Werewolf-Boy

[Silverclaw]

Interesting news article about a boy raised by wolves
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1811
I hope he gets back to his pack of wolves and nobody catches him again.

[PariahPoet]

Yeah, I hope he can find his family.

[Set]

In Russia? I'm amazed he could live with wolves, as cold as it gets there.

[Lycanthrope]

Russian people seem to be very resistant to such temperatures. During the history, European conquerors failed at least twice in invading Russia, because it's inhabitants had little problems with operating in conditions fatal to less adapted people.

As for the boy - it's really worth thinking whether such people should be left alone or caught and returned to the society (Which is most likely to fail). I've got a strange feeling that leaving them in such state might be the more ethical course of action. Such people might never be happy while being kept out of the wild. However, we rarely hear about feral adults. The question that turns up is: "What happens later"? Do these children die or survive, and if it's the latter, what happens to them when they grow up? Do they pose a threat or do they simply avoid people?

[Kelpten]

Oh, but imagine how much we could learn about wolves from him! He has insight into the pack dynamic that we've only dreamed of before! He could even divulge the language of wolves! But I suppose that in order to obtain this information we'd have to "civilize" him first, and that always ends in tragedy. Perhaps if he was found again and befriened without taking him out of the wilds, and gradually taught human speech we'd be able to extract the information without damaging him. But that sounds horribly inhumane and selfish the way I said it.

[RedEye]

Lycanthrope asks "What happens to these people? What happens when they grow up? What happens LATER?"

It so happens that I was doing some research for "the Book that will never get published, not with my agent;" and I found out what happens "later".

They almost never manage to integrate into Human society. They usually wind up-Institutionalized. On Drugs. Un-free, caged, and usually forgotten.

Humans: you gotta love 'em. Gotta, gotta gotta gotta...

[Aki]

Holy crap. I'm going to echo other people: he survived in the wilds of Russia?

Nuts.

Yeah, I kinda hope he gets away. He's probably too far gone to bring back to civilization. It'd just be a big mess for everyone involved I think. Your brain sets up stuff young, and if he's been with the wolves for long, he's too wolf-wired upstairs to make any switch to human thinking without a lot of hard work that may (and probably would be) be for nothing anyways.

Oh, but imagine how much we could learn about wolves from him! He has insight into the pack dynamic that we've only dreamed of before! He could even divulge the language of wolves! But I suppose that in order to obtain this information we'd have to "civilize" him first, and that always ends in tragedy. Perhaps if he was found again and befriened without taking him out of the wilds, and gradually taught human speech we'd be able to extract the information without damaging him. But that sounds horribly inhumane and selfish the way I said it.

In all likelihood, wolves don't have anything resembling a language.

At least not the "A is for Apple" kind. Their "language" is sounds and body-language with a meaning/feeling thrown behind them. Simple but very, very effective. I doubt there's much to be learned from him on most anything wolfy. Nothing that you can't observe from afar, anyways.

[RedEye]

When you say "In all likelyhood, Wolves don't have anything resembling a language; I tend to disagree.

If you define Language as Words with a meaning-they don't. What they have is the same sort of language we had at that level of our development.
Specific sounds. Postures. Actions. Nothing to write home about, but as a means of communicating, it's an adequate language for them.
They don't need to calculate the value of Pi, or compose "Sonnets from the Portugese"...not quite yet...
But their language is adequate for what they need to communicate between themselves.

[Kelpten]

Since working at the WHAR wolf rescue I've learned a few phrases in wolf. "Back off" was one I learned fairly early. "Let's play," "I'm working, don't bother me," and "This is mine" came soon after. There are other things I can't say due to lack of ear or tail, but I can mimic those body postures easily enough. But for all that I can observe them for months and glean those few phrases, you could learn a lot faster if you had a native speaker explaining it to you. For example, if you were plopped into the middle of Spain, would you learn faster if you could only listen to what others were saying or if someone explained Spanish phrases to you? A native speaker that's capable of teaching you holds many portents.

Maybe we'd finally discover what they say when they howl. Scientists have speculated on it for a while, and they have some good theories but nothing confirmed, and they havn't figured out a way to decifer it. In Never Cry Wolf the Innuet guide could, so perhaps it is possible for humans to learn.

[RedEye]

Problem is, for a translation to occur, you have to have similar meanings and similar concepts of those meanings.
The Wolf-Boy doesn't have either- not with Humans.
Then there's the lack of a tail-sort of the equivalent of a hare-lip in a Human; I'd guess. Certain meanings cannot be articulated, because we Humans are "Speech Impaired" as far as Wolves are concerned.

With this boy, we are also against a wall of "different worlds"-similar to our problems with Delphinic and related Cetacian linguistics: Literally, we live in different worlds, insofar as our World-Concepts and language developments are concerned. Just because he's Human doesn't mean he has a human world-concept; in fact he probably doesn't-he has a Wolf's world concept.
Human ideas just don't match up, other than in the simplest manner possible. What makes it worse, is that Wolves are pretty sophisticated in their language. They play jokes. They laugh. They can say: "This is Mine; or they can say "This is mine-but I'll share with you if you're nice"; or even "This is Mine, but I want you to have it".

I imagine that Kelpten has experienced "Get away-I'm frightened" as well as "Get away-unless you can help" or even "I need help, will you help me?" All are different word-language-experiences.
It's this sort of mental and linguistic complexity that makes me think the boy won't learn Human-ese very well, if at all.
His genetic species' language is too Alien.

[Blue-eyes in the dark]

My what a beautiful life he has lived so far, i sure hope that he is never found again.

[Aki]

When you say "In all likelyhood, Wolves don't have anything resembling a language; I tend to disagree.

If you define Language as Words with a meaning-they don't. What they have is the same sort of language we had at that level of our development.
Specific sounds. Postures. Actions. Nothing to write home about, but as a means of communicating, it's an adequate language for them.
They don't need to calculate the value of Pi, or compose "Sonnets from the Portugese"...not quite yet...
But their language is adequate for what they need to communicate between themselves.

Hence why I added on the "At least not the "A is for Apple" kind." after that.

A native speaker that's capable of teaching you holds many portents.

Then a normal wolf works fine, no?

Problem is, for a translation to occur, you have to have similar meanings and similar concepts of those meanings.
The Wolf-Boy doesn't have either- not with Humans.
Then there's the lack of a tail-sort of the equivalent of a hare-lip in a Human; I'd guess. Certain meanings cannot be articulated, because we Humans are "Speech Impaired" as far as Wolves are concerned.

Hence why some jokes don't cross over human languages. Not all our languages use the same stuff. So one half the audience will be laughing, the other half either didn't know what was said, or translated it in their head and are wondering why it's so funny to those other guys.

[Teh_DarkJokerWolf]

Leave it to humans to mess with the life of a wolf I hope they never find him. He needs to be with his family poor guy..

[RedEye]

Leave it to humans to mess with the life of a wolf I hope they never find him. He needs to be with his family poor guy..

And insofar as that young person is concerned, he IS a wolf, not a "human" as in Homo Sapiet Sapiens (Man who beleves he thinks).
It also speaks to the compassion and adaptability of both Peoples; Human and Wolf, both as signs of intelligence and capability to think in the abstract.
For all his appearances, he is a misshapen Wolf; not a Human.
That needs to be respected...

Not that I expect it will be...

[Kuro]

Most everyone is saying the same thing I'm about to say... He needs to be left alone. He's survived in peace for so long and probably prefers to be in the wild with his pack. I know I'd probably rather be with them If they were all I knew for so long. Besides caging an animal never makes things better, it maddens them and makes them miserable. So I guess what I'm saying is since he hadn't caused a problem, they should just let him be. Besides he's only searching for what we all are... peace

[WereWolfBoy]

with humans around who needs rival wolves or packs the humans had no right to do that he had a perfect life with the wolves he was with...... I wonder what they did to the wolves that raised him and i hope the Werewolfboy kilss the people that are there to hunt the others like him like us. I knpow i would.


~Were~

[Lukas]

but theres one thing you guys forget, in Russia they still activly hunt wolves and share no real love for them

[WereWolfBoy]

then i say we kill all the humans over there.

[Lukas]

ah then Europe loses its largest supplier of natural gasses and there heaters will fail and europe will go into a spiralling down fall (not to mention to all the beer lovers out there the loss of vodka?)

[Blue-eyes in the dark]

I say to heck with them (concidering i can't say the ladder) there are other ways to heat homes and cook food, plus no one needs booze.

[Silent Hunter]

then i say we kill all the humans over there.

Remember kids. Killing is wrong but when they kill its A-ok!

Stop being so immature. Unless this was some kind of vent or something you did not mean then your comment is really hypocritical and stupid. Just because someone hunts animals gives you no right to kill them. Yes the situation sucks but saying things like that will not make it any better. Sometimes the whole "humans suck" thing here really grates me.

I say to heck with them (concidering i can't say the ladder) there are other ways to heat homes and cook food, plus no one needs booze.

Yeah lets let loads of people die for the crime of using heat from a country that due to killing some animals (i mean we should kill all countries that hunt right?) ans now apparently deserves to all die. I was hoping this thread would not get on its anti human soapbox but guess i was wrong. I don't like how wolves are hunted either but murder is still wrong even if you think its response to other murder.

Such kids.....

[Blue-eyes in the dark]

Ok we did over react but still i feel there are other ways to heat homes and i really don't think booze is neccicary, plus the boy never aked to be "saved" in the first place.

[Silent Hunter]

Yeah but you can't deprive people a power source no matter how m uch you precieve the suppliers as arses and ia gree with you on the not wanting to be found part.

[RedEye]

Warning! Thread drift!

Let's get back on the Wolf-boy. As for hunting Wolves, it's done from Helecopters in Alaska. Go gripe at them; they're closer to home.

[Lukas]

Warning! Thread drift!

Let's get back on the Wolf-boy. As for hunting Wolves, it's done from Helecopters in Alaska. Go gripe at them; they're closer to home.

yes but i specfically mentioned russia because the story, happened in russia