Global languages:
English and other
future top languages
Dr Ursula Lanvers Open University
Dr Kristina Hultgren Open University

Think about a time when you’ve met a nonEnglish speaking person in the UK or abroad:
what language did you speak?

The number of English speakers in the world
is


A: Greater than the number of Chinese speakers
B: Smaller than the number of Chinese speakers

How many languages are there in the world?
A Nearly 7,000
B About 1,000
C About 900
D Nearly 1 million
Native (approx. 430
million)
Non-native (approx
950 million)
Non-speakers
(approx 5.1 billion)
Speakers of English as a percentage of world
population
native=first language

How many official languages does
South Africa have?
A
8
B
2
C
11

Which country in the world has the most
languages?
A Switzerland
B Papua New Guinea
C Luxemburg

http://mlm.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/
Language
Mother tongue speakers
Chinese
848 million
Hindi/Urdu
500 million
Arabic
485 million
Spanish
415 million
English
335 million

What are the three most widely spoken first
languages today?

How many languages are spoken in
Manchester?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Englishspeaking_population
http://www.coetail.com/oneeyemark/2013/10/12/esl-inenglish-speaking-countries-as-a-comfort-to-non-speakers/
http://poliglotti4.eu/php/mediacentre/index.php?doc_id=2442&lg=fr
http://mlm.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num
ber_of_speakers
http://www.myenglishteacher.eu/blog/what-are-10-mostspoken-languages-in-the-world/
1. Answer A
There are nearly 7000 languages in the world
2. Answer C
South Africa has 11 official languages
including English, Afrikaans, Ndebele, Sotho,
Northern Sotho, Zulu, Xhosa (a click language)
3. Answer B
Papua New Guinea is the country with most
languages (838)
4. If you mentioned three of these five you were
right: Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, English
5. There are more than 150 languages in
Manchester
How being bilingual works
What being bilingual does to you
Bilingual: fluent (or highly competent) in 2
languages
Dr Ursula Lanvers Open University
Dr Kristina Hultgren Open University
•
•
•
•
Get into your teams! (Answer sheet? Team
name?)
listen to experts on bilingualism
learn about brain functions and
bilingualism
Quiz: Results day!

Bilinguals store one language in one
hemisphere (left /right side) of the brain, the
other language in the other hemisphere .
TRUE OR FALSE?

Prof. Ellen Bialystok
world leader on bilingualism and the brain
scientist at the Rotman Research Institute of the Baycrest
Centre for Geriatric Care (Canada)
 watch her perform a kind of intelligence test & take part!








http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOniN0PMyJg
Minute 14.00-19.20
Literate=able to read
Executive control=(fast) control over different brain
activities
Stimulus= what the test person needs to react to
Congruent=matching
Orange Blue Green Pink Purple Pink
Discuss:
Were the tasks difficult for you?
Why are bilinguals better?
Will bilinguals always have this
advantage- even when old?
How many languages can one person
learn?
A
up to 6 if learned in childhood
B
there is no limit
C
up to 12 if they are related, like
French and Spanish, for example
D
up to 18 if learned early in life
Bilingualism and dementia
Prof Bialystok tested for differences in onset
(start) of dementia between bilinguals and
monolinguals
Mean value (and standard
deviation)
first problem first hospital
noticed
appointment
monolinguals
71.4 (9.4)
75.4 (9.3)
bilinguals
75.5 (8.5)
78.6 (8.4)
• She was so surprised by the results she
repeated the tests with lots of different patients
•
•
•
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., & Freedman, M. (2007). Bilingualism as a protection
against the onset of symptoms of dementia. Neuropsychologia, 45(2), 459-464.
Why these differences?
Do they have to do with to the
differences in bilingual children?

Bilingual children are better than
monolinguals at recognizing links between
meanings of words, for instance
Plane-bus: both are vehicles.
TRUE OR FALSE?

Bilingual teenagers are better at learning to
drive.
TRUE OR FALSE?




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhpVd30A
JaY
Are bilingual brains bigger?
Do bilingual brains develop faster?
So bilinguals are better at ‘executive function’
of the brain- any advantages?
Prefrontal cortex: part of brain behind forehead
 Neuroplasticity: flexibility of the brain, ability to
form new networks
 Cognitive function: thinking ability



Bilingual babies can separate the languages as early as
7 months
They use qualities like pitch and duration of sounds to
keep two languages separate
Pitch: the degree of ‘highness’ or ‘lowness’ of a tone
 Duration: the length of time a sound is produced





Hearing two languages from birth gives children
advantages that can last a lifetime
Therefore they can differentiate the languages long
before they can speak, when they are just babbling
Kovács, Á. M., & Mehler, J. (2009). Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 106(16), 6556-6560.
Werker, J. F., & Byers-Heinlein, K. (2008). Bilingualism in infancy: First steps in perception and comprehension. Trends in
cognitive sciences, 12(4), 144-151.
Children learning 3 languages from
birth
 A will become fluent in all 3 if
given enough input
 B will mix up all languages
 C will speak all 3 languages but
none of them like monolinguals
(speaker of one language only)

Bilinguals are better at maths.

TRUE OR FALSE?
Q1
Bilinguals store one language in one
hemisphere (left /right side) of the brain, the
other language in the other hemisphere.
False. Bilinguals store language in the same
parts of the brain as monolinguals but
 the size of some brain parts (pre-frontal
cortex) that process language
 the density of neural networks in these
parts
are greater in bilinguals.
=1&sk=#view=detail&mid=C174AFC75C58570A3
636C174AFC75C58570A3636
Q2
 How many languages can a
person learn?
 B There is no upper limit.



….some speak 20 like this 17 year old New
Yorker…..
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=individual+speaking+30+different+lang
uages&qs=n&form=QBVR&pq=individual+speaking+30+different+languages&sc
=0-0&sp
•
•
Q 3 Bilingual children are better than monolinguals
at recognizing links between meanings of words,
for instance
Plane-bus: both are vehicles. True.
Q 4 Bilingual teenagers are better at learning to
drive. False.
•
There is no evidence that bilingualism has much impact
on the ability to learn to drive BUT they are likely to be
better at filtering out irrelevant information and
concentrate on the important information.
Q 5 C Children learning 3 languages from
birth will become fluent in all 3 if given
enough input.
•
•
If the input in the 3 languages is relatively
balanced, they will become like 3 monolinguals in
1.
Q 6 False.
•
•
Although bilinguals have some cognitive
advantages, there is no evidence (yet) to suggest
that bilinguals are better at maths.