[tathastu]

This may also be an artifact that in terms of "intelligence" we have focused mostly on supervised learning as opposed to unsupervised learning; recent reversals in this trend have been shown to be surprisingly powerful [1].

Consider this: While reading, most humans use a different part of the brain to register consonants and vowels [2]. No matter how much we like to think we learn language in an orderly fashion, that is not the case. Our reading and speaking skills are simply built over time and experience by having neurons connect as we experience visual words and other people talking; formal language instruction probably plays a secondary role of attaching labels to already built neural networks.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/science/scientists-see-adv...

[2] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v403/n6768/full/403428a...