The Evolution of Language

Children say the funniest things as they learn language and start speaking for the first time. Toddlers learn language simply by listening to spoken words all around them, and sometimes they mis-hear what has been said. This can give rise to mispronunciations 'sticking', for example spaghetti is often misheard as 'sketty' and we've heard 'gescalator' for 'escalator' and 'ninner' for 'dinner'! Toddlers learn language at a phenomenal rate, far surpassing the capabilities of the most advanced supercomputers. However, it's not true that young toddlers learn language through watching television. Recent studies suggest that until the age of two, babies don't associate words that they hear on the TV with objects outside of the TV in the real world. This means that although they may be shown a picture of a 'spoon' and hear the word repeated, they won't immediately make the link with a spoon right next to them, until they are a little older.

One of the most amazing capabilities that children have is the way that they learn what a 'dog' is, and then are able to look at a photograph of a dog, see a real dog and even see a cartoon drawing of a dog and associate all of these as being dogs.  Try teaching a computer to do the same and you'll be training it for years!