Noam Chomsky On The Spontaneous Invention Of Language [1]

Q: If we were to take a handful of children and put them alone on an island, would they develop their own language?

A: Well, there are a couple of cases which indicate that. Of course, we don't experiment on humans, so we don't have an experimental answer. But there are a couple of natural experiments--which have just happened--which seem to indicate that's exactly what occurs. There's one fairly recent case, and then one from years ago.