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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 16, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Do you think it's possible to unlearn the ability to understand language? I remember reading a while ago that man left the modern world and went to live in the woods by himself or something like that and I think he stated that his sense of self essentially disappeared. I wonder if you spend enough time not speaking, reading or writing the English language just disappears from your mind.

I've saved this fascinating Reddit AskScience comment which I think is relevant. The hypothesis proposed there says that exposure to modern language during infancy is a core part of the development of basically the ability to think at all ("modern" here meaning any human language from the last 50k-ish years). If that's true, it would be impossible to reverse the changes brought by learning language, and thus probably impossible to really forget it.