‘Lost’ first languages leave permanent mark on the brain, new study reveals
MRI scans show Chinese babies adopted by French-speaking Canadian families retain ‘unconscious’ knowledge of their mother tongue.
This article is from theguardian.com by Holly Young.
“Lost” first languages leave a permanent mark on the brain, a report this week has found. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the US, challenges the existing understanding that exposure to a language in the first year of a child’s life can be “erased” if he or she is moved to a different linguistic environment.
The study showed that Chinese children, adopted at 12 months to French-speaking families in Canada, responded to Chinese tones, despite having no conscious understanding of the language. Read more →