[SOUND] In previous sections, we also considered the nature of age of acquisition. And we considered the fact, that, as we lay out development across time, and we look at language acquisition, what we see is that there are different pieces of language acquisition that occur at differing times. And it's a building process, from very basic building blocks up to more complex pieces. Now, in a bilingual, this course of language acquisition can be disjointed, it will be different. Because there may be exposure during certain periods of time to one language, and then certain other periods of time to other languages. And this brings us to the next idea which is, what about language loss? There's a large literature on language loss, and it's one that actually resonates quite a bit with me. So when I was about three years of age, my mom was looking for some daycare for me. And she didn't want to put me in a regular daycare, a more institutional setting. And at the same time she didn't want to keep me with a single person. She was looking, ideally, for some form of home care, right? Someone who had one or two children at home and where I could also join in and be with other children, but within a home setting. So my mom looked around for various different types of people. She found this lady, Mrs. Nashati, who was from Iran. And so, she liked the home a lot. Mrs. Nishanti had a young daughter about my age, so my mom thought it would be nice for me to play with another child. And, based on that she decided to place me in this home. What she didn't know was that this would have unexpected consequences. So Mrs. Nashati was from Iran and she spoke Farsi. And so she would speak Farsi to her daughter all day long. And of course I was around in the house, and so she would speak English to me but, I heard Farsi, and I heard her speaking Farsi to her daughter pretty much all day long. And within a couple of months, my mom began to notice that some very strange things were happening. I began to grow frustrated when my mom didn't understand what I was saying. And the words that I was saying didn't match anything that was in the environment. One day she finally realized why this was happening. She showed up to pick me up at Mrs. Nashati's, and she heard Mrs. Nashati speak in Farsi. And she heard a little voice that responded to Mrs. Nashati. And when she looked more closely she realized it wasn't her daughter, it was me. So I had responded to Mrs. Nashati in Farsi, and somehow I had learned enough to communicate during those few months. After about a year, my mom decided she wanted to put me more into a school-like type of daycare, more of a preschool. And so I moved, I left Ms. Nashati and I went on to a different preschool. And over time, slowly, all of the words that had been invading our home started to retreat and I began to speak less and less Farsi. And today I can tell you I don't speak any Farsi. I have no knowledge of the language. I don't understand it. I don't know what anything means. So this is a form of language loss. A language that I spoke for about a year is now gone.
