COMMENTS

  1. The Disturbing Story Of Emperor Frederick II's Language Experiment

    But the worst experiment Salimbene recorded was the attempt to discover man's original language. Language was a joy for the emperor, who is said to have spoken six quite fluently — Latin, Sicilian dialect, German, French, and Arabic, according to the museum of Castel del Monte. But all of Frederick's joys bent to perversion, and — if the ...

  2. Emperor Frankenstein: The Truth Behind Frederick II of Sicily's

    One of the most controversial rulers of his time, Frederick was known for his grand ambitions in the political and cultural arena. Embroiled in a life-long clash with the papacy, which found itself between the Emperor's lands in northern Italy and his Kingdom of Sicily in the south, he was excommunicated twice for ambitions and his disregard for Papal opinion.

  3. Language deprivation experiments

    The experiments were recorded by the monk Salimbene di Adam in his Chronicles, who was generally extremely negative about Fredrick II (portraying his calamities as parallel to the Biblical plagues in The Twelve Calamities of Emperor Frederick II) and wrote that Frederick encouraged "foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the ...

  4. Frederick's Experiment

    Frederick's Experiment. Back in the thirteenth century, the king of Sicily, Frederick II, conducted a diabolical experiment intended to discover what language children would naturally grow up to speak if never spoken to. He thought it would be either Hebrew, Greek, Latin or Arabic.

  5. PDF FREDERICK'S EXPERIMENT

    Back in the thirteenth century, the German king, Frederick II, conducted a diabolical experiment ... To his great dismay, Frederick's experiment was cut short, but not before something tragically significant regarding human nature was revealed. As you may have guessed, the babies grew up to speak no language at all because they died. ...

  6. Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

    Frederick II (German: Friedrich; Italian: Federico; Latin: Fridericus; 26 December 1194 - 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusalem from 1225. He was the son of Emperor Henry VI of the Hohenstaufen dynasty (the second son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa) and Queen Constance of Sicily of the ...

  7. The Experiment of Psammetichus: Fact, Fiction, and Model to Follow

    The best known experiment is the one conducted by Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250). He took infants from their mothers "bidding foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the children, but in no wise to prattle or to speak with them; for he would fain have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language (which had been the first ...

  8. The King of Scotland's Peculiar Language Experiment

    Similar experiments were reportedly carried out by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II ("But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures ...

  9. Frederick's experiment

    By Ty Gibson. September 23, 2018. Back in the thirteenth century, the king of Sicily, Frederick II, conducted a diabolical experiment intended to discover what language children would naturally grow up to speak if never spoken to. He thought it would be either Hebrew, Greek, Latin or Arabic. Some things are just obvious, right?

  10. Royal Investigations of the Origin of Language

    Egypt. Frederick II (Hohenstaufen) of Sicily, and James IV of Scotland (cf. Marx, 1967, p. 443, 450-51; Blumenthal, 1970, p. 100). In view of the present revival of interest in the origins of ...

  11. Frederick II and The Later Hohenstaufen (1190-1258)

    The later Hohenstaufen, Henry VI, Philipp von Schwaben, Otto IV, Frederick II and Konradin cover some of the most famous events of the High Middle Ages. The capture of Richard the Lionheart, the conquest of Sicily, the battle of Bouvines, the Fifth Crusade, the court of Frederick II, Cortenuova and the epic final struggle between the pope and ...

  12. The Experiment in Language Deprivation of Frederick II

    Medieval monarch Frederick II (Holy Roman Emperor, 1194-1250 AD), tried a similar experiment, with disastrous results. He was alleged to have carried out a number of experiments on people. These experiments were recorded by the monk Salimbene di Adam, an Italian Franciscan friar, in his Chronicles.

  13. Frederick II

    Frederick II and The Later Hohenstaufen (1190-1258) Henry VI - 1190-1197; Philipp von Schwaben / Otto IV - 1197-1214; Frederick II - 1196-1250; Epilogue; Saxony and Eastward Expansion (772-1400) The Hanseatic League (1143-1669) The Teutonic Knights (1190-1525) From the Interregnum to the Golden Bull (1250-1356) All Episodes. The Ottonian ...

  14. Frederick II (1194-1250) -- from Eric Weisstein's World of ...

    Frederick II (1194-1250) Highly learned multilingual Holy Roman Emperor who patronized scholars. In The Art of Hunting with Birds, he described the behavior and training of falcons. He was one of the earliest experimenters in Europe. Some of his experiments, however, were more than a little macabre. In one, he locked convicts in an airtight ...

  15. Frederick II

    Frederick II (l. 1194-1250 CE) was the king of Sicily (r. 1198-1250 CE), Germany (r. 1215-1250 CE), Jerusalem (r. 1225-1228 CE), and also reigned supreme as the Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1220-1250 CE). He was born in Jesi in 1194 CE but spent his childhood in Palermo. He belonged to the Hohenstaufen Dynasty (1079-1268 CE) of Swabia, which ruled over the Holy Roman Empire from 1138 CE to 1268 CE.

  16. If babies were isolated, would they develop their own language?

    This question would require an experiment that cannot ethically be conducted, but it is interesting. Wikipedia has an article on historical attempts at language deprivation experiments:. An experiment allegedly carried out by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the 13th century saw young infants raised without human interaction in an attempt to determine if there was a natural language ...

  17. Emperor Frederick II, Mr. Controversy

    Frederick II was involved in nearly all the conflicts of the early and mid-13th century. He attracted hate and wonder - the phrase "stupor mundi" applied to him meant "the astonishment of the world.". Modern debates have focused mainly on his significance for German history; a man of controversy, in the Middle Ages and now.

  18. Frederick II

    Frederick II, king of Sicily (1197-1250), duke of Swabia (as Frederick VI, 1228-35), German king (1212-50), and Holy Roman emperor (1220-50). A Hohenstaufen, he pursued his dynasty's imperial policies against the papacy and the Italian city-states. He also joined in the Sixth Crusade (1228-29).

  19. of the Emperor Frederick II

    tions into German,3 yet, with all the learning lavished on Frederick II by German writers, no one has published a com-parison of the different manuscripts or edited a complete and critical text. There are two principal classes of manuscripts: I. Containing the first two books only, with Manfred's additions: M. Vatican,MS. Pal. Lat. 1071.

  20. Was Frederick II of Hohenstaufen really a medieval Dr. Mengele?

    10. According to legend, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, who was intelligent (spoke six languages) and influential, also purportedly used cold-blooded methods to further his "scientific" inquiries. According to the Wikipedia entry: [Frederick] was also alleged to have carried out a number of experiments on people.

  21. Frederick II

    Frederick II. (1194-1250). The last of the Hohenstaufen line of German kings was Frederick II, Holy Roman emperor from 1220 to 1250. His reign, like that of his grandfather Frederick I, was filled with conflict: wars for control of his Kingdom of Sicily; war against the Lombard League, a confederation of cities in northern Italy; the ...

  22. Frederick II

    Frederick II (born January 24, 1712, Berlin, Prussia [Germany]—died August 17, 1786, Potsdam, near Berlin) was the king of Prussia (1740-86), a brilliant military campaigner who, in a series of diplomatic stratagems and wars against Austria and other powers, greatly enlarged Prussia's territories and made Prussia the foremost military power in Europe.