Learning Languages May Be Influenced by Genes
Learning languages is interesting and fun, new languages can make you twist your tongue yet they can help you open doors to various possibilities and opportunities. Learning languages may be beneficial and all but have you ever wondered if it is naturally in you to learn languages? Have you ever thought whether it is inherent in you to acquire languages easily or not? Did it ever cross your mind that learning languages may be influenced by your genes?
A study conducted by Dan Dediu and Robert Ladd at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland a couple of years ago has found that there is a possible link between a human being’s DNA and his or her ability to learn a particular set of languages. The findings could be the first sign of the subtle effect in which a person’s DNA could bias him or her in learning other languages. You might be wondering why you have difficulty in learning a particular language, well the study shows that your genes could be held responsible for it.
The genes which are called ASPM and Microcephalin are found to play a role in brain development and they appear to still be evolving in human beings. They are very unevenly distributed geographically yet they are very common in populations in Northern Asia, Europe, and some parts of Southeast Asia and Oceania, and are quite uncommon in East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Impressionistically, the areas where the genes are common are areas where tonal languages are rare, while the areas where the genes are rare are the areas where tonal languages are common.
Tonal languages are languages which use tone to distinguish words. One of the main characteristics of tonal languages is that, one word can have various meanings depending on the tone it was inflected by the speaker. Tone is a phonological trait which is common to numerous languages around the world yet they are rare in South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. About half of all existing languages in the world are tonal; while the other half of all the languages in the world are non tonal, they use pitch only to stress statements or questions. Among the tonal languages on the planet are Norwegian, Lithuanian, Swedish, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, some Slovene dialects, Limburgish, Punjabi, Hausa, Vietnamese, Lao, Thai, Burmese, all Chinese dialects, Central and Eastern Tibetan dialects, languages of New Guinea, the Na-Dené languages of Alaska and the American Southwest, the Oto-Manguean languages of Mexico, Uspantek, a dialect of Tzotzil, and Yucatec.
If you are or your ancestors were from the places where the native languages are nearly all tonal such as sub-Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia, you most probably have the older version of the genes. However if you or your ancestors were from the areas where most people speak non tonal languages, you most probably have the newer version of Microcephalin and you have the fifty-fifty possibility of carrying the new ASPM gene. The newer versions of the genes may give you a sort of insensitivity for tone therefore you might have difficulty in learning a tonal language if your native language is a non tonal one.
Very young children may not show the effects of the genes while they are learning their native tongues. Various studies have already found out that very young children can learn any language on the planet equally easily regardless where they came from as long as they are exposed to it from a very early age. The effects of the said genes are more evident in adults who are struggling to learn a foreign language. Adults already have developed language systems in them that is why it could be difficult for them to learn new languages especially ones which could be totally different from their native tongues.
The researchers have encouraged more studies to be done in order to have new insights into the nature of the human language faculty so do not be totally discouraged from learning a new language which is from a language set that is different from yours. There are numerous language learning methods which you can try and learn from and there are so many ways to help you achieve your language learning goals.