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Kamala and Amala

http://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/chimp/langac/LECTURE4/4kamala.htm

The “wolf children” Kamala and Amala, as they came to be known, were discovered by Reverend J.A.L Singh in 1920 in a jungle in India. They had been living with a family of wolves, and were found in a cave: “The two cubs and the other two hideous beings were in one corner, all four clutching together in a monkey-call. The ghosts were more ferocious than the cubs, making faces, showing teeth...We were at a loss and didn’t know what to do.” Reverend Singh took charge of the two girls and brought them to his orphange. The older, Kamala was about eight, and the younger, Amala about one and a half. Singh kept a diary of their progress e.g. “January 29th 1921: the other children tried their utmost to allure them to play with them, but this they resented very much, and would frighten them by opening their jaws, showing their teeth, and at times making for them with a peculiar harsh noise.” In September 1921, both girls became ill with diarrhoea and dysentery. Then round worms appeared from their bodies. Amala died. Kamala would not leave her sister’s body and had to be removed from the coffin. After Amala’s death, Mrs Singh tried to help Kamala to use her body in humans ways, to stand, walk and run, this was achieved with some success.

After five years in the orphange, Kamala was able to talk: she refused to go outside without being dressed, having complained with the sound “Fok” (possibly meaning “frock”) and her vocabulary was thought to consist of about 30 words. These words were not common to English speech, but were sounds. When food was offered she used “Hoo” to indicate “yes”, although other children use this word to mean “cold”. “Ha” means “yes” in Bengali. She was able to name objects, but never used her words spontaneously. Two years later, she had learned more words, but apart from that there was no other mental change. In 1929 Kamala became ill again and died.