Gunnar Gällmo wrote:

> I think that, according to current scientific theories
> based on cases with children actually growing up in
> isolation, they won't use any language at all.

Yes, that is my impression, as per the various wolf-children or children
subjected to the abuse of extreme isolation by paranoid parents.. The
experiment that Buddhaghosa mentions was also tried in Europe with different
results, some time in the C18th I think, but in that case the children are
said to have spoken Hebrew ! It must have been a French experiment as any
intelligent person knows, God is an Englishman and hence English must be the
primordial language :) But what actually seems to happen is more
interesting. I remember reading about a documented case involving a pair of
twins and another brother. The kids were living on a farm in an isolated
rural area. I think the mother had died and the father was hardly around
because of the work-load so there was very little linguistic contact for the
twins. What they did was to develop their own private language, which the
other sibling could partially understand and interpret. Eventually they can
to the attention of social services who too them into care -- I think that
they eventually learnt English and forgot their private language. Pity
because it might have provided useful data to prove the rebirth theory.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge