A group of researchers attempts to teach iCub, a humanoid baby robot, language. The approach is to work with language development specialists who research how parents teach children to speak. The iCub is supposed to learn in a way which is closer to the human experience (from telegraph.co.uk).

However, children learn a language on their own without help of an adult. It seems humans learn a language by discerning vowels and consonants for different types of information, which helps a novice to understand what a word is and later on to understand its meaning (from Cognitive Daily).

Just by discerning vowels and consonants a human can eventually learn a new language. So, is the ability to speak and understand a language innate? And does this mean, a robot without this in-built language skill can not learn how to speak?

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