okay so before the week ends (it’s still sunday for me haha), i want to talk about one last thing that has to do with languages: how the brain’s development plays a role in language learning and, in return, language learning helps develop the brain.
note:
before we continue, i would like to point out i am in no ways an expert in the brain or neurodevelopment, i just enjoy reading about it from time to time, and while i love languages and linguistics, i am merely an amateur when it comes to philology. this means i am nowhere near an authority on this topic, so please take this with a grain of salt, and if you think i’m wrong in any of my points, please bring it up so i can further educate myself.
i’m sure i’m not the only person here who has heard about how it’s easier to learn languages when we are young. this is a proven fact, and it all boils down to something called:
neuroplasticity
neuroplasticity, or brain plasticity, is the brain’s capacity to reorganize pathways or create new connections to ensure its best performance when functions or areas of the brain are compromised. there have been studies that show brain plasticity in infants can supply to the point where, (cw: medical procedures, surgery) when an infant undergoes a lobotomy, the remaining parts of the brain can re-structure themselves to work as an entire brain.
neuroplasticity is at its higher when one’s a kid, which means it’s easier and faster for neurons to create new connections and pathways, allowing us to understand things faster, and to have them ingrained in our brains better. this applies for language learning, too. if one starts learning a language at a young age, there’s more chances it’ll be easier to learn it, and that it will stick with us for longer.
the thing is, one must actively practice said language, because the brain is constantly “trimming down” the connections and pathways that do not receive enough stimulus, this is to ensure the brain works better and that there isn’t any “useless” pathways, so energy can be redirected to the important stuff. an example of this trimming, is a study performed with japanese and USA babies: at a couple months old, both babies were shown to recognise a difference between the l and r phonemes. however, after a couple more months, where both babies were surrounded by their own languages, it was shown that the japanese baby’s brain did not recognise the difference between phonemes any longer, as there’s no different phoneme for l or r in japanese.
this is why practice is so important, because even if one starts out as a child, the brain will keep working on its own to “trim” the pathways we don’t stimulate.
but here’s an interesting thing:
it goes both ways
just like starting out young helps our brains to develop these connections to last longer and be generally stronger, learning a language will stimulate the brain to keep it more youthful.
when we learn to communicate in another language, an entire set of new pathways can be created! we’re required to think in different ways in different languages, so (aside from being helpful communicating) that helps us with thinking in different ways, out of the box, and making connections where we didn’t see them before. not to mention that when learning a new language, we can begin learning about concepts that we did not know about at all, we can begin to learn about completely new perspectives.
because of this language learning has proved to be helpful for attention and memory, to the point where there’s studies that bring up language learning as a possible mechanism to prevent dementia, aside from giving multilingual people smaller (but still very important) advantages in both cognitive and emotional fields.
so, what do you think?
- while it is proven that language learning help develop the brain, do you think this immediately make a person smarter?
- what other benefits do you see in language learning when it comes to health and lifestyle?
