: Re: Stranded Society Speaking Same Language Let's start with a scenario: a dozen babies are left on an island in the middle of the ocean and are brought up by monkeys. When they come of age,

The original Tarzan book deals with this situation. His parents had several years' worth of picture and children's books, which they intended to use to educate him while they did whatever they were doing in Africa (which I forget) before they were marooned by pirates. [edit: Then they both died while Tarzan was still a baby.] So, yeah, they had a homeschooling curriculum, and Tarzan [later, as a grown ape-man]used it to self-educate himself. Plus he had his parents' books and their diary. When Tarzan met Jane, he could read and write English but not speak it.

However, don't expect ordinary mortals to get these kinds of self-instructed homeschooling results! According to Wikipedia,

[Tarzan] learns a new language in days, ultimately speaking many
languages, including that of the great apes, French, English, Dutch,
German, Swahili, many Bantu dialects, Arabic, ancient Greek, ancient
Latin, Mayan, the languages of the Ant Men and of Pellucidar.

He also communicates with many species of jungle animals.

Plus he won the Scripps Spelling Bee. ;-)

I'm thinking your kids won't all be homeschooled uber-men like Tarzan. OTOH, you have a bunch of them, so they could work together on the problem. That makes figuring out written language not outside the realm of possibility. J.R.R. Tolkien and his sister had their own language. Kids are really smart when they're not wasting their minds on TV and video games.

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: Re: Stranded Society Speaking Same Language Let's start with a scenario: a dozen babies are left on an island in the middle of the ocean and are brought up by monkeys. When they come of age,

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