An independent guide to innovative language courses
Photo taken by Andrea Lainé
You can barely visit YouTube these days without stumbling upon a funny cat video, and their immense popularity has been recognised time and time again in the global media. Now, one company has found that these cute critters might have a purpose other than making us laugh which could even help us improve our language skills.
Scientists have shown in a research study that people who speak languages, have a greater ability to learn music than those who do not. In particular, those who speak tonal languages such as Cantonese and Thai, have a much better ear for learning music. It is thought that these languages resemble music due to their pitch and tonal patterns.
Research of languages carried out by scientists at the University of Auckland and Oxford University, claims that all languages stem from sub-Saharan Africa around 150,000 years ago.
Around 504 languages were analysed in the study specifically for the number of phonemes or particular sounds they have. [Read more…]