ABSTRACT
Language emerges at about the same time in children all over the world. ‘Why do children normally begin to speak between their eighteenth and twenty-eighth month?’ asks one researcher. ‘Surely it is not because all mothers on earth initiate language training at that time. There is, in fact, no evidence that any conscious and systematic teaching of language takes place, just as there is no special training for stance or gait’ (Lenneberg 1967: 125).
