Mind 89Pinker’s remarkable book Words and Rules, which builds on many of Chomsky’s
original insights.^17
Pinker focuses attention on irregular verbs as indicators of how the brain
acquires, builds and uses grammar. In this context, he looks at studies of identical
twins, noting that ‘vocabulary growth, the first word combinations, and the rate of
making past-tense errors are all in tighter lockstep in identical twins than in frater-
nal twins’. Pinker’s striking conclusion to a chapter centred on the relation between
nature and nurture in language learning is clear enough: ‘Every bit of content is
learned, but the system doing the learning works by a logic innately specified.’
This account of language learning establishes that every child inherits a fundamen-
tal set of characteristics prior to and independent of culture. These create the pos-
sibility of language and also set the limits to what can be taught.
Findings from the modern heartland of linguistic theory are consistent with
hunter-gatherer ideas of child raising and education, in which children are expected
to develop in their own ways, at their own pace. Nature is relied upon to do its part
in the business; the mind is expected to grow very much on its own. Pedagogy is
viewed as of limited benefit at best, and as counterproductive at worst. Children
learn when and what they are ready to learn.
In Inuktitut, there is a linguistic indication of this faith in the extent to which
human potential is hard-wired. When a person experiences extreme grief, he might
say ‘Isumaga asiujuq’. ‘My isuma is lost; I am out of my mind.’ When Anaviapik’s
son Inukuluk was talking about his experience of adult education and his struggle
to ‘be a white man’, he began what he said with ‘Isumanguar’, ‘appearing or pre-
tending to think’, which I translated as ‘I sort of thought’. And in many conversa-
tions I heard ‘Isumatuinnarpunga’, ‘I just thought’, a caveat that conveys the sense
of the English words ‘It’s only my opinion’. The root isuma has many uses; they
show it to be something that also has an independent existence. In Inuktitut,
thought is tightly linked to the capacity for thought.
When a child misbehaves or misunderstands, adults are likely to say ‘Isumaqi-
juq’, meaning that she lacks isuma, is without the necessary thought. It is striking
that in this use of isuma, the child is no more blamed for this lack of thought, for
having an undeveloped isuma, than she could be criticized for having short legs or
a large nose. Everyone is aware of a child’s development, in body as well as mind.
Comments are made noting progress. These comments are not judgemental,
though they will, of course, have their effect. Social pressure comes from what a
child hears said about her. Adults do influence the way a child learns, shaping
aspects of character and affecting the rate at which many kinds of learning take
place. But the Inuit trust that individual development comes from what goes on in
the child, not from any systematic pedagogy. Isuma grows at its own pace. A child
has the potential, and she will grow in her own good time. Once the capacity has
developed, and there is a mind and language that expresses mind, then some chil-
dren will learn better than others. External factors come into play, just as they do
with the strength of arms and legs. But for hunter-gatherers, the individual mind
is the thing that must choose to learn, develop, make decisions. Pressures from