> The same way in that a CS PHD is going to be able to pickup programming languages better and more quickly than someone who has learned C++ and python, they understand the underlying mechanics of language, what makes it work.
... have you ever actually met anyone who got a PhD in CS? Because first off, very few people will actually study the "mechanics of language" in doing a CS PhD. If you're studying compilers or formal methods or maybe software engineering, sure, you'll study up on programming language semantics; but if you're learning AI or operating systems or computer architecture, you're very unlikely to touch those semantics. But even assuming you have someone who has actually taken those graduate-level courses (and I have!), it's not actually helpful for learning new languages. Learning semantics is essentially learning how to give meaning to the expression "a + b" (there are many ways to do this, and they have different tradeoffs), but if you want to learn a language, all you really want to learn is that "a + b" adds two numbers together, let's move on.
There's a similar gap between learning languages and being a linguist. As I understand it, most linguists are not polyglots (actually, I think a majority of them may be monolingual!), and most polyglots are not linguists. The linguist is the person who will tell you that English doesn't have a future tense: instead, you indicate the future by using specific helping verbs in the present tense. Anyone instructing English as a second language will slap the linguist on the head for being an idiot and tell you that the future tense in English is the "will X" construction.
... have you ever actually met anyone who got a PhD in CS? Because first off, very few people will actually study the "mechanics of language" in doing a CS PhD. If you're studying compilers or formal methods or maybe software engineering, sure, you'll study up on programming language semantics; but if you're learning AI or operating systems or computer architecture, you're very unlikely to touch those semantics. But even assuming you have someone who has actually taken those graduate-level courses (and I have!), it's not actually helpful for learning new languages. Learning semantics is essentially learning how to give meaning to the expression "a + b" (there are many ways to do this, and they have different tradeoffs), but if you want to learn a language, all you really want to learn is that "a + b" adds two numbers together, let's move on.
There's a similar gap between learning languages and being a linguist. As I understand it, most linguists are not polyglots (actually, I think a majority of them may be monolingual!), and most polyglots are not linguists. The linguist is the person who will tell you that English doesn't have a future tense: instead, you indicate the future by using specific helping verbs in the present tense. Anyone instructing English as a second language will slap the linguist on the head for being an idiot and tell you that the future tense in English is the "will X" construction.