Posted on 06/05/2014 4:43:02 AM PDT by don-o
When US soldier Bowe Bergdahl was released after being held captive by the Afghan Taliban for five years, his father said his son was “having trouble speaking English”. Many will find this statement incredible: is it really possible to forget your native language?
The answer depends on many factors. The first is what we mean by “forgetting”. Would it, for example, be possible for a mother tongue to be completely forgotten, so that a person cannot understand, or even recognise it anymore? The answer is yes, but only if she or he lost contact with that language before puberty.
Studies of international adoptees show that they very rapidly and completely forget their mother tongue, even if they are as old as eight years at the time that they are adopted. As adults, they may no longer be able to recognise the simplest words of the language they had first learned, and if they try to learn it again, they have few, if any advantages, over novice learners.
But those who are older than 12 years old when contact with their native tongue is interrupted will probably retain at least some proficiency for the rest of their lives. They will not only be able to communicate in this language and understand most of it, it will also be much easier for them to learn it again later on. They may have some problems accessing the correct words, they may become somewhat less fluent, and they may develop a foreign accent, but none of these will seriously impair their functioning in that language.
This is good news for Bergdahl and his family. Any problems that he may currently have, for example, remembering some English words, speaking with a foreign accent or making grammatical mistakes, are likely to be temporary, and to disappear quickly – probably within weeks. Limited usage
What other factors, then, might have caused these problems? While held in captivity, Bergdahl probably had very little occasion to speak or hear English. But how frequently someone uses their language plays a far smaller role for the maintenance of this language than one might think. Several studies have attempted to probe this, and all have found a complete absence of any correlation between frequency of use and degree of language loss.
These findings may appear counter intuitive, but they suggest that, for adult speakers, the native language has become so deeply entrenched and so frequently rehearsed, that it will remain active in memory despite the fact that it is hardly used at all, sometimes for decades. Pashto pushing out English
On the other hand, many people will know the phenomenon that when they try to learn a new language, other languages (their native language, or other foreign languages) will keep “butting in”. When trying to focus on the new language, the language learner will therefore have to repress or inhibit this knowledge very strongly, and once this has been done for any length of time, it can then become harder to switch back to the language that has been so actively inhibited.
If Bergdahl made a very strong effort to learn Pashto, and if he was encouraged or even forced by his captors not to use English, that may therefore now account for some of the troubles he is having. Again, any such problems are like to be temporary and vanish within, at most, a few weeks’ time.
Traumatic experiences may also be a factor when it comes to forgetting or suppressing a language. In the absence of information about what happened during Bergdahl’s captivity, we can only speculate on this, but it does seem a strong possibility that this may have played a part. In this event, it would probably be necessary to address the trauma itself, and not the linguistic problems that it might have caused.
Not speaking English makes it harder to interrogate him. Hmmm ...
Bonus question;
If you dream in Bushwah (that's what it sounds like to me .. ) is it in color bushwah or black and white bushwah ?
Bergdahl forgot English.
Right. So when he starts raving “God Damn America! I hate America!” all the Democrats can say, “No, no, he just forgot the words “bless” and “love”! And all the pMSNBC, CNN and other liars will say, “Ahhh, of course that must be it!”
My wife speaks Czech (native) and German as well as English.
She still speaks her native Czech but is prone to using a lot of American words that both she and her sister understand. Her German at the time I met her was accented, but flawless in other respects. This is the language that gives her the most trouble now, through nonuse.
But now after so many years here, she thinks in English.
I don’t know, I never went more than a few weeks without speaking English so I never really had a chance to lose fluency.
I used to work with a lot of Filipinos. Loved when we had potlucks! Lumpia is one of my favorites and one guy made superb Flan.
Something I thought I heard on FNC this a.m. (have it on in the background while I’m on computer) is that the video that was made of him last Dec (IIRC) when he was supposedly “on his death bed” was that he was speaking in English. If I heard correctly and that’s the case, then it doesn’t seem he forgot English over the course of 5 years, but rather 6 months. This was the video that the Senate saw in a closed-door session yesterday.
“Daddy just wanted to spit in the face of America on worldwide TV. Let them both move to Pakeeestan if it is so great.”
Hi bray,
One thing that hit me when I saw the video of ‘daddy” last night that I hadn’t noticed previously (guess I was focused on what he was saying and his beard), is that he was doing his spewing behind the PRESIDENTIAL SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. That made me really upset and ticked off at the same time.
Best,
SC
p.s. Hope your great book is doing well! :-)
Even if an adult was “forced” to never speak English for 5 years, he could only out of his own warped choice & will stop thinking and remembering in English.
So the only question to be ask is why did Bergdahl choose to forget English.
I presumed all along that something like this was happening.
We have no proof that he forgot how to speak English. We only have his father’s statement that he can’t speak English.
I think the father said that just so he could speak that foreign language.
I think it was a coded message to his son.
If I had been a returning captive (like Bergdahl, our POWs from Vietnam, or the Iran hostages) I would be terrorized by my Dad if he was dressed and speaking like my captors.
Can Bowe Bergdahl really have forgotten how to speak English?
___
Are you serious??? Are you wearing a blue dress, Monika?
The difference: You would have really been a “captive” and they would have really been your “captives.”
CORRECTION:
The difference: You would have really been a “captive” and they would have really been your “captors.”
But in learning German and French in high school I thought in English and had to mentally translate to use French or German. The odd thing is that the mental translation required for using French or Germany is always done in English never my cradle tongue. My guess is that it occurs because I was in my teens and instruction was in English.
It's even probably a shield from some types of interrogation when, theoretically, his lawyer would plead his client is legally "disadvantaged" when being grilled in English.
All preparations to protect him are already in the works as we type.
Leni
No way in the world he can’t speak English. He may be refusing to speak English because he’s joined up the Tallyban but he has not forgotten it.
I felt the father was lying when I watched it live. He was trying to send messages to people other than his son.
I asked this question of a multi-lingual person that knows 4 or 5 languages, whether an adult could forget his/her mother-tongue in such a short time. She adamantly said, “no way”.
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