ABSTRACT
What Pinker says about language throws interesting light on famous cases of isolation in history and myth. The central question in all of these is ‘would a child brought up in complete isolation from other humans develop language?’The answer you give to this question reveals a lot about your theory of what language is. Presumably nurturists would argue that the child, bereft of the examples of role models and caregivers, would lack the capacity to use language. On the other hand if language is, as Pinker believes, an instinct then some sort of language development will be likely, possibly inevitable.
