Posted on 06/04/2014 11:44:25 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
Sgt Bowe Bergdahl spoke English for 23 years until he was captured by Taliban fighters in Afghanistan five years ago. But since his release, he has trouble speaking it, says his father. How can you lose your native language, asks Taylor Kate Brown.
Some people have gone decades without speaking or hearing their first language but they retain the ability to speak it easily, says Dr Monika Schmid, a linguistics professor at the University of Essex in the UK. But others begin losing fluency within a few years of not speaking it.
It's rare to totally lose command of a first language, she says. Instead people have "language attrition" - trouble recalling certain words or they use odd grammar structures. Age is a factor. Once past puberty, Dr Schmid says, your first language is stable and the effects of attrition can reverse themselves if you are re-immersed. But children as old as 10 don't necessarily retain the language they were born into. In a study of French adoptees who left South Korea in childhood, when asked in their early 30s to identify Korean, they did no better than native French speakers with no exposure to Korean.
The difficulties in recalling your first language are greater the more immersed you are in a second language, says Dr Aneta Pavlenko at Temple University in Philadelphia, because cognitive resources are limited. Despite teaching Russian at university in the US, she herself returned to her Russian-speaking community in Kiev to realise she had forgotten how to start a conversation at the post office.
It's well known that brain injuries can have an impact on language loss, but emotional trauma can also affect it. Among German Jews who fled the country during the Holocaust, Dr Schmid says the loss of language was far more dramatic the greater their trauma.
Have you or your friends lost fluency in your native language? Tell us using the form below and we will publish a selection.
My cousin has lived in Sweden for the past 25 years. She has never lost her English, but she does speak it with a Swedish accent now.
Daddy learned both Pashto and Arabic? So, who was he talking to from the White House? Was he talking to the Haqqani group or making a statement?
Gee, I think a lot of illegals in the US never learn English regardless of how long they have been here.
Sounds like it was for the benefit of his jihadist buddies.
I think it is just a false story to allow him to not be questioned about what really happened.
***
Bingo!
Fraud, I say! Fraud!
Puts me in mind of weak people who lack substance and integrity; like B-HO and Hillary’s sudden southern affectation when talking to a black audience or Madonna’s sudden English accent after living in London for less than a year. Sure, I’ll buy that the kid and dad both think they’re Afghanis, because they don’t really know WHO they are, in general.
$274.00 here http://www.rosettastone.com/lp/sbs/?rsi=diplomabgd&cid=se-br-gg-diplomabgd&gclid=CKmPiISB4b4CFQzItAodrF0A-A and the weasel will be speaking like a native.
You tend to lose your language skills when asked questions that you don’t want to answer.
Ask any school kid sitting out in the hallway at school or in the principal’s office.
In northern Afighanistan, the local language is Dari which the Haqqani speak. I think it was just lazy reporting that Pops was speaking Arabic. What doesn’t make sense to me is how Pops knew to learn Pashto if he were held by Dari speakers. Granted a lot of Afghans understand both.
Big DAMN difference.
Ping.
.
So, with one “insignificant” soldier (even if he is a deserter and traitor), -- Obama has managed to take the VA scandal off the headlines, -- along with Benghazi and the IRA scandals.
Obama knows that nothing big will come from the Berghdall scandal, and nobody will prosecute him for violating the law. Meanwhile, he’s won the week by turning attention away from the many other scandals.
.
That’s because they don’t have to................
This is BS. My mom grew up speaking Macedonian in her home. After marrying my dad, and then after her mon died, she didn’t speak Macedonian for about 25 years. When Grandpa Repcheff died, these frail 90+ year old Macedonian women came to the calling and my mom and my Aunt Vickie just jabbered away with them, in Macedonian.
The only case of losing a language I’m aware of was Cynthia Ann Parker, kidnapped by Comanches at age nine.
He’s Muslim.
In high school, someone from my town had a Chinese foreign exchange student. Later in the year, they said he was have trouble speaking Chinese to his parents on the phone.
BINGO!
So...get the traitor a translator.
I don’t understand why his parents aren’t with him, especially if he is in a “fragile” state. What parent wouldn’t have rushed to meet him after not seeing him for 5 years?
Does the kid want to go back to Paksistan or officially defect?
He did not seem fragile in the release video. This does not make sense.
The government lies. About everything apparently
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