When I had finished the Dutch gymnasium, 18 years old, I didn’t know that I had taken there important steps towards a healthy life and a life that made me more open-minded. Then a gymnasium was a school that stressed language learning. Besides subjects like physics, maths, history, etc., I got French, German and English plus the classical languages Latin and Greek. Of course, I knew that the gymnasium was a school that educated for the university and asked intellectually a lot of you. What I didn’t realize then was that knowing several languages has a big positive impact on your mind and your physical health, especially if you keep using at least some of the languages you learned. And so I did. Even more, I learned also some new languages and in the end I had learned twelve languages (see here –in Russian – or see this blog). Although I forgot some, for it’s quite an effort to keep up twelve languages (at least for me), nonetheless almost each day I still use five or six languages.
Knowing several languages makes you mentally and physically stronger and more open to the world compared with monolinguals. This is what the Moldavian-American psycholinguist Viorica Marian argues in her book The Power of Language. Multilingualism, Self and Society. The effect is even stronger, if you are fluent in the languages you have learned, especially when you have learned them already at an early age. The effect is also stronger the more languages you know. In order to understand how it works, you must know that languages are stored in the brain via networks. Such a brain network is like a street net that connects all sites that are relevant from a certain point of view and that need to be connected. Suppose you are a postman. Then you have the street net that connects the post office, where you collect the mail to be delivered plus the district with addresses where you deliver the mail. However, for buying your daily necessities, you have another street net. It contains the streets and shops (supermarket, bakery, greengrocer, etc.) where you buy what you need. If you work in a different district than where you work, these street nets will be different, but if you live in the district where you deliver the mail, the street nets overlap. Then, while delivering the mail, you can stop at the baker’s shop and buy the bread you need; etc. It works in the same way for languages. For each language there is a network in your brain; moreover, the networks for the separate languages always overlap. Of course, these networks are not completely equal; there are “streets” in one language network that do not belong to the network of another language. However, that the networks overlap has important consequences, for when one language network is used (for example, you are speaking English) and you are bilingual (for example you know Spanish as well), your other language (Spanish) network is activated at the same time. This becomes clear in association tests. Say you see a candle, candy, a lock, a fish and a match, and you are a monolingual English speaker. When you are asked to point at the candle, then “candy” is activated as well, because the words “candle” and “candy” are similar (this can be concluded from the eye movements you make). However, if you are also fluent in Spanish, the lock will also be activated, for “lock” in Spanish is “candado” (“fish” and “match” in Spanish are “pez” and “fósforo”). This simple test illustrates that for bilinguals the (possible) range of attention is wider than for monolinguals. This will be the more so, the more languages you know, for multilingualism helps you to be open for more alternatives, for instance when you must solve a problem.
Multilingualism delays also the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease. It doesn’t stop the development of the disease, but it makes that the effects appear later. Also this is a result of developing a brain network for each language you learn, and it works about in the same manner as the widening of your attention span just described. If you have Alzheimer’s, your brain is gradually demolished, so also your language networks are. For monolinguals, as soon as the language network becomes damaged, the symptoms of the disease appear. If you are bilingual or multilingual, your language networks will be gradually destroyed as well, but although your language networks partially overlap, often it will possible to create diversions via another network, if one becomes defective. It is not that multilinguals cannot develop dementia, but the symptoms will be less severe for them than for monolinguals with the same level of anatomical decay. It is known that multilingualism will delay Alzheimer’s (and other types of dementia) with four to six years on average. Even more, in countries in which the mean number of languages spoken is low the incidence of Alzheimer’s is higher than in countries where it is high. The more languages spoken the lower the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.
Just short yet a third example of the influence of language on personality: the influence of language on your emotions. It has been shown (and probably you have experienced it yourself if you are multilingual) that your emotions are stronger when expressed in your mother tongue rather than in another language you know. For instance, if you are a native English speaker and someone uses the s-word, the emotional effect on you is much stronger than when you hear a Dutchman saying the Dutch equivalent (which happens to begin also with a s). Generally it is so, that your view on the world and your feelings depend a bit on the language you use, if you are multilingual. As Marian says: “We become somewhat different versions of ourselves when we use one language versus another.” (p. 123). Every language you know extra has a positive impact on you. It widens your world and it improves your health. So, learn a language, and it will change you: For the better.
No comments:
Post a Comment