Re: THEORY: language and the brain [Interesting article]

En réponse à Chris Bates :

>What is the actual difference between the brains of left and right
>handed people? I've heard "in left handed people the right hemisphere is
>dominant and in right handed people the left " which I think is true,
>but what other common differences are there? Or is it all just too
>random to say? I'm asking because I'm left handed... thinking about it,
>I actually had to have speech therapy to learn how to pronounce T and D
>(english th), I couldn't pronounce them for the life of me until after I
>started school, which means I was older than 5 at the time... can't
>remember how old I was when I started. But anyway, the thing about where
>and how languages are processed just made me wonder if left handers have
>problems like that more commonly than right handers or not.
People around me have always told me exactly the contrary! I've always been
known to be "good at languages", and many of my language teachers have told
me that it was common among left-handed people to pick up languages and
correct pronunciations quicker than right-handed people. Yes, I'm
left-handed too (and very much lateralised. I'm extremely clumsy with my
right hand).

Now I'm not saying that it's a correct statement at all. I'm just saying
that lateralisation, if it even has an effect on language abilities, may
not have so big an effect as surmised. After all, on this list there was a
belief that left-handed people where more common among conlangers than
usual, but I don't think the various surveys we've had have shown that it
was so (and it's easy to check. It is well known that the percentage of
left-handed people is 15%, independent of culture, class, religion, sex,
orientation, etc... - There have been so many studies about that that this
percentage is as sure as it can be ;)) -. So we just have to compare the
percentage of left-handed people on this list with this figure, without
forgetting that since we are a small sample, there will be some error
margin to consider. Where's Sally and her Conlang Surveys when we need her?
;))) ).

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.

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