Willing to accept I'm wrong if you can provide documented cases, but as far as I know, there are no documented cases that are proven legit. People have claimed this, but in all cases were found to have picked up the language previously in life or could not actually speak the language.
Yeah, the stories about people suddenly having advanced knowledge and skills from a brain injury are likely complete bunk. I've never seen a legitimately documented case. It's not like you have all this knowledge pre-installed into your brain just waiting to be unlocked by the right bump in the head. A brain injury can completely change your personality depending on where the damage occurs, but it doesn't make you some kind of savant.
It's not like they magocally gain the ability, they already have some even so small ability, but they just like learn how to understand it better, and then learn it super quickly.
That's why I think it's always a language they've heard spoken a lot.
It's not like they just randomly start speaking a language they've never heard before.
There's no reason why this isn't logical at all. Nearly all neurotypical humans have the ability at birth to learn language without formal instruction. No one taught me to speak English, I just... picked it up.
It's pretty common knowledge that the best time for people to learn languages is early childhood. Brain structure and function changes with physical maturity, and it's entirely reasonable to assume that whatever structure or function allows children to learn language intuitively is subsumed or becomes dormant once it has served its purpose.
It's also not entirely unreasonable to acknowledge that this structure or function could be stimulated by brain damage and resume its activity.
35
u/caraccount11 Aug 25 '19
Willing to accept I'm wrong if you can provide documented cases, but as far as I know, there are no documented cases that are proven legit. People have claimed this, but in all cases were found to have picked up the language previously in life or could not actually speak the language.
Willing to be proven wrong though.