The British Psychology Society points us to yet another study about the positives of being bilingual. Read here to find out more about research done at the Univeristy of Granada and the University of York in Canada, which presented on the benefits of raising children to be bilingual, specifically how it can boost one’s memory.
Does raising your kids to speak two different languages confuse them? Read on at 2 Langauge 2 Worlds to find out in this study done on 606 five-year old children. The impetus of the study is to look at code-mixing in children with and without language impairment.
According to the Journal of Neuroscience, bilinguals are able to perform tasks at a faster rate compared to monolinguals. The study showed that this was so because bilinguals are used to switching back and forth from one language to another. As a result, older adults at assisted living communities are encouraged to learn a second language to help decrease cognitive decline. You can read about it more at the Sunrise Senior Living Blog.
It’s all in the vowels. So says linguist Corrine McCarthy from George Mason University. She recently spoke to WBEZ’s Curious City about the Chicago accent. But those vocalic peculiarities, as exhibited to comedic effect by an SNL sketch about Bears super fans, are only just the tip of the linguistic iceberg.
You can read (or listen to) the entire post to learn more about what other dialects are home to Chicago.
To answer the initial question, though, of where our unique accent comes from, UIC’s own Richard Cameron is quoted as saying that a likely possibility is that “the first dialect that gets [to a place] seems to win.” In our case then, it seems that that would be New Englanders in the mid-1800s.
Altering the names of places from their native language into a form that is more natural to speakers of another language is nothing new. However, Linguism, in a post reflecting on an article by the Independent, discusses different anglicizations of nations around the world. Of particular interest is when to use definite articles with particular countries, i.e. Ukraine vs. the Ukraine. Check out what they have to say on the issue or just take a glance at this map that details of the intricacies of the phenomenon in Spanish:
The competitive spirit of the Olympics is spreading even to linguistic levels. Apparently some are perturbed by the growing trend to use ‘medal’ as a verb now, as in Danell Leyva medalled in the men’s all-around, instead of saying that athletes ‘win medals’. A silly debate for sure as not only is this a very productive phenomenon in the English language (see also ‘friend’ instead of ‘add as friend’, ‘text’ instead of ‘send text message’, etc.), but even the Oxford English Dictionary has accepted it as a verb for years. Read more about it The National.
In Puerto Rico, where both Spanish and English are now co-official languages, the new school year has begun and with it comes the start of the commonwealth’s new bilingual education program. Starting yesterday, math and science in 32 different pilot schools will switch to being taught in English. Visit Hispanically Speaking News to find out why the switch is underway and why not everyone is in favor of the change.
It is common for researchers to use artificial languages to test certain aspects of language acquisition. Linguists at Northwestern University cleverly took it one step further by referencing the world of pop culture with their made-up language, naming it after satirist Stephen Colbert, a man known for humorously coining his own words, such as ‘truthiness’. Colbertian was used to test whether being bilingual aids in learning another language, which the researchers say it does. You can read more of the details in the Chicago Sun-Times write-up. Furthermore, you can even learn Colbertian yourself!
A new study from La Trobe University highlights yet again the importance of bilingualism from a young age. The same way that early exposure to multiple languages increases cognitive abilities in hearing children, exposure to both spoken and sign language for deaf children has positive effects on cognition and language learning. Check out this article for more details.
While you’re at it, feel free to increase your own bilingual abilities by taking a moment to learn some basic greetings in British Sign Language (BSL), which was the sign language focused on in the study.
NPR has an interesting report on the growing trend of producing bilingual Spanish/English television programs here in the US. Although they may be following in the footsteps of the successful bilingual children’s cartoon Dora the Explorer, this new trend is not just for children. Importantly, nor is it just for bilinguals, as they mention the programs are subtitled in both Spanish and English for those less dominant in one language or the other. Listen to the story and check it out for yourself.