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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Children and languages
Message-ID: <D4oGwM.Iup@spss.com>
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Organization: SPSS Inc
References: <208064050wnr@shappski.demon.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 21:26:45 GMT
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In article <208064050wnr@shappski.demon.co.uk>,
Andre Shapps <andre@shappski.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>I have been told by students of linguistics that it is generally 
>accepted that for children learning their first language, no language 
>is any easy or any harder than any other. I find this difficult to 
>accept intuitively. Can anyone comment on this?

So far as I know, the statement is true-- for spoken language; it's not true
for written languages.  Why do you find it hard to accept?

>Also, what, if anything, is known to be the effect of learning 2 or 
>more languages as naitve tongues on a) linguistic ability, for example 
>is the ability to speak any of the languages impaired in any way, and 
>b) the child's inteligence?

Francois Grosjean, in _Living with Two Languages_, summarizes the studies
that have been done in this area.  His overall conclusion is that, once
one factors out extraneous factors such as general intelligence and
socioeconomic level, there is no effect either way.  
