In this contribution, we explore the question of whether there is reason to maintain the traditional view of language aptitude as a relatively fixed trait that is resistant to experience, or if it should instead be seen as a rather flexible and acquirable skill. Both bilingualism and visual loss have been reported to have enhancing effects on language-related as well as non-linguistic cognition, but few studies have focused on their effects on language aptitude specifically, especially in the case of blindness. In a study of 80 blind and sighted L1 and L2 speakers of Swedish, we compare the relative experiential effects on the phonological aptitude of (1) having learned an L2 and having been a long-term functional and fluent bilingual in adulthood with (2) having lived with total visual deprivation for a significant period of life. The chapter closes with a discussion on what it would mean for current views on the role of age of L2 acquisition and critical period(s) if the above-average language aptitude hitherto robustly associated with adult near-native L2 learning should turn out to be nothing but an effect of L2 learning itself.