Being Bilingual: How Does The Brain Benefit From Being Fluent In Two Languages

Newly born babies have such a flexible brain that is so talented for languages that they could be able to speak fluently in any of the 6,800 languages currently spoken in the world. And even though only nine months afterwards, this talent begins to fade, by the time we are old enough to start with formal schooling, we still have a remarkable ability to learn a second or third language.

Being bilingual does not only have a positive impact in people’s employment possibilities but it also affects their social abilities in a way that no other ability does. Recent scientific studies show that bilingual and multilingual people have developed the possibility of fluently reading and writing in at least a foreign language as well as to: deal better with ambiguities, solve conflicts faster and more efficiently and resist the Alzheimer’s disease longer than people who only manage one language fluently.

Social Benefits of Bilinguism

From the social point of view, the benefits of being bilingual cannot be doubted. Teachers, education experts in general, linguists and social analysts agree on the fact that exposing a child to a second language from a very early age:

• ·         Provides children with a more flexible thinking and a greater sensitivity not only to language but also to cultural issues.

• ·         Enables children to communicate with people from different cultures, thus increasing their awareness of world issues.

• ·         Enables children to appreciate cultural, ethnical and social diversity.

• ·         Promotes children’s mental and intellectual development.

• ·         Improves the way children understand their mother tongue.

Brain Plasticity and Being Bilingual

But, in which way does the brain benefit from being bilingual? Being fluent in two or more languages has a positive effect on our brain’s neuroplasticity. In other words, it has an advantageous impact on the plasticity of our brain.

Neuroscientists have discovered that knowing how to speak and write in more than one language challenges our brain to create different neural pathways and synapses. These new connections make our brain not only more flexible but also encourage it to create new circuits that keep it young no matter our physical age.

In fact, it has been proven that our brain is not a static organ. Just as any other muscle in our body, it changes physically as we challenge it and force it to make new synapse connections.

Being fluent in more than one language is a way to stimulate our brain’s plasticity. Reading a passage in a language and then joining a conversation in another language forces our brain to constantly restructure itself, reorganize and create new synapses that help our brain to be more alert, more active and highly more responsive. As we learn new vocabulary or a new grammar tense, our brain is constantly adding, saving and relating that new info to previous concepts we have learnt so that our brain’s plasticity if always put to the test.

In such a context, children who are exposed to a bilingual environment from a very early age have plenty of opportunities to expand their neuroplasticity and this means that, in the future, they will have more tools to fight against Alzheimer’s disease as well as many other mental illnesses.

As it can be appreciated, learning languages is beneficial for our brain.

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Differences Between British English and American English

This year’s summer Olympics will be held in London so the British capital is sure to be flooded with tourists from all over the world who want to get a first hand look at the event.

One of the things that many visitors to London may notice, especially those coming from America, is that although English is spoken in the city, it may not necessarily sound familiar to other people. Other than the thick British accent that takes some time getting accustomed to, there are actually some words and phrases used in Britain that mean something entirely different in America.

British English and American English

In forms of writing, the two versions of English are quite similar. George Bernard Shaw once commented that Britain and America are “two countries divided by a common language”.

The formal English that we often see in newspapers is referred to as Standard English. Although both British and Americans speak English, there are many differences between the two languages, that sometimes, it may seem like an entirely different language is spoken.

British English refers to the form of English that is spoken in the United Kingdom, including all the English dialects in the country. It is also called “the Queen’s English,” as well as “Oxford English” or “BBC English”.

On the other hand, American English is the form of English that is spoken in the US. It was the British that introduced the English language to America, but the language has evolved into its own version in the United States.

Hail To The Queen! Her Majesty The Queen's Diamond Jubilee

Royal Monogram of Queen Elizabeth II's
Diamond Jubilee

The time is ripe for a royal celebration. The United Kingdom is abuzz this year because it is Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. 2012 marks the 60th anniversary of her ascension to the British throne. A myriad of activities has been going on since the start of the year with more celebratory activities to come during Central Weekend, which starts June 2 and ends on the anniversary of her Jubilee, June 5.

Queen Elizabeth II has served the British and the people of all the other commonwealth  realms, territories and crown dependencies. She is the representative of Britain's past and present. The British Empire, once a super power that ruled nations across the globe, introduced to its subjects the British way of governing, their culture and their language, English. The Queen continues this tradition by being the face of the British Monarchy. She symbolizes continuity and stability in the 21st century.

A princess was born

Queen Mary touring London's dockyard area with
Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, May 1939.

It was on April 21, 1926, at exactly 2:40 in the morning that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary graced the world with her presence. Princess Elizabeth of the House of Windsor was born in Mayfair, London. Her father and mother were the Duke and Duchess of York. The Duke was later crowned as King George VI and the Duchess became Queen Elizabeth.

Benefits of Being Bilingual

It is estimated that there are over 6,500 living languages around the world. The exact figure is difficult to determine because language and dialect are not so easy to distinguish from one another. Since there are literally thousands of languages in the world, it is natural to assume that there would be many advantages for someone who can speak than more than one language.

Most commonly spoken languages

The top three languages spoken around the world are Mandarin, Spanish and English. These are three of the six official languages used by the United Nations (the other are Arabic, French and Russian). There are over 1.2 billion Mandarin speakers all over the world, half a billion Castilian Spanish speakers and about 1.5 billion English speakers around the world.

Other most commonly spoken languages around the world are Bengali, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese. Arabic is one of the world’s most commonly spoken languages and is spoken by 175 million people around the globe, with ten variants within spoken Arabic.

Boo! It’s Hallow’s Eve!

Halloween is known by many names some of which are Samhain, Summer’s End, Lamswool, All Hallow’s Eve, Witches Night, and Snap-Apple night. It is believed to be one of the oldest holidays in the world. Halloween, as it is known today, started as an ancient pagan tradition before it was adopted and reinvented by Christians. Halloween traditions and customs have evolved into different forms. It is a blend of tradition and modern acts of public exhibitionism.

Halloween in some places is highly commercialized and strongly connected to the Halloween tradition of the United States. With the help of traditional and social media, movies, television shows, and the Internet, American Halloween is increasing in popularity year after year. It has become one celebration enjoyed by kids, teens, and adults alike. Knowing the origins of this spooky celebration is a way to understand the different Halloween customs and traditions of today.

Celtic tradition

Summer’s End or Samhain is believed to be the origin of Halloween. This is an ancient Celtic festival that signaled the end or death of summer. It also celebrated the start of the New Year for the Celts (people from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Britanny and northern France). The Celts saw Samhain as a sacred festival because it marked the border between summer (life) and winter (death). Samhain was a moment of change; a night filled with magic and power for these ancient people.

Dinka of The Republic of South Sudan – The Voice of the New Nation

The memorable day of July 9, 2011 did not just mark the end of a violent fight of the millions who died just to attain South Sudan’s independence. It also loudly echoes to the world the rich culture and languages in this newly-recognized Republic. It did not just end the longest standing civil war in Africa, but it also serves to highlight the cluster of languages that will now be increasingly opened for interpretation and translation to the world.

Situated in East Africa, South Sudan differs starkly in contrast to its Muslim nearby neighbor, North Sudan. They are more inclined to practice their traditional religions with a few converts to Christianity. However, Sudan in its entirety initially had Literary Arabic and English for its official language on paper. But in practice, they have been engaging in speaking their own preferred dialect prior to the peace treaty for their freedom, which was signed in 2005. It was like their lifestyle for the last 22 years before their declared independence – South Sudan had been known for its most autonomous management of affairs and equally autonomous system of culture, society, and language preferences.

Complete Sovereignty or Globalization, a Language Issue

There are many different languages spoken in Malaysia. However, Article 152 of Malaysia’s Constitution states that Malay or Bahasa Malaysia is the country’s official language. This is the general medium of instruction employed by Malaysia’s educational system. Mandarin and Tamil are also taught in national-type schools because of the large population of Chinese and Indians in the country. English, on the other hand, is taught only in international schools.

However, in 2003, the PPSMI policy was implemented. It was initiated by Run Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the prime minister at that time. According to this policy, science and math subjects were to be taught in English. This was to ensure that future citizens of Malaysia will not be at a disadvantage compared to citizens of other countries in this era of intense globalization. The internet then was fast becoming an important tool for education, business, politics, etc. Therefore, English proficiency seemed essential.

Looking ourselves in the mirror: how unique is human language?

In our quest to define our own identity as humans, we have continued to stubbornly highlight those features that enable us to stand out from the rest of species; however, that is not an easy task to accomplish. If we just consider that technology is the characteristic quality of human beings, we are inadvertently excluding the native indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest due to the abysmal gap between them and the technologically developed nations. Even though the exclusion would satisfy those corporations which are mainly responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon, our curiosity should lead us to find better ways to answer what makes us humans. Obviously, we all would agree that language is a key characteristic, but is it a distinctive human feature?

Chinese New Year / Spring Festival is here: The global festival of Chinese culture

2011 is the Year of the Rabbit

If language is the vehicle of a particular culture, the Chinese language is like a bullet train which is carrying the weight of more than four thousand years of cultural baggage at lightning speed towards the future. China is undeniably a country full of contrasts, where tradition and modernity often meet and clash while the country is on its rapid way of development. However, the millenary Chinese culture and language are keeping up well with the accelerated pace of globalization. Taking the internet as the mirror of cultural globalization, we find that Chinese netizens are colonizing the World Wide Web by creating more than 50% of the total internet content. Moreover, millions of people are studying Chinese all over the world and Chinese culture is also spreading thanks to the overseas Chinese communities celebrating their traditional festivals, where everyone is welcomed. Among those festivals, the Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival or the Lunar New Year, is the most important and lively of the traditional Chinese holidays and includes some of the most representative elements and powerful images of the Chinese culture.

Languages and Dialects: A matter of recognition

Being a controversial subject as it is, the distinction between language and dialect often sparks heated debates not only among linguistics experts but also throughout the entire society. What makes a language to be considered a language instead of a dialect? When and under what circumstances can a dialect thrive and become a national language?

In linguistics, a dialect can be defined as a variant of a given language which is spoken by a specific group or in a particular location, but whose distinctive features – e.g. vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation – are “not distinctive enough” to be recognized as a separate language. Experts analyze mutual intelligibility among speakers in order to distinguish languages from dialects. In other words, if two speakers can understand each other although they don´t recognize the use of some words or their pronunciation is different, they must be speaking two different dialects of the same language.

Languages are a link in time

Only through languages man has been able to link his present life to the past and to let future generations build their own links to a time that will then be their past.

I've already written about how important and how great languages are, and about how they have a crucial role in man's history and in the construction of different kinds of stories that are essential for thousands of cultures from all around the world.

This time I want to share with you a beautiful poem by Carl Sanburg, an American writer, editor and poet that has win three Pulitzer prizes. The poem is called "Languages" and says a lot about what they represent for man in time, and about how man molds them to make them become a symbol of what he really is.

It also talks about how time changes everything, both man and languages, and about how, like rivers, languages can transform and also die…

I'll just share it with you and leave these beautiful words to your own interpretation. I hope you like it!

Languages

By Carl Sandburg

THERE are no handles upon a language

Whereby men take hold of it

And mark it with signs for its remembrance.

It is a river, this language,

Once in a thousand years

Breaking a new course

Changing its way to the ocean.

It is mountain effluvia

Moving to valleys

And from nation to nation

Crossing borders and mixing.

Languages die like rivers.

Words wrapped round your tongue today

And broken to shape of thought

Between your teeth and lips speaking

Now and today

Shall be faded hieroglyphics

Ten thousand years from now.

Sing--and singing--remember

Your song dies and changes

And is not here to-morrow

Any more than the wind

Blowing ten thousand years ago.

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If translation didn't exist...

"Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament". Milan Kundera.

We live in such a modern world and we are now used to so many technologies and devices that we hardly value or stop to think about the different disciplines and arts that make so many things possible…

There's one good example of great importance because of everything that has been created and transformed thanks to it, and that is translation. Translation has united cultures, societies, artists, writers, businesses, countries and people around the world within the passage of time.

The art of translation has made possible that the most amazing history, poetry and literature works of the greatest thinkers and authors of all times can be read, studied and understood by millions of people that speak hundreds of different languages.

The fact that there are professionals dedicated to study languages and specializing in really knowing the cultural details and customs of different countries and regions has made possible that persons from really faraway places of the planet can establish communication and find that they actually have things in common.

Since there are more than 300 spoken languages in the world, if translation didn't exist, you wouldn't be doing a lot of the things you do in your daily life. For example, you wouldn't be able to watch thousands of movies from directors of different countries because there would be no way for you to understand them, since there wouldn't exist subtitles for you to read the dialogs in your own language.

Also, many television shows that have been adapted from the originals from other countries wouldn't reach your national television providers guide, because they would be in their original languages…Furthermore, a lot of great famous books that have been adapted to the big screen couldn't possibly be so because of the fact that the books are written in the author's native languages, which can't be comprehended by the scriptwriters.

There are countless examples in countless fields that transform your everyday life because of the possibilities that translation has brought to life. The world would be a completely different place and wouldn't be so culturally rich and so full of knowledge if it weren't for translation and, of course, for translators.

Even scientific inventions and science development have advanced much more and faster because of the possibility of uniting the knowledge and the experiments of scientists from around the world that do research and work in their own languages.

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Opening new doors through languages

Languages mean new universes of people and cultures. When you learn a language or have anyone to translate some content or dialog for you, you open yourself to different points of view and new knowledge that you might not find in the same way in your own language, which, generally, involves the people you already know or have contact with.

Also, languages that are different from your own are universes of needs that might be new for you, as they have been out of your reach until the moment you open your door to them. That means that not only personally, but also in business aspects, a new language represents great opportunities of enrichment and can become a new market, new ideas, new customers, new business, new profits.

But don't worry! You don't have to actually learn the language to enter into this endless possibilities world. You can do it if you want and you have the time, but if not, there are simple ways of starting and entering step by step.

One first step could be translating your website. As you probably already know, Internet has infinite tools and contact possibilities that erase geographical boundaries and allow you to travel in seconds and find that thing or person that you need anywhere in the world. So, if you translate your website to another language, the people and organizations that will have access to your companies' information and services will multiply for a big number.

Obviously, you should do this if you really are willing to provide your services to people and organizations outside your country and that speak another language. For that you would need someone in your company to have great command of the particular language or, optionally, you could hire external services from translators and interpreters that could handle the language part for you.

You can go ahead and take the risk! Maybe you haven't seen this side of your business growth possibilities and it might really surprise you. We're talking about a whole new universe of people with all their needs. They could find what you do very interesting and useful, and they can become just what you were looking for.

It's not that complicated. You can start with getting some professional advice, having your website translated by experts that know exactly what you need and that can direct you to your target, and just staying alert and open to any new opportunity that appears. It might need a little investment at the beginning but I'll surely pay off.

Open yourself to new universes through languages! You have nothing to lose and so much to gain!

The magic of languages

When letters come together they form words, which then, combined in a very specific way, become phrases and bring languages to life, creating sounds and signs that make sense for the people who understand each particular language. But languages are so much more than that…They have endless cultural aspects that have built them and given them their own characteristics.

There are many years of history behind each of the approximate 6.000 languages that exist today, and they're the result of men's needs and efforts to communicate with others, so they contain the richness of men's cultural and technological evolving.

That's why knowing a language means a lot more than learning words and grammar. It means understanding another culture, comprehending how other people communicate and express themselves, and realizing that they have different views of the world. It means discovering the magic of new worlds through completely new concepts and visions of life. It could mean rediscovering life.

When you know someone that speaks another language, even if you don't understand them, with just listening to the words, the tone and the volume with which they speak, you start to find out small details that reveal interesting aspects of their culture. Also, that's because languages are not only the words that compose them; when those words start being part of somebody's life they acquire a personality that has been molded by culture. Culture expressed through languages can create attitudes and forms of expression: for example, it can make someone be very expressive and kind of loud or really rough with their words and keeping it simple when it comes to expressing a feeling…There's a lot to discover through languages.

The art of languages

Another passionate side of languages relies in the art that's created from them. Literature, poetry, the dialogues of a movie, the name of a painting, the lyrics of a song…Artists love languages and express all their inspiration trying to put it in words, to let the world know and understand what they think and what they want to say.

Knowing different languages represents the possibility of going deeper into the minds of those who have written wonderful works, treasures of history. Each word was chosen by each artist specifically to say exactly what they were thinking and it involves an enormous cultural process to be placed where it is.

Also, artists and writers have shown great interest in languages throughout history; many of them lived in war periods where they had to leave their original homes to start new lives where they had to learn new languages that then became their powerful ways of expressing what they went through by means of the words that shaped their new lifestyles.

The richness within languages is priceless. It's the magic of history captured in words that create new meanings everyday and continue building the history for tomorrow.

When you learn a language you're actually learning the way other people live and see the world. But, with the existing 6.000 languages, it becomes obvious that no one can learn them all, so there's where translation acquires all its value: it represents the possibility of reading works, understanding people and knowing what happens anywhere in the world.

Translations are cultural exchanges that allow people to view the world through other's eyes.

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The Translation industry and Globalization

The translation industry is a very important industry. It is a constantly growing field which is creating new opportunities every day in the workforce. In this constantly growing economy of the west and the increasing strength of the global economy of the east, especially the Middle East and China, the need for and value of translation services has been steadily increasing.

The purpose of this blog is to discuss the Globalization of the world, international business and politics, and anything that has to do with languages.

Languages are a very important part of our culture. They are the main vehicle by which we express ourselves. Many psychologists believe that we would go crazy with out the outlet that language gives us to express ourselves. You can see this clearly in the cases of people who have a stroke and all of a sudden lose their ability to speak and don't know sign language. They often go crazy. The best therapy for them is to learn sign language.

Language are very deeply instilled in our culture. Cultural norms are often the impetus for new words. When we learn a new language, we often learn about new concepts and ideas. For example, love is expressed in many different ways in many different languages.

We will be discussing the topic of love in several languages in our next blog.

Please keep up with our blog as we will be updating it twice per week.

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Sean Patrick Hopwood