Introducing the brain: wiring for each language (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, March 27, 2023, 16:12 (605 days ago) @ David Turell

Connections differ for each first language:

https://www.livescience.com/your-native-language-may-shape-the-wiring-of-your-brain?utm...

"A person's native language may shape how their brain builds connections between different hubs of information processing, a new brain scan study reveals.

"The observed differences in these language network structures were related to linguistic characteristics in the native languages of the study participants: German and Arabic.

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"Although the language network grows to be one of the strongest networks in the brain, the connections at birth are weak. As we learn to speak, links strengthen between the various brain regions that are responsible for different types of language processing, such as recognizing words from sounds and interpreting the meaning of sentences, Anwander explained.

"Different languages may tax some types of language processing more than others. The researchers wanted to see how these differences affect the formation of connections in the brain.

"Previous studies had highlighted regions of the brain that activate during language processing. These are primarily situated in the left hemisphere, although both sides of the brain are invoked in auditory processing, and the region that assesses stress and intonation in the pronunciation of words lives in the right hemisphere.

"Discussing the paper at a seminar(opens in new tab), Patrick Friedrich(opens in new tab), a researcher at the Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany who was not involved in the study, noted that the brain's language network is understood to be "more or less universal among participants of different native languages." Yet, scientists have observed differences in how the brain processes second languages.

"'I thought this study was really interesting because it shows for the first time a structural difference depending on the native experience," rather than languages learned later, Friedrich said.

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"The scans revealed that the native German speakers showed increased connectivity in the regions of the left hemisphere involved in language processing, compared with the Arabic speakers. Anwander noted that German is considered syntactically complicated(opens in new tab), meaning the sense of a sentence is gleaned less from the word order and more from the grammatical forms of the words. Thus, words that depend on each other for their meaning may be at opposite ends of a sentence. Syntactic processing regions are mostly in frontal parts of the left hemisphere, so the higher connectivity within the left hemisphere makes sense, he said.

"In contrast, Anwander described Arabic as semantically complex — while the sentence word order remains more fixed, the words' meanings can be more taxing to decode. The researchers observed increased connectivity between the left and right hemispheres for Arabic speakers that reflected this."

Comment: not at all surprising. A baby brain has tremendous plasticity and as it hears language the proper networks will form, especially since a baby is born with a sense of syntax