LUCKNOW: The human brain has been proven to be like a muscle- one that gets stronger with use and practice. New research suggests that learning the Urdu language engages parts of the brain that could in the long run delay the onset of dementia, besides helping children with learning disabilities.
Cortical mapping of the brain areas used for comprehending the complex script, phonetics and meaning in Urdu reflects the predominant use of the frontal lobe of the brain which mostly controls cognitive functions. Classified as a deep language on a scale of relative difficulty, research now shows Urdu wins as an investment in mental health and could well be described as an elixir for the mind.
A recent study by the Centre for Bio-Medical Researches (CBMR), Lucknow, shows that Urdu could be your ideal brain-teaser. Delve on a few Urdu couplets a day and it could do you more good than you imagined. If its good for the soul, its even better or your brain cells, experts say, citing empirical evidence to back up their theory of brain development related to using Urdu.
The research published in the recent edition of international journal ‘Neuroscience Letters’, has shown that reading the language predominantly involves use of the middle and superior regions of the frontal brain which controls a number of cognitive functions- or higher-thinking activities involved in decision making, the ability to determine good from bad, emotional control, coping with stress, processing information and analysing. Learning Urdu also has a role in delaying the onset of dementia, besides helping children with learning disabilities.
Learning of a language creates a certain pattern in the brain which can be identified by linking the different neurons involved. Through a scientific technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (f-MRI) technique, a world-class technology used to study structural and functional aspects of the brain- it is possible to join all the dots in a process called mapping of cortical activations. Uttam Kumar, a faculty member in the department of neuro-imaging at CBMR, who conducted the research on subjects from the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh said the research conclusions were drawn on the basis of mapping the brains of individuals when they read Urdu text for a stipulated time.
Although the basic contour of this pattern is similar for all languages, the structure tends to differ at a micro level because of scripts and subsequent speech sounds (phonetics). Languages are also differentiated on the basis of orthography or difference between grapheme (seeing written letters) and phoneme (encoding and translating the written into spoken letters) mapping.
Explaining the process further, Kumar said, We used grapheme-phoneme mapping which divides languages into ‘transparent’ (easy to learn) or ‘deep’ (difficult to learn). For example: Hindi and German are transparent while English and French are deep. Urdu, he said is the deepest language and therefore reading it involves more areas of the brain, which is good for mental health. According to Kumar, Urdu has two other advantages over other languages- visual complexity of letters and direction of writing, as Urdu is written from right to left rather than in the other way as with most languages.
The work examined effects of grapheme-phoneme mapping over neural regions in bilingual people and suggested that Hindi and Urdu made a good combination. This works very well because they are mutually comprehensible languages and have a shared vocabulary, Kumar said. Researchers at Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, have already shown that bilingualism delays the age of onset of Alzheimer’s and other dementia. It also found that the Urdu-Hindi combo was beneficial for children with learning disabilities, particularly dyslexia, as it improves functioning of the visual cortex.
In a similar study, scientists at the Haryana-based National Brain Research Centre (NBRC) had earlier found that learning Hindi was more beneficial for the brain compared to English. Nandini Chatterjee Singh, who led the multi-disciplinary team of researchers had said, the effect of languages like English,Chinese, Japanese on the brain has been studied. Devanagri- the script used to write languages like Sanskrit, Hindi, Nepali, Marathi, was in the shadows until Tanusree Das and colleagues from the NBRC National Brain Research Centre in Haryana took notice.
According to Dr. Singh, reading the complex matras in Hindi requires additional visual processing which is accomplished by the right hemisphere of the brain. The research found that comprehension of Hindi suggested bilateral activation – participation from both left and right- for reading phrases in Devanagari.
Scientists have long held that bilingualism or multilingualism can address dementia in old people and can make children smarter. The NBRC scientists said, In India we are not just bilingual but are multilingual too. Here people are not only bilingual but also biliterate and ours is the only country where children learn early to speak two languages and also to write. Now it appears adding Urdu to the language mix could give people a useful edge. –EJ