Bilingual Benefits
Feb. 21st, 2023 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
.. include delaying Alzheimer's disease, and probably similar forms of cognitive decline. This effect far outstrips the latest drug approved for that purpose.
1) Given a choice between a free treatment that requires a lot of work, and an expensive drug, I suspect that people who can obtain the drug will prefer it. But the free option remains available to everyone.
2) Since proficiency is what matters, a great improvement to public health could be made by teaching all children a second language from birth or at least preschool, when it is possible to learn with native fluency. I doubt that America has any interest in doing so. But any parent could arrange it for their own kids, especially if there is a history of cognitive illness in the family.
1) Given a choice between a free treatment that requires a lot of work, and an expensive drug, I suspect that people who can obtain the drug will prefer it. But the free option remains available to everyone.
2) Since proficiency is what matters, a great improvement to public health could be made by teaching all children a second language from birth or at least preschool, when it is possible to learn with native fluency. I doubt that America has any interest in doing so. But any parent could arrange it for their own kids, especially if there is a history of cognitive illness in the family.
Re: Options
Date: 2023-02-22 06:22 am (UTC)Go you!
>>I've thought about picking up some workbooks for myself, but have put it off.<<
Do you own DVDs? Most of those have multiple foreign language tracks. You should have lots of French and German. The others are long shots but I've seen some surprising choices -- it's really down to what languages the producer likes or can find a translator for. Put in a show you already know and watch it in a different language for immersion practice.
>>Do you suppose that conlangs might be similarly useful to the mind?<<
Yes. The protection comes from multiplying connections. Your brain doesn't care if you're speaking German or Sindarin, it only cares that you're demanding a lot of cross-referencing.
Re: Options
Date: 2023-02-23 02:34 am (UTC)Variables:
I wonder if learning languages of different modality would work, i.e. if you grew up with spoken language would learning a sign language offer more of a buffer than learning a second spoken language? Would having a spoken and signed and tactile language be better than just two?
Do you need to be able to speak [produce linguistic output of] the language to gain benefits? Blissymbols has no spoken form, Rikchik is not speakable by humanoids, and some disabled folks might be able to receive a language without being able to speak it (selective mutism, for example).
https://www.blissymbolics.org/
https://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/rikchik.htm
[EDIT: Does having a language community affect anything? (It is harder to find a chat buddy for, say Rohingya or Laadan than for Russian or Spanish).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_language#:~:text=Rohingya%2C%20also%20known%20as%20Ru%C3%A1ingga%2C%20is%20a%20language,languages%20have%20a%20high%20degree%20of%20mutual%20intelligibility.
... END EDIT]