Bilingual Brain Explored

Aurorya writes: "Nature.com posts this article about the this brain activities in bilingual versus monolingual people. The article states that when a bilingual person reads a list of words with one language in mind, the words are "heard" in the brain, and those words of another understood language or jibberish are ignored in the same way; the brain makes no effort to recall the meaning of the word in the other language. This is in contrast to monoligual folks, who search for meaning immediately."

Comments

Sounds about right

[TheReverand]

I'm English by birth, but I spent a lot of time in France as a child, so I'm pretty fluent at French. I've quite often had conversations in French and only realised afterwards which language I was speaking in.

Also, I find that I start to think in French if I've been speaking it for a few hours. (If I was a troll, I'd make some remark about English, the more flexible language, being better suited to thought, which explains why we're so much smarter than them :) ) I don't do this on purpose, it just happens.

Re:Sounds about right

[xtremex]

I learned that a native speaker of a language will always perform math in their heads in their native tongue. I read a story in school (correct me if I'm wrong on the details) that the Netherlands was able to find spies during world war 2 by making them either do long division out loud or say the number 888. (I've heard the number spoken..and I apologize on how hard it is :)). Only a TRUE native can say 888 in Dutch flawlessly.

I can't completely agree

[filtrs]

From the article:

"Those fluent in two languages rarely mix them up."

IANALR (I am not a linguistics researcher), but in my experience, most people always seem to be more fluent in one toungue than another. There are many bilingual individuals I've met who constantly jump back and forth between languages mid-sentence (especially when angry/ranting/upset). The article doesn't go into enough depth on this for me.

Is the entire study online? Anyone with a link?

Re:I can't completely agree

[cheezehead]

Well, I guess it depends on what your definition of bilingual is.

My first language is Dutch, and I have been living in the USA for almost 6 years now. I don't consider myself to be 'truly' bilingual, since I only started learning English at age 8 or so.

Anyway, my experience is that people who speak two (or three, or more) languages well, generally do not mix them up. It's the people who are struggling with the 2nd language that are the ones that fall back on the 1st language when they get angry, emotional, or drunk.

Switching languages mid-sentence, sure, I've done that, but only when I wanted to. It usually happens when I speak Dutch to another Dutch person, and a non-Dutch speaking person joins the conversation. Out of courtesy, I then switch to a language that everyone understands.

Again, it depends on the definition of "bilingual". The article is less than clear about that.

Re:I can't completely agree

[Ayende Rahien]

I know that I certainly does it, most computer programmers do it often, if they don't talk English as a first language, it's just too painful to talk about technical terms in non-english, because that is what we all learned it on.

Re:I can't completely agree

[yintercept]

I think it depends on where you are with a particular language. I studied several languages, and have found really strange things go on inside my head. There seems to be a hierarchy on how well I know the language. English and French live in separate spaces.

When I speak spanish, I revert to French for unknown words. When I try to speak Portuguese, I revert into Spanish. When learning a new language, the new language seems to start by sharing the memory space of an existing language. Then grandually the mind separates it into its own space.

I also find it extremely interesting how I learn differt computer languages. I programmed in Basic for years before moving to C++, Java, PHP and other languages. When I first started programming in c, I kept trying to do things the Basic way. It took a long time for c to separate into its own space. Oddly enough, when I wanted to learn Java, I was able to separate the two languages more rapidly, as if my brain remembered the problems I had with c and Basic.

I really don't think this phenomena is exclusive to language. When we launch into a new subject, our minds have to decide if it is something completely new (requiring a new memory space) or just a addition to stuff already on file.

Re:I can't completely agree

[xtremex]

Ya govaryu po-ruski, and I understand "u myenya nyet dyeneg", I don't do a literal translation in my head. I just "know" it means I have no money and not "to myself not of money"

Re:I can't completely agree

[notsoanonymouscoward]

or drunk

interesting. but not always. my japanese flows so naturally when I'm drunk (and I wouldn't even consider it a 2nd language for me... even after 4 years I still think of it as a hobby). no its not just my imagination either! the only time I seem to get compliments on my japanese speaking skills are when I have been drinking. I dunno if thats necessarily a good thing...

Of Filters and Black Boxes

[nickynicky9doors]

It has been many and many a year since I read the most part of what was then Chomsky's output on language but recall suggests his theory of transformational grammar might embrace something along the lines suggested in the article.

From the article: "Their studies of brain activity reveal that bilinguals reject words that are not part of the language they are speaking - before working out what the words mean."
"Bilinguals use a different processing pathway, the team suggests, which sounds out the word first. The fMRI images showed that a brain area involved in spelling out letters is active when rejecting Catalan and pseudowords. The pronunciation rules of Spanish or Catalan might work as a filter, recognizing words in the inappropriate language. Speakers switch filters when they switch between languages."
This begs the question of what the filter might be. Does any one language exhibit an underlying structure that permits a 'filter'? But then what of dialects? We know brain cells create new neural networks so it might be permitted to loosely conjecture the 'filter' as a different configuration of the cells in the language areas. I have yet to find any definitive work on how fast brain cells can realign and create new networks but my recent readings suggest new networks are generated much faster than once thought. Dropping all pretense of rigor or of any discipline, I'm of the opinion we'll find brain cell configuration and reconfiguration is the most underutilized and fundamental aspect of creativity and learning much akin to general suppleness of form.
Cheers thnx for the pointer.

Some additional thoughts

[cheezehead]

Not sure if this is offtopic, I think it's mostly on-topic, but anyway.

Some years ago I was reading an interview with the well-known neurologist Oliver Sacks (of "Awakenings" fame), and he was describing how he was amazed by a relative of his, who was an interpreter, and who described her thought processes when translating. Turned out that what she described was completely alien to him, since he was strictly monolingual.

I was completely shocked.
Here's how Sacks' relative described it. If you speak more than one language, you don't simply think in "words". There's ideas, images, sounds, smells, and other harder to describe concepts. The process of translating is not a look-up process ("this word means that word", etc.). You need to absorb what is written or said in one language, translate that into ideas, concepts, emotions and what not, and then express those ideas in another language. You also have to place what you hear and say in the proper context. Often this has to be done 'on-the-fly', so the fact that multiple brain regions are involved doesn't surprise me.

What shocked me was that Sacks (and apparently a lot of monolingual people) didn't experience this at all! I was under the assumption that everybody's brain worked like this. So, apparently there is a lot of truth to the theory that language is a defining factor in structuring the human brain. According to the research, there is a significant difference between one and two languages, let alone the difference between zero and one language.

Re:Some additional thoughts

[ishark]

If you speak more than one language, you don't simply think in "words". There's ideas, images, sounds, smells, and other harder to describe concepts. The process of translating is not a look-up process ("this word means that word", etc.).

When studying foreing languages, I have seen that I have 3 "stages" of knowledge.

1- low. Speaking (or translation) is strictly word-by-word transfer from my main language, and works badly because many of the needed words in the new language are not known.

2- medium. Speaking/translation is mostly word-by-word, except for some well-know phrases (usually the expressions that don't match well between the two languages). It works slowly because translating is a look-up process, but it's reliable, i.e. unless you hit an unknown word you can easily map one word onto the other.

3- high. Speaking is done direct from ideas to words, I don't pass anymore from my main language. Translation becomes hard, since the look-up approach is lost and now it's necessary to "switch context" between one language and the other and see what concept is associated to which word in the two cases. The translation ends up being very non-literal, since phrases are translated in a single shot. Languages may be mixed up (intentionally) when a word in one language is more effective at describing one idea than any in the other language.

Re:Some additional thoughts

[iiii]

There is an interesting parallel to this in Sign Language. Sign communication spans a wide spectrum. At the "low" end of the spectrum is Signed English, which basically is english communicated in sign. English can be transliterated by signing or spelling each word. On the other end of the spectrum is ASL (American Sign Language) which has a grammer and idiom of it's own (although some english words are used within that grammar). To translate from English to ASL, or vice-versa, you have to grasp the idea and context then create a new representation of it in the target language. Most real sign communication is in the middle ground, or pidgin, incorporating parts from both.

The ideas in this thread also parallel the object-oriented concepts of separating representation from view, e.g. M-V-C. Seems natural that brains work that way for some processes.

Dual Speech

[akiaki007]

I am bilingual. Hindi is my 1st language, and English my 2nd (Spanish as a 3rd, but I'm not fluent in that). Anyway, I often, when talking to my parents or others who speak Hindi, will use both Hindi and English interchangibly mainly because there are certain things that are easier said or explained in one language over the other. There are some words that don't exist (a description does) in one language, so I would use the other. While I could speak stricly in one, it's easier to speak in both. I don't think about doing this, I just do. I would have to think harder to speak just in one language.

The study results were interesting, but I would love to see more in depth analysis of this, or perhaps some further study info, etc. Anyone have anything?

My question on being bilingual

[erlenic]

English is my first language, pig latin is my second. I can speak fluent pig latin and understand it when spoken fluently. No, I am not joking. I can even use Google's pig latin translation with no problem, and occasionally do. The only thing I can't do well with it is type. Does this qualify me as being bilingual, or just truly bizaar?

Note: in case anyone is wondering, me and my sister used to go out with large groups of both of our friends, and we practiced pig latin at home so we could have private conversations at these get togethers. Everyone knew we were using pig latin, but we are so fluent that no one was able to learn it from listening to us.

I majored in applied linguistics...

[xtremex]

I have always loved languages and that is my second "passion" besides computers. I am fluent in 17 languages (reading and writing them..NOT speaking them). The first time I realized I could understand a language as well as I could with English is when I rented a foreign film in the mid 80's. It DID'NT have subtitles, but I thought they did. Because I was able to understand it. I THOUGHT it had subtitles...it was a very weird thing, because I lent it to a friend, and he told me there were none.I was shocked! Another thing that amazed me, was something like the Australian Aboriginal language Walpurgi. It has no concept of numbers higher than 22 (men count to 21, women count to 22...figure it out).
But, when they learn English, they can comprehend finite mathematics. THAT's amazing. In their language, anything higher than 22 is called "more than 22". So, a million is "more than 22". I'm on a roll now. We're discussing the OTHER love of mine. Linguistically, they say that American Indians migrated from South America..not from the Bering Strait. South AMerican Indian languages disperse linguistically if you move north. While Athapascan languages (Iroquois) have ZERO similarity to Guarani (Bolivia), they have root words that are similar...like ?ge- for tree. In Guarani, ?ge- is the tree root, while in Iroquois it's ^hi (meaning wood). (g and h being related phenomes)
How about a relation to Latin and Eskimo(Inuit?). The word for single in Eskimo is tikitoq. tikit- being the root...digitus is "digit" in Latin...digit- being the root.. Coincidence? Maybe...
But only when you perform etymological work do you confuse languages. It's also easier to learn them, once you comprehend grammatical patterns. Grammar is the easiest part. Vocab is the hardest. Learn grammar first. Vocab can always be learned. (Just like programming languages).
But, Human languages are illogical. For example, Eskimo is an agglutanitive language (like Turkish or Hungarian)...Qingmiqataluktoq..
Qinqmiq-atalu-k-t ok (I hit the dog)...[Dog-hit-past-active mood-present tense modifier]...string particles together to form a complete "thought". Very much like Java. But of course, there are MANY irrregularities. To native speakers, it just sounds wrong if it's spoken any other way...like saying "I eated". You understand it, yet it makes you chuckle. Americans have this bad habit of NOT correcting foreigners when they use the wrong terminology. I love it when I get corrected. I don't want to sound like a moron!
OK..my diatribe is over :)

What about thinking without language?

[sean23007]

I was born and raised in America, and I consider myself monolingual, though I have studied Spanish and Latin for 4 years each. My point is, I don't find that I "think" in any language, English or otherwise. This always made it harder to speak Spanish, because English is better suited to abstract imagery than the Spanish they teach you in high school. The way I find that I think is in images, both moving and still, and in order to communicate, I need to translate these images into a language (English).

When people say they can't "hear themselves think," I don't know what to make of it. Does anyone else find that they don't think in any language?

Re:What about thinking without language?

[Enhypnion]

Your experience is not uncommon. Especially among people who have never experienced auditory stimulus. Ever ask a deaf person about their internal dialogue, and you will get a blank stare. However, in all fairness to these studies, this sheds important light on how the general populace uses language. For instance, we have known for decades, that insults in an area of the brain on the brain we call Wernicke's area correlated to a sensory dysphagia, in which the person could talk, but they made no sense. They could not comprehend language and were unable to recognize their disability, yet spoke fluently in what is called word salad. What is of interest is that similar patients that are bilingual, who suffer focal insults to this sensitive area, can have preservation of their second or acquired language while losing their native language. This study helps us further understand this phenomenon as well as give us some insight into the inner workings of the language centers of the brain. The caution here is not to label these areas and develop a phrenelogical concept of the brain. (ie. This part of the brain is where all my math ability lies and this is where my highschool locker number is stored) The brain is complex and that is the true error in the conclusions of this paper. It tries to over simplify their findings and label the "neurons" where language is stored.

Very cunning linguists!

[Snafoo]

...but have they managed to explain why French sounds sexy to Americans, whilst Canadians find Spanish more erotic, and both can think of naught but canned pasta in tomato sauce when they hear Italian?

Romance languages: Especially meaningful to anglos that don't speak them.(tm)

Anecdote: Japanese vs. Korean

[DeadVulcan]

My best language is English, by far, but I grew up with Japanese in the home. My Japanese vocabulary is small, so it's a common experience for me to hear Japanese and recognize it as Japanese, but to be unable to understand it fully because of my limited vocabulary.

Once, while flipping through TV channels, I came upon a newscast that was being given in Korean. I'm not sure if it was the person's accent, but it sounded just like Japanese to me. I listened for a good ten seconds firmly convinced I was hearing Japanese, and I could almost feel my language circuits spinning madly, trying to make syntactic sense of the sounds. All the while, I just thought it was another case of insufficient vocabulary.

Anyways, it took an astonishingly long time for me to realize that I couldn't even separate the sentences into their constituent words, let alone figure out what those words mean.

I'm really not sure how much I agree with the article, but my experience would suggest that the sounds of Korean were similar enough to get past this "filter," leaving me convinced I was hearing Japanese, and trying to establish the meaning of phrases I couldn't possibly understand.

Interesting.

Klingon is based on Athapascan and Georgian

[xtremex]

Klingon is based on American Indian Languages. Primarily Athapascan (Cherokee,Choctaw, Iroquois, et al).
Not the vocabulary, but the grammar. The sounds are based on Georgian.When I first got the Klingon Dictionary, I noticed how familiar the grammar patterns looked to me. I whipped out my cherokee (tsalagi) grammar (don't ask :)) and did a comparison. It was practically identical! To me, the majority of Native American languages have a more logical structure (yet so difficult, it'll make your hair fall out). On the topic of difficult languages, besides Native American languages (which definitely take the prize in complexity), I'd have to say Georgian is the most difficult language I've ever come across.
It literally made my BRAIN hurt contemplating that grammar! What the hell is a screeve???? (Any Georgian natives, please help me out!)

other 'languages' we may speak but not realize

[MousePotato]

Ok, admittedly I speak three languages; English, Hungarian and Spanish (the Cuban flavor of it... and yes there is a big difference). So the monolinguist concept does not apply to me. I was born into a family where Hungarian was the primary language and I only spoke Hungarian until about 4. By the age of 5 I was completely bilingual (added English) and by 10 lost most of the Hungarian. At 28 Istarted to relearn my mother tongue and it was a very hard process. Spanish I picked up in jr high and high school but didn't use(and had to learn a different version than what I was taught in school) until I moved to Miami.

Hold on a sec, I am not here to present my life story just a thought; In all the years learning and unlearning languages I picked up a few others and this may shatter several of your impressions about yourselves being monolinguistic English only speakers;

If you are a coder you probably alrteady 'speak', 'read' and 'write' syntactically correctly in several 'foreign' languages like perl, C, VB, LISP, etc. I wonder how this would have affected the research. Any ideas from real linguistics folks out there???