Features

The benefits of knowing more than one language are apparent for travel and work. Yet, a little-known benefit is that being bilingual can increase a person’s mental health.

A 2006 Canadian study, Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia, examined the medical records of a group of 184 seniors diagnosed with dementia, 51 per cent of whom were bilingual.

The onset of dementia symptoms in the bilingual group was four years later than the monolingual group.

The Biblical story of the Tower of Babel tells of how God created the languages of the world to confuse the people as punishment for their blasphemous building project.

Many ancient stories describe a similar divine origin for languages spoken by humans, in an attempt to explain a problem that has puzzled humans for generations.Though more modern theories don’t involve any divine intervention, there is disagreement as scholars attempt to answer this question.

The relationship between language and culture is a source of great debate between those who study languages and their effect on civilization.

Over the next hundred years, Chatbots.org CEO Erwin Van Lun expects different languages to meld in to one global language.

When she was seven, Emma Abramowicz’s father campaigned for both the federal and provincial NDP candidates in her riding and she and her brother went with him. She now admits that might have been to partially spare him from dealing with the occasional rude response.

“In retrospect, I would imagine that having children at his side would make it less likely for people to slam the door in his face,” she said.
Growing up, politics was both dinner table conversation and a passion.