How do humans, as babies, learn a language?
In: Biology
Our brains are sort of wired in a way that acquiring a language as a baby is an instinct. That is true for all human languages, including sign languages: deaf babies will start signing at the same age as non-deaf babies start babbling.
This is not only mimickery of what sounds adults are producing: as it turns out, all human languages follow some sort of very general rules, which our brains sort of expect in a way.
This is why kids tend to say “I goed” instead of “I went”, even though no adult around them used “goed”: their brains tried to derive past tense rules it learned from other words.
Sadly, it seems there is a crucial time at which humans can learn a first language. If they miss that development opportunity, they are never able to use language in any way. Thats the case of [Genie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29?wprov=sfla1) (Trigger Warning: This wikipedia article describes child abuse).
(Everything I wrote here comes from Steven Pinker’s beautiful book The Language Instinct, science may have evolved since then).
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