The Bilingual Advantage - NYTimes.com
An interview with Ellen Bialystok, a cognitive neuroscientist and an expert on bilingualism. Much more than just helping you with finding a job/showing off at parties/impressing that cute girl at your local pub, learning more than one language beefs up your brain’s capacities in dramatic ways. Among Bialystok’s findings: bilingualism can actually delay the onset of Alzheimer symptoms and improve multitasking capabilities. So yes, if your one of those people that just has to text, sing, eat and check out the view while driving, and you speak two languages, the odds of dying in a horrific crash are slightly reduced. Slightly.
LOL Word Meaning
Want the official definition of “LOL”? The Oxford English Dictionary has you covered. This BBC article dives into the origins and usage of this most iconic nugget of Internet slang.
I really wish bathrooms in the West would be as direct and strict as this one. You go in, do your business and come back out, no mucking about. Surely a sign like this would do wonders to shrink the queue at your local pub on a Saturday night.
A bevy of misguided translations can found here.
Thanks, Aniket.
Source: weirdasianews.com
Learn Na’vi, the Language of Avatar
Tired of learning Esperanto or Klingon, why not give Na’vi a shot? Although it’s vocabulary its very limited, it’s a constructed language with its own grammar. The language was specifically created for the film Avatar by professor Paul Frommer, who has a doctorate in linguistics.
Baby Talk
Photo: bioethics.net
From the BBC website:
German researchers say babies begin to pick up the nuances of their parents’ accents while still in the womb.
The researchers studied the cries of 60 healthy babies born to families speaking French and German.
The French newborns cried with a rising “accent” while the German babies’ cries had a falling inflection.
