Applied Languages

Learning to speak Mandarin and Vietnamese as a child helps make you more musical, claims a study that suggests being fluent in the languages helps you have perfect pitch. Researchers made the discovery after investigating why perfect pitch was rare in Europe and the US even among musicians – with only one in 10,000 said to the have the gift – while in certain parts of China it was very common.

They tested 203 music students for perfect pitch asking them to identify all 36 notes from three octaves played in haphazard order.  Those tested included 27 ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese students who had different levels of fluency in the tonal language learned from their parents.
The Asian students scored no better than white students if they weren’t fluent in their parents’ language but very fluent students scored highly, getting about 90 per cent of the notes correct on average.

“They did incredibly well. It was overwhelming,” Professor Diana Deutsch, a psychologist who led the study told New Scientist. “In my experience, musicians in China don’t regard perfect pitch as anything remarkable because it’s very common.”

The study suggests that learning a tonal language plays a far greater role in perfect pitch than genes. Mandarin, like Cantonese and Vietnamese, is a tonal language in which the pitch of a spoken word is essential to its meaning.

“It really looks as though infants should acquire perfect pitch if they are given the opportunity to attach verbal labels to musical notes at the age when they learn speech,” said Prof Deutsch.

Read More: Telegraph

According to a survey, words such as WAP, dongle, and cookie still confuse the British public. The Gadget Helpline surveyed more than 5,000 users and came up with a Top 10 list of technology-related words people find most confusing.

The firm says companies should use language people understand, rather than resorting to jargon. The move is backed by the Plain English Campaign, saying it would help bring down the “walls of techno-babble”.

Many of the words, such as Digital TV, have entered the English language but not everyone knows what they mean. On top of that, many firms have different names for identical products, which complicates things further.

Alex Watson, editor of Custom PC magazine, said that companies were under pressure to come up with new names and some of those would eventually wind up in our lexicon. “Some names are just made up for marketing purposes, while others are chosen so users can relate to the term. One way of linking peripherals to a Mac was via an interface called FireWire. On a Sony it is called i.LINK and it’s also called Lynx by Texas Instruments, even though all three are exactly the same thing. That hardly makes things easy for the consumer.”

“It may be called Wi-Fi but most people would call it a wireless network, which is exactly what it is,” he said.

Read more: BBC

A small group of language givers in Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, Canada, are sharing their gift with others in the hope of keeping First Nations languages alive. The term First Nations refers to specific indigenous groups in the land that is now known as Canada.

Cathy Wheaton decided that she wasn’t prepared to stand by and let her Cree language die so she began talking to others about what could be done to save it. Wheaton with the help of fluent First Nations language speakers have formed the Regina First Nations Language Speaking Circle. The group offers free language classes at a local library. Wheaton believes people can save the language if they really want to and a lack of funding to programs shouldn’t be an obstacle. “I’m so grateful that people are so generous with their languages because without our fluent speakers there would be no way we could do this,” said Wheaton.

Wheaton said based on the 2006 census data First Nation languages are only a generation or two away from being lost forever, which is true in her own family. “I’m really worried about this and I’m doing nothing right now, and I should be learning my own language but it wasn’t passed to me,” said Wheaton.

It was through her research on First Nations languages that she uncovered information on speaking circles. Speaking circles involve both language givers and language learners. The two groups come together and focus on oral language proficiency by speaking it as opposed to the traditional method of learning, which focuses on literacy, grammar and memorization of vocabulary.

Allan Adam, a Dene speaker, is one of the people who has decided to share his knowledge with others. He sees the potential such speaking circles can have because rather than focusing on writing and memorization students can practice speaking the language with one another.

Read more: Leader-Post

Indiana University has signed an open-ended agreement to provide language and culture training to the Indiana National Guard.

IU President Michael McRobbie and Indiana’s Adjutant General, Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger, signed a document on Tuesday that cemented the institutions’ 3-year-old partnership. The contract gives IU and the Indiana National Guard flexibility if the Guard needs different language trainers, said IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre.

Currently, faculty and staff from IU teach Pashto and Dari at Camp Atterbury in Edinburgh, Ind. Both languages are spoken in Afghanistan. IU will also teach culture and regional laws.  The agreement makes it easier for the Indiana National Guard to contract IU’s expertise in language and culture.

Camp Atterbury is where civilians and members of the military prepare for deployment to Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. McRobbie thinks the agreement will help support national defence as well as the state economy, as Camp Atterbury receives outgoing military. The agreement is supported by a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The war in Afghanistan is not going to be won on the battlefield, but through thinking, said IU’s director of community relations Kirk White. He also said there is academic freedom in which faculty members would not have to participate in any agreement to which they morally object.

Read more: Indiana Daily Student

Children who are bilingual before the age of five are more likely to stutter than their non-bilingual counterparts, according to a British study published today.

The research was conducted among 317 London children who were referred to a speech therapist when they were aged between eight and ten. One in five of the stutterers were bilingual, speaking English at school and a second language at home. Boys outnumbered girls by a ratio of four to one.

The study, headed by psychologist Peter Howell of University College London, found that bilingual children usually stutter in both languages, rather than just one. By concentrating on the minority language up to the age of five, and then acquiring English, the risk of stuttering is reduced and overcoming the problem is easier, the study proposes.

Starting English somewhat later, and learning it at the same time as the minority language, does not affect educational success, according to tests on children at the age of seven and 11, it said.

Read more: The Sydney Morning Herald