Timeline for Is one year a realistic timescale to learn an ancient language if every language you knew didn't exist yet?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
30 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 29, 2015 at 21:43 | comment | added | Flotolk | @JPhi1618 However, I do have a friend who is almost fluent in Spanish after a year of working with latin americans at his job, just by listening to them | |
| Oct 29, 2015 at 21:42 | comment | added | Flotolk | @JPhi1618 It was mostly immersion, my cheat was my dad, who had learned some English before coming here, and Watching movies I knew backwards in English instead of German. | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 7:36 | comment | added | Nathan Griffiths | It's worth noting that 6,000 BC is a really long time ago in terms of human history. Any language being spoken then will pre-date "ancient" languages like Sanskrit and Old Persian by several thousand years and likely by very primitive grammatically compared to a modern language. At this time agriculture is still very basic and more advanced technologies like metalworking and pottery may not even be present, depending on exactly where you end up - so the total vocabulary will also be quite limited and therefore easier to learn in the timeframe. | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 6:42 | comment | added | zxq9 | As an added note... I had no formal instruction and though adults were of some help most of my real learning came from self-study and talking with kids. Memorizing stuff obsessively (driven by muted panic "Nobody here speaks English and there are no English signs anywhere!") laid the foundation, and daily free-form interaction with marauding tribes of school kids was an amazingly swift way to pick up the language. Kids speak about things they can see and affect them immediately, not esoteric or abstract concepts, so I never needed a dictionary as much as an index finger. | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 6:36 | comment | added | zxq9 | This is very close to the circumstance I found myself in when I first came to (rural) Japan. After 3 months I was able to get around and express basic needs. After 6 months I could converse reasonably well, but only like a child. Within a year I knew most of the basics of the language, though not much formal language, and everything I did know I was perfectly fluent with -- the problem being there were many large gaps in my knowledge, though I was functionally literate by this time (safety signs, very basic nouns, verbs, etc.). I was in my early 20's at the time, so this is possible. | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 0:08 | comment | added | Thucydides | The problem is that mechanical learning of language (X = "apple") does not really provide the grammar, and even learning the grammar will leave you with a lot of gaps in your understanding. It may take years to learn various nuances, understand jokes or puns, and of course language also has a lot of shorthand like slang terms or concepts which might not translate (why does furniture have gender in French, for example?). Dialects will change radically even over short distances: prior to the French Revolution there were many dialects, and Quebec French sounds different from European French. | |
| Oct 27, 2015 at 12:30 | comment | added | Engineer Toast | I've heard a rule of thumb that learning through total immersion alone, you can lbe fluent within two years. I've also heard a "10,000 hours" rule which, with sleep, would put you at 1.7 years. That's fluency, though, and it varies with someone's age, mental faculties, and natural ability. For your story, I would say that it would not shock readers if your character was able to communicate reasonably well on most topics within a year. | |
| Oct 27, 2015 at 12:04 | vote | accept | leylandski | ||
| Oct 27, 2015 at 11:26 | answer | added | Petr | timeline score: 5 | |
| Oct 27, 2015 at 10:36 | answer | added | corporeal | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 27, 2015 at 8:28 | comment | added | clem steredenn | There is a point that you should make clear in your question. What does it mean to be able to speak a language? There's the "I can say a few words"; "I'm able to make a sentence in an appropriate context"; "I can order drinks and/or food in a restaurant, discuss weather with friends and relative"; ... ; until the "I speak like a native speaker, without any accent, and being able to make word-games, and understand subtle intonation and meaning variations"... | |
| Oct 27, 2015 at 4:19 | comment | added | user2338816 | You'd be able to write, spelling phonetically. You could journal words that you learn to refer back to later. (How advisable it'd be...?) Crude, probably some kind of paint, but even a quill pen and some flexible material to mark up could be a big help. | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 22:34 | answer | added | KeithS | timeline score: 4 | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 21:08 | comment | added | Mikey | For what it's worth, I had a friend who learned enough of a tribal language in Ghana on her own, "cold," so to speak, in less than six months without assistance of books, etc. I say this, because it's not like a native English speaker learning French (or whatever) where the structure has similar, albeit distant roots. | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 20:29 | comment | added | Jax | Not to say that South America doesn't have internet, just that I never found time to connect ;) | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 20:06 | comment | added | zeta | @MasonWheeler: that theory is fairly controversial actually, and I know of no formulation of it involving an actual bit of the brain (the theory is based on evidence of skills, not brain imaging). | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 18:20 | comment | added | Mason Wheeler | @SF: Children have a specialized bit of their brain that helps them learn languages particularly quickly. It atrophies into complete uselessness by the end of the teenage years, leaving you to learn by ordinary learning mechanisms, which are much less efficient. | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 17:19 | comment | added | DSKekaha | I "recognise certain elements of the landscape" from 6000 BC? Dam, I'm very knowledgeable, aren't I? | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 16:15 | answer | added | Peter M. - stands for Monica | timeline score: 14 | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 15:52 | comment | added | JPhi1618 | @Flotolk, I wonder if you had any translation apps or dictionaries to help, or if you just learned through pure immersion with no reference to your original language? | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 15:40 | comment | added | Lightness Races in Orbit | @SF.: They have a significant advantage, though. | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 15:39 | comment | added | Jax | I once spent the last summer traveling Latin America (I was on vacation). By the end of the summer I could convey my ideas easily to most natives. I lacked internet connection for most of the trip, so I found a native translator and studied him. He did not notice, but I watched his body language and related it to certain words he was speaking. I am semi-fluent in Spanish (although some aspects of the language give me more trouble than others). | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 15:19 | history | edited | Vincent | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 26, 2015 at 15:17 | comment | added | Flotolk | When I first moved to the states, I didn't speak a word of English, but after 2 months, I was almost Fluent. So if you work hard, after a year you should be more then a pro | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 15:06 | comment | added | SF. | One year is a serious time constraint, but if you think of it, every single child does just that over the course of its first few years of life - and worse, they don't have any original language to base their learning on; they start from scratch, learning words along with concepts behind them as they go. | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 14:39 | answer | added | C. VanHorn | timeline score: 18 | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 14:15 | answer | added | bowlturner | timeline score: 41 | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 14:12 | answer | added | Green | timeline score: 10 | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 13:54 | review | First posts | |||
| Oct 26, 2015 at 13:58 | |||||
| Oct 26, 2015 at 13:52 | history | asked | leylandski | CC BY-SA 3.0 |