How Learning Languages Affects Our Brain

How Language Shapes the Brain — Credit: Lizzie Roberts *Getty Images*

When Emperor Akihito stepped down from the Chrysanthemum Throne on May 1, 2019, in Japan's first abdication in 200 years, Naruhito officially became the new emperor ushering in a new era called Reiwa (令和; "harmony"). Nihon's tradition of naming eras reflects the ancient belief in the divine spirit of language. Kotodama (言霊; "word spirit") is the thought that words have an almost magical ability to alter physical reality. Through its pervasive impact on gild, including its influence on superstitions and social etiquette, traditional poetry and modern pop songs, the word kotodama has, in a way, provided proof of its own concept.

For centuries, many cultures have believed in the spiritual force of linguistic communication. Over time, these ideas take extended from the realm of magic and mythology to go a topic of scientific investigation—ultimately leading to the discovery that linguistic communication tin can indeed affect the physical world, for case, past altering our physiology.

Our bodies evolve to adapt to our environments, not only over millions of years only likewise over the days and years of an individual'southward life. For instance, off the coast of Thailand, there are children who tin "see like dolphins." Cultural and environmental factors have shaped how these bounding main nomads of the Moken tribe bear their daily lives, allowing them to adjust their pupils underwater in a fashion that most of usa cannot.

Merely every bit extensive diving tin can alter our pupils, and exercise can change our bodies, so can mental activeness, such as learning and using language, shape the concrete structures of our brains. When two neurons respond to a stimulus (such every bit a give-and-take), they begin to course chemical and physical pathways to each other, which are strengthened or weakened depending on how often they are co-activated. This process of "neurons that fire together, wire together" is the basis for all learning, and is reflected in the formation of gray matter (where neurons communicate with each other) and white matter (fat tracts connecting gray matter regions).

The encephalon's ability to adapt to its environment explains how we become specialized to the sounds of our native natural language. All infants are born with the ability to discriminate between the spoken communication sounds of unlike languages, only eventually become tuned to the inputs they hear the most; neural pathways respective to native phonemes are strengthened, while those corresponding to strange sounds are pruned. For bilinguals, this window of "universal" sound processing stays open longer because of their exposure to richer language environments. In other words, the inputs that our brains receive shape how nosotros feel the world effectually us.

Despite the fact that multilingualism is the norm rather than the exception, the monolingual model remains the standard for studying neurocognition. A review of over 180 studies recently published in the periodical Behavioral and Brain Functions discusses how the challenges associated with juggling multiple languages can bear upon the way we perceive and respond to our environment, also as the concrete structure of the encephalon.

For example, neuroimaging has shown that bilingualism can raise attending and sensitivity to sounds, even by infancy, and fifty-fifty if you begin to larn some other language later in life. Bilingualism tin also make your brain more efficient at managing the immense volume of information that comes streaming in on a second-to-second basis, helping you lot focus on what matters and ignore distracting inputs.

Both of these skills are disquisitional for learning new languages, which may explain why learning a second linguistic communication can make it easier for you to learn a third or a fourth. This is in stark contrast to older, now debunked, ideas that the encephalon simply has room for one language (every bit if the brain divides up a stock-still corporeality of space among languages, as opposed to being an active living organ with dense and interacting connections). Learning a new language changes, and even optimizes, how yous utilize what y'all already have.

To illustrate, extensive exposure to multilingual oral communication can result in more robust encoding of sounds in the evolutionarily ancient brainstem, as well as increased gray and white matter in the primary auditory cortex. As a consequence, later on training, even adults may find it easier to perceive foreign speech sounds, also as mimic foreign accents, compared to monolinguals.

Decoding complex voice communication signals is just one challenge encountered past the bilingual brain. As a spoken word unfolds (e.k., "c-a-n-d-l-e"), both monolinguals and bilinguals need to suppress interference from similar words that come to mind (due east.m., "true cat," "tin," "processed"). However, in add-on to similar words from the same language, multilinguals also consider words from other languages they know.

In fact, the bilingual brain is ever gear up to process words from all known languages—multiplying the number of so-called "linguistic competitors." Over fourth dimension, bilinguals can go experts at controlling these competitors, to the point where the brain regions that monolinguals rely on to resolve inside-language competition (due east.1000., the anterior cingulate cortex) show less activation for bilinguals unless they need to manage competition across languages.

Simply as having stronger muscles allows you to lift weights with less try, increased gray affair in classic executive control regions may make information technology easier for bilinguals to manage irrelevant information. Bilinguals too have increased white matter in the tracts connecting frontal command areas to posterior and subcortical sensory and motor regions, which may permit them to off-load some of the work to areas that handle more than procedural activities. Because the same neural mechanism can be used for both linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks, multilingual experience tin fifty-fifty touch performance in contexts that involve no language at all.

Increased gray and white affair, also as the power to flexibly recruit different brain regions, may help explicate why bilingualism can delay the onset of dementia symptoms by 4 to half dozen years. Fortunately, there doesn't appear to be a borderline for fortifying your brain, as learning a foreign language tin all the same accept an impact well into adulthood and afterwards relatively cursory amounts of training. Furthermore, changes to i area or office are likely to have cascading effects; meliorate cognitive control can enhance auditory processing, which may facilitate farther language learning and continued neural restructuring.

The human being capacity for linguistic communication has played a critical role in the development of civilizations, the transmission of noesis and our ability to collectively shape our environments. Mythology and magic aside, endowing the new Japanese era with the word Reiwa could have tangible outcomes past influencing people's thoughts and choices.

While such external consequences of language have been observable throughout history, we accept simply recently acquired tools such as fMRI, EEG, PET, MEG, NIRS, CT and eye tracking that enable us to see how language reaches back to shape the brain itself. Nosotros now know that experience with multiple languages can produce all-encompassing changes to our neural architecture that are appreciable across the lifespan and beyond domains: from infancy to one-time age, from sensory perception to college cognitive processing. Using and learning linguistic communication can change our very biology, thereby confirming the ancient intuition that words tin can, in fact, change physical reality.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

Sayuri Hayakawa is a inquiry banana professor of communication sciences and disorders at Northwestern Academy.

Viorica Marian is the Ralph and Jean Sundin Endowed Professor of communication sciences and disorders and professor of psychology at Northwestern. Follow her on Twitter @VioricaMarian1.