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Being Bilingual: Benefits, Statistics and More
Multicultural families are far from few and in between these days. When two cultures are combined, beautiful things can happen, and one of the primary things that we see is the opportunity for a child to be bilingual. LingoDodo came to be because of the struggle that we had teaching our daughter a second language that was a major part of our culture. While we could have struggled to teach our children this major component of who we are, we found a solution: the Punjabi Pad. Being Bilingual Today The benefits of being bilingual are truly endless. In 1980, only 10.97% of the U.S. population spoke a language other than English at home. Fast forward to 2007 and we see that nearly 20% of people are speaking a language other than English at home. This number continues to grow, especially as we start to see the benefits of being bilingual play a part in daily life. When we look at the world as a whole, there are actually more people who speak multiple languages than there are people who speak solely one. Currently, 56% of the world speaks more than one language! While it was once not a common skill to speak more than one language, there have been various benefits that have been tied to being bilingual over the years. The younger that a child learns a second language, the more likely they are to retain it. Given how incredible some of these benefits are, the best thing that we can do is to share them with you. Prevention of Dementia A developmental issue that we see within health care is dementia, and it’s pretty common throughout the entire world. Whether it’s dementia tied to old age or Alzheimer’s, it has been shown that individuals who speak two or more languages will not develop these conditions until later on in life. Individuals who are diagnosed with Alzheimer's and speak more than one language will take twice as long to develop the symptoms. In terms of dementia, the average age of a monolingual individual developing dementia is 71.4, while the average for bilingual individuals is 75.5. It may not seem like much, but these numbers show that speaking more than one language can, very literally, add years to your life. Enhanced Memory Tied very closely to this is the benefit of an enhanced memory. Being able to maintain two languages and an understanding of the two is extremely challenging. Aside from that, it requires knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical rules, spelling, writing, and so much more. As a whole, this builds your mental muscles quite a bit. Building these muscles helps bilingual individuals with their memory, and allows for them to understand patterns, sequence, and steps. Over a lifetime, these skills will prove to be helpful in day-to-day life and boost the ability to memorize as a whole. Multitasking & Attention to Detail Another huge benefit of being bilingual is the ability to multitask and pay better attention to detail. When you’ve gained comfortability with two languages, your mind will be able to switch from one to the other as needed. As crazy as it may sound, this makes it much easier to switch from one task to the other. The ability to multitask goes beyond switching between activities. Being able to pay attention to detail and focus on the task at hand is another strong suit of bilingual individuals. This benefit is also tied to the ability to switch from one language and culture to another. Strong Communication Skills Communication is utilized on a day-to-day basis across all industries, online and offline. The need to communicate is one that every person needs to obtain, in one manner or another. By being able to speak two languages, the ability to communicate and understand social cues increases immensely. Cultures and the way that they communicate will vary, but exposure to various cultures allows for individuals to gain perspective on so many different types of people and situations, and to store it in their brain. Because of this, people who are bilingual have stronger communication skills and will often have stronger relationships because of it. Whether it’s in a professional or personal aspect, this development can be seen clearly, and it’s almost always tied to the experience of being bilingual. Self Identity & Culture The benefit that we can’t put a value on is the tie to a specific culture that a child gains. While traveling and learning can spark an interest, there’s something much different about creating that bond that dives into history and identity. By providing your child with the tools that they need to be bilingual, you are opening a door for them. What’s to follow through that? Well, we can never truly know. What we do know, however, is that your child will have a new piece to the puzzle of their identity. That their life will be changed by the lessons they come across when learning a new language. That they will carry this part of their history with them for the rest of their life. We also know that we can help. The benefits that we’ve listed above are a brief overview of the many ways that speaking multiple languages and being exposed to various cultures can shape a life. There are still so many other ways that children and adults alike will see the addition of another language affect them—and that thought alone excites us. If you’ve been struggling to find a way to help your child learn Punjabi and the cultural values that we all hold dearly, the Punjabi Pad can help. Let us guide the way to your child developing a new sense of themselves and of their history. Reach out to us today if you have any questions, but make sure to look at the toys that we’ve created and the testimonials of individuals who have shared this toy with their family.
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Educational toys vs. "must have" toys
Target toy aisle: Can I buy this? We are sure you have bought a ton of toys for your little angels over the years. And if you aren’t blessed into parenthood just quite yet, then we are sure you have bought gifts for your nieces, nephews and friends’ and relatives’ kids. So how does that purchase look like at your house? Is it just another scramble, another last-minute run to Target or impulse purchase on Amazon.com and pick whatever new flashy “in” gadget is on the shelves, the day before (sometimes an hour before) you have to be at that birthday party? And how about the everyday bribery and encouragement for doing homework or other simple household chores, in exchange for latest trends in collectibles, fashion and gadgets? We feel educational toys, games and books should be an obvious choice, but when shopping for gifts, many people’s first instinct is to go for the latest fad toy and ignore everything else. The reality is that those fad toys lose their appeal very quickly, but educational items stand the test of time. An educational toy such as a Lingo Pad™ not only entertains your kid but also teaches them their heritage language which is vital for connecting them to their culture. Trust us, if you show up to a birthday party with an educational gift like a Tamil Pad or a Hindi Pad™, you will immediately rise to the status of the smart gift giver. Birthday child will appreciate the uniqueness of the gift and the parents will appreciate your thoughtfulness.
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How Does The Bilingual Brain Work?
Improved Problem Solving, Greater Social Empathy, Reduced Risk of Alzheimer’s/Dementia Time Magazine recently published an article that described the benefits of bilingualism in terms of individual health and astuteness, as well as a greater ability to relate to others. The positive effects of learning a second (or third) language are broad and many. From personal development and better interpersonal relationships, to a tie-breaker on your resume or catalyst for advancement at work, learning another language could be just what you need. See our post about How Learning a Second Language Benefits Your Health Increased Problem Solving Skill “Doubling down on a pair of languages rather than just one does take extra work, but it’s work young children are generally not aware they’re doing. Bilingual people of all ages are continually addressing what research psychologist Ellen Bialystok of Toronto’s York University calls the dog-chien dilemma, encountering an object, action or concept and instantaneously toggling between two different words to describe it. Such nimble decision-making ought to improve on-the-fly problem solving, and studies show that it does. Language researchers often point to the famed Stroop test, which asks subjects to look at the word red, for example, which is presented in an ink of a different color, say blue. Then they are required to say aloud or identify on a computer the ink color. That requires an additional fraction of a second to accomplish than if both the word and ink color were the same. Everyone experiences that lag, but for bilinguals it’s measurably shorter. ‘Monolinguals always need more time,’ Bialystok says. ‘It’s a lifelong advantage for bilinguals.’ Excelling on the Stroop test is hardly a marketable skill, but what it suggests about the brain is something else. Sean Lynch, headmaster of the LFNY, previously worked in a multilingual school in France in which all of the students spoke French and at least one of 12 other languages, including Japanese, Russian, Italian and Spanish. As is often the case with well-endowed schools, the students, on average, outperformed their age peers academically, and it’s impossible to determine how much of that is due to native skill and how much to the fact that they simply have access to better teachers, books and other resources. Still, Lynch observed that these students seemed to show a greater facility with skills that relied on interpreting symbolic representations, such as math or music.” Social Empathy “Lynch also believes — albeit based primarily on his own observations — that multilingual kids may exhibit social empathy sooner than children who grow up speaking only one language, which makes developmental sense. The theory of mind — understanding that what’s in your head is not the same as what’s in other people’s heads — does not emerge in children until they’re about 3 years old. Prior to that, they assume that if, say, they know a secret you probably do too. There’s a kind of primal narcissism in this — a belief that their worldview is the universal one. Once they learn that’s not the case, self-centeredness falls away — at least a little — and the long process of true socialization begins. There’s nothing that accelerates the acquisition of that kind of other-awareness like the realization that even the very words you use to label the things in your world — dog, tree, banana — are not the same ones everyone uses. Preliminary imaging work suggests that the roots of this behavior may even be visible in the brain. Some studies, for example, have shown a thickening of the cortex in two brain regions — most importantly the left inferior parietal, which helps code for language and gesturing. Bialystok is not entirely sold on these studies, since she would expect the greatest differences to be in the frontal lobes, where higher functions such as planning, decisionmaking and other aspects of what’s known as executive control take place. Some of her own work has found an increase in white matter — the fatty sheathing that insulates nerves and improves their ability to communicate — in the frontal regions of bilinguals, suggesting denser signaling and complexity of functions in these areas. ‘Structural differences are where the new science is really unfolding,’ she says. ‘That work will reveal a lot.'” Reduced Risk of Altzheimers and Dementia “Language skills acquired early can pay late-life dividends. In one study, bilinguals experienced the onset of age-related dementia 4.1 years later than monolinguals, and full-blown Alzheimer’s 5.1 years later. ‘One school of thought says that any cognitive reserve — education, multilingualism, even playing Sudoku puzzles — strengthens the brain and helps it resist disease,’ says Bialystok. ‘The other says that the brains of multilinguals experience the same level of disease as those of monolinguals, but they cope with it better. They function at a higher level than they would otherwise be able to function.’ In another 2013 study, this one from the University of Kentucky, bilingual and monolingual people in the 60- to 68-year-old age group underwent brain scans while performing a cognitive task that required them to switch back and forth among several different ideas. Both groups performed the task accurately, but bilinguals were faster as well as more metabolically economical in executing the cognitive mission, using less energy in the frontal cortex than the monolinguals. The very fact that something as simple as working with puzzles or having once got a good education can improve brain function does prove that multilingualism is not the only path to staying cognitively healthy in your dotage. And plenty of monolinguals do perfectly well at acquiring empathy and social skills early in life. Still, there are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world. There must be a reason our brains come factory-loaded to learn more than just one.”
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Intelligence is fixed at birth?
True or False? Intelligence is fixed at birth?Learning should be spaced out over time?Right brain thinkers learn differently from left brain thinkers?A good teacher can teach any subject?Well, these are just a few of the long held myths about learning that current research is showing to be inaccurate at best and prohibitive at worst. How we best learn is a question that seems to change with each decade. New ideas about how the brain processes information or how each individual recognizes and learns new ideas rise and fall with the progress of technology and psychology as quickly as food and fashion trends.A lot of ideas about individual learning are a reaction to previous generations of rout learning practices. These kind of static classrooms are still very active in much of the world and I know from experience that lecture and listen instruction is the norm in much of Asia. I also know the effects of this system; that students aren’t encouraged to question the material they’re taught. They aren’t asked to interpret the information or translate it from one subject to another. These kinds of classrooms promote a copy culture and maintain conformity in society which stymies creativity and progress. Yet so many of our well-loved myths about education are still based on that old system. We may have left that sort of shut-up-and-learn culture behind long ago in the United States, but many of our ideas about learning are still mired in that tradition. Ninety percent of respondents in a recent poll on learning strategies agreed that simply re-reading information was sufficient to learning it, while research suggests, that is simply not true. Furthermore, most teachers in the U.S. polled agreed that positive reinforcement in the form of praising students for being smart is useful while studies show that this type of praise is counter effective.On the other hand, short-term quizzing is now looked on as wasteful while in controlled studies that test long-term versus short-term memory show that quizzes or even self-quizzing on material improves understanding of the material by up to seventy percent. So are you or are you not a special snowflake?Despite what we have been telling ourselves and our children probably since the mid-seventies, we are not so much a special little miracle with our own learning systems and individual gifts. Students do not necessarily need to have their own special curriculum catered to their own delicate sensibilities.Though an overwhelming majority of teachers believe that students have different capacities for absorbing information, visually or audibly, education researchers have shown that the teachers’ own understanding of the subject or material being taught has a much greater effect on students understanding than any ‘left’ or ‘right’ brain preponderance.The actual difference between a student’s learning or not may come down to how their teacher feels about the job, believe it or not. Teaching as a profession in U.S. is poorly paid, socially smirked at, and scapegoated for many of the ills in society. ‘If you can’t do, then teach’, the old adage goes. If as a country we would like to see our education system improve (the U.S. was ranked 24th in world literacy in 2016), it may be time to stop blaming teachers who feel little motivation to keep current with practices and bring enthusiasm and creativity into the classroom each day and instead examine ourselves, our own motivation and how much time and effort we invest in our youngsters. Are we keeping up with the new technology and tools that are available to assist the future generation with learning new ideas, concepts and languages?
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Why I Wish I Had Taught My Children Their Heritage Language
Below is a blog post from the website fluencyconnect that we believe, highlights an issue among Punjabi families raising children in western world, that is more common than we would like to admit as a community. We have taken the liberty of posting the entire blog post on this blog, with just a few illustrations added to the original post. Below is the link to the original blog post and the author is anonymous. https://www.fluencyconnect.com/blog/2015/10/17/anonymous-story-why-i-wish-i-had-taught-my-children-punjabi OCTOBER 17, 2015 Why I Wish I Had Taught My Children Their Heritage Language LANGUAGE EXPERIENCES “Language is so taken for granted...but when two people can't communicate with each other or understand each other, it can be a very frustrating experience. So much unsaid. So many words unspoken. So many ideas unexpressed. So many thoughts not shared, which is very unfortunate. I played a big part in my children not being able to communicate with their grandparents, and that is my fault, not my kids'. But at the same time, I also know that they each, without words, were able to feel the other's love. And I guess in the end, I have to be glad that at least that was there.” Anonymous, Vancouver, BC MY LANGUAGE HISTORY I grew up speaking Punjabi and learned English from my dad. Lucky for me, my dad was educated and went to college in India, and spoke fluent English already when he immigrated to Canada with his young family (I was born in India in 1969 and grew up In Canada from the age of 2 years). We were the first East Indian (or South Asian) kids in our elementary school and I remember my teachers being so surprised that I spoke such good "perfect" English (I remember telling them proudly that my dad went to college in India and I learned from him :) As we grew older and with going to school and talking to my younger sisters, English became spoken more and more in our house (and Punjabi less and less), and my mom even learned to speak English over the years. She had broken English at first but then became very fluent....so that was a bonus. We found that English quickly became our first language, but we were still very fluent in Punjabi. Plus, we were very religious so all our religious prayers were in Punjabi and our culture and religion was extremely important in my family when I was a child, so that was still a very big part of my life growing up (not so much for my kids). RAISING CHILDREN WITHOUT PUNJABI Raising my child, we spoke English all the time in our house. The only time we spoke Punjabi was when I was talking to my in-laws on the phone or if the in-laws were visiting (and sometimes when my parents visited, but they also speak fluent English so it was mostly English and some Punjabi). At first, my kids were able to say a few very basic words in Punjabi when they were toddlers...I found that when they were babies, I tried to say some basic words in Punjabi (maybe 10 to 15 words total). And it was nice for them to say some words in Punjabi (like sit, eat, sleep, hungry, etc.), words that my in-laws could understand. Unfortunately, as they got older, those few Punjabi words got forgotten and I didn't make any attempt to teach my kids any new words in Punjabi. I also stopped using the few Punjabi words they had learned. We spoke strictly in English, except for when speaking to the in-laws. During the in-laws' visits, they were often dismayed and unhappy that they could not communicate with their grandchildren, as by the time they were 4 or 5 years old, they were speaking entirely in English and forgot their few Punjabi words. CULTURE We taught our kids a little bit about our culture, but not a whole lot. They knew the basics of what to do and how to sit and how to cover their heads when attending the temple for any family events, weddings, etc. My daughter had cute little Indian outfits to wear and she loved dressing up in them. They knew how to say the basic greeting of hello in Punjabi and they looked and dressed like Punjabi kids, but in fact they could not understand or speak it. Sadly, anything we explained to them about our culture was also in English, except for the very rare odd word used to describe something very Indian (i.e., my daughter would say something like "Mom, does this outfit look nice...can you help me fix my chooni" (chooni is the head covering women wear and while she knew that word, she did not know how to put a sentence together in Punjabi). REFLECTIONS AND GUILT I totally wish I had taught my children Punjabi. Reading and writing it would have been a bonus...but having them be able to just SPEAK it and understand it would have been amazing. I always felt guilty when my in-laws visited and tried to say something simple to them in Punjabi, and my kids looked at them with blank looks on their faces. I saw the frustration on the faces of both the grandparents and my children. They simply were not able to communicate. I would have to jump in and say grandma is asking this...and then tell her that my kids are saying this.... and often my in-laws chided me and my husband for not teaching our kids to speak their "mother tongue." We always had an excuse, we are too busy to slow down and use words in Punjabi, because they don't understand..... we are busy and it's just easier to communicate in English.... plus "it doesn't matter anyway, we live in Canada." But now, looking back, I realize just how much I hindered my kids from being able to communicate with their grandparents. My own parents spoke English so while my kids were able to communicate with one set of grandparents, they were not able to communicate at all with the other set of grandparents. This set of grandparents is very elderly and it's difficult for them to learn a new language at their age, but it would have been so easy for my kids to learn to speak fluent Punjabi while they were young. They would have picked it up so quickly. And even now I feel bad that there was such a barrier in communication between my kids and their grandparents. Even my own parents, who speak fluent English and were always able to communicate with my kids, would tell us we need to speak Punjabi at home and that our kids needed to learn it. They would try to speak some words in Punjabi with the kids, but my kids always spoke back in English when I explained what they were saying. Then of course, my parents went back to English to be able to communicate with them better. Ultimately, it was up to me and my husband to speak Punjabi in our home and teach this language to our kids, not up to the grandparents, who were only there for a short visit and then gone. HOW MY KIDS WERE AFFECTED Both my kids wish they could speak Punjabi fluently. My daughter is 16 now and my son is 19. My in-laws are very elderly now and I see the look of concern on my kids' faces when they see them now (they can no longer visit us as they are very frail now, but we go to visit them), and I know they want to be able to talk to them and reassure them, but instead they look at them with concern and hug them and kiss them, and nod their heads and try to say a few words like we are fine, how are you. And then they just stop talking. They just look at each other. My in-laws are just happy to see their faces. But I have to say, they do "speak" a language of love that involves hugging, kissing the hand, nodding, smiling, and reassuring with body language. That is a universal type of language that, thankfully, needs no words. You can see that the love is there. But I often wonder how much more they could actually talk about and express more deeply if they were able to communicate with the spoken word. My husband and I can have conversations with them, and talk about anything. I wish my kids could do that too. It makes me honestly sad that as a parent, I failed them in this regard. Also, at her high school last year, my daughter decided on her own to take Punjabi class as a language instead of French. She said she would never speak French anywhere and she had more of a desire now to get in touch with her roots and her culture, and also, she wanted to be able to speak in a language that her parents were able to speak so freely when the need arose. I think she realized the importance of learning the language. Even though we live in Canada, there are so many people, family, friends, and even strangers around us that speak Punjabi. My daughter has been on the bus a few times where an elderly South Asian man or woman has asked her for directions in Punjabi, and she was not able to help them. They were not able to ask the other people around them, but on seeing a young girl of the same heritage sitting close to them, they assumed she would know how to speak the language and help them, but she was not able to. I have had her come home a few times saying mom, why didn't you guys teach me to speak Punjabi? Both kids have said this many time when not being able to communicate with their grandparents or with other people. My daughter ran into a similar situation in school. All of the Punjabi class is South Asian (as is the teacher) and 99% of the kids speak Punjabi fluently, as most kids either live with grandparents in the home who speak only Punjabi, or their parents are new immigrants and speak mostly Punjabi at home. They are taking the class to learn how to read and write the language, and to learn more words that are maybe used less often in everyday speech. So, my daughter was dismayed to find that she was still an "outsider" in her Punjabi class. It was not a class full of students who, like her, needed to learn spoken Punjabi from the very first basic words. They could speak it, and speak it very well. So, when the teacher discussed assignments in Punjabi, all the kids understood except my daughter. When other kids spoke to each other in Punjabi, everyone understood except my daughter. This was very upsetting for her, and again she came home asking me "Mom, why didn't you teach me how to speak Punjabi when I was little like everyone else??" On the outside, she looks South Asian and people wrongly assume she then also speaks the language. But inside, her mind is not able to decipher the words or put a sentence together. So, I had to speak to her teacher and explain the situation, and she tried to adjust the assignments for my daughter, understanding that she was completely new to the language, almost like a non-South Asian person would be, and proceed accordingly. I am glad to say my daughter knows the Punjabi alphabet now and can read words and spell words, but is still struggling with how to put words together in a sentence. That is going to take time and patience and more determination yet. And most of all, more exposure to the spoken language. My son is 19 now and he is starting to say a few words now in Punjabi to his grandparents. He is making a sincere effort because I think he is realizing how important it is to have that time with his grandparents, and I find him listening very intently when my husband and I speak Punjabi to them. He says a few words to them now and then and I'm surprised - and very pleased - that he was able to say a few words to them. He is also making effort - on his own - to go to the temple regularly and I think when he sees his friends speak Punjabi so fluently, he wants to fit in too. WHAT I WOULD CHANGE If I were to have more children or if I could go back in time, I would definitely speak Punjabi all the time in my house, and continue speaking it at home after school and on weekends. I would make sure that they were able to communicate freely and openly with all members of the family, specifically the grandparents who don't speak English. I would love to see my kids understand Punjabi and not have blank looks on their faces when they are spoken to in Punjabi. I would love to see them speak Punjabi as fluently and as well as they speak English. Could Punjabi Pad have helped? The above blog post by anonymous made me wonder if our invention could have helped. Obviously, it is naïve to think that a toy could have reversed the whole situation, but still it made me wonder if Punjabi Pad could have taken some of the burden off of her shoulders. Maybe it could have helped her a little bit, with her busy schedule and lack of time? The above blog post reflects the harsh reality of today’s Sikh families having to juggle between two languages, two cultures and two ways of living. Wonder if there could be a golden middle, where our children can enjoy the best of both worlds. A world where they can enjoy the luxury of great infrastructure, modern lifestyle, amazing vacations, healthy environment as well as keep the traditional values like respect for elders, culture and heritage, alive. On a slightly different note. It has been little over a month that we have launched Punjabi Pad and the sheer number of blessings that we have received from all sorts of people is overwhelming. We are truly starting to believe that we have struck a chord here with this Punjabi toy. It is not just a product that we have created and now sell but it really is almost like an oasis in the desert of our hopes and wishes of ourselves being able to pass on our heritage. We might be getting a little carried away here as Punjabi Pad teaches just basic Punjabi alphabets, words, numbers, colors, and a few greetings. But so many people have appreciated it so much, that we are starting to believe that we are making a difference, even if only just a little.
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Advantages of Bilingualism
BILINGUAL IS BETTER (AND HERE’S WHY) “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein Language fuels our brains, frames our thoughts and makes complex communication possible. The words, expressions and quirks unique to our language largely define how we see and understand the world. If you’re monolingual, that world has clearer limits. But in an age of borderless communications and global travel, it seems almost archaic to be limited to one language only – even if you’re lucky enough to speak a global language like English or Spanish as your mother tongue. But is being bilingual – speaking two languages – or even multilingual all it’s cut out to be? Does it really open up the world to us when Google Translate can do so in one easy click? Can it make economies more successful, help us earn higher salaries, maybe even lead to a happier, more connected life? And is it, as popular culture likes to claim, the secret to bringing up super smart children? THE MYTH OF THE BILINGUAL BABY The brain is a remarkably malleable organ. From birth to old age, it develops, adapts, learns and re-learns, even after being injured. Language is an essential component of how the brain functions throughout life, but just like the brain itself, science still doesn’t have a full picture of how language works its magic on those neural pathways. Although the old belief that babies who are exposed to more than one language will end up confused, less intelligent or even schizophrenic has been debunked (yes, people really used to believe this), in recent years the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction: Books and articles tout bilingualism as a magic wand that will transform every child into a pint-sized, multitasking genius. Dozens of studies, often quoted in the press, have claimed that, among other things, learning two languages in early childhood improves a whole host of cognitive abilities, making the brain more adept at switching between tasks, focusing in a busy environment, and remembering things. Learning and using two languages, these studies imply, clearly make children’s brains better. But when a young researcher named Angela de Bruin, herself a bilingual, looked at hundreds of these studies in more detail, she discovered that these studies often significantly overstated the advantages, and presented inconclusive evidence as conclusive. The narrative that “bilingual is better” was becoming well established in popular culture, but de Bruin’s critical take on the research behind it showed that the benefits weren’t as clear-cut or universal as had been reported. This is not to say that there are no benefits, and they may even turn out to be significant once the science catches up. And beyond purely cognitive skills, the social gains may be equally important. A recent study, for example, concluded that bilingual children, even kids merely exposed to a second language, were better at interpreting another person’s intentions by being able to see things from their perspective. This, the researchers inferred, made them more empathetic and better at understanding what the speaker meant. An ability to empathize in this way provides a social advantage, but there is one more significant advantage to learning and speaking more than one language: It helps the brain stay healthy throughout life. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BILINGUAL BRAIN The brain, like any muscle, likes to exercise, and as it turns out, being fluent in two or more languages is one of the best ways to keep it fit and keep degenerative disorders like dementia at bay. In fact, bilingual people show noticeable symptoms of Alzheimer’s nearly five year later than people who are monolingual and only speak one language. That’s significantly longer than what the best modern medicines can offer. Amazingly enough, this advantage is noticeable even in people who are illiterate. True bilingualism also offers a more specific and distinct benefit to those who regularly speak two or more languages at native level, and crucially, switch between them on a regular basis: The brains of Puerto Rican New Yorkers who used both Spanish and English in their daily lives were indeed more nimble and agile than those of monolinguals. A study of Singaporeans who grew up with and used their native Asian tongue and English regularly came to a similar conclusion. Bilinguals who didn’t often switch between the two languages or only used one languages in a limited setting like home, showed far fewer benefits. The cultural case is also worth examining, as is answering this important question: Does speaking more than one language help us feel more connected to the world, or as Charlemagne once famously put it, “gain a second soul”? THE BICULTURAL BONUS Languages help us make sense of the world and can even influence the way we see and describe it, as a recent study examining German and English speakers shows. There’s also no doubt that a Finnish and Arabic speaker, for example, would describe the world differently. After all, Arabic hardly needs 40 words or expressions related to snow like Finnish does, and there’s likely to be a noticeable difference in how a Finn describes, perhaps even experiences, a winter wonderland as a result. Indeed, learning another language not only helps us see the world from a different perspective, but it can even impact the way we think about it. As Dr. Panos Athanasopoulos, an expert in linguistics and bilingualism, puts it: “There’s an inextricable link between language, culture and cognition”. Many studies support this, showing that people who speak different languages score higher in tests that measure open-mindedness and cultural sensitivity and have an easier time seeing things from a different (cultural) perspective. Bilingualism, therefore, seems to make people bicultural (or multicultural if you speak more than two languages), a significant advantage in today’s borderless world and a vital skill when traveling and getting to know new cultures and people. THE BUSINESS CASE FOR BILINGUALISM The benefits of bilingualism don’t end there, however. Studies in Switzerland, Britain, Canada and India, as well as our very own EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI), highlight the financial rewards associated with bilingualism or multilingualism at all levels. A Swiss study, for example, noted that multilingualism is estimated to contribute 10 percent of Switzerland’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), proving that the language skills of workers open up more markets to Swiss businesses, greatly benefiting the economy as a whole. In Britain, on the other hand, the cost of the country’s stubborn attachment to the English language and unwillingness to significantly invest in learning other languages, has been estimated to be as high as £48bn a year, or a staggering 3.5 percent of GDP. For businesses, the language skills of their workers – be it a language spoken in a new market they’re expanding to, or English, the global lingua franca – are just as important. In an Economist Intelligence Unit study, quoted in the 2014 EF EPI, nearly 90 percent of managers said that better cross-border communication would improve the bottom line, while another study noted that 79 percent of companies that had invested in the English skills of their workers, had seen an increase in sales. At the individual level, the benefits of bilingualism are a little harder to quantify, mainly because they depend on industry, location and level of employment. A 2010 study in Canada, for example, showed that bilingual workers earned between 3-7 percent more than their monolingual peers. Speaking both of the country’s official languages – English and French – helped people earn more, even if they weren’t required to speak that second language on the job. In the US, studies have shown that speaking a foreign language can increase your salary by (at least) 1,5-3.8 percent, with German skills having the highest value due to their relative scarcity and Germany’s importance to global trade. In India, this premium was even more notable, with those who spoke English earning, on average, 34 percent more per hour. Bilingual or multilingual managers are also increasingly valued and sought after: Recruiters and industry leaders consider them to be better equipped to manage both global business relationships and teams. BILINGUAL IS BETTER. PERIOD. There are clear and very tangible benefits to being bilingual. Although there is limited proof that growing up bilingual gives children a significant cognitive edge, lifelong learning and using a second language regularly does indeed seem to make our brains more nimble and resilient. The economic benefits, moreover, can be substantial. Speaking more languages also makes us more open-minded and helps us feel more connected to other cultures and to the world. Who knows – bilingualism might even foster peace and understanding at a global level. If that’s not a good reason to learn another language, I don’t know what is. http://www.ef.com/blog/language/bilingual-is-better/
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Bilinguals in the United States
Who are the millions of bilinguals in the US? Ever since I worked on my first book on bilingualism back in the early eighties, I have been fascinated by the state of bilingualism in the United States. And over the years, I have followed its evolution. It is important to realize that the U.S. Census Bureau does not keep track of bilingualism as such, unlike other countries such as Canada. But ever since 1980, the language questions asked (Does this person speak a language other than English at home? What is this language? How well does this person speak English?) allow us to work out, to a large extent, who is bilingual and where bilinguals can be found. The 2007 American Community Survey found that a bit more than 55 million inhabitants spoke a language other than English at home. Among those people, some 51 million also knew and used English and hence were bilingual. This represents 18 percent of the population. If we add to this number bilingual children under 5 (not covered by the survey) as well as people who use a second or third language in their everyday lives but only English at home, then probably close to 20 percent of the population can be considered bilingual. The percentage of bilinguals is definitely on the rise. It was 11 percent in 1980, 14 percent in 1990, to reach close to 20 percent currently. As was noted in an earlier post (see here), bilingualism in the US is very diverse, pairing English with Native American languages, older colonial languages, recent immigration languages, American Sign Language (see here), and so on. English-Spanish bilinguals represent about half of all bilinguals and hence Spanish is definitely America's second language. Other important languages, but to a far lesser extent, are Chinese, French, Tagalog, Vietnamese, German and Korean. Over the past thirty years, many "traditional" immigrant languages have declined in number. Among these we find Italian, Yiddish, Polish and Greek. This is largely due to aging populations and dwindling migrant flows from the countries where those languages are used. Bilinguals are not equally distributed across the nation. Some states contain proportionally very few (e.g. West Virginia, Kentucky, Montana) whereas others have a far greater proportion (e.g. California, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, etc.). As for cities, the ones with the most bilinguals are New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. If one considers the geographical distribution of language pairs (English and a minority language), then English-Spanish bilinguals are mostly found in the Southwest and Florida, English-Chinese bilinguals in California and New York, bilinguals with English and a Slavic language in Illinois, New York and New Jersey, and English-German bilinguals in the Dakotas and Pennsylvania. Bilingualism in the United States has traditionally been transitional–a passage, over one or two generations, from monolingualism in a minority language to monolingualism in English. However, there is an increasing awareness that the country's knowledge of the languages of the world is a natural resource that should not be wasted. Hence a growing number of families are fostering bilingualism either by making sure the home's minority language and culture are kept alive or by encouraging their children to acquire and use a second language. With the rising number of bilinguals in the United States over the years, we can dream that President Obama's suggestion in 2008 during a rally may just be the beginning of a new trend: "You should be thinking about .... how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language". References Shin, Hyon B. and Robert A. Kominski. 2010. Language Use in the United States: 2007. American Community Survey Reports, ACS-12. U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC. François Grosjean. Bilingualism in the United States. Chapter 2 of Grosjean, F. (1982). Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. "Life as a bilingual" posts by content area. François Grosjean's website. Post written by François Grosjean.
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