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Children are born polyglots
By Daniel Moraga |
May 30, 2012, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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SCIS ESOL Department teacher
I remember growing up and my mother speaking fluent Spanish to my father. I could understand a bit of their conversation but I could not participate even if I wanted to. My mother sometimes did ad hoc Spanish lessons while my siblings and I sat in the backseat of our yellow Toyota Corolla, all of us in the back making fun of this crafty language while my mother became exasperated. My mother would say mariposa, which means butterfly, and I would reply "mariposa." Very good she would say. Then she would continue to speak in English, and I felt comfortable once more. Spanish wasn't really spoken in my home unless my parents wanted to say something that they did not want my siblings and me to hear. My parents feared we would become lost in a sea of English and Spanish if two languages were consistently used in our house.
It was once thought that if you had more than one language growing up as a mother tongue, you would confuse them, consequently never being able to master one. This has proved to be a fallacy as linguists have determined that this amazing piece of hardware we call our brain actually makes distinctions in different languages, of which we are totally unaware. Our brains naturally know exactly in which category to put a particular language component. For example, "dog" would be under the L1 (language 1) category, and skilo, "dog" in Greek, would be under another L1 category. This is, of course, if both Greek and English are spoken in the home. If they are, then both languages will be separate mother tongues, which the child not only speaks in but also thinks in. It makes up the core of their character.
Here is the way the hardware works. Essentially, as you grow older, your brain flicks the "switches" off for learning languages. From the time you make your first utterances until about age 8, the "panel" is all lit up, all switches are flipped up. This is why children can master languages so quickly and why as adults it becomes an exercise in translation and memorization. As you grow older, the switches are randomly flipped down because you haven't any inherent need, an evolutionary survival mechanism, to learn them. This is all from Noam Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics. He said that as children we don't learn language by simple emulation, repeating what we hear. Instead, our brains already have the tools to put it all together.
So is it "safe" for children in their formative years to learn two, three, or even four languages? Fear not. We are born polyglots.
Well, if I had it my way, I would have stuck my daughter, while in her first few years, in the middle of a United Nations conference room without any translators. Going to school where other languages are offered is the next best thing to be raised in two L1's, especially if the institution's language of instruction is a lingua franca, the language of commerce.
I remember growing up and my mother speaking fluent Spanish to my father. I could understand a bit of their conversation but I could not participate even if I wanted to. My mother sometimes did ad hoc Spanish lessons while my siblings and I sat in the backseat of our yellow Toyota Corolla, all of us in the back making fun of this crafty language while my mother became exasperated. My mother would say mariposa, which means butterfly, and I would reply "mariposa." Very good she would say. Then she would continue to speak in English, and I felt comfortable once more. Spanish wasn't really spoken in my home unless my parents wanted to say something that they did not want my siblings and me to hear. My parents feared we would become lost in a sea of English and Spanish if two languages were consistently used in our house.
It was once thought that if you had more than one language growing up as a mother tongue, you would confuse them, consequently never being able to master one. This has proved to be a fallacy as linguists have determined that this amazing piece of hardware we call our brain actually makes distinctions in different languages, of which we are totally unaware. Our brains naturally know exactly in which category to put a particular language component. For example, "dog" would be under the L1 (language 1) category, and skilo, "dog" in Greek, would be under another L1 category. This is, of course, if both Greek and English are spoken in the home. If they are, then both languages will be separate mother tongues, which the child not only speaks in but also thinks in. It makes up the core of their character.
Here is the way the hardware works. Essentially, as you grow older, your brain flicks the "switches" off for learning languages. From the time you make your first utterances until about age 8, the "panel" is all lit up, all switches are flipped up. This is why children can master languages so quickly and why as adults it becomes an exercise in translation and memorization. As you grow older, the switches are randomly flipped down because you haven't any inherent need, an evolutionary survival mechanism, to learn them. This is all from Noam Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics. He said that as children we don't learn language by simple emulation, repeating what we hear. Instead, our brains already have the tools to put it all together.
So is it "safe" for children in their formative years to learn two, three, or even four languages? Fear not. We are born polyglots.
Well, if I had it my way, I would have stuck my daughter, while in her first few years, in the middle of a United Nations conference room without any translators. Going to school where other languages are offered is the next best thing to be raised in two L1's, especially if the institution's language of instruction is a lingua franca, the language of commerce.
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