Fij Numbo eg Shembok Twrily

No two people ever say the same thing. I mean, I guess that shouldn't be too surprising, especially being that we are in a world of innumerable languages. But really, think about it. No two people ever say the same thing. Ever. Ever! Every single human being on this planet has his own language. We each have a unique dialect. And yet, we are able to communicate with each other. A-mazing!
I downloaded an audiobook by Stephen Pinker called "The Stuff of Thought." I had to get an audiobook because otherwise I would have given up on it before I picked it up. I mean, I understand the language now that I am in Linguistics, but holy crow, it is a mind workout!
Anyway, he basically goes through how language can change everything, and, most fascinating to me, how we obtain it. When you really think about it, to concept of a baby--something that drools so much and is unable to fend for itself or control its bodily functions--a baby has this enormous task of learning how to speak. It sits there for a while, always listening to the random sounds that its parents use to communicate, and breaks it down grammatically. A baby is conscious of all of the fundamentals of language that I have been laboriously learning for the past month and a bit. And you know that the kicker is? The baby knows this stuff better than me! Bette than any linguistian!
It has been proposed that we are born with an innate grammar set. We already know the rules when we come out kicking and screaming (probably because we just really don't want to have to use that grammar). This has to be so, or else the quest for a mother tongue acquisition would be fruitless! Think about that! Did you think about it? Talk about a God-thing. I mean, even if a child were isolated and never in contact with a form of language, it would naturally create its own. His language, if dissected and studied, would even show use of adjectives, nouns, verbs, pronouns, articles, adverbs, and would follow syntactic and semantic rules! Why? Because it is upon these grammatical rules that all languages, no matter how strange, is created! I love it.
Another thing, a child, at 5 years old, is the smartest it will ever be. That kind of sucks huh? I mean, I now live with a 5 year old and basically, if all the things I am learning were put into terms that even I could understand, she learn this stuff faster and more solidly than I ever will. No fair!
The book is good so far, though if you want to read it, you might need to do it in small portions because your concept of pretty much everything is challenged. Even more fascinating is Pinker's bit on verbs, but I'm not that smart so I'll leave that discussion to him.
Oh, and by the way, if you look closely at my title, although non-sense, it is entirely grammatically correct! Dear lord, pray for me.