August 2005
- SOC: Will company sanctioned cheating hurt the MMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- Marketing Niche Online Games Christopher Allen
- SOC: Will company sanctioned cheating hurtthe MMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play[was: EmergentBehaviors spawnedfrom...] cruise
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 3 Adam Miller
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 3 lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 3 Pandora
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 3 Marc Bowden
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] John Buehler
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] John Buehler
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- SOC/DGN: Reasons the Sexes Play Jaycen Rigger
- SOC/DGN: Reasons the Sexes Play Michael Hartman
- SOC/DGN: Reasons the Sexes Play Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Ilia Malkovitch
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] ghovs
Ilia Malkovitch wrote:
> This is way off topic, and a completely non-scientific question,
> but:
> Does this mean that if you (somehow artificially) managed to
> submerge a baby in an environment that contained "all" phonemes
> (or at least the majority of the phonemes from around the world),
> then this person would have a significantly easier time learning
> foreign languages and hearing nuances within them?
In the spirit nonscientific speech, I'll add on a little anecdotal
evidence.
I was personally brought up in an environment without much regard
for ethnic barriers. I've always been shown that all those different
people aren't scary, and often can be very interesting to understand
and communicate with.
This includes much experience with varying degrees of proficiency in
secondary languages (mostly english -- but not always). Once you
start recognizing what mistakes certain first languages cause, you
start to wonder what that first language is really like. And you
start being able to work with very broken grammar, too.
Most of those people's native languages were of the two large west
european language families, and consequently those are languages I
can at the very least piece together with some effort.
This same ability is completely absent when the language in question
isn't at all related to german or latin, since I barely notice word
breaks or sentence breaks. I'm quite confident that I can still
learn a language beyond that scope (because I have...) but the
process takes more time, and effort, suggesting that a helpful
predisposition is only there for the two language families I
mentioned.
I'm not saying it's all perfect and I can pretend to be a native
speaker from a faraway province in each language, but I definitely
can communicate, which is my goal all along.
> This isn't a very well-formed question. But the concept of having
> no cortical pathways that recognize certain nuances in sound which
> are completely apparent to a speaker from a different culture is
> very intriguing. Is there any interesting reading or research
> someone from this list could recommend on the topic?
You can be aware, but you have to listen closely. It's like
reading. When you read words, your eyes look at the size and shape
of a word, and only when you don't recognize it will you start
reading the letters themselves. In fact, it's such a fuzzy process
that you can throw in the proper letters in a random order without
making much of an impact on legibility. Once you add, swap out or
remove letters, though, it breaks down and you have to go letter by
letter again (hence why mispeled text is so annoying -- takes more
effort to read).
The problem with sound is that most humans are not outfitted with a
quick replay function, AND once they start speaking slowly and
clearly, the sound is far different from normal speaking tone, so it
only really gives hints about normal speech, not the complete
guide. Once you get a feel for the pattern of stress, omission and
tempo, you can distill from the proper pretty word how it zooms past
in a sentence, but before then you will stay lost when they resume
speaking normally to you. Most of this pattern is (thankfully)
handled subconsciously, but you still need a bit of practice to make
sense of it.
Communication goes by pattern recognition, which is faster and less
burdensome on the mind than by tracing each pattern in detail, but
it requires both sides of the communication to have the full
patterns on file first. This also explains why people who don't have
much of a gift for language will often use a word they do know to
substitute a word they don't. Their subconscious simply tells them
some idiot mispronounced a simple common word, and what they really
meant. Not that this is always correct, nor does the subconscious
always inform about the mispronounciation happening at all.
Perhaps we need Amanda's +5 footnoter here, since I do know I read
much of the above from people with an actual degree in linguistics,
but who, where, when ... ?
rgds, Peter de Freitas - DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was:EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] ghovs
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Matthew D. Fuller
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Pandora
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Matthew D. Fuller
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Arnau Josep RosselloĢ CastelloĢ
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was:Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Kelly
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Damion Schubert
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Lachek Butalek
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Kelly
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- SOC: MUD-Dev, Developers, and DGN: Reasons for play, blah-bity-blah-bity-blah... Jaycen Rigger
- TECH DGN: Story detection Boyle, Paul
- TECH DGN: Story detection cruise
- TECH DGN: Story detection Craig Huber
- TECH DGN: Story detection Sean Howard
- TECH DGN: Story detection Greg B
- TECH DGN: Story detection Max Battcher
- TECH DGN: Story detection Michael Sellers
- TECH DGN: Story detection Mike Rozak
- TECH DGN: Story detection paulmc@syd.microforte.com.au
- TECH DGN: Story detection Mike Rozak
- TECH DGN: Story detection Boyle, Paul
- TECH DGN: Story detection Mike Rozak
- TECH DGN: Story detection John Arras
- TECH DGN: Story detection Mike Rozak
- TECH DGN: Story detection John Arras
- TECH DGN: Story detection Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Peter Harkins
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Peter Harkins
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Tess Snider
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Ian Hess
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Thomas Tomiczek
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Soy weiser
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Michael Hartman
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Peter Harkins
- DGN: Random questions about griefers lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Miroslav Silovic
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Tess Snider
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers David Johansson
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Nesta Stubbs
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Peter Harkins
- DGN: Random questions about griefers lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Random questions about griefers John Buehler
- Formulae Generation Ximon
- Formulae Generation Pandora
- Formulae Generation cruise
- Formulae Generation Ximon
- Formulae Generation Eli Stevens (WG.c)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Damion Schubert
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 8 Adam Miller
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 8 Sean Howard
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 8 Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 9 Dread Quixadhal
- Democratizing MMOs - new business model chris klaus
- Democratizing MMOs - new business model Mike Rozak