> we must have some special structure in the brain that gives us this capacity, that we are born with
We have special faculties for things like recognizing faces. Correspondingly there are people that have some damage/abnormality with this mechanism but they are otherwise fully functional human beings. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent phenomena with language. I mean, you have things like dyslexia.. but that's something that only applies to the writing word (which is kinda bizarre if you think about it b/c writing is relatively new, evolutionary speaking). As far as I know, people that can't process language at all are deeply mentally retarded. If it was some complex hard-wired mechanism in the brain then you'd expect to see functionally intelligent people that can't process language at all - but as far as I know that doesn't happen. Or does it?
We have special faculties for things like recognizing faces. Correspondingly there are people that have some damage/abnormality with this mechanism but they are otherwise fully functional human beings. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent phenomena with language. I mean, you have things like dyslexia.. but that's something that only applies to the writing word (which is kinda bizarre if you think about it b/c writing is relatively new, evolutionary speaking). As far as I know, people that can't process language at all are deeply mentally retarded. If it was some complex hard-wired mechanism in the brain then you'd expect to see functionally intelligent people that can't process language at all - but as far as I know that doesn't happen. Or does it?