'Half-animal' woman found in Cambodian jungle

[applegrove]

'Half-animal' woman found in Cambodian jungle
KER MUNTHIT
Associated Press

PHNOM PENH — A woman who disappeared in the jungles of northeastern Cambodia as a child has apparently been found after living in the wild for 19 years, police said Thursday.

The woman — believed to be Rochom P'ngieng, now 27 years old — cannot speak any intelligible language, so details of her saga have been difficult to confirm.

“She is like half-human and half-animal,” said Mao San, police chief of Oyadao district in Rattanakiri province. “She's weird. She sleeps during the day and stays up at night.”

The father of Rochom P'ngieng, a member of the Pnong ethnic minority, said he recognized his daughter by a scar on her back and her facial features, according to Mao San. The father is a village policeman named Sal Lou.

...........SNIP"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070118.wjunglegirl0118/BNStory/International/?cid=al_gam_nletter_newsUp

[undeterred]

1. Its amazing she is even alive.

[greyl]

5. At first glance, maybe, but humans survived for 3 million years

before the "protection" and "comfort" of our particular civilization came along. ;)

[drm604]

7. Yes, but they lived in groups.

I would think that a lone person would have a much harder time.

[greyl]

8. Good point. :)

Maybe it has something to do with her culture teaching survival skills that actually come in handy in the so-called "wild", in stark contrast to our culture where children are taught that all food needs to be purchased. (Although she was apparently living on food partially scavenged)
We can forget that Earth is an abundant place that supports life, and that humans are animals, but I don't want to draw my pet peeve into this, because I think it's a cool story about humanity and culture. ;)

[demnan]

2. REAL Catwoman

She hunts at night.

[CatWoman]

4. My sister in arms

:)

[greyl]

3. HALF animal? Good grief.

What a myopic and culturally arrogant view.

Interesting story, though.

[applegrove]

11. Not a good headline...they always try and sex it up. Poor little girl. You

have to wonder what happened...if she got lost or ran from something when she was 8 years old.

[jwirr]

6. sleeps during the day and awake all night? I know a woman on

Oxycotin who does the same thing. She is an animal too.

[Igel]

9. I wonder if any linguists have asked to talk to her

and observe her.

I TAed for the linguist that worked with Genie, the 'wild child' found in LA in 1970. She never acquired language, the reports go. She acquired words, and could produce collocations, but language as a system ... no. Then again, Genie hadn't ever really been exposed to sufficient language.

This girl had. The default assumption is that she was a fairly average 8 year old, meaning she had mastered almost the entirety of her parents' linguistic system and had a decent vocabulary. For her to speak 'no intelligible language' might be true; it might also be that in the absence of feedback her language has altered, but it's still a real language.

Or it might be that she suffered language attrition, and 'lost' the system and the vocabulary. Or maybe just most of one or both.

Let's assume she did lose the system. One prediction would be that Rochom P'ngieng *should* be able to learn or acquire a language, since she had previously acquired a language. (And if it's the same system she had before she vanished, there's no reason why she wouldn't return to native-speaker fluency.)

Fascinating. You can't ethically or morally conduct such an experiment, and such incidents are horrible. But they happen anyway, and it's a shame not to take advantage of it.

[PlanetBev]

13. I remember Genie's story, Igil

I remember that her parents had locked her in a bedroom in Arcadia and just ignored her. They had a documentary on it on PBS. I recall that her father blew himself away when the story came out and that the mother was a weak person who just went along with this atrocity for thirteen years. Does anybody know why they treated their daughter like this?

Do you know what ever became of Genie? Last I heard, the authorities were going to let her live with her mother.

[GeorgeGist]

10. In related news...

half-human found in Cambodian police office.

[applegrove]

12. LOL!

[oblivious]

14. She wasn't found. She was captured.

“He decided to stake out the area and then spotted a naked human being, who looked like a jungle person, sneaking in to steal his rice,” said Chea Bunthoeun.

The villager gathered some friends and the group managed to catch the woman on Jan. 13.