Hello Michael,
My mom always told me that because me and my brother were raised simultaneously in three languages (that is Persian, Swedish and French), both of us had to split our vocal energy in three channels, whereas my Swedish pre-school mates where always slightly advanced in their single Swedish mother tongue. When we grew older, we simply considered our tri-linguistic capability as keys to open a door to some additional spheres of kids excitement. In addition to the talking and playing with the other kids in prep-school, we could also sing with our parents french children songs and listen to old-persian fairy-tales when we visited Grandma in Tehran. Throughout the years, however, this advantages lost their importance more and more: now one can read almost everything in translations, and my music taste has also changed from french childrens songs more to contemporary music. And if I listen to Persian music, it is more for the rhytm and the melodies that I like, rather than for the lyrics. Sometimes I was always wondering if the three languages we grew up with could have really any long-term benefit for me, in particular now when English seems to be the dominating tool for worldwide communication.
It was always suggested, however that people who grew up in a multilingual environment (like in bi-national families) perform better in various neurological tests, independent on which languages. It was not clear, however, to what degree other social factors such as higher educational level in such families or their intention to provide these kids with additional skills and training might have biased such a finding. In a recent paper by Krizman and co-workers from Northwestern University, Evanston IL, published in PNAS it could be shown, that bilinguals had a specifically increased ability to differentiate between simultaneously sounding auditory objects. The perception of an auditory source is considered a key element in the ability to learn in a concentrated manner. It considerably increases the tolerance of a person against disturbances from external sources while concentrating on a subject. Their study also showed that the neural enhancements observed in multitalker babble intersect with bilinguals’ known advantages in cognitive control and are similar to advantages seen in musicians.
The continuously manipulating sounds across two languages leads to an expertise in how sound is encoded in the bilingual brain. In both groups of auditory experts (i.e., musicians and bilinguals), enhanced experience with sound results in an auditory system that is highly efficient, flexible and focused in its automatic sound processing, especially in challenging or novel listening conditions. Thus, converging evidence from both musicians and bilinguals points to subcortical plasticity as providing a biological basis for advantages in real-world experiences with sound.
Didn’t you came up last year with this theory that the sounds and music the unborn child hears in the mothers womb can have a profund effect onto his mental development ? So if we all hear music from iPod or MP3 player any more, should not at least the pregnant woman expose themself and their unborn baby to some real good sound, like going to a concert or a music club ?
Well, I guess this all depends on the mothers taste (which than coins the taste of its kids).
Take good Care
/ghazal
Ghazal my Dear, I have to think if in my case a mixed saxon-prussian dialect at home can also be considered bi-lingual environment. Perhaps not. The first foreign language I got in contact with was Polish, when we spend three weeks holidays in a mountain farmers ranch and I was the entire day with his kids.
About prenatal music, however, I can tell you precisely what I was listening to before being born: My parents had a good collection of french chansons (Edit Piaf,Jaques Brel,Charles Aznavour,Juliette Greco etc) and of Jazz-records (Paul Kuhn,Kenny Ball,Mr.Acker Bilk,Chris Barber,Ella Fitzgerald,Louis Armstrong), all stuff one could get in East-Germany without having to smuggle in records from the west. My parents were playing these records every free minute, not very loud, I never considered it annoying, it was just the normal background sound at home. It was like a theme tune and I think really coined a bit my taste, although I never learned French to understand the lyrics of Edith Piaf. In fact Chanson is the only music type where I consider French extraordinary rich and innovative.
Interesting what you wrote about your grandparents reading you Persian fairy-tales. You know that in addition to exposing you to this multilingual-environment, the sheer act of reading a book aloud to kids has a very benifical effect onto their literacy skills and their ability to express themself. A 2008 scientific article in the journal Archives of Disease in Children also came to the conclusion that parents, who read books aloud to their kids provide them with advanced literacy skills later in school. As you suggested in your post between the lines, the authors also found evidence that the style of reading was crucial for the children’s early language and literacy development.
You can read a review and link to the entire article in Science Daily.