There is a critical period of time during early development known as "the Language Acquisition Phase" as postulated by the cognitive scientist, Noam Chomsky. This is the time when a child is best able to learn his or her first language. Babies and toddlers cannot remember anything prior to this period because without language there cannot be thought and there cannot be memory. Language plays a vital role in each of our lives. An example of a failure to acquire language can be seen in the movie "Mockingbird Don't Sing." The protagonist, a pre-teen girl named Genie experiences extreme social isolation as she spends her entire life strapped to a chair in the basement of her parents' house. She was never taught how to speak or function in society as she was hidden away from the world. In Genie's case, language was something she never had at all and her life was completely different because of it. On a side note, I think I may have gone a different way with this than the prompt was hoping for. I do think just between languages themselves people's worlds' are limited. There are many beautiful and poetic expressions that simply cannot be said in the same way from language to language. Additionally those who speak different languages are limited already because they are unable to communicate with each other fully and cannot fully submerge themselves in each other's worlds.
- M. Ashraf
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