I find it amazing that if a child is brought up in a community/country different from the origin of the child, the child is still able to pick up and speak their language fluently. Our ability, as humans, to imitate and communicate is incredibly complex regardless of where we are from.
So my question is, is there a language that cannot be spoken like this? One which only people with a certain genetic advantage can speak fluently during upbringing.
Of course anyone can learn a language by putting effort into it. My question is only for one learnt during upbringing (native language).
(Not sure why my responses are downvoted. I’m a non-native English speaker. Sorry if I didn’t communicate something properly. It’s just a scientific curiosity.)
Are you trying to recreate the race theory ? There isn’t enough difference among human ethnicity to have sounds that you can’t do biologically.
However, as brain plasticity diminish with age, there is tons of sounds that non native can pronounce, look at French trying to speak english and struggling to get the th sound correctly Ze Ding is Tat or English speakers unable to get the french u sound properly Excousez moi. And this is for 2 countries which are pretty close geographically and culturally. I let you imagine what happen when an European try to learn an east-asian or sub saharian language, especially as an adult. IT’s not about genetic, just about not being used to these sounds
No idea what race theory is. But what you say does makes sense. As an adult, yes it is mostly dependent on not being used to. But as another user pointed out, there are some languages with clicks in it that are difficult for someone outside the community to speak.
That’s just another sound. Each language only uses a subset of the full range of sounds the human mouth is capable of making. For example, Japanese doesn’t have an L sound, so people who learned Japanese as their mother tongue and then try to learn English as an adult will have trouble making the L sound. That’s not to say they are incapable of making it, but they are not used to making that sound with the speed and ease needed to use it as a normal part of speech. This can be learned with practice, but it takes time.
Oh no I didn’t mean incapacity. I meant fluency. One could be mildly or extremely fluent. Was wondering if origin makes a difference.
No. If there is any truth in your “a child with X ancestry raised in Y land, can learn X easily” it’s only because their parents probably still use their native language.
Exposure teaches language, not genetics.
All else being equal, I’m pretty sure it has no effect.