Lost but not erased: Finding traces of a forgotten language in neural speech models
International adoptees retain phonological traces of a birth language they can no longer speak or comprehend, a persistence typically attributed to a biologically-timed critical period. We asked whether it could instead reflect the ordinary dynamics of learning, using automatic speech recognition models that simulate the international adoptee experience without maturational confounds. Models were trained on one language and then abruptly switched to a second. We found that traces of the first language persisted throughout second-language training, but mainly in the lowest, pre-phonemic layers. These traces were functional, as models with early exposure re-learned their lost first language...
| Authors | Peter Plantinga, Charlotte Moore, Peter W. Donhauser et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 26 August 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 26 August 2026 |
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