【B1】 [br] 【B11】 [originaltext]Language is an amazing phenomenon. Speech — the u

Language is an amazing phenomenon. Speech — the  uttering of sounds to convey meaning — is a kind of human action. Like any other  constantly repeated actions, speaking has to be learned. But once it is learned, it becomes a generally  unconscious and apparently automatic process.
As far as we can  determine, human beings do not need to be forced to speak. Most babies seem to  possess a sort of instinctive drive to produce  speech-like noises. How to speak and what to say are another matter  altogether. These actions are learned from the particular society in which the baby is born; so that, like all conduct and  behavior that is learned from a society — from the people around us — speech is a patterned activity.
The disorganized uttering and chatter of a young child are eventually channeled by imitation into a few orderly patterns, accepted as meaningful by the people around him.
The sounds that a child can make are more varied and numerous than the sounds that any particular language utilizes. However, a child born into a society with a pattern of language is encouraged to make a small selection of sounds.
He keeps making these few sounds over and over again until it is natural for him to make these and other sounds.