When human babies learn to speak, they aren't learning how to properly function their vocal cords - they can do that already: goo goo gah gah. They are just learning the concept of joining ideas with the physical action of speaking. If you were learning a new language, you wouldn't need to go through 'goo goo gah gah' again, but rather learning how that language joins specific thoughts with specific sounds.
I'm no expert on natal development, but don't they go through phases of making hard "guh, buh, duh" sounds and then move on to the more subtle "muh, nuh" kinds of sounds? I mean my evidence is pretty anecdotal, but don't most babies say "dada" before "mama"?
And when I learn a new language, I already know how to "talk," that is, use my vocal cords to express some kind of Latin-based language. I've gone through the "goo goo gah gah bah bah bah" stage and figured out where to hit my tongue on my teeth to say "T," the difference between humming against your lips and your tongue to make "m" and "n," respectively. But if I had to learn one of those clicking! African languages, I'd have a lot of trouble, right? I'd have to make sounds I'm not normally accustomed to making. Or even another Latin-based language, like French--does anyone who is not a native French speaker ever reach the level of expertise of a native speaker? Are they hacking and coughing in all the right places, to the right degree? I heard somewhere that it's really hard to perfect a foreign language after your palette sets--your tongue shapes your mouth a certain way based on the language you speak and the dialect you use, so everyone has a little bit of trouble making specific sounds in languages. Like the people who have to say "little cup of tea" a bunch of times really fast so they can learn to roll their r's.
lol I am so off track I'm sorry. This actually brings up another interesting question at least to me--so many of our traits are developmental in nature--our postures, our mannerisms, etc. What would a brand new,
frolis maneuver human really look like?
As far as the second point, you're totally right--the whole "learning grammar" thing would be averted, since he's already got a pretty good grasp on syntax. Learning to talk for him would be an entirely physical thing.
Ax is already physically capable of properly functioning his vocal cords from being human, and because of his translator chip, already knows what sounds go with what ideas. In other words, he would be able to speak fluently from the start. It's just a matter of the fact he finds making sounds with the mouth to be incredibly funny, and often plays with his words.
I guess this is where I disagree. Morphing was the entire premise of this series, and I think as far as a concept, it's about 95% perfect. But this kind of falls under the 5% I have a problem with. I don't believe a lot of the stuff they "knew" when they morphed is actually "instinctual." I just griped about this in the livejournal community, so bear with me if you've read that already, but like when Rachel morphs a cat in #2:
"It reminded me of both my mothers, the human one, and the cat who had licked my fur and carried me around in her mouth." 108
Could she really
know that? She never experienced being carried around by her cat-mother in its mouth, so why would she remember that? It would be like Ax morphing human and being "oh yeah breast feeding, that was cool" lol idk that's a weird example but you get my point, right? Instinct, to a degree, does influence our actions, but so does
knowledge which is why I think in a lot of cases the Animorphs would have made pretty sucky animals.
And I think Applegate realized this, which is why Cassie always did the hard research and why Tobias could fly better than any of them. Like I said, 95% of the time, I think she nailed it on the head. But there are a couple of cases, here and there, where I have to say "No, you went too far, there's no way they could just
know that," and I think Ax speaking perfect, professorial English with no learning curve is one of them.