Baby in different languages. Bilingual children: features of education. Urgently see a doctor: when you don’t need to think

Newborn babies at first glance do not differ from each other, and the differences are noticeable only to their parents and nannies. To an outside observer, all babies are the same, and they cry the same way, demanding the same thing. Scientists managed to eliminate the latter misconception by proving that babies cry in different languages.

A team of researchers compared the crying of children from Cameroon, China and Germany, based on the difference between tonal and non-tone languages. The former sound strange to European ears: unlike German, French or English, their meaning is determined by the pitch at which certain syllables are pronounced. The same sound in tone language can have completely different meanings depending on how you pronounce it.

One example is Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua), the official language of China, which is spoken by just over 1 billion people. To join them, you need to master the four characteristic keys. Another example is the Lamnso language, which is spoken by 280,000 Cameroonians living on the steppes in the northwest of the country. The transfer of semantic differences in it is carried out using eight keys, according to a press release from the University of Würzburg.

When scientists recorded and compared the sounds made by babies born to German, Chinese and Cameroonian mothers, it turned out that the cry of “tonal” children differed from the cries of “non-tonal” ones. The crying of babies whose mothers spoke Lamnso had a wider interval between the highest and lowest tone, and the children moved from height to height faster than their peers whose mothers spoke German.

When comparing these data with the crying of Chinese babies, the differences were not so clear. Scientists explained this by the fact that the Chinese language is less tonal than Lamnso. It is worth noting that the kids "participated" in the experiment, who were only a day old. This startling discovery supports the theory that the foundations for the development of a future language are acquired from the moment of birth, and not at the moment when babies begin to babble their first words.

Most likely, these "skills" are acquired by a baby in the womb for recent weeks pregnancy, weaving into their crying melodic patterns characteristic of ambient noise. In favor of the connection of the cry of babies with the language of their mother is the fact that scientists have excluded the influence of cultural characteristics. The crying of babies from China and Germany, who developed in the environment of all the benefits of modern civilization (radio and television), and the crying of children from Cameroon, especially those born in rural areas, were analyzed.

The first cries of newborn babies differ depending on what language their parents speak. This is especially noticeable in speakers of tonal languages, where pitch and pitch changes can reverse the meaning of a word. At the University of Wurzburg, German and Chinese scientists first studied this phenomenon in children from China and Cameroon.

Tonal languages ​​sound unusual to Europeans. The meaning of a word changes if you pronounce it with a different sound frequency or with overflows. One such language is Northern Chinese, or Mandarin, which has 4 different tones. This language is spoken in China, Singapore and Taiwan, and it is spoken by about a million people. Another example is the Lamnso language, which is spoken by the 280,000 Nso people in northwestern Cameroon. They distinguish as many as 8 tones, some of which change during pronunciation. The researchers wondered if the language a mother speaks affects her baby's cries?

Professor Katrin Vermke (Kathleen Wermke), following the results of scientific work, said that there is certainly a difference. It turned out that children whose parents speak a rich language cry at significantly higher frequencies than, for example, German children. This was especially noticeable in babies from the Nso tribe, whose crying, firstly, compared with other children, had the largest range (from the lowest to the highest sound), and, secondly, also contained short-term changes in tone, overflows. Professor Wermke explained that it was like chants and added that Chinese children cried in a similar way, although they had a lesser observed effect.

The scientists said the results of the study confirmed their hypothesis, which they had previously tested on German and French children, that the cornerstones of a child's language are laid from birth. Babies learn their future language while still inside their mother, and the characteristics of that language affect the sounds they make even before they learn to coo or babble. At the same time, these sounds are not affected by other seemingly important factors - the environment, various signs of civilization. Both the Chinese, born in a modern technically advanced country, and the children of the NSO agricultural tribe, where there are no technical innovations, cried in approximately the same manner. It is possible that genetic factors may also play a role.

The study involved 55 young Chinese and 21 little Cameroonians, whose first cries were analyzed by scientists. Catherine Vermke emphasized that no one forced the children to cry for research purposes, the scientists recorded spontaneous cries - for example, when a child began to worry about hunger. The findings of the researchers shed light on the earliest stages of speech development, and perhaps this work will help in early detection of signs of speech disorders. However, scientists are still far from clinical practice.

Bilinguals are people who are born or early age speaking two or more languages. Bilingual children most often grow up in mixed marriages or immigrant families. Although there are countries where two languages ​​are equally common, and where bilingualism is the norm.

It would seem that the knowledge of two languages ​​gives great advantages. On the other hand, this is fraught with certain difficulties: bilingual children are more prone to stuttering and nervous breakdowns, and their speech is sometimes a "mess" of different languages. What can parents do to ensure that their child develops harmoniously?

How bilingualism is formed

Education in a foreign language environment. When the family moves to another country, the child finds himself in an environment where they speak an unfamiliar language. For some children, adaptation goes more smoothly, for others, on the contrary, with difficulty. It depends on the age and personality of the child. In many ways, the responsibility lies with the parents: the upbringing of bilingual children requires compliance with certain rules.

Mom and dad speak different languages. Children in mixed marriages, where father and mother speak different languages, also have every chance of growing up bilingual. Sometimes parents decide to teach their child only one language - usually the one spoken in the country of residence. But often both parents want their children to know the language of their ancestors, which means that both languages ​​will be used in the family. Such children are called congenital bilinguals.

A special case - ethnically mixed marriagethe family also lives in a “third” country, which is not the birthplace of either spouse. That is, mom speaks one language, dad speaks another, and the people around, educators in kindergarten and playmates in third. In rare cases, this can happen without moving to another country. For example, the majority of the inhabitants of the island of Mauritius are multilingual. Two state languages ​​are equally common here - English and French, and most of the population also has Indo-Mauritian roots and speaks Hindi. Knowing three languages ​​at once from birth seems very tempting. But in fact, for a child, this can turn into problems with the formation of oral and written speech, and even with the nervous system as a whole.

There is more, so to speak, artificial bilingualism. The Internet is literally full of articles on how to raise a bilingual child in the most ordinary family living in their homeland. Whether it is necessary to undertake such efforts is a big question. It is not clear why the child should be so stressed when there are many effective methods of teaching foreign languages ​​to preschoolers. With good training, by adolescence, the child will be able to master even several languages. Of course, they will not be native to him. But even if there is a foreign governess, the second language will remain foreign for a child who does not grow up in a language environment. If you are inspired by the example of the nobles of the 18th-19th centuries, you should remember that all representatives of high society spoke French at that time, so children heard foreign speech all the time around.

Difficulties of bilingualism

If ordinary parents have a choice, teach a child foreign language from infancy or wait until school, then a family that has moved to another country, or parents in a mixed marriage, children in any case grow up bilingual. What difficulties can bring the simultaneous development of two languages?

Learning to speak even one native language is not an easy task for a developing brain. small child. Mastering two languages ​​puts a huge burden on the central nervous system. Bilingual children are more prone than their peers to nervous breakdowns, stuttering, and in exceptional cases, to the complete disappearance of speech, which is scientifically called “mutism”.

Speech disorders

Acquisition of two languages, which can be completely different system sometimes leads to linguistic difficulties. In both languages, the child develops an accent, he begins to make mistakes in words, use incorrect grammatical and syntactic constructions. This situation can persist into adulthood, in adolescent children. Here is an example of how a schoolboy growing up in Australia explains the word "love": It's when you take someone into your heart."

Difficulties with reading and writing

If the parents did not track down the previous problem in time and did not solve it, the child may have difficulty mastering reading and writing skills.

Language confusion

« I want slips, says a three-year-old girl from a mixed Russian-American family to her mother. The most common problem that parents of bilingual children complain about is the terrible "porridge" of languages ​​in the child's head. According to experts, in the period from a year to 3-4 years, this is inevitable. Later, however, the child must "separate" the languages ​​and not mix up parts of words and expressions.

Social problems

Children 4-6 years of age definitely need language training so that they learn the basics of grammar and phonetics. The rest they will be able to "type" directly in the language environment. For younger students it is desirable to master the language in such a way as to understand the teacher: not knowing the language is fraught with a lag in learning and the inability to make friends.

identity crisis

Although not directly related to linguistic difficulties, identity crisis may be related to language choice. With the onset adolescence a child who has been bilingual since childhood may ask himself the question: “Which of them is my mother tongue?” These tossings are connected with the search for oneself, which is often more difficult and dramatic for the children of emigrants.

Ways to overcome

Serious difficulties such as stuttering or the disappearance of speech, of course, should be solved by a speech therapist paired with a psychologist or neuropathologist. Fortunately, such disorders in bilingual children do not appear so often. But what about the rest of the problems?

We will warn you right away: you should not allow children to mix multilingual words and expressions in one conversation. No matter how such a “bird language” touches mom and dad, in the future it will lead to a lot of difficulties: the child simply will not be able to speak any language normally. Parents should calmly correct him, helping him find a word in the right language, or ask again, showing that the sentence is not written correctly. By the age of 3-4 years, the languages ​​\u200b\u200bare sorted out in the head, and such problems should not arise.

There are three main strategies that allow a child to master two languages ​​normally, without getting confused in them, and without creating an excessive load on the nervous system. Parents should choose one of them and strictly adhere to this system.

FROM"one parent - one language" system suitable for families formed as a result of mixed marriages, where the husband and wife speak different languages. In this case, the child should be consistently taught that he speaks one language with his mother, and another with his father. Between themselves, the spouses can talk on any of them, but the rule must be strictly observed with the child, regardless of where the family is: at home, away, on the street, and so on. If there are several children in the family, you can let them choose the language in which they will communicate with each other (but you need to make sure that they speak it correctly, otherwise there is a risk that they will come up with their own language). By a similar principle, it is worth “dividing” other adults who take part in raising a child: a nanny, a teacher, grandparents. They also need to choose one language and only speak to the child in that language.

FROM"Time and place" system. This principle involves the "division" of languages ​​according to the time or place of use. For example, at home and in the store, parents speak with their children in their native language, and on the playground and at a party - in the language of the country of residence. Or morning and evening - the time of the native language, and in the interval between lunch and dinner, the family speaks the local language. This system, on the one hand, is more flexible, on the other hand, it has many disadvantages. In young children, the sense of time is not yet developed, and it will be difficult for them to track the time of the transition from one language to another. Such uncertainty can create anxiety and a feeling of constant insecurity in the child. The system "one place - one language" does not take into account that the surrounding people in the store or on the street in any case will speak the local language. Therefore, the following model is considered more effective for children of emigrants.

FROMHome language system is very simple: at home, parents speak with the child only in their native language, in other places he communicates in the language of the country of residence. It helps to keep "in the asset" native language while learning new things and interacting seamlessly with peers. Over time, a child who is increasingly learning a second language will try to switch to it at home. At this point, parents should be firm. “If I ask something in Swedish at home, they just don't answer me,” says the girl, whose parents moved to Sweden from Russia ten years ago.

Having said so much about the problems and difficulties, one cannot but say about positive aspects bilingualism, of which there are actually a lot.

Benefits of Bilingualism

The brains of bilinguals are better developed than the brains of people who speak the same language. This means that they absorb information better, have a larger memory capacity and have more advanced analytical thinking. And in old age, their brain cells are destroyed more slowly. We can say that bilingualism prolongs youth. In any case, the youth of the mind.

Knowing two languages ​​gives great advantages in life. This point can not even be commented on: the possibility of studying in any of the two languages, career prospects, and simply the opportunity to communicate with representatives of at least two different nationalities in their native language.

Bilingualism develops Creative skills. By learning two languages ​​with different structures and logical organization, bilingual people develop a more creative way of looking at the world. A person who is equally fluent in two languages ​​is able to see the problem more fully and find non-standard ways out of situations. There is evidence that bilinguals have better developed both hemispheres of the brain and interhemispheric connections, which means that they have good abilities for drawing, music, and translation.