Learning second language ‘slows brain ageing’

Languages

Learning a second language could improve reading and intelligence skills
Learning a second language can have a positive effect on the brain, even if it is taken up in adulthood, a University of Edinburgh study suggests.

Researchers found that reading, verbal fluency and intelligence were improved in a study of 262 people tested either aged 11 or in their seventies.

A previous study suggested that being bilingual could delay the onset of dementia by several years.

The study is published in Annals of Neurology.

The big question in this study was whether learning a new language improved cognitive functions or whether individuals with better cognitive abilities were more likely to become bilingual.

Dr Thomas Bak, from the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said he believed he had found the answer.

Using data from intelligence tests on 262 Edinburgh-born individuals at the age of 11, the study looked at how their cognitive abilities had changed when they were tested again in their seventies.

The research was conducted between 2008 and 2010.

All participants said they were able to communicate in at least one language other than English.

Of that group, 195 learned the second language before the age of 18, and 65 learned it after that time.

Strong effects

The findings indicate that those who spoke two or more languages had significantly better cognitive abilities compared to what would have been expected from their baseline test.

The strongest effects were seen in general intelligence and reading.

The effects were present in those who learned their second language early, as well as later in life.

Dr Bak said the pattern they found was “meaningful” and the improvements in attention, focus and fluency could not be explained by original intelligence.

“These findings are of considerable practical relevance. Millions of people around the world acquire their second language later in life. Our study shows that bilingualism, even when acquired in adulthood, may benefit the aging brain.”

But he admitted that the study also raised many questions, such as whether learning more than one language could also have the same positive effect on cognitive ageing and whether actively speaking a second language is better than just knowing how to speak it.

Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, US, said: “The epidemiological study provides an important first step in understanding the impact of learning a second language and the ageing brain.

“This research paves the way for future causal studies of bilingualism and cognitive decline prevention.”

Original article published here: bbc.com

Mapping the Most Influential Languages on Earth

An MIT Media Lab project maps the links that spread information from people who speak Urdu to Italian to Swahili.

The most influential language on the planet is English, as you could probably guess. But why? Chinese has the most native speakers worldwide. A new interactive graphic from researchers at MIT Media Lab visualizes the major linguistic link between people around the globe and reveals just how influential English really is.

MIT Media Lab’s Global Language Network, a project from the lab’s Macro Connections groupattempted to quantify the global influence of languages by looking at book translations, tweets, and Wikipedia edits.

In the visualization, showcased within the paper and on the Global Language Network’s site, languages are represented by circles that are sized according to either its number of native speakers, the GDP per capita of that language’s speakers, or its Eigenvector Centrality, a measure of influence within networks. The circles are color-coded according to each language family (English is an Indo-European language, for instance, while Arabic is Afro-Asiatic).

Mapping paths of communication between different languages—like through Wikipedia users who edit articles in multiple language editions, or tweet in two different languages—shows that “certain languages are disproportionately influential because they provide direct and indirect paths of translation among most of the world’s other languages,” the researchers write.

English’s importance as a global language is more about its ability to connect speakers of different languages than the sheer number of native speakers it has, the researchers found. Far more people speak Chinese around the world than do English, but Chinese serves less often as a bridge translating information from one less-spoken language to another—say, translating an idea from Thai to Swahili.

The web visualization makes this idea far easier to grasp. Looking at book translations, for instance, English is strongly linked with major languages like Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, and Russian. To make a text written in Quechua (a language family spoken in the Andes) accessible to an Estonian, it’s likely it would be translated first to Spanish, then to English, then to Estonian.

Hear MIT Media Lab’s César Hidalgo explain the research further in this video (and check out some of his previous work here).

The full study is here. Check out the infographic on the Global Language Network site.

Original article published here: Fastcodesign.com

Google Translate Adds 10 More Languages, Including Burmese

Google’s translation tool is constantly adding new languages, but its latest update is notable because it includes Burmese, the official language of Myanmar, as well as Malayalam, one of India’s six classical languages with 38 million speakers.

The latter is especially significant because it ties into Google’s efforts to get more Indian users onto its services.

Earlier this month, for example, Google launched the Indian Language Internet Alliance, which seeks to increase offerings for Hindi speakers, as well as Hindi voice search. At that time, Google India MD Rajan Anandan said at a press conference that “to reach our goal of 500 million Internet users by 2017 [in India] we need to make the Internet accessible to those who don’t speak English.” The Internet giant plans to add other Indian languages to its services, and the addition of Malayalam to Google Translate is a small but noteworthy step toward that goal.

India’s official languages are Hindi and English, and the government also recognizes about 20 other languages. According to the People’s Linguistic Survey of India, however, people in India currently speak 780 different languages, with 122 spoken by more than 10,000 people.

According to Google, India currently has about 200 million Internet users, with five million new users added every month, which means that India will have more Internet users than the U.S. within the next year. But only 198 million Indian people are estimated to be proficient in English, so it’s important for Google to increase its roster of offerings in different Indian languages if it wants to tap into that market.

Meanwhile, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has stressed the importance of free speech in Myanmar. Last year in a speech, he called for the Myanmar government to stay away from regulating the Internet, saying “The answer to bad speech is more speech. More communication. More voices. If you are a political leader you get a much better idea of what your citizens are thinking about.”

Schmidt also added that Google’s first priority in Myanmar is to improve access to information with its search engine and tools such as Google Translate and Maps.

According to Google, its latest additions brings Google Translate’s total number of supported languages to 90, and mean that 200 million more people will be able to use it to translate texts to and from their native languages. In its blog post, the company reiterated that the accuracy of Google Translate depends on members of its Translate Community, who supplement the tool’s algorithms by correcting translations and translating phrases.

Original article published here: TechCrunch