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"...people who speak more than one language don't exhibit symptoms of Alzheimer's disease until they have twice as much brain damage as unilingual people. It's the first physical evidence that bilingualism delays the onset of the disease. ... Despite the fact that both groups performed equivalently on all measures of cognitive performance, the scans of the bilingual patients showed twice as much atrophy in areas of the brain known to be affected by Alzheimer's."

Did you cringe or feel super uncomfortable reading any of the words in the title? Well, if you did, you're not alone. It's actually a real and common feeling called word aversion. In fact, researchers say that 20% of the population equate hearing the word "moist" to hearing fingernails on a chalkboard. In this article, Paul Thibodeau of Oberlin College tests his hypotheses toward word aversions with a language experiment. One of his explanations for the origin of word aversion is the word's phonological properties. Another, is that the word has to do with concepts people tend to associate with that word. Read this article to learn about Dr. Thibodeau's results from conducting five experiments to provide data for these two competing explanations.

The British Broadcasting System (BBC) World Service recently began producing digital news content in Naijá (Nigerian Pidgin). Though Naijá originated as a pidgin, trade communication between Portuguese and English speakers and natives of the Niger Delta, linguistically-speaking, its modern incarnation is actually a creole exhibiting systematic grammar and syntax. The service will bring language diversity to the news and current affairs that West and Central Africa audiences receive, where Pidgin is one of the most widely-spoken languages. The decision to make the service digital only was based on the fact that African people prefer to read content on their mobile phones. Itʻs also interesting to note the transformation of Pidgin, once solely an oral language, into standardized text-based language.

Almost every language on the planet includes words that sound like the things they describe. Crash, yawn, glug… speech is just full of these onomatopoeias. And because they have their root in real things they're often easy to identify. Even a non-native speaker might recognise the Hindi "achhee" (a sneeze) or the Indonesian "gluk" (glug). Because these onomatopoeias are so widely encountered, easy to pick up, and convey information might they be the first form of language? That's the argument presented in a recent paper published in Animal Cognition. It points out that our ancestors would have begun encountering more and more noises that we could repeat. Tool use/ manufacture in particular, with its smashes and crashes, would be a prime source of onomatopoeias. Mimicking these sounds could have allowed early humans to "talk" about the objects; describing goals, methods, and objects. Might handing someone a rock and going "smash" been a way to ask them to make a tool? Perhaps different noises could even refer to different tools. Humans are good at extracting information from mimicked sounds. These sounds also trigger "mirror neurons" - parts of the brain that fire when we observe other people doing something - allowing us to repeat those actions. Seeing someone hold a rock a certain way and saying "smash" could have helped our ancestors teach the proper way to smash. But the biggest benefit would be the fact that you can communicate about these objects without seeing them. Having a sound for a tool would allow you to ask someone for it, even if they didn't have it on them. Given these advantages, it's easy to imagine how evolution would have favoured people who mimicked noises. Over time, this would have driven the development of more and more complex communication; until language as we recognise it emerged. Following this narrative, you can see (or maybe hear) how an a human ancestor with almost no language capability gradual

Keeping in touch is no longer about face to face, but instead screen to screen, highlighted by the fact that more than 1 billion people are using Facebook every day. Social media has become second nature -- but what impact is this having on our brain? "In a recent study, researchers at the UCLA brain mapping center used an fMRI scanner to image the brains of 32 teenagers as they used a bespoke social media app resembling Instagram. By watching the activity inside different regions of the brain as the teens used the app, the team found certain regions became activated by "likes", with the brain's reward center becoming especially active." This article goes into depth on how social media like instagram is changing our brain. It shows us what parts of our brain are getting stimulated when we use social media! It also talks about peer influence, social learning, and reward circuitry.

Homeschooled children are typically seen as having less social skills and slower language development, but in fact this stereotype is not true. According to this scholarly article, homeschooled students actually performed better on the SAT in the language section than the math section. Homeschooled children also performed better overall on the SAT than the average public school student. The article also found that due to the advent of technology and social media, homeschooled students have much less social interaction than public school students.

A 2013 joint study, conducted by the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -- The Neuro at McGill University and Oxford University, concludes that the pattern of brain development is similar if you learn one or two languages from birth. However, learning a second language later on in childhood, after gaining proficiency in the first (native) language, does in fact, modify the brain's structure, specifically the brain's inferior frontal cortex. The left inferior frontal cortex became thicker and the right inferior frontal cortex became thinner. The cortex is a multi-layered mass of neurons that plays a major role in cognitive functions such as thought, language, consciousness and memory. The study suggests that the task of acquiring a second language after infancy stimulates new neural growth and connections among neurons in ways seen in acquiring complex motor skills such as juggling. The study's authors speculate that the difficulty that some people have in learning a second language later in life could be explained at the structural level. "The later in childhood that the second language is acquired, the greater are the changes in the inferior frontal cortex," said Dr. Denise Klein, researcher in The Neuro's Cognitive Neuroscience Unit and a lead author on the paper published in the journal Brain and Language. "Our results provide structural evidence that age of acquisition is crucial in laying down the structure for language learning."

This article explains why teenagers are, in fact, not affecting the evolution of language as drastically as we initially thought.

An NPR/Ipsos poll in December found that a significant number of Americans believe disinformation about the coronavirus and about settled historical facts. The findings underscore the enduring nature of unfounded conspiracies at a time when experts say disinformation is being spread on an unprecedented scale. The Internet gives conspiracy theorists a place to connect, and social media gives them a way to quickly disseminate their ideas on a mass scale. Disinformation peddlers are trying to drive traffic to websites where they can make money, or they're trying to shape a political narrative.

Northwestern University researchers, led by Dr Nina Kraus, found that poor readers had reduced neural response (auditory brainstem activity) to rhythmic rather than random sounds compared to good readers. In fact the level of neural enhancement to acoustic regularities correlated with reading ability as well as musical aptitude. The musical ability test, specifically the rhythm aspect, was also related to reading ability. Similarly a good score on the auditory working memory related to better reading and to the rhythm aspect of musical ability. Dr Kraus explained, "Both musical ability and literacy correlated with enhanced electrical signals within the auditory brainstem. Structural equation modeling of the data revealed that music skill, together with how the nervous system responds to regularities in auditory input and auditory memory/attention accounts for about 40% of the difference in reading ability between children. These results add weight to the argument that music and reading are related via common neural and cognitive mechanisms and suggests a mechanism for the improvements in literacy seen with musical training."

This article focuses on a new book which argues that informal online communication is sometimes more advanced than even the most elegant prose. It also explores the possibility that internet slang makes people better writers due to the fact that it sharpens the user's communication skills to get the point across, even through the use of emojis.

Canadian linguist Gretchen McCulloch rails against linguistic prescriptivism. She feels that people should exhibit flexible and receptive attitudes towards linguistic change: "We create successful communication when all parties help each other win." She also notes that "the only languages that stay unchanging are the dead ones."

Some 50 years ago, the renowned linguist Roman Jakobson pointed out a crucial fact about differences between languages in a pithy maxim: "Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey." This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about. When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the time. And since such habits of speech are cultivated from the earliest age, it is only natural that they can settle into habits of mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world.

Ever used an emoji before? Most people have used an emoji in a text or message if they have a phone or laptop. The majority of emoji users are pretty harmless with the meaning behind the use of words. However not all have used it so positively. In fact, more and more law systems are bringing in linguist (emoji) experts as a witness to testify the meaning behind emojis given the context. Which is even more interesting is that some defendants have been convicted partially based on the meaning behind an emoji. For example there is one man who was convicted because of his use of a gun emoji which the expert witness testified the sinical, threatening meaning of the emoji. This article might make you think before you send your next emoji...

Companies have had to change the way that they advertise during this pandemic because many people are scared and don't have a disposable income. Many companies focus on advertising the safety measures put in place by them. This makes people feel safe about buying the products. However, many people are still not ready to buy items right now. This has resulted in a switch of marketing that makes people feel like they are buying to help others. For example, some companies tout the fact that they are hiring workers. This is following a trend in recent decades in which buying can signify someone's morals or ideals. For example, many companies used to focus on how eco-friendly their products are. Now, companies focus on how they are helping workers keep their jobs. However, many local businesses do not have the resources to advertise and are floundering. This advertising strategy has also received some blowback as many find the messages shallow. For example, while big companies give people jobs, these workers receive little to no benefits and barely any sick leave. This phenomenon is called "disastertising" in which companies try to make themselves as knights saving the American public.

While the title is somewhat unrelatable, the premise of the article is. Essentially, it explains how using a phatic expression like "how's it going?" won't amount to anything beyond a one word answer. The article further supports this claim by elaborating on the fact that if you ever need to check up one anyone, the question should be phrased more accordingly. There's also this great video by Tom Scott explaining more about this linguistic device (https://youtu.be/eGnH0KAXhCw).

In this article, language teacher and researcher, Miguel Angel Muñoz, analyzes the results of research being done on the affects bilingualism has on the brain. This article explains the benefits and downsides to bilingualism in regards to cognitive function. The article first explains what it means to be bilingual. It then goes over the costs and benefits to cognition that studies have shown to be correlated to bilingualism. At the end of the article the author mentions the limitations to research in bilingualism due to the fact that there are so many confounding variables.

This article explores the Japanese concept of natsukashii: a Japanese word used when something evokes a fond memory from your past. It's a word you exclaim as a smile creeps across your face. For instance, when you hear a song you loved as a teenager, or when you come across an old train ticket stub in your pocket. In some cultures, nostalgia is often full of sadness. But natsukashii - which derives from the verb "natsuku", which means "to keep close and become fond of" - indicates joy and gratitude for the past rather than a desire to return to it. In Japan, natsukashii is a reminder that you are fortunate to have had the experiences you've had in life. The fact that you cannot return to those experiences makes them all the more poignant.

This article talks about the benefits of gratitude journaling and how the actual content of what you journal about affects how you feel after the practice. "It was only when people used fewer negative emotion words in their letters that they were significantly more likely to report better mental health. In fact, it was the lack of negative emotion words-not the abundance of positive words-that explained the mental health gap between the gratitude writing group and the other writing group."

Ozzy is a child who had half his brain removed, due to severe epileptic seizures. Interesting fact: the brain is so adaptable that even when an entire hemisphere is removed, if the patient is young, the other hemisphere can adapt to take on the functions of the hemisphere that was removed.