Old joke: it takes four years for babies to learn to talk, and a lifetime to learn when to shut up. (If they ever learn.)
Footnote: N. Chomsky and his epigones insisted for years that a child’s linguistic competence was fully complete by the age of six. Meaning that none of them had listened closely to most six-year-olds. I guess about 20 years ago, an official revision was published (not that the guru can ever be actually wrong), making it nine years old. That’s not quite accurate for many persons, either, but it’s closer to true.
Old joke: it takes four years for babies to learn to talk, and a lifetime to learn when to shut up. (If they ever learn.)
Footnote: N. Chomsky and his epigones insisted for years that a child’s linguistic competence was fully complete by the age of six. Meaning that none of them had listened closely to most six-year-olds. I guess about 20 years ago, an official revision was published (not that the guru can ever be actually wrong), making it nine years old. That’s not quite accurate for many persons, either, but it’s closer to true.