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A new study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex suggests people who speak two languages have more gray matter in the executive control region of the brain.
In past decades, much has changed about the understanding of bilingualism. Early on, bilingualism was thought to be a disadvantage because the presence of two vocabularies would lead to delayed language development in children. However, it has since been demonstrated that bilingual individuals perform better, compared with monolinguals, on tasks that require attention, inhibition and short-term memory, collectively termed "executive control."
This "bilingual advantage" is believed to come about because of bilinguals' long-term use and management of two spoken languages. But skepticism still remains about whether these advantages are present, as they are not observed in all studies. Even if the advantage is robust, the mechanism is still being debated.
I find learning more languages makes it easier to acquire new ones because you get better at it, but idiomatic speech and use of metaphor seem to take a real hit.
Original Submission
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Zinho on Friday July 17 2015, @08:21PM
While I've met and befriended many bilingual people, I've developed a stereotype over the years that anyone with 4+ languages is insane. Something about the doublethink needed to assimilate that many cultures' worldviews at the same time, I don't know. Oddly, the Swiss seem to be resistant to this effect; learning German, French, Italian, English, and Flemish as infants doesn't seem to break them. Then again, the only crazy Swiss guy I met knew seven languages, so perhaps there's a threshold there as well.
For what it's worth, I'm not judging the crazy ones; as a speaker of English/French/Portuguese/Italian I'm one of them. Crazy people are fund to have around, and tend to put up with my eccentricities nicely. ;)
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 5, Informative) by CRCulver on Friday July 17 2015, @08:35PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @09:00PM
Swiss has lost many local versions of languages over the years. My father, born outside the town Glarus in canton Glarus, family spoke "Swiss-Swiss" or as my father called it "Low German". Never did get a straight answer of what he meant by that. When he went to Switzerland for one summer, he picked right up were he left off, after more than 7 decades from not being living there.
Looking at the Romansh areas, his canton boards the Romansh area, maybe why he also to talk to many older Italian couples when I was a kid.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday July 17 2015, @09:43PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=High_German_languages&redirect=no [wikipedia.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Zinho on Friday July 17 2015, @09:33PM
Perhaps you meant "Romansh", but Swiss don't usually learn that either.
Yep, I got the language name wrong, thanks for the correction! You are also correct about the Romansh being rare, I don't think I've ever heard it spoken or met anyone who claims to be a native speaker.
The time I spent in Switzerland was in the Italian region, so most of the Swiss I met there were happy to speak to me in either English or Italian; many also had French, German, or both as extras. It was a bit surreal visiting the post office and listening to the clerk change between Parisian French, Milanese Italian, British English, and German (I can't place German accents, not enough experience with the language) depending on the customer. To my ear her accent was flawless in all four languages, it was amazing. And, in my experience, not unusual at all for the area.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday July 17 2015, @08:39PM
Tell that to janrinok [soylentnews.org].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dyingtolive on Friday July 17 2015, @09:05PM
I've had about 8 years of learning Spanish. I still can't speak it very fast or well, but I can read and write it more than well enough to get by, long as anyone I have to interact with is patient enough to wait for me to write out whatever.
That's probably due to not interacting with enough people that speak it though. Back when I did helldesk stuff, we didn't have any fluent Spanish speaking people in our region. This netted me the dubious position of email answerer for anything coming from Latin/South America. People would send me the funniest things and tell me to respond to it for them. I remember getting Portuguese and even French emails more than a couple of times and responding, "This is x language. I cannot help you with it. Better contact the Account Manager and hope they pick up." I'm surprised with how people can't tell the difference sometimes. I mean, I can't tell what every language is just by looking at it, but for the three most common foreign languages we saw, there's enough tells in them to at least have a good indication of what you're looking at, even if you can't read it.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday July 17 2015, @10:12PM
Awel zunne, ik denk dagge der 'n bietje neffens zit, met dien Zwitsers en hun Vloms. Probeert het nog 'ns, maar nu een aantal steenworpen noordelijker, s'il vous de plâit.
Switzerland was the only place where I've ever asked politely if they spoke English, because I was tired, in the train station:
"do you speak English?"
"NON!"
"eh bien. ehm... je.. tu.. il.. passé composé..."
I dunno about insane. Um.. I'll reserve my judgement..
what if you speak most languages badly, and therefore can only absorb the surface of the various and sundry worldviews?
I think everybody that's been to a few countries has learnt a few lessons about "live and let live". Is Portuguese difficult? The vowels sound very complicated. And is Brazilian just similar, or mostly the same?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 17 2015, @10:37PM
Holy cow, was that Swiss German blended with Flemish and wrapped up with French? I had a Belgian girlfriend once who would do that and throw in Mandarin every now and then to keep you on your toes. Crazy as a loon, that one.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday July 18 2015, @01:00PM
I was trying to aim for Flemish ("Vloms" [wikipedia.org]), so from your response I conclude I succeeded ;-)
But honestly; the Belgians speak (much) better Dutch than the Dutch.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 17 2015, @11:12PM
How deep you go is a factor. Knowing a few thousand words to get around and effect basic communication is do-able across more than 4 languages. You can probably also manage to read "The Alchemist" with a dictionary to spot you. But if you want to appreciate the humor or real literature it's a whole different level of commitment. I've read about people being able to speak dozens of languages fluently, but you have to consider them savants that you really can't compare yourself to; they have some special structures in their brains that even neuroscientists are at a loss to explain. And that's partly because those people are so rare and there are limits to the experiments you can do on them to figure out what makes them tick.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday July 18 2015, @09:53AM
How true! Other than English which I learned as a child, two of my other languages were learned by virtue of having to live in countries where those languages were the norm. Yes, I managed and could happily have regular conversations regarding current news items or daily life, but getting a feel for the written word in novels was a different matter. I could understand what was written but there was no way I could emulate the style. Humour is another area where jokes would sometimes have everyone else but me laughing their heads off as I missed the subtlety or a nuance of the joke. As soon as I left that environment and was not using the language on a regular basis, my knowledge and fluency began to deteriorate.
One language I had to learn to level 4 - level 5 (the highest level) is usually only attained by a native speaker - and I had to be able to interpret and give formal presentations in that language. That language has stayed with me for far longer but, after 10 years or more away from that role the language is slowly slipping away through lack of use. But, as I now have to get to grips with French, when the going gets difficult my brain suddenly pulls words from other languages as it struggles to find the appropriate vocabulary. The passive skills (listening and reading) are much easier to maintain.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday July 18 2015, @09:57AM
I should perhaps say that there are people who do reach this level but I have not met many and, unless fully immersed in the language on a daily basis, I suspect it would be quite difficult to maintain it.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday July 18 2015, @02:52PM
How different can the worldviews of, say, Spanish and Portuguese speakers be? Or Italians and Portuguese? The languages are very closely related. German and French are a little more different, but they're all European. If you want really different worldviews, you need to go to different parts of the world, like the middle east or east Asia. Someone who learns Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, English, and Spanish would probably be much closer to "insane" according to your idea.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Sunday July 19 2015, @04:11PM
How different can the worldviews of, say, Spanish and Portuguese speakers be? Or Italians and Portuguese? The languages are very closely related. German and French are a little more different, but they're all European.
How different can American, Scottish, Welsh, and Australian worldviews be? After all, they all speak English. Pretty different, considering that we're famously "divided by a common language". Same for Brazil and Portugal.
If you want really different worldviews, you need to go to different parts of the world, like the middle east or east Asia. Someone who learns Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, English, and Spanish would probably be much closer to "insane" according to your idea.
Agreed.
BTW, don't take this prejudice of mine too seriously. It's a joke, and a self-deprecating one at that. I was aiming for "funny", not "interesting" as a mod :P
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday July 20 2015, @12:59AM
American and Australian worldviews are not *that* different, in fact they're not very different at all compared to any other two random pairings. They're probably closer than most other pairings in fact, except maybe US and Canada (though there's a big exception for French Canadians), or Australia and NZ.
Welsh is probably quite a bit more different since there's actually a whole different language there, called "Welsh". Yes, Welsh people probably all speak English too, but they also have their own native language that's quite a bit different. Scottish too, but to a lesser extent. Same for Irish. It probably doesn't help that all three of those countries were conquered by the English.
BTW, don't take this prejudice of mine too seriously.
There might be something to it, I'm just pointing out that some languages are much more different (from one's native language) than others, so being multilingual in languages that are all very closely related isn't the same as being fluent in languages that are nothing alike (e.g. Mandarin and Swahili), so maybe the effect is much more pronounced for those people.