Authored by Genc Struga
Background: The cognitive benefits of learning native language and bilingualism project focuses on Arvanites, a bilingual population in Greece that speak Arvanitika, a dialect of Albanian language still spoken in vast areas of Greece. It is classified as a minority and an endagered language and is considered in risk of extinction. The project aims to examine possible cognitive benefits of bilingualism in native speakers of Arvanitika, including the ability for further learning and acquisition of other languages. We aim to achieve statistically important number of Arvanites equal Bilingual and monolingual to be interview using a up to date questionnare and TEA or TEA like cognitive screening.
Method: This is a cross-sectional population study including bilingual and monolingual speakers without exclusion criteria and with respects to gender equality, stratified random sampling reponders in the areas where Arvanite population traditionally lived achieving a sample number statistically important of responders in a population unofficially ranging from 200000-16000000 or 15% of population. The samples are taken from areas where traditionally there are Arvanites with more than 500 villages in different province of Greece dominantly in Epirus, Follorina, Castoria Eubea, Attica, Corinth, Boetia, Argolis, Messenia, Acheae, Peloponnese, Thraka, and settlements in Andros, Hydra, Poros, Spetsai, Salamis Participants are voluntary; they have the right to refuse participate and to withdraw their participation and data any time. To be eligible, potential participants have to be an old adult with no previous diagnosis of dementia, bilingual in Arvanitika and Greek or otherwise. The method of the population surveys is personal in-home survey with in identified areas with significant population of Arvanites with Dr. Genc Struga and supervisor Co- Director of “Bilingualisem matters” Dr. Thomas Bak in collaboration with “Bilingualsem matters” Thessaloniki Team .The team will use their Greek colleagues connections and snowball sampling approach. This method is commonly used in social sciences when investigating hard-to-reach groups. Existing subjects are asked to nominate further subjects known to them, so the sample increases in size like a rolling snowball.
Conclusion: In Albania, language characteristics and ethnography enhance the native neuroplasticity, making it easier for Albanian speaker to learn another language and to pronounce such new language with a more accurate accent. This factor is independent of CPH (critical period hypothesis) influencing L2 (second language) acquisition and with better pronunciation or accent.
Further more to benefits of speaking native language, studies have confirmed that bilinguals performed significantly better than predicted from their baseline cognitive abilities, with strongest effects on general intelligence and reading.
Background
The cognitive benefits of learning native language and bilingualism project focuses on Arvanites, a bilingual population in Greece that speak Arvanitika, a dialect of Albanian language still spoken in vast areas of Greece [1]. It is classified as a minority and an endagered language and is considered in risk of extinction[2].bilingualism in native speakers of Arvanitika, including the ability for further learning and acquisition of other languages [3]. Bilingualism’s effect on cognitive function has been demonstrated in many studies in terms of a better performance, particularly on tests of executive functions. In parallel, neuroimaging studies showed a greater volume of frontal lobe and better structural integrity [4]. This is usually interpreted as the result of the longterm effect of switching between two or more languages. The benefits of speaking the “mother linguae” has been demonstrated also in older the subjects. Previous studies have demonstrated that bilingual speakers develop cognitive impairment (Mild Cognitive Impairment and dementia) up to 5 years later compared with speakers of one language [5].
Studying Albanian language has a particular importance since it represents one of the oldest surviving members of the “Balkan” and Paleo-Balkan languages, proposed as the ancestor of modern Albanian as proto-Indo-European model which is widely accepted [6]. Certain characteristics of Albanian language, such as particular words that represent a correlation of phenomena of action and sound are particularly old and believed to be ancestors of proto- Albanian. Other characteristics of Albanian language are relatively short words with the capability to form compound words or new lexemes [7].
Human speech is a well-learned, sensorimotor, and ecological behavior ideal for the study of neural processes and brain-behavior relations. Using modern neuroimaging as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Computational Neuroscience model and DES (Direct electrical stimulation) in awake patients undergoing brain surgery, the potential for investigating neural mechanisms of speech has increased [8].
The modern view is that networking model brain processing is not conceived as the sum of several subfunctions, but results from the integration and potentiation of parallel-though partially overlapping-subnetworks. This hodotopical account improves our understanding of neuroplasticity [9].
According to the hodotopical model of speech , following the visual input, the language network is organized in parallel, segregated (even if interconnected) large-scale cortico-subcortical sub-networks underlying semantic, phonological and syntactic processing [10]. A similarity occurs when instead of a picture, a sound and a meaning is correlated as input. In the case of meaningful short words, making other compound words are compatible with this dynamic model.
Following an input that correlates sound and meaning or a lexeme composed of small, meaningful words the most important neurofunctional principal the Hebbian learning, i.e. a synaptic link between two model neurons is strengthened if both neurons are activated during the same time interval is fulfilled.
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