at
Mitchel Field, New York City, who knows Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, German, and Japanese, studies a book on Chinese. A former medical student at
Temple University, he passes two hours a day studying languages as a hobby."This picture was taken during
World War II. A multilingual person is someone who can communicate in more than one language actively (through speaking, writing, or signing). Multilingual people can logically speak any language they write in (aside from
mute multilingual people), but they cannot necessarily write in any language they speak. More specifically, bilingual and trilingual people are those in comparable situations involving two or three languages, respectively. A multilingual person is generally referred to as a
polyglot, a term that may also refer to people who learn multiple languages as a hobby. Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the so-called
first language (L1). The first language (sometimes also referred to as the mother tongue) is acquired without formal education, by mechanisms heavily disputed. Children acquiring two languages in this way are called simultaneous bilinguals. Even in the case of simultaneous bilinguals, one language usually dominates over the other. In linguistics, first language acquisition is closely related to the concept of a "native speaker". According to a view widely held by linguists, a native speaker of a given language has in some respects a level of skill that a second (or subsequent) language learner cannot easily accomplish. Consequently, descriptive empirical studies of languages are usually carried out using only native speakers. This view is, however, slightly problematic, particularly as many non-native speakers demonstrably not only successfully engage with and in their non-native language societies, but in fact may become culturally and even linguistically important contributors (as, for example, writers, politicians, media personalities and performing artists) in their non-native language. In recent years, linguistic research has focused attention on the use of widely known world languages, such as English, as a
lingua franca or a shared common language of professional and commercial communities. In lingua franca situations, most speakers of the common language are functionally multilingual. The reverse phenomenon, where people who know more than one language end up losing command of some or all of their additional languages, is called
language attrition. It has been documented that, under certain conditions, individuals may lose their L1 language proficiency completely, after switching to the exclusive use of another language, and effectively "become native" in a language that was once secondary after the L1 undergoes total attrition. This is most commonly seen among
immigrant communities. The most important factor in spontaneous, total L1 loss appears to be age; in the absence of neurological dysfunction or injury, only young children typically are at risk of forgetting their native language and switching to a new one. Once they pass an age that seems to correlate closely with the
critical period, around the age of 12, total loss of a native language is not typical, although it is still possible for speakers to experience diminished expressive capacity if the language is never practiced.
Cognitive ability There is no evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive function and lexical difficulties are confined to those who learnt a second language later in life. Some initial reports concluded that people who use more than one language have been reported to be more adept at language learning compared to monolinguals, Current meta-analyses find no effect. Individuals who are highly proficient in two or more languages have been reported to have a certain very marginally enhanced or no different
executive function, and older onset for
dementia. More recently, however, this claim has come under strong criticism with repeated failures to replicate. Yet, many prior studies do not reliably quantify samples of bilinguals under investigation. An emerging perspective is that studies on bilingual and multilingual cognitive abilities need to account for validated and granular quantifications of language experience in order to identify boundary conditions of possible cognitive effects.
Auditory ability Bilingual and multilingual individuals are shown to have superior auditory processing abilities compared to monolingual individuals. Several investigations have compared auditory processing abilities of monolingual and bilingual individuals using tasks such as gap detection, temporal ordering, pitch pattern recognition etc. In general, results of studies have reported superior performance among bilingual and multilingual individuals. Furthermore, among bilingual individuals, one's level of proficiency in one's second language was also reported to influence auditory processing abilities.
Economic benefits Bilinguals might have important labor market advantages over monolingual individuals as bilingual people can carry out duties that monolinguals cannot, such as interacting with customers who only speak a minority language. A study in Switzerland has found that multilingualism is positively correlated with an individual's salary, the productivity of firms, and the gross domestic production (GDP); the authors state that Switzerland's GDP is augmented by 10% by multilingualism. A study in the United States by O. Agirdag found that bilingualism has substantial economic benefits, as bilingual people were found to earn around $3,000 more per year in salary than monolinguals.
Psychology A study in 2012 has shown that using a foreign language reduces decision-making biases. It was surmised that the
framing effect disappeared when choices are presented in a second language. As human reasoning is shaped by two distinct modes of thought: one that is systematic, analytical and cognition-intensive, and another that is fast, unconscious and emotionally charged, it was believed that a second language provides a useful cognitive distance from automatic processes, promoting analytical thought and reducing unthinking, emotional reaction. Therefore, those who speak two languages have better critical thinking and decision-making skills. A study published a year later found that switching to a second language seems to exempt bilinguals from social norms and constraints, such as
political correctness. In 2014, another study showed that people using a foreign language are more likely to make utilitarian decisions when faced with moral dilemmas, such as the
trolley problem and its variations. Participants in this study chose the utilitarian option more often in the Fat Man dilemma when it was presented in a foreign language. For the related Switch Track dilemma, however, the use of a foreign language presented no significant influence on the choices participants made. The authors of this study surmised that a foreign language lacks the emotional impact of one's native language.
Personality Because it is difficult or impossible to master many of the high-level semantic aspects of a language (including but not limited to its
idioms and
eponyms) without first understanding the culture and history of the region in which that language evolved, as a practical matter an in-depth familiarity with multiple cultures is a prerequisite for high-level multilingualism. This knowledge of multiple cultures, both individually and comparatively, can shape an individual's sense of identity and how others perceive it. Some studies have found that groups of multilingual individuals get higher average scores on tests for certain personality traits such as cultural
empathy,
open-mindedness and social initiative. The idea of
linguistic relativity, which claims that the language people speak influences the way they see the world, can be interpreted to mean that individuals who speak multiple languages have a broader, more diverse view of the world, even when speaking only one language at a time. Some bilinguals feel that their personality changes depending on which language they are speaking; thus multilingualism is said to create multiple personalities. Xiao-lei Wang states in her book
Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven: "Languages used by speakers with one or more than one language are used not just to represent a unitary self, but to enact different kinds of selves, and different linguistic contexts create different kinds of self-expression and experiences for the same person." However, there has been little rigorous research done on this topic and it is difficult to define "personality" in this context.
François Grosjean wrote: "What is seen as a change in personality is most probably simply a shift in attitudes and behaviors that correspond to a shift in situation or context, independent of language." However, the
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which states that a language shapes our vision of the world, may suggest that a language learned by a grown-up may have much fewer emotional
connotations and therefore allow a more serene discussion than a language learned by a child and to that respect more or less bound to a child's perception of the world.
Hyperpolyglots and savants Many polyglots know up to five or six languages, but the frequency of polyglotism drops off sharply past this point.
Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, for example, was an Italian priest reputed to have spoken anywhere from 30 to 72 languages. occasionally including a prodigious capacity for languages. Savant syndrome is almost always associated with an increased memory capacity of some sort, which can, for certain savants, aid in storing and retrieving knowledge of different languages. In 1991, for example, linguists
Neil Smith and
Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli described a man, named Christopher, who learned sixteen languages even with a non-verbal
IQ between 40 and 70. Christopher was born in 1962, and he was diagnosed with brain damage approximately six months after his birth. Despite being institutionalized because he was unable to take care of himself, Christopher had a verbal IQ of 89, could speak English with no impairment, and could learn subsequent languages with apparent ease. This facility with language and communication is considered to be unusual for most diagnosed with savant syndrome. ==Neuroscience==