take a long time to learn to trust anyone ever again. In the Palaeolithic era, being exiled is a slow death sentence as humans cannot survive alone. His people think he's dead. Being accepted by another tribe who don't know you is not something you can ever rely on. What happens in the end... who knows? I'm a pantser!

Also: gender isn't a binary and lots of non-western cultures accept people who are in a 3rd gender category or don't fit neatly into the binary, however I haven't done specific research on this in modern hunter-gatherers. They aren't homophobic. Part of the problem with researching some of this is that some of the data was collected by people who were quite ethnocentric, so they got some stuff wrong, e.g. saying that no-one in a particular culture was exclusively gay because everyone was in a "marriage" - yet research into this "marriage" thing shows it's not marriage (was mistranslated as marriage) but a food sharing relationship and sex isn't part of it, unless two people who are "married" happen by chance to want sex.

frimble3 said:

If there is a gendered component, I'd bet the division is in roles: hunters more likely to use signs, gathers more likely to use words.

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There is some suggestion that the reason why women have better "emotive use of language" than men (ON AVERAGE - and there's far more within-gender difference than the average difference between genders) is because gathering requires more use of language. Plus gender is a spectrum not a binary.

However, I dispute whether the differences this was put forward to explain (e.g. women having many different words for shades of pink/purple while men just use one or two) are due to biology as opposed to culture. The scientific world is awash with studies where they find a difference between males and females when all their data comes from middle class people from the USA and then look for an evolutionary explanation, as opposed to first seeing whether that difference is consistent across all cultures including recently-contacted isolated hunter-gatherers.

Personally, I wouldn't accept something as a genuine gender difference unless it's consistent across all cultures including the society mentioned in the previous post that has no gender roles at all.

I agree that sign languages are generally better for hunting. Any kind of language would do for gathering. Sign languages can express as much meaning as spoken languages.

To kill an animal: identify prey and point it out to others. A wave from the leader of the hunting party to indicate who goes where. Another signal for attack/charge. The details might be worked out in words earlier, but the attack would be more successful if silent and sudden.
While the gatherers and craftsmen would have more need to explain things to the younger members of the group. Although, grabbing one's throat, staggering and falling flat does indicate 'that plant or bug is dangerous', more detail would be good for describing it.

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I was reading a really fascinating article from the New Scientist today with lots of new information about how language evolved. It looked at the reasons why humans started to use language in ways that are different to other great apes. The theory says that early humans used a combination of signing and onomatopoeia/imitation to communicate. Also that they used chanting/singing (not chanting/singing words, just making harmonious sounds in co-ordination with each other) to scare away predators when in a group. Combining vocalisations in this way gives the impression of the group being bigger than it is. This also would've increased group bonding. The article suggested that this would've started when hominins started living on the savannah instead of in the trees. Note: contrary to what earlier theories suggested, hominins were fully bipedal before leaving the savannah.

A combination of these things is what's thought to be what led to complex vocal language. It's kind of similar to what you're describing. This stage, where there's no physical adaptations for complex language and meaning is conveyed through mimicry, onomatopoeia and signing probably happened 1-2 million years ago.

Over time vocalisations became more and more complex until you've got a fully formed vocal language. Humans have never stopped signing. Can you sit on your hands and talk comfortably? How many of us make all kinds of hand gestures while talking on the phone even though the other person can't even see us? According to the article, the amount of time it takes for a fully formed sign language to evolve if people who can't use spoken language communicate with each other with no prior knowledge of any other sign language is 2 generations. People who don't speak the same language resort to gestures, onomatopoeia and miming to communicate.

***does the MIND BLOWN sign/gesture***

It's really hard to condense the whole article down into a forum post. The original was published in the New Scientist on 4 Man 2019. I would've read it much earlier but I must have missed this issue - I recently went to an online talk run by the New Scientist on new fossil evidence related to Neandertals and this article was one of the freebies/throw ins. I think you can read old articles on their website but probably you have to pay.