On http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com I found the following post »Bilingualism may delay onset of dementia*« This reminded me again that since quite some time I intended to write a comment on the issue of bilingual blogging.
Lately, I stumbled upon a post (I don’t exactly remember where) that blogging in two languages does not make sense because you loose focus and waste energy as you are only able to reach one audience. This notion haunts me time and again. Despite the spook roaming through my mind, I continued to do what I do, to blog bilingual. I discussed my concern with many of my friends and loyal readers. They appreciate the bilingual approach because as we move through the internet and around the world English is an essential skill you need, one might like it or not. And for this reason it is good training to elaborate language skills without putting to much effort into learning. German will never suffice, if you are aiming at an international community.
Moreover, among others the biest-blog specifcally addresses to triathletes, a community of athletes that travels around the globe and needs English to get along.
Therefore, I made up my mind to continue with my bilingual approach. Sometimes one just needs to be patient and give things time to develop. This is what am currently doing: I wait and see.
And on top of this, if it does not make any sense for anybody out there, it may help me avoiding to come down with dementia too soon ;-))…
The English speaking audience may have another approach to this issue, because they are so used to the fact that they only need their mother tongue to push their way through the world. But don’t forget, monolingualism may foster dementia, and not only that. Language diversity may also make your life more colourful… and at the end, excuse me for being so educational!
* Continue reading if you want to know a little bit more about the dementia study.
Preliminary data from a study by Canadian researchers suggest
that speaking two languages throughout one’s life may delay the onset
of dementia by up to four years. The study, led by Ellen Bialystok, a
professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada, and an
associate scientist at the Baycrest Research Center’s Rotman Research
Institute, is published in the journal Neuropsychologia.
Bialystok and her colleagues assessed 184 cognitively impaired
subjects, all of whom had been treated at the Baycrest Research Center
Memory Clinic between 2002 and 2005. 132 of the subjects met the
criteria used to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease, while the remaining 52
suffered from other forms of dementia. Of these patients, 91 were
monolingual and 93 were bilingual. The latter group contained speakers
of 25 different languages, the most prevalent of which were Polish,
Yiddish, German, Romanian and Hungarian.
