« Language Chapt. Two | Main | A Recipe for Sentence Formation »
September 26, 2005
Brain and Language... Question 3!
I must be ignorant; I always thought the Japanese language seemed rather difficult, but I had no idea that there were two completely different languages... let alone two different languages that used two completely different parts of your brain! I can't imagine trying to communicate with someone if I know one language, and they know the other. How frustrating must that get?!?
Okay, so the question for discussion:
As Kana is the phonetic language of the two, with spelling, and sounds, it is more like "language" as we think of and know it. The left side of the brain is predisposed for langauage from birth, and is better for processing verbal sounds and grammar concepts. There is plenty evidence of this from many tests and studies, including event-related-brain potential tests. Oh, and not to mention the demonstration of our brain having structured seperate facilities by Phineas Gage, the man who had a 4 foot iron rod through his head and still functioned, including language-wise, just fine!
Kanji, the symbolic Japanese language in which pictures represent words, would be processed by the right side of the brain instead. The right side has be found to be better in non-verbal, more visual processing, which includes pattern matching and recognizing faces.
Considering all this, if brain damage was to happen to someone on the left side, the Kana language would by far be more affected than the Kanji. If there was right side brain damage, the symbolic Kanji language would be much more affected.
Eeeesh!
Posted by lcisthur at September 26, 2005 02:14 AM