One more reason to be bilingual

[Martin Votruba]

>  published Wednesday

As a detail, the article has been online and reported by the media repeatedly since November 6 (i.e., in the 21st century, The Korea Times might try to "delay" their, well... potential obsolescence by reporting when things are posted rather than printed). The catch in the results is that "bilingual" in their understanding means speaking two or more languages daily in a bilingual setting (and perhaps having learned them more-or-less together in early childhood: "Indian bilingualism [...] Languages are usually acquired simultaneously and used in parallel and language switching is very common"). Previous research in Canada and the southern U.S. suggested that merely being able to speak two languages that one learned in adulthood doesn't cut it (although both studies relied on self-reporting, so at least some of those who said they spoke two languages may have been overstating things), as opposed to being bilingual and continually speaking two languages since childhood, which gave results comparable to the Hyderabad study.

Should increasing the volume of one's hippocampus be seen as the second best to delaying one's dementia, Swedish research published over a year ago (<http://tinyurl.com/8l8bfvn>) showed that learning a foreign language past childhood can make one's brain grow (unlike, e.g., studying medicine).


Martin

votruba "at" pitt "dot" edu

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