A recent large-scale study showed that speaking more than one language can protect the brain for age-related changes. Although the study did not directly examine brain mechanisms, scientists have long theorized that managing multiple languages develop extra language centers, engages the brain’s executive system, and may even be associated with larger hippocampus volume.

I grew up in Japan, so English (what I currently use daily) is my second language. Perhaps these findings should make me a bit happy, but there are downsides to being bilingual. I have not fully mastered English, and I am now forgetting some of my Japanese. My Japanese friend tells me that my Japanese sounds a bit strange. I often now struggle to find the right words in both languages. Especially, when I try to think and speak, my speech becomes halting, full of pauses. It is a bit embarrassing, and as I became more self-conscious, I also grew more reluctant to speak my mind.

Yet after reading this study (and after pondering this issue for a long time), I’ve come to a different conclusion: it is okay not to be eloquent. It is okay not to dazzle anyone with effortless oratory.

One of the founding figures of structuralism, linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, argued that words and language are not as neutral or objective as we assume. Language is a system of symbols, and its meaning is culturally shaped. In English, the word sheep refers to the animal, whereas in French, the word mouton includes both the live animal and its meat. (English uses a separate word, mutton, for the meat). So when a French speaker hears the word mouton, they might imagine a savory dish; but when an English speaker hears sheep, they’re more likely to picture a soft, woolly animal. The closest translational word can evoke entirely different associations. Saussure’s point was that language is arbitrary—what a word means depends not on some inherent truth but on how that society uses and interprets it.

Building on this idea, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (linguistic relativity) proposes that........

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