Наши мозги и знание языков

Картинка.

На ней вид старого города Яффа и текст о Яффе.
А также банкнота со стихами знаменитой поэтессы.



Вышла примечательная книга  Альберта Коста "Билингвальный мозг".  (Albert Costa "The Bilingual Brain", британское издательство Allen Lane, 2020.)

Касия Дельгадо (Kasia Delgado) тиснула отзыв в популярном лондонском бюллетене "i", где она приводит любопытное сравнение.

Вообразите ситуацию,  когда можно спасти пять человек, пожертвав одним. Ну, допустим, приближается локомотив.

Носитель двух языков способен быстро принять хорошо взвешенное решение, а вот тот, кто знает только один язык, вероятно,  будет колебаться гораздо дольше.

Монолингвальный человек менее эмоционален, особенно, если задача формулируется на втором языке.

Дети в Великобритании более двуязычны, чем взрослое население. 20% детей двуязычны. Вероятно, это следствие иммиграции из менее "хороших" стран. 

А что в России? В Москве тоже много "инородцев" и их отпрысков. Но иностранная речь не так уж и слышна в Москве, как в  Лондоне или в стенах Иерусалима.

Поразительно, что, ещё будучи в материнской утробе, ребёнок (великовозрастный эмбрион) отличает один язык от другого. Хороший слух!  Разноязычные родители производят разные по высоте и тональности звуки; дети способны ассоциировать музыкальность речи с языками родителей. Соответственно, одно и то же слово выпевается  отцом и матерью -- и фонетически,  и мелодически -- по-разному.

Интересно отметить, что, до шестидесятых годов прошлого века, считалось, что в детских головах есть место только для одного языка.

Выяснилось, что всё это верно с точностью до наоборот. 

Даже для людей в возрасте, изучение языка помогает мозгу и, как бы, укрепляет его.
(Для некоторых прозарушников хорошо бы запараллелить это с изучением русской литературной словесности.)

Исследователи установили, что действие билингвализма проявляется уже для четырёхлеток. На них благотворно влияет такая удвоенная лексика. 

(Напрашивается сравнение с удвоением спиралей ДНК, и с двумя женскими хромосомами у слабого пола, который,  на самом деле, сильнее мужчин, но это, может, и притянуто за ушки, а? Кто-то недавно поведал мне, что мужские половые признаки накладываются на женские в процессе развития зародыша. Вначале мы все девочки.)

Такие продвинутые и образованные (а ля Набоков) дети легче понимают, что могут быть другие точки зрения.

Не обязательно, что у них больше эмпатии, но они способны признавать, что люди могу видеть и чувствовать иначе.

Подобным детям легче фокусироваться на заданиях.

Я припоминаю, как охмурённым марихуаной деятелям Rainbow Gathering, в лесах, рядом с остатками несчастных индейцев, руководители масс кричали: "Фокусируйтесь!.."

(Этот эпизод есть в моей книге, которую прочло и прочтёт мало людей. Но мне читать и исправлять её интересно.)

Удивительные сами по себе исследования мозга показали,  как наши нейроны способны подавлять употребление слов и грамматики родного языка при использовании второй "мовы".

Какая великолепная машинка в черепной коробке!

Но и она безжалостно уничтожается Создателем. А мы ведь его эстафетные сотворцы. Да, Непознаваемый Б-женька далеко не гуманист. Но и сотворцы не отстают: "Умер Максим -- чёрт с ним." В антисемитском детстве досочинялось: "Умер Абрам -- жалко нам." Многие Абрамы называли своих сыновей Максимками. Но никогда Максимы не давали своим чадам такое имя как Абрам.

Арап Петра Великого -- это исключение.

Наряду с лучшей концентрацией внимания, двуязычный "недоросль" может переходить от задания к заданию с меньшим замешательством. Это даже можно наблюдать, когда разнородные дети играют в кубики. 

Но ниболее убедительной причиной для начитанности и языкознания является тот факт, что наличие второго или третьего языка препятствует развитию болезни Альцгеймера.

Касия собрала ещё несколько примеров, показывающих, как серое вещество наших мозгов буквально оживает и забывчивость уменьшается. 

Сесилия-Цецилия Де Кат (Cecile De Cat), профессор лингвистики в университете города Лидс, считает, что сильные мiра сего в фирмах, юриспруденции и правительствах могли бы принимать более взвешенные решения, если бы были билингвальными.

Современные руководители Израиля, Франции, Англии, России и США и их действия прекрасно иллюстрируют этот посыл.

Цецилия-Сесилия призывает не стремиться к стопроцентному овладению чужим языком, а последовательно заниматься и произношением, и запасом слов, и грамматикой стилей. Типа, цель ничто, а движение -- всё.

Ваши мозги скажут вам спасибо, утверждает госпожа Де Кат. А, может, Сесиль мужик, а?

Да, давным-давно читал, что владение хотя бы двумя языками уменьшает вероятность апоплексического удара или там инсульта. 

Раньше я как-тоиинтуичил, поэтому, наверное, я и пошёл на курсы англ. яз. номер 1 на Новом  Арбате, где нам преподавала Нина Анатольевна Боссарт, мать нашей крученой московско-израильской поэтессы Боссарт, жены поэта-правдоруба Иртеньева.

Русский я знаю лучше. Люблю иврит, особенно высокий иврит Хаима Нахмана Бялика, но говорю на нём очень плохо. Мало практики, стыдно, да и пользa обнаруживается не сразу.

Последнюю книгу, почти роман, на 360 страницах, я сделал на вымученном английском, опередив вундеркинда-талмудиста Дмитрия Быкова /Зильбертруда, который ещё не опубликовал свой роман in the Germanic tongue of English. I cannot believe he has become so proficient in the language, which is still a lingua franca all over the world.

And now please read the last chapter of my book "Buzzionist Diaries." It is about Bibi Netanyahu who is still prime minister in spite of the hater Ben Caspit who coined his Corona Virus week motto: "Bibi, a doctor for Israel."


The Netanyahu Years
By Ben Caspit

Translated by Ora Cummings

Jewishbookworld.org got the book on its list.


On August 22, 2017 Zinovy Vayman gave the book three out of five stars and got inspired:
“Benjamin Caspit against Benjamin Nitay”

Amazon supplied the following brief publicity notice:

“Benjamin Netanyahu is currently serving his fourth term in office as Prime Minister of Israel, the longest serving Prime Minister in the country’s history. Now Israeli journalist Ben Caspit puts Netanyahu’s life under a magnifying glass, focusing on his last two terms in office.
"A biography of the steely Israeli prime minister that underscores his relentless, seemingly emotionless competitive drive … A highly readable portrait of an enigmatic politician." - Kirkus Reviews
Caspit covers a wide swath of topics, including Netanyahu’s policies, his political struggles, and his fight against the Iranian nuclear program, and zeroes in on Netanyahu’s love/hate relationship with the American administration, America’s Jews, and his alliances with American business magnates.
A Timely and important book, The Netanyahu Years”

The Buzzionist glances back in time:

PM Sharon Destroyed Gush Qatif, PM Barak Betrayed the South Lebanese allies, PM Olmert Got Himself Jailed, PM Netanyahu...

A new kid on the block has shown up with his book about Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu. The jacket is ''adorned'' by the unfavorable picture of Bibi showing only the half of his presumably asymmetric face dastardly caught in its unsympathetic contortion. The author Ben Caspit wrote his execrable pieces for the Maariv newspaper; he knew his anti-Likud writings will be welcomed by his Anglo-Saxon masters who are still planning to keep Jews according to their Nordic vision manifested well by the sculpture of Judea on the Notre Dame Cathedral in the Germanic (Franconian) city of Paris.
The subservient Binyamin (Ben) Caspit ends his volume with the ''prophetic'' words that the current Israeli Prime Minister will finish his tenure ''leaving nothing.''
On the contrary, the Maariv journalist learned well how to leave something, namely his beautifully printed volume full of animosity to the majority of Israeli Jews who elected their representatives not to Ben's liking.
Ben Caspit also has received his thirty pieces of silver in hard currency. The betrayal pays and pays handsomely. He got many predecessors preying on Israel.
We know well that Mr. Netanyahu tried hard to keep the territorial integrity of the predominantly Jewish State and to keep its citizens from harm. Israel and Filasteen (Ramallah, Gaza and Amman) enjoy peace and prosperity and Bibi helped to bring stability using his application to install the Chinese way of status quo, which is welcomed by the Jewish minorities in Israel and many Christians and Muslims. Arabs love to settle in Israel, which is a happier place to live not only for Jews.
Mr. Caspit does not understand that Israel in its Americanized form and shape is not just surrounded by the authoritarian Arab regimes.
The Palestinian State of Israel is being bathed in the Levantine music. Thus, both the Israeli music and the Israeli republic are being fashioned under a heavy influence of its inner and outer Arabs, Persians and Turks. The Middle East Christians, Druze and Armenians have been already overwhelmingly Islamized.
9 million Israelis speak Hebrew but only 2-3 million of them are Ashkenazi Jews like Ben Caspit tracing their mentality to Europe.
Many European Ashkenazi Jews (the self-appointed elite) got the overwhelming need to be noticed and approved by the rich Neo-Carthagian masters of European Union, Britain, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.
The Germanic territories of Europe and America are still the magnet for Jews in Israel. They visit and move there in droves.
To be fair, Ben Caspit showed his disdain for the reservists refusing to serve in the Israel Defense Forces but this maneuver will not fool us. The intricate brand of anti-Israelism is palpable in his writings and speeches. Otherwise, no funds for his hard cover thick volume (the antipathetic biography of the current PM of the Palestinian State of Israel) and no tomes on the visible bookshelves in stores.

Second Haibun for the British Broadcasting Corporation


On August 8, 2017 the BBC aired its Witness program devoted to the well known Arab cartoonist born in Galilee and gunned down in London allegedly by his countryman or fellow Arab. In between these auspicious events, this talented cartoonist lived in Lebanon, Kuwait and other Arabic speaking places.
At some point the cartoonist became the anti-Arafat messenger after he felt that the Arab liberation leader started to betray the cause of hundreds of thousands of more or less hostile Palestinian Arabs displaced in the Jewish national liberation war between the State of Israel and the Palestinian Kingdom of Transjordan (Eastern Palestine, or Moab with the capital of Amman). Transjordanian troops crossed the river (but not the arid valley between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea) and did occupy Judea and Samaria pushing Palestianian Jews out. The allies of the Palestinian King, or Emir Abdullah in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon also conquered the swathes of Western Palestine and disallowed the Jewish presence there. Nevertheless, the Arabs who showed their acceptance of Israel were allowed to stay and/or return to the territory defended by Israel.
The embittered cartoonist witnessed the civil war in Lebanon and the Israelis trying to take sides there, to outmaneuver their sworn enemies and bring the lasting peace to its northern border and the entire Galilee and Golan.
Yet in its piece of propaganda, the BBC pronounced in one breath the ''Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the massacres in Sabra and Shatilla.''
Thus, the BBC journalists and editors craftily created the impression that the Israeli army perpetrated the killings.
However, the carnage in the Sunni Muslim townships of Sabra and Shatilla was done by the native speakers of Arabic, by the Maronite Christians of Lebanon, not Jews.
Congratulations to the BBC on its more than perfect distortion of facts and its unwavering anti-Israelism!
humpback bridge / the rivulet of sweat / tickles my spine
Customer Review, which outshines Zinovy Vayman's writing:

By bobster
(Probably, a pseudonym.)

1.0 out of 5 stars
Effective—as a primer on journalistic bias

On November 16, 2017 bobster typed:

“Where to begin? To give a thorough accounting of this lengthy book in less than three pages is impossible—there's such a wealth of detail and nuance to analyze.

Caspit’s prose—and Ora Cummings’ translation into English—is mostly lucid, articulate and vivid (although there are numerous instances where something was obviously lost in translation). But the author’s own emotions are his undoing, drowning the book’s better passages amid a sea of shrill ranting and desperately biased psychoanalysis. And so, despite an impressive resume and obvious writing skills, Caspit often comes across like an overexcited rookie reporter—self-important & eager for drama, but with a limited imagination & vocabulary.
Thus, throughout the book, people are constantly "fuming" "furious" "livid" so on...almost invariably about very small happenings—policy disagreements, clumsy information processes—that are surely part of daily life in any government. Of course, even mundane mishaps are surely frustrating, but one begins to wonder if much of this angst is not largely in the author's turgid imagination—or is merely part of his strenuous, and obvious, efforts to portray a government in crisis.

The few passages that describe Bibi's strengths sounds as if Caspit is really trying to give a fair & balanced account—and thus tend to give the author some credibility. Unsurprisingly, many people seem to have fallen for that. They are wrong. When the bashing begins—and it invariably does, within a page—it is so juvenile, so gleeful in describing any defeat or setback, deeming nothing too small or petty to remark on, such as the long sentences  devoted to how usually Netanyahu would gobble refreshments and then, with his mouth full, watch the latest batch of commercial spots...
Is it rude to watch commercials with your mouth full? Is Netanyahu the only world leader who noshes while working? Inquiring minds do NOT want to know; we thought we are reading a big-boy book, about a world leader and his political times, not a collection of grade-school level snark. The author’s disdain colors 95% of the book—he clearly hates Netanyahu, his wife, his clothing, his way of talking, his Israelness, his Americanness, his cockiness, his insecurity, and so on. Anyone who thinks a biographer with such a strong negative bias is not fatally flawed is part of the general problem with information these days.

Caspit tells of "an Israeli official"—anonymous as always—who "once thanked Ambassador Samantha Power for something" and "she responded sadly that this was the first time she had ever heard these words from an Israeli.”
But…really? Caspit unironically presents this as illustrative of Netanyahu's outrageous ingratitude. A discriminating reader, however, would surely find this anecdote hard to believe as told—and if it is true, Power’s words were incredibly offensive, and indicative of many people’s double standards vis-a-vis Israel, in all aspects of diplomatic & personal behavior. To wit: an ambassador made a harsh generalization about every Israeli she had ever met being a rude ingrate! Substitute any other nationality, ethnicity or religious group, and say it out loud: “I’ve never heard an Arab say thank you..." Would this happen?

What's more, even if Power does indeed carry around this little bundle of anti-Israeli sentiment, on a basic conversational level, this was an extremely rude way to respond: the Israeli official said Thank you—for passing the salt, for arranging a meeting, whatever—and she replied with a gratuitous snide comment about Israeli etiquette.
(To be sure, Israelis have a reputation for briskness; also for their readiness to lend a helping hand.)

One of Caspit's many repetitive contentions is that contrary to popular perception among supporters of Israel here and abroad, the US, particularly under Obama, was not tough enough in dealing with Netanyahu. Each time the author makes this point, there is a clear, unmistakable tone of disappointment when he describes American "duplicity"—talking tough to Israel but failing to be sufficiently punitive. After a while, Caspit's very personal disappointment begins to sound weird & unsavory; he seems to be longing for scenes of humiliation & degradation, and the real-world limitations of international diplomacy,—which Obama certainly trod on with regards to Netanyahu—nevertheless leave Caspit agitated & unfulfilled.

Lest anyone think this is just the author’s own opinion, endless anonymous quotations from American 'experts' push the view that Obama 'misunderstood' Netanyahu---Bibi needs a firm hand; he's a paranoid alarmist, etc.—and the anonymous 'highly placed Israeli officials,' ostensibly representing Israel's perspective, talk about how the Americans didn't know how to handle Netanyahu; the need to be appropriately tough and follow through on threats. In other words, this book presents a very complex situation from 'both' perspectives—the American Left and the Israeli Left! For people like Ben Caspit, those are the only viewpoints that matter at all.

Caspit relates, with no irony whatsoever, how at the very outset of their working relationship, Obama presented Netanyahu with "13 demands that were tantamount to ultimatums and required immediate responses"—but for the remainder of the book we’re constantly hearing him characterize Netanyahu's behavior as his usual efforts "to exhaust the president,”—which apparently refers to such impertinences as Bibi failing to immediately capitulate to Obama's 13 demands. Again, Netanyahu forgot his place.

Another of Caspit's motifs is how Netanyahu has isolated Israel, because of his suspicious attitude toward the world--(he thinks the UN is biased against Israel: imagine that!)…
But Netanyahu's last address to the UN consisted largely of a defiant yet touchingly hope-filled declaration that Israel would, someday, be an accepted, appreciated member nation among the nations of the world...Yeah, talk about cynical and suspicious! Of this, Caspit makes no mention.

Caspit tries to make the point that Netanyahu has brainwashed people into seeing him as being synonymous with Israel—Bibi is the state, the state is him—but nowhere is this odd notion more obviously present that in Caspit’s own reflexive hostility toward both Bibi & Israel; it's hard to know where his obsessive disdain for Netanyahu ends and his pathological tendency to blame Israel begins: in any given situation dealing with the US or Arab leaders, Israel is portrayed as being arrogant and not knowing its place.
There's something deeply troubling about this: why, exactly, must the Jewish state, or it's democratically elected leaders, always assume a position of sub-ordinance to anyone ranging from Arab the dictators to the president of the United States?

This book is something of an eye-opener—but not in the way the author intended: I have never seen such an astonishingly blatant example of manipulative, dishonest journalism—and thoroughly self-absorbed bias: the author seems shameless, utterly unaware of how absurd his desperate, flailing attempts to ruin another man’s reputation appear to an objective reader. Any reviewers that read this book and find it to be ‘fair and balanced’ are simply adding another layer of deception and bias: their own.”

20 people found this review by bobster helpful.

Comment by Zinovy Vayman  (August 9, 2019)

Dear bobster:

I want to include your review—with some correction of typos—into my book.

Thank you.