Aphasia is the loss of ability to produce or comprehend language due to injuries in certain parts of the brain. So what happens to aphasiacs who spoke more than one language prior to the injury? In this piece, Yan-Yi Lee describes the complications of aphasia in bilinguals and explains whether bilingualism may help lessen any effects of aphasia....
When I was little, I was absolutely obsessed with Marco Polo, but not for the typical reasons that history buffs might assume. I wasn't particularly hooked on the fact that he had crossed continents without the comfort of rapid transportation, nor how he skillfully maintained an intercultural friendship with the Kublai Khan, the most powerful man...
You spend $99 on a ancestry kit, from which you learn that you're 78% Irish, 13% West Asian, and 9% Polynesian'. What does that mean for you? And what are some social-ideological dangers that could emerge from incorrect interpretations of ancestry kits?
In a world where the majority of learners seek to acquire demographically, economically, and politically powerful foreign languages (such as English, Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish), it is more critical than ever to ponder, with lenses of decoloniality in education, the value of teaching less commonly spoken languages.
Many scientists how understand that bilingualism may imply a cognitive advantage, but do different languages train your brain in different ways? Would the English-French bilingual brain develop differently than the English-Japanese bilingual brain? Read on to learn more with Yan-Yi for Varsity, right here. (Note that this is one of the editor's old...
Content note: the Russian-Ukrainian war, murder
'We highlight the social, cognitive, and economic benefits of speaking another language; we emphasise the importance of developing communication skills and intercultural competence. However, what if we could provide further evidence to demonstrate that the benefits and value of FL learning in schools can extend beyond the subject to other areas of...
Explore the personalities of language scripts around the planet and how they, throughout history, embody nuances of human character and intellect.
In this piece, Cambridge language majors Liv Bonsall and Hannah Sherry speak with Yan-Yi Lee about the Cambridge Language Collective, a website that collects students' personal notes on their engagement with languages. You can find this interview here. (Note that this is one of the editor's old articles in Varsity, another journalistic outlet)