Susan Goldin-Meadow of the University of Chicago has studied deaf children who haven't yet learned sign language and who are brought up in English- or Mandarin- speaking environments. The children develop their own system of gestures with a grammar that is much different from their parents' language as well as from most other languages in the world. Surprisingly, when adults are talking, their gestures don't take on this rare pattern. But when forced not to talk and to communicate with their hands alone, the adults gesture just like the kids. So it seems that simply speaking a language like English hasn't prevented adults from thinking the way children do. Still, learning to do so could, in Whorfian fashion, make it harder for grown-ups to think that way, Goldin-Meadow notes.

and maybe even all humans have somewhere locked in the very first, primitive language of the most ancient times of our existence - maybe we just need particular circumstances to unlock it


(info from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=00009A6B-B402-1CDA-B4A8809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=3&catID=4 )

I have been considering this very thing for many years. There is more to support the idea, but hardly solid evidence.

There is more to support the idea, but hardly solid evidence.
oh- what more?

Perhaps Xenu or Merlijn can elaborate, but I have noticed that the "broken speech" observed in those with extreme psychotic conditions is (almost) identical to the speech of those immersed in night terrors and sleep-talking (events or behaviours which are rooted firmly in the subconscious). Noticing this similarity is what first gave me the idea that there is something common in our subconscious regarding communication.

(THis is an idea I am using in a story, too.)

I was very slow to learn to talk, even though I could understand words. I also dod not exhibit much in the way of these arm movements. Perhaps these traits are linked?

My autism, again.