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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: 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.
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