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Document Details :

Title: Multilingualism and practical applied intelligence
Author(s): WURM, S.A.†
Journal: Cahiers de l'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain
Volume: 29    Issue: 3-4   Date: 2003   
Pages: 5-16
DOI: 10.2143/CILL.29.3.504023

Abstract :
When the present writer started linguistic work in what is today Papua New Guinea, almost half a century ago, he was often very astonished to observe how indigenous people, children and adults alike, who were untouched or almost untouched by European civilization, had had no European-style formal education, and were ignorant of the outside world, possessed for a European observer incomprehensible and quite unbelievable ability in, to them quite novel, situations which were completely outside their experience and acquired knowledge, to grasp the implications of such situations for themselves very quickly and to take measures and actions suitable for bringing these situations under control, avert dangers or escape them, or to derive benefits and rewards for them from such situations.

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