Passage One

Is language, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the drastic experiment of Frederick II in the thirteenth century it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue he told the nurses to keep silent.

语言是否像食物一样为人类的一项基本需求，在生命的关键时刻，没有它孩子就会饿死或者受到损害呢？从十三世纪弗雷德里克二世所做的严厉的试验来判断，这是可能的。为了发现一个从没听到过母语的孩子究竟会讲什么语言，他叫保姆缄默不语。