: 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,

I largely agree with @dmm 's answer and I upvoted it. Let me add: Depending on what you're trying to do with this story, you could make a significant portion of the story be the children's effort to decipher the message. They could find an artifact with the message on it, and figure out that those lines and scratches must be some sort of writing. Lots of civilizations have thought of the idea of writing, so it wouldn't be a stretch to suppose that these children can grasp the idea when they see it even if they don't think of it themselves. Then someone remembers seeing some picture books with similar scratches in the wreckage of the ship or whatever, and they compare and see, yes, the same arrangement of lines occurs in both. Etc.

I'd guess it would be very unlikely that they could decipher a foreign language without SOME sort of key. Archaeologists have puzzled over some ancient languages for centuries without figuring them out, and that's lots of smart people with all sorts of resources. If the children are totally abandoned and have to invent their own language, then presumably no one can leave them an English/islander dictionary. So they'd have to have some other key -- like dmm's/Edgar Rice Burroughs's idea of picture books intended to teach children to read.

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: Is there a disadvantage to transcending genre? I am an aspiring author. I've often heard that you have to keep your 'target audience' in mind. It makes sense - certain genres attract certain

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: Examples of Successful Rule-Breaking in Novels I just finished "The House of the Seven Gables" by Hawthorne. I was struck by how often he switched tenses. Mostly the narration was in past

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: Does a proposed graphical scheme exist to organize the whole story? My language skills in general are very low, i have problems to form sentences, each sentence is a frustrating fight not won

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: Is there a systematic overview over the approaches of describing a physical object? If one tries to describe sth. very concrete, like a house, for instance, one could try it with different approaches:

: 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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: Is there a disadvantage to transcending genre? I am an aspiring author. I've often heard that you have to keep your 'target audience' in mind. It makes sense - certain genres attract certain

: Examples of Successful Rule-Breaking in Novels I just finished "The House of the Seven Gables" by Hawthorne. I was struck by how often he switched tenses. Mostly the narration was in past

: Does a proposed graphical scheme exist to organize the whole story? My language skills in general are very low, i have problems to form sentences, each sentence is a frustrating fight not won

: Is there a systematic overview over the approaches of describing a physical object? If one tries to describe sth. very concrete, like a house, for instance, one could try it with different approaches:

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