Friday, August 14, 2020

Why being a polyglot could broaden your perspective

A polyglot is a person speaking several languages - more than two. His or her brain structure and complexity may be different from most monoglot or a person speaking only a single language.




Scientists have been searching to find an answer to this question - Are their brains structurally different?

First and foremost, I a not a brain scientist, but consider myself a polyglot. I speak Thai, English, some Japanese, Khmer, Lao, and some Burmese. For example:

I am a teacher.  English
私は教師です。 Japanese
ฉันเป็นครู - Thai
ຂ້ອຍເປັນຄູ. - Lao
ខ្ញុំ​ជា​គ្រូ​ - Khmer
ကျွန်တော်ကဆရာပါ။ - Burmese (Myanmar)

From the six sentences in six different languages presented above. I can read and understand all of them.
I can also see their patterns and understand the subjects and the key noun - teacher. I can notice that the word teacher in three languages - Thai, Lao, and Khmer - is very similar, if not identical, a derivative of the Pali language of northern India.

Several scientists or researchers have been trying to look into the brains of many bilinguals (which are basically not poly clots). They published some papers on their brains' structure.

To date, however, I am still not convinced that polyglots and monoglot or biglots (people speaking two languages) have essentially different brains.

My theory is more of a social environment and motivations. 

Hayakawa, S., Marian, V., Lam, T.Q, and Schroeder, S.R. (2018). Language Experience Changes Audiovisual Perception in Brain Sciences, 8(85), pp. 1-14.


Multilingualism/Bilingualism (Being able to speak many languages - at least two) could delay the effects of Alzheimer’s disease in older adults.

Claims based on these two studies:

Bialystok, E.; Craik, F.I.M.; Freedman, M. Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of
dementia. Neuropsychologia 2007, 45, 459–464.

Alladi, S.; Bak, T.H.; Duggirala, V.; Surampudi, B.; Shailaja, M.; Shukla, A.K.; Chaudhuri, J.R.; Kaul, S.Bilingualism delays age at onset of dementia, independent of education and immigration status.
Neurology 2013, 81, 1938–1944.


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