Babies That Suffered For Science

More than 2500 years ago, two babies were kept in isolation for at least two years in a cruel experiment aimed at tracking down the world’s first language. The experiment was carried out by an Egyptian pharaoh, Psamtik I, who ruled from 663 to 609 B.C. He believed that, without anyone to copy, children would instinctively talk the world's “original language”. So he put two newborn babies of poor parents into solitary confinement. A shepherd was given the job of looking after the babies, but Psamtik insisted that nobody should speak in their presence. When, after two years, the shepherd reported that the children had begun to repeat a sound like “bekos” - the Phrygian word for “bread” - Psamtik concluded that Phrygian was the oldest language. But he overlooked the fact that “bekos” sounds very much like the bleating of sheep - something the children had often heard. So the experiment proved nothing.