ABSTRACT
An adult accustomedto the use of language is quite certain to have forgotten the effort which he expended during the years of his childhood in gaining mastery of this intricate mode of behavior and of the associations that are connected with it. He has no memory of the time when he was without words or even of the period in his childhood when the formulation of a sentence was an undertaking which taxed his mental powers to the utmost. He thinks of language — if, indeed, he makes any effort to understand what it is — as a natural possession. A moment’s consideration makes it perfectly clear that the acquisition of language by an individual consists in his taking on a product of age-long social co-operation. Language is far beyond the possibility of invention by the individual; it requires the exercise of high intellectual powers to learn to use it. The particular language which one acquires in childhood is in no sense natural. A child born of English-speaking parents has no inherited tendency to speak English. If he is reared in a social environment where only German, French, or Italian is spoken, he will speak the language that he hears, not the language of his parents.
