Let’s say English was not my first and second language. Let’s say I mastered another language. Could bilingualism be pernicious to my mental health? Oh, come on: It doesn’t really seem like such an unreasonable theory, does it? Couldn’t your neurons become all balled up if you keep switching languages, in the same way that constant travel can make you confused about where you are when you wake up in the morning?
The answer is no. In fact, the answer, pardon my French, is au contraire. The going theory goes that because bilinguals are constantly switching between languages #1 and #2, they become practiced at attending to two tasks in rapid succession, resolving internal conflict, thinking more analytically, and keeping track of a lot of information. This rigor might explain why bilingual preschoolers performed better than their monolingual peers on a test that challenged them to sort blue circles and red shapes into (digital) bins according to shape and not color—or why babies from bilingual families did better than those from monolingual families on an exercise in which they were first trained to associate the appearance of a puppet on one half of the computer screen with an audio cue, and then retrained to look for the puppet on the other side of the screen despite the misleading audio cue.
Good for them, but is better puppet-watching skill any reason to learn another language? Here’s a more persuasive argument: The average age of dementia among bilinguals is 75.5 compared to 71.4 for monolinguals.
Seventy-one point four?! My God, I could be that age one day!
I decided to learn Cherokee using the online flash cards provided on Memrise, a free website that teaches memorization through crowdsourced mnemonics. Though mostly a language-training tool, Memrise can help you become a show-off in subjects ranging from hobo symbols to famous robots, pasta shapes to Austrian army ranks, medicine to trees of England. All that is required is spending a few minutes a day for several weeks absorbing and reviewing driblets of trivia. This technique of spaced repetition—i.e., learning new information in short spurts and then going over it again later and still later again—is a proven method for retaining memorized material.
Why Cherokee? Because I thought it would be easy and because I was confusing it with Navajo. (Navajo was the basis of a code Americans used during World War Two to foil the Japanese. Cherokee also played its part in the war, but to a far lesser extent.) Today the Cherokee language is spoken by tribes in North Carolina and Oklahoma, and by me. Correction: I have never uttered a single Cherokee word. So far it hasn’t come up even once in conversation. This is fortunate because I would not know how to order in a Cherokee restaurant or tell a Cherokee taxi driver how to take me to Fifty-Seventh Street and Sutton. The Memrise course I chose did not include anything as advanced or helpful as vocabulary or phrases, focusing instead on the syllabary, a sort of alphabet in which each of the eighty-five characters represents a syllable instead of a phoneme.
The Cherokee syllabary was invented in the early nineteenth century by a Cherokee silversmith variously named Sequoyah, George Gist, and George Guess, who had been intrigued by the “talking leaves”—pieces of paper with peculiar marks—that enabled the white people to communicate with one another. Sequoyah’s syllabary is the only known instance of a writing system devised by someone who previously could not read or write. Some of his symbols resemble letters you know well, but that coincidence will only trip you up, like trusting an old friend who is not acting himself. M, for instance, sounds like “lu” (think of a luge going down the mountains of the M), and B is pronounced “yv” (some users on the site have advised, though not I, that the more vulgar and suggestive you can make your visual or phonetic mnemonic, the easier it is to remember). Other symbols in the syllabary look like an outsider artist’s squiggly attempts to evoke an alphabet, for instance , which is a stand-in for the syllable “ma,” , which is “hi,” and , which stands in for “hv.”
After presenting his creation to the Cherokee National Council, Sequoyah was accused of witchcraft. According to one report, Sequoyah’s first wife had burned a rough draft of his work, but que sera, sera (was that French or Italian?). Ultimately the Cherokee Nation adopted the syllabary and gave Sequoyah an award. In 1980 the United States government issued a stamp with his face on it. These nuggets will probably not make you smarter, but maybe this test will.
Here is the entire syllabary. Next to each Cherokee symbol is its English pronunciation. (Note that there is no symbol for “ch,” but not to worry, the Cherokee refer to themselves as Tsalagi, spelled , and Chanukah can be spelled Hanukkah, i.e., .) Study the chart for three minutes.
Got it? Next, is a grid of symbols. Cite the items that are authentic Cherokee. Circle the items that are authentic Cherokee. Extra credit if you remember the English pronunciations of any of the symbols.
ANSWERS (top to bottom and left to right):
= hi
= ha
= ga
= sa
= s
= u
= wi
= wv
= nv
= lv
= so
= dla
= yu
= que
= hv
= qui
= v, but really u, as in but, but nasalized
= me
= tsi
SCORING:
Award yourself 1 point for each correct symbol you circled. Deduct 1 point for each incorrect symbol you circled. Ten points for each correct English pronunciation.
0–4: You call that a hippocampus? More like an amoebacampus.
5–10: Your hippocampus is now the size of a nectarine.
10+: Your hippocampus grew so much it can no longer be housed inside your skull and needs to live alone in an apartment.
Don’t say sayonara to the Cherokee just yet. There is one more language quiz. Yes, this is the only book with two syllabary-related amusements. I didn’t say it was a good thing.
DIRECTIONS:
Convert the following sentences into Cherokee script. You do not have to translate the English words into Cherokee; simply transliterate the Latin characters into Tsalagi phonemes. If there is no corresponding Cherokee character, use English. Spelling counts—a lot. Here’s an example:
Gregory Peck is cute =
Does my big toe look infected? = ___________?
Where can I buy ointment? = ___________?
It needs to be amputated = ___________?
Ouch = ___________?
Left-footedness runs in my family = ___________?
Would you like a mint? = ___________?
ANSWERS:
Does my big toe look infected? =
Where can I buy ointment? =
It needs to be amputated =
Ouch =
Left-footedness runs in my family =
Would you like a mint? =
Chapter Ten
Shock It to Me, Baby
Two thousand years ago the Roman emperor Claudius, on the recommendation of his doctor, pressed electric eels against his forehead to ease his headache. For at least twenty minutes a day every day for the past four months, I have fastened a small apparatus to my head, treating my brain to pulses of electricity in hopes that the stimulation will make me more stimulating. Judging from the quality of this paragraph and the length of time it took me to write it, I’m doubtful that the electrons and protons are doing their trick.
The device I’ve been using—the Fisher Wallace Stimulator—looks like a garage door opener with a tail of two wires. At the end of each wire is an electrode embedded in a sponge the size of an Oreo. These sponges are placed—wet—against your temples and held in position by a navy headband. Touch one of the sponges while the machine is on and you will feel an unpleasant jolt. The electric current comes via two AA batteries and is about 1/1000 the strength used in electroconvulsive therapy, so no need to worry you will turn into a piece of charcoal. Evidently the device has enough oomph, though, to coax the limbic system (boss of your emotions) into stepping up its production o
f feel-good neurochemicals like serotonin, melatonin, and dopamine while suppressing the release of the feel-bad hormone cortisol.
The stimulator was approved by the FDA for the relief of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain. There are lots of clinical studies and meta-analyses backing up these claims, and of course there are doubters, too. Chip Fisher, president of Fisher Wallace Laboratories, LLC, the company that manufactures and distributes the device, told me that it has also been shown to improve eyesight and help with autoimmune diseases, Parkinson’s, and ADHD—and he believes it could also make you sharper. Horses who’ve tried it have fewer episodes of cribbing, headshaking, and anxiety. (Hot tip: Electro-Fury at Saratoga in the fifth race to win.)
I should tell you here and now that I know and like Chip Fisher, so anything negative I may have to say about the Fisher Wallace product, let’s blame on Wallace, whom I have never met.
Citing the reverse women-and-children-first principle, I persuaded my boyfriend to try it before I did. Within minutes of turning on the controls, he had a slight headache. Isn’t it reassuring when therapy has an effect, even one that is painful or potentially harmful? At least you know the thing is working. When I tried the machine, I saw a faint flickering of light due to the electricity passing through the optical nerve. If there’d been a bulb inside my head, it would have needed changing. Neither of us had any aftereffects (strange dreams are a commonly reported occurrence), but I am still hoping that if I keep the therapy up I will be able to open a garage door telepathically.
Experiment
Put your hand in a light socket Never mind.
Chapter Eleven
Name That Tune; or, This Shouldn’t Even Count as a Chapter if You Ask Me
If you desire to have your offspring grow up to be musical illiterates, then say to them, as my father said to me when, at age eight or so, I protested the injustice of my early-onset piano lessons, “Someday you will thank me.” “Oh, no, I won’t,” I vowed, calculating that even if my father turned out to be right about music’s being enriching, the profits could never trump my current agony. Sure enough, today I regret that even “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” is beyond my plinking capacity. I took flute lessons, too, but was allowed to quit when I demonstrated that after three weeks of trying, I couldn’t produce a sound. There were also guitar lessons—years’ worth that resulted in my knowing seven calypso strums and one song (“Jamaica Farewell”). If I’d had a more successful musical upbringing, would I be smarter now or just more useful at a jam session?
The thesis that music can make you more intelligent was introduced in the 1991 French book Pourquoi Mozart?: Essay, and took hold in America two years later when an article in Nature magazine stated that listening to one of Wolfie’s sonatas augmented spatial reasoning skills for ten to fifteen minutes afterward. The alchemy of the press and public opinion turned this modest claim into: Mozart makes you a Mozart or at least a genius. It wasn’t long before hopeful parents were subjecting their newborns to Symphony No. 41 in C Major—and on a farm in Italy, buffalo were exposed to recordings of Mozart three times a day so their milk would make better mozzarella. (Is there such a thing as clever cheese? Is that what “head cheese” is?) The original study was eventually debunked. Subsequent randomized controlled trials found scant evidence that learning to play an instrument has much immediate cognitive benefit. No matter. Eighty percent of Americans persist in their belief that music makes you smarter.
Hold on. They could be right. Evidently the gray matter of those who’ve studied music is different from that of troglodytes like me. For example, the regions in their cortices that relate to hearing, language production, self-awareness, and executive functioning are larger. What’s more, they score higher on their SATs, are more likely to have graduate degrees, and, at least in the case of high school band and orchestra members in Texas in 1998, have lower rates of lifetime alcohol, drug, and tobacco abuse. To what extent can these achievements be explained by a song in the heart? Or could it be that someone who listens to her father is bound for success regardless?
Just in case, as part of my get-smart program, I spent several weeks practicing piano scales, an exercise that must have brought no amount of gladness to my neighbors in 8H. Imagine that I am banging out the following melodies. How many can you identify?
1.
Dada de-dah!
Dada de-DAH!…
2.
Dum dum da dumm.
Dum dum da-dumm.
Dumm dumm da-dum dum,
Da dumm dumm da dumm…
3.
La-le lad le le-le lah
Le-la lah
Le-la lah
La-le lad le le-le lah
Leh le le lah de lah…
4.
Ahh ah-ah ahhhhh Ahh ah-ah ahhhhhhhhh
Eh eh eh. Eh eh ahh…
5.
Nynah nnah ne nyah nah ne nah na-ah nah
6.
Whine whine, whine whine-o-whine
Whine a whinewhine a whine a whiner…
7.
You-yee you-you yu YOU
You-yee you-you yu YOU…
8.
Haaaah ha ha-ah. Haah ha ha-ha. Hee-hee hee-hee;
hee-hee hee-hee.
Ha he-ha heeee-hah…
9.
Hoo hoo hoo!
10.
To toot-toot-toot toot-toot-toot too too toot,
To toot de to-te TOOT tee…
11.
Bah be bah bah bahh. BAHHH!…
12.
Fting! Ftinng! Ftiiiiinnnng!…
ANSWERS:
1. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
2. “The Bridal Chorus,” aka “Here Comes the Bride”
3. “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
4. “Silent Night”
5. “Blowin’ in the Wind” (or any other song as sung by Bob Dylan)
6. “Hey Jude”
7. “Happy Birthday to You”
8. Oscar Mayer commercial for sliced turkey (“Hallelujah Chorus” also accepted)
9. AOL’s “You’ve got mail”
10. The Mister Softee jingle
11. Hockey Night in Canada theme song
12. Rosie Wadia, age four, playing Beethoven’s Fifth at her first recital on the triangle
SCORING:
1–2: You have no rhythm. Before trying to clap your hands in the audience, hire a tutor.
3–6: Better than André Previn
7–11: If we were playing for real, you would have won a dining room set and an all-expenses-paid trip to Atlantic City.
Perfect score: Quit your job and join a band.
Name That Sound
1. WhhhssHHHHHwhhhhssHHHHHhhhhHHHH…
2. Hrnnnhahnnnh. Hrnnhahnnnnh. Snnnghh.
3. Pffft, pfft.
4. Mwah, mwah. Mwoi, mwoi.
5. [Silence]
ANSWERS:
1. Vacuum cleaner
2. Blowing nose followed by a little sniffling
3. Postprandial eruption of wind
4. Two people social-kissing
5. Sound of one hand clapping
So what if you can’t recognize pffts and whooshes? That is what closed captions are for.
Another reason not to despair: A professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard, Takao Hensch, is developing a drug, similar to one used to treat epilepsy, that he hopes will make it possible for adults to learn absolute (aka perfect) pitch. This ability to identify and produce a note without any auditory clues is found in only one in ten thousand people, a club that doesn’t even include Haydn or Schumann. If you were not born with this prowess, you have a shot at developing it during early childhood when your neural roadways are still extremely malleable. After that, join the rest of us who couldn’t say whether the car alarm is blaring in F-sharp minor or B-flat major.
Hensch aims to return our cognitive equipment to its nimble pre-seven-year-old state, where we might not only master perfect pitch, but pai
nlessly and readily pick up new languages and learn how to operate the remote.
Chapter Twelve
Faster, Bigger, More Smarter? The Reckoning
That’s not all I did to see if I could get sharper.
I listened to Bach regularly for weeks—and once, in an elevator, Chopin was playing. Or maybe it was “The Girl from Ipanema.”
I watched a thirty-six-episode graduate-level series about cosmology—mainly so I could brag about my accomplishment even though the only thing I learned was that everything is either very, very, very, very small or very, very, very, very, very big.
Let's Be Less Stupid: An Attempt to Maintain My Mental Faculties Page 8