Do polyglots process all foreign languages in the brain the same as their mother tongue? Not exactly

Polyglots possess exceptional language skills, but they may not process all foreign languages exactly like their mother tongue. While they often achieve fluency and proficiency, subtle differences may exist in how they process syntax, vocabulary, and cultural nuances. However, extensive practice and exposure enable polyglots to navigate multiple languages with remarkable ease and accuracy, albeit with some variations in processing.

‍New research looked into how people who speak different languages process them in the brain.

People who speak more than five languages, known as polyglots, light up in the “language network” of the brain when they listen to languages that they speak, with stronger responses to the ones they are most proficient in.

However, according to a new study, when listening to their native tongues, the brain’s activity was either similar or dropped off compared to non-native languages they were fluent in.

“Something makes it a little bit easier to process - maybe it’s that you’ve spent more time using that language - and you get a dip in activity for the native language compared to other languages that you speak proficiently,” Evelina Fedorenko, an associate professor of neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and senior author of the study, said in a statement.

While many people globally speak more than one language fluently, few people speak five or more languages, the authors said, and most research has focused on bilinguals.

They argue that this limits studies to asking only about two languages and comparing someone’s “privileged” native tongue to a single non-native language, which is why they turned to polyglots.

How did the study work?

The researchers in the US used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of 34 polyglots and published their findings in the scientific journal Cerebral Cortex.

All of the participants had some proficiency in five or more languages but most began learning them as teenagers or adults.

Sixteen of the participants were “hyperpolyglots” meaning they spoke 10 or more languages, including one person who had at least some proficiency in 54 languages. The mean number of languages spoken or signed among participants was around 15.

Source: euronews