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Swearing Provides Pain Relief, Say Scientists
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American reports that although cursing is notoriously decried in the public debate, scientists have discovered that swearing may serve an important function in relieving pain. 'Swearing is such a common response to pain that there has to be an underlying reason why we do it,' says Richard Stephens of Keele University in England. A study measured how long college students could keep their hands immersed in cold water. During the chilly exercise, they could repeat an expletive of their choice or chant a neutral word. When swearing, the 67 student volunteers reported less pain and on average endured about 40 seconds longer. How swearing achieves its physical effects is unclear, but the researchers speculate that brain circuitry linked to emotion is involved. Earlier studies have shown that unlike normal language, which relies on the outer few millimeters in the left hemisphere of the brain, expletives hinge on evolutionarily ancient structures buried deep inside the right half like the amygdala, an almond-shaped group of neurons that can trigger a fight-or-flight response in which our heart rate climbs and we become less sensitive to pain."
I call bullshit...
Why censor your expression? Just let it out.
FUCK!
w00t
Fucking shit, the Javascript on this fucking site is too fucking slow. Seriously. It's fucking horrible. Tons of pauses for no apparent reason for simple fucking basic tasks like showing a text box, sitting there and mocking you. They're laughing at you because you think it's bullshit but you stick around for it. End this madness! AHH MAKE THE DELAYS STOP!! Maybe my swearing will relieve the pain of fucking poorly coded JS.
One man's expletive is another man's standard vocabulary. I don't see how you can define normal language outside of the individual.
Physical pain is easily overcome through the use of drugs. It is also controllable through meditation and other mind-tricks which move the focus of the mind and body from the pain to something else.
But what about emotional pain? Should I keep calling her and swearing at her until I feel better? I don't feel better so far.
"During the chilly exercise, they could repeat an expletive of their choice or chant a neutral word."
So they are letting people self-select themselves into the experimental and control groups... doesn't this bias the experimental results pretty badly? Wouldn't it have been more effective to ask a group specifically to cuss their head off and ask a group specifically to refrain from swearing?
Swearing out loud in front of other people can carry some baggage and consequence. It's risky social behavior. Any risk taking can generate some adrenaline. The adrenaline makes it easier to tolerate the pain.
It's like whenever I hear the phrase "no new taxes on anyone making under $250k." I just curse loudly enough to make my dogs leave the room, and I feel 1% better.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
... when it misbehaves! I'm reducing the pain of the experience.
That, or Billy Connolly is pain free!
I'm sure this must be a relief to George Carlin .. he must be the happiest man on ...
what?
Dead you say?
Well, at least his legacy lives on.
Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits
I feel better already.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
Okay, I guess I'd best get my daily dose:
Slashdot, fucking fix your fucking broken site, or fire the fucking incompetent fool doing the coding.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
the amygdala, an almond-shaped group of neurons that can trigger a fight-or-flight response in which our heart rate climbs and we become less sensitive to pain
It also happens to look like something out of Dragonball
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
I think long term exposure to that kind of pain is worse than the adrenaline damage.
I've heard of people who are left unable to speak (due to a stroke or other brain trauma) still being able to curse and swear like sailors. This does seem to indicate that swearing is linked to something more than just the speech center.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
I don't see how you can define normal language outside of the individual.
Nice try, but the individual's not an island. He or she might very well be comfortable with saltier language than most, but still surrounded by (and very much aware of) a society that generally thinks otherwise, thus the language still has 'power'.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
There is a catch, though: The more we swear, the less emotionally potent the words become, Stephens cautions. And without emotion, all that is left of a swearword is the word itself, unlikely to soothe anyone's pain.
How do you explain swearing to yourself? I spent many nights during the past month pacing around my apartment with worsening cancer pain. Sometimes it got bad enough to elicit yelps and curses. There was nobody else around to give me an adrenaline rush from risky social behavior. It hurt, I swore, I felt a little better.
I also discovered that singing to myself helps with tolerating pain. I was laid out still on a hard radiation table for an hour. The first ten minutes were easy but the pain got worse and worse as I stayed in that one position. Since I couldn't move, I tried moaning to myself - which helped a little. On the third session I tried humming and singing along with my iPod, and found that was even more effective at helping me endure the pain to get the treatment.
Wow, that's good news for the folks at "Viz" : http://www.viz.co.uk/books.html or http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/095485778X/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=266239&s=books
Maybe Dr House should just swear more, and then he wouldn't need so much Vicodin?
Now you just need to convince those around you that there is a medical reason (other than Tourette's Syndrome) for your chronic swearing . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah, but only in this life!
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
These effects of making foul expletives show why it's more properly called "cursing" than "swearing". Cursing is a verbal counterattack on the source of the pain, which is more like the practice of placing a curse on an enemy than the practice of making a holy vow - because the vow here is profane. I expect researchers will find that cursing puts the curser in an attack state that suppresses the experience of pain. I also expect we'll find that cursing releases physical and mental stress, relaxing physical and mental parts of us so they can return to normal sensation, not the disarray that is the basis of our feeling pain to begin with.
On the US East Coast, we call it "cursing". I know on the West Coast they call it "swearing", and evidently do in the UK. The East Coast is known for its advanced research, typically in the streets, in coping with pain of all sorts, especially by talking. Maybe once they get the right names on these effects, they'll be able to use our informal groundwork to curse better, or perhaps an upgrade to swear off cursing entirely, just as bandaids have replaced blisters.
--
make install -not war
See: Copralalia
Swearing feels good. That's why we do it. Not surprising that some people with Tourette's do it uncontrollably.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
will give them 25.
Once, on my first ship, our steam boilers went off the line. We had no backup in place to generate enough heat to provide us with hot water for showers. I am sure than any residual heat quickly was dissipated or used up for engineering purposes. We were without hot water for a few hours and i wanted to go ashore fresh, not unwashed as a good number of the shipmates chose on a usual basis.
I didn't curse or swear, but i did emit guttural noises not unlike an animal or a madman. It got me through that very, VERY cold shower. But, actually, i had preconditioned myself a little bit by first wetting my hands, then my mid arms, then my face, then my skull, which had lots more heat then the rest of my body. After about a minute, i was "less shocked" by the cold water could complete my shower. It was less shocking that 'diving right it' as there was no body of water but instead a stream of water.
I dare say these people (however esteemed or academic or educated they are) aren't going to find terribly much, but as with many experiments, some get funded because there is research money to grant, burn or otherwise use up. There are people who take acupuncture treatment and don't end up screaming like wild, yet a child or even an adult being FORCED (say the subject is restrained to a table or shackled to a wall and secured in such a way as to reduce squirming, so the subject isn't actually injured by own movement) to receive acupuncture might scream out of natural instinct just because the person administering the acupuncture may be or be perceived as menacing or cruel. But, that screaming person may be a devout person of some religious vocation, may be a person who is mute, or even have had their jaw sedated so as to prevent tongue wagging and speech. Hell, if these people want to spend money, do experiments that might elicit tears out of fear, rather than studying swearing as a pain suppressant. Perception, as said in a famous auto advert, is everything.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
They didn't mention it in the study, but I have a suspicion that the volume of the word also helps. Because it seems to hurt much more when it's dark and you are trying not to wake anybody up when you stub your toe and furiously whisper "fuck fuck fuckitty fuck!" to yourself (or maybe only I do that?) However, even if you are all alone (removing the "ooh I said a dirty word in public" adrenaline rush people claim) and you yell it at the top of your lungs, it really does seem to help. :D
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
What about 4channers that don't get out much.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
It's a shame that no mention was made in TFA to coprolalia ("the spontaneous utterance of socially objectionable or taboo words or phrases": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprolalia), which is one of the symptoms of Tourette syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourette_syndrome).
It seems to me that there must be some deep psychological need for letting rip with a few choice words and phrases.
If this study is true, that must mean I'm one of the most 'pain free' people I know.
from the article:
There is a catch, though: The more we swear, the less emotionally potent the words become, Stephens cautions. And without emotion, all that is left of a swearword is the word itself, unlikely to soothe anyone's pain.
:x
Did anyone else accidentally read the headline as: Swearing Provides Palin Relief?
I think either is true.
crap shoot cause i have too! crap, fuck, ass, fuck, shit, hole, pie, fuck, donkey, ASS!!!! sorry it had to be done.
Not to worry, my rudimentary knowledge of vulgar German provides an offsite disaster recovery option, should my stock of English be exhausted.
In all seriousness, though, studies have demonstrated all kinds of interesting things about bilingual brains(particularly people who were raised bilingual, rather than ones who picked up a second language by study later in life), it'd be interesting to know if all curses lose efficacy at the same rate through overuse, if the loss is word-by-word, if the loss is concept-by-concept(e.g. excretory curses, sexual curses, blasphemy, etc.), or whether crossing language boundaries reduces the loss of efficacy.
What is the most common subject matter for which swearing is about?
1) Domestic quarrels
2) computer usage
3) microsoft
3) other (list)
I smell a doctoral thesis...
In Soviet Russia, censors fnck you!
cursing is notoriously decried in the public debate
Kindest sirs,
I am concerned, due to the nature of the language which you have utilised upon this occasion, that you may in fact be referring to an article from around the turn of the century.
Your faithful and humble servant,
YourExperiment, esq.
'nuff said, cocksuckers.
(Can you tell I've been re-watching Deadwood lately? ;-)
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
... the replies to all my /. posts.
Have gnu, will travel.
Anything that makes you focus on something else than the cause of pain will provide relief. Scratching your back, masturbating, playing word games, you name it.
..she gets mad when I drop an F-bomb when I hurt myself working on something. She doesn't believe me when I say that swearing is a tool to help get the job done.
This is why I rely on statistics.
I performed the following experiment to test this report. In the presence of a particularly disagreeable person, I began to feel an enormous pain in my ass. I chanted neutral phrases and made small talk for 15 minutes. I observed that the person remained and the pain persisted unabated. I then began hurling profane epithets at the person. After 5 minutes I observed the person to leave and the pain suddenly abated. While not conclusive, I believe this experiment needs further study and repetition.
serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now
hmmm
test #2:
FUCK!
no... same relief, just faster
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Maybe this simply demonstrates that the type of people who would choose a neutral word to say are likely to have a lower tolerance for pain?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
The conclusion is OK, the details presented suffer. That's common in pop-science writing, and sadly increasingly common in SciAm.
Left side = language: Based on the largest group of similar orientation, right handed males. Not even a majority -- 40%. Left handed males are right-side language almost the same proportion but are few overall. There are 'ipsilateral language' (same side as dominant hand, as opposed to 'contralateral', other-side), as well as 'undifferentiated', with language capability on both sides. Females are somewhat similar in breakdown but more undifferentiated overall. Also, the generalization is for non-tonal based languages such as English. See "right/other side" below.
Amygdala is "under the right": The amygdala is bilateral, with left and right parts. The right part is however functionally predisposed to processing stress handling behavior http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6SYP-4CT63XM-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=955088512&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=7d34a0fd5e2952f900c2698ce0abe684 .
Left cortex vs. right deep: All language functions are handled in the outer few millimeters of the brain, the cortex. Some processes may be driven by deep structures, but all higher order processing relies on cortical activity.
Right/other side cortex: Opposite (or mixed with, in 'undifferentiated' brains) the language centers there is an equally employed structure that controls "prosidy", or emotional processing, understanding and expression in language. It is more oriented to tonal processing making it central to music as well as to tonal-based languages. "Right side" or prosidic region damage can result in flat monotone response to expression about both winning the lottery and death of a loved one. Or it can result in inappropriate response, such as laughter, to everything.
If you consider the necessity of 'other-side' processing in tonal language and the large population that uses it, the western/English, right handed, males, contralateral language center "dominance" becomes a great deal less world wide (there are brains world wide, honest) than the 40% usually quoted in western language research literature and texts.
Moving the expresssion of distress from the language structure dominant area to the prosidic/emotional area does tap into underlying emotion processing. Then again, so would singing. I'd like to see replication with singing instead of cursing -- betcha it's similar in outcome. Evidence: stuttering is stress based; stutters frequently don't stutter when they sing, ask (according to his belt buckle) M-M-M-M-Mel Tillis. And, a naive hypothesis: I'd bet that while those that use tonal languages may curse in pain and such, they are far more likely to use coherent language with stress (in both senses) placed in the tonal aspect of what they're expressing. Any speakers or Chinese dialects or other east Asian languages care to comment?
Lastly, an aside: The 'left side' language centers make the brain larger on the left. This is taken as a dominance of language processing over other kinds. However (1) chimps have the same assymetry, with the same proportion of 'other-sided-language', larger on the right, as with humans; (2) cortical localization is both redundant (more than one area can do the job) and plastic (one can take over when another fails); and (3) the amount of cortex devoted to something implies it requires that much effort. The same amount of processing and behavioral control can be handled by smaller areas when the processing is made mo
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
How do you think ASSpirin got it's name?
Anybody want a peanut?
what a pile of crap!! why don't they spend that time on something more useful??
I work in a psycholinguistics lab that studies, among other things, the effects of being bilingual on cognitive functions, both linguistic and non-linguistic. While we haven't ourselves studied this question, I expect that cursing in a nondominant language would be less effective at prolonging the amount of time someone was willing to hold their hand in cold water, based on research that shows that words in one's nondominant language evoke less of an emotional response than words in one's dominant language.
I can't remember which papers support that statement, but a Google search reveals (at least) one paper claiming that bilinguals curse more often in their dominant languages (and while I haven't read it, I expect they controlled for frequency of use). If one of the purposes of swearing is to relieve emotional tension, that conclusion would make the most sense if swearing in your dominant language provided a greater emotional release. It wouldn't surprise me too much if the same thing was true for pain.
Then you might like this other research about the word "fuck". In fact, that's the name of the article.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Learn to read jim. "THAT" don't get out much, not ", THEY" don't get out much.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
From one of the other kids in the neighborhood, explaining to me why he swore. He used the example of dropping a hammer on his foot:
"So what am I going to say? (uses very proper-sounding tone of voice) Oh, look at this. I hurt my foot. Would someone please help me?
(switches back to normal voice) No! I'm gonna scream, Owww, goddammit, I dropped the fucking hammer on my fucking foot!
Then I feel better."
This is what I enjoy about slashdot. I speculate idly, somebody who actually knows (often a lot) whereof he speaks shows up less than 24 hours later and chimes in. Ah, the interwebs...
Swearing can transfer pain. From the person in pain, to the person being sweared at.
On a more serious note, I believe screaming and crying are also effective, which are both natural reactions to pain. In severe cases, the sufferer can simply pass out, which might suggest the body knows more about pain tolerance than we do.
It is also said that the anticipation of pain can be just as horrific or worse psychologically than pain itself. Hence torture looses its effectiveness as the unpredictable subsides and the ends appears nearer.
The religious nutjobs are all about pain and suffering on earth, so not swearing makes it all the better for them.
But why do they have to inflict that on the rest of the population?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Dammit Jim, I'm a DOCTOR not an analgesic!
STRESS. The confusion caused when ones mind overrides the body's natural desire to choke the living shit out of some asshole that desperately needs it.
Life is cyclical. Is it life imitating art or vice versa?
My favorite quote from Mr. Lewis Black:
"... These are the word we use to express frustration, rage, anger.... In order we don't pick up a tire iron and beat the Shit out of some one."
In a civil society, I would rather say "Godddamnn! I want to beat the F'in shit out of you," than actually do so.
My own empirical studies over the years have validated the results of this study many times over.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
When did taking responsibility go out of fashion? Nexpider
I'm pretty sure people who hate cursing don't react the same way.
I'm somehow in between, some times when I have to touch php4 or every single time I test my apps in IE6 I can't help but cursing at the damn fucking imitation of a browser (bug ridden bugger burn in hell already will ya?)
But.
When it comes to physical pain I just don't feel like cursing, at all. When I'm in pain I just try to control my breath and concentrate on withstanding it. In fact I can notice my though process doing some sort of damage assertion control, as if understanding the pain makes it hurt less. Words simply don't occur to me beyond "ouch" perhaps.
So it definitively varies across persons.
But... the future refused to change.
Well I must an exception to that rule as Finnish is my first language but I tend to swear more often in English.
Now that I think about it the reason is probably that swearing in English feels more mild (and more socially acceptable). I generally switch to swearing in Finnish only when I'm truly upset.
..you will actually shout the swearword. That means you do something 'agressive' which, in turn, means your body goes somewhat into battle mode. Especially as you are experiencing actual pain. One of the things that happen in such a situation is.. you feel less pain.
This is not scientific or anything, just a personal experience.
In other words, if you need more effective relief. Fits the speculation perfectly.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Yes, but my point was that I do not curse more often in my dominant language as claimed above.
Perhaps it hurts more because we're not very busy with any other stimuli, what with the environment being so quiet and all, such that the signals aren't drowned out with other unrelated chatter.
Whenever I bump a body part, I find that immediately acknowledging the pain with a prompt expletive, almost completely takes the pain away, however, suffering from chronic pain related to a spinal condition, I'm not sure that blabbering my mouth away all day long would help that pain at all.
It was not claimed that you curse more often in your dominant language. Neither directly, nor indirectly (as in "all bilinguals").
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Could the usual trash talking often involved in sports and gaming be related to the same effect?
And I must be the most in-pain person I know. I don't swear. Ever. (Except for that one time while driving with my friend. I decided to go for the biggest reaction possible, so I used the "C word." He almost drove off the road!) My wife, on the other hand, does plenty of swearing which is a point of contention between us. I don't mind her swearing, but not around our young (5 and 2) children. They're all too likely to repeat the curses and I would rather them not be swearing up a storm at their age.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I speak three languages fluently, and I also know the basics of two other languages.
From the three primary languages, two (Russian, Romanian) were learned in early childhood, pretty much at the same time.
English was my third, and although I learned it later, today I use it more often than the first two.
How does your statement apply to people like me? Does the dominant language vary with time, or is it defined "in the beginning"? How to determine the dominant language in my case?
One little note: I practically don't swear. The most aggressive thing I can say is usually a word from one language pronounced using the rules of the other; this way the people around are not offended.
The saddest poem
Very well, bad choice of words on my part.
:)
Let me rephrase: I must then belong to a minority as i do not curse more often in my dominant language.
Satisfied?
They could have had data for free watching me repair my car (physical pain, e.g. skinned knuckles and the like), or watch me golf (psychological pain). Both examples would be shoved in my face on judgment day, but I repent too damn fast!
it did actually say "bilinguals curse more in their dominant languages".
therefore your point about swearing more often in your non-dominant language is entirely valid, regardless of whether you are reserving the more emotionally involved swearing for when you really need it, you are still debunking the entire basis for that paper.
although i think it is a very poor choice to call it "cursing". you are swearing, not making a curse.
i am not fully fluent in languages other than english really, so i cannot submit my case to that study, but i do speak several other languages to some extent and i do find myself swearing in those languages probably as often as i do in english.
i could not even really tell you which language i swear the most in, and it is mostly reflex action when i do it, so i would not say i am controlling it either.
a case like yours is entirely the reason why they use the wording "dominant language" rather than "native language"
generally it will refer to whichever language you are most comfortable and commonly using day to day at the time of the study.
so, in your case, if the study were undertaken as you wrote that response, english will be your dominant language as you admit using it more now and you seem very comfortable speaking entirely in english.
You're the perfect person to ask then: a french teacher once told me that bilingual people develop memory problems in old age sooner than others. I'm not sure if he specifically mentioned Alzheimer's or not. Have you heard of this, and do you know of anything to back it up or refute it?
You're the perfect person to ask then: a french teacher once told me that bilingual people develop memory problems in old age sooner than others. I'm not sure if he specifically mentioned Alzheimer's or not. Have you heard of this, and do you know of anything to back it up or refute it?
I have good news and bad news for you.
The good news is that, when it comes to Alzheimer's, being bilingual appears to be beneficial. A researcher by the name of Ellen Bialystok has looked into this question; in a recently published paper, she and her coauthors concluded that among people who have regularly used two languages for most of their lives, the onset of dementia is delayed by an average of four years. (By "dementia", I'm referring to severe age-related declines in mental functions, of which Alzheimer's Disease is the most common form. The Bialystok et al. paper specifically states that their conclusions hold true for Alzheimer's as well.) Note that they don't make any claims about whether this conclusion applies to people who learned to speak multiple languages as children but only use one in later life, or people who learned a second language as an adult and use multiple languages daily: those populations might benefit from a similar delay, but they weren't tested for this paper.
On the memory front, I don't know about age of onset, but bilinguals behave differently than monolinguals on memory tasks throughout their lives. Here, there's both (more) good news and bad news. (I'm going to be cribbing some of this from another one of Bialystok's papers, which, as with the paper referenced below, you'll probably need to access at a university to read more than the summary.) Someone who grows up multilingual, while having the obvious advantage of being able to speak multiple languages, tends to be less proficient in each of those languages than monolinguals - that's one of the consequences of splitting your speaking and listening time between several languages. As a result, bilinguals tend to have smaller vocabularies (within each language) and perform worse on word retrieval tasks than monolinguals throughout their lives. So, bilinguals are worse than monolinguals at memory tasks that rely on verbal recall (e.g., "Memorize this list of words and then, in a little while, I'll ask you to tell me what they were.")
At the same time, there's some evidence that being bilingual actually helps you on other kinds of cognitive tasks. Bilinguals perform better at some tasks that place big demands on short-term memory, and, more controversially, on some tasks that require what we call "conflict resolution", situations where you have to choose between two or more possible responses (the Stroop effect is the most famous example). They're better at conflict resolution tasks, so the theory goes, because they've spent their whole lives choosing between multiple competing representations (one per language) for each word. The result of these advantages is that bilinguals tend to be better than monolinguals at nonverbal memory tasks (for instance, recalling an ordered sequence of blocks).
As for how these findings are affected by aging, I think that the relative deficits and advantages present in young adults should carry over into later life. For example, another researcher, Tamar Gollan, showed that bilinguals' naming deficits persist with age. If that's true, then while I don't know about age of onset, I would expect older bilinguals to have worse verbal memory, and better non-verbal memory, than their monolingual counterparts.
What is considered a "parent" language?
I spoke 2 different languages until I learned English (~5-6 years old). Now I speak mostly English but still use 1 of the languages to speak to my parents. My parents speak to each other in the 2nd language (which I can still understand and speak a bit).
I curse (when I have to) in English though. Would English be my parent language or is it the 1st one (that I still use to speak with my parents).