Bilingualism & Alzheimer’s / Bilinguisme et la maladie d'Alzheimer

Back in 2007, I wrote about new research that found that being bilingual prevented dementia.  This had to do with the use of both languages during life which appeared to delay the onset of dementia by four years .

Mon billet de 2007 portait sur la découverte que le bilinguisme retardait l’arrivée de la démence sénile. En effet, l’utilisation de deux langues pendant la vie retardait le début de la démence sénile de quatre ans. 

The Toronto Star today talks about a study of brain damage to people who are bilingual and unilingual. Again, the multilingual people seem to get Alzheimer’s later.

Le quotidien Torontois Star décrit aujourd’hui une étude des lésions cérébrales de patients bilingues et unilingues. Les patients multilingues semblent être affectés de la maladie d’Alzheimer beaucoup plus tard. 

I do not ever recall hearing my parents encouraging me to learn languages to prevent Alzheimer’s. But then, this disease was barely known. I learned the languages because the countries where I lived required their knowledge – first Czech, then French, then English. 

Je ne me souviens pas du tout du fait si mes parents m’encourageaient à apprendre une langue supplémentaire pour empêcher l’arrivée de la maladie d’Alzheimer. Il faut admettre cependant que cette maladie n’était pas bien connue alors. J’ai appris plusieurs langues parce que ma présence dans le pays où je vivais exigeait que je les parle – le Tchèque d’abord, puis le Français, puis l’Anglais. 

Learnings? Learn a second (or third) language, or maintain your knowledge of several languages and you may stave off Alzheimer for a few years. 

Morale de l’histoire? Apprenez une seconde (ou troisième) langue ou continuez à pratiquer celles que vous connaissez – cela pourrait retarder l’arrivée de la maladie d’Alzheimer.

Le monde appartient aux grincheux /Feeling grumpy 'is good for you'

In a bad mood? Don't worry - according to research, it's good for you.

An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.

In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.

While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine.

'Eeyore days'

The University of New South Wales researcher says a grumpy person can cope with more demanding situations than a happy one because of the way the brain "promotes information processing strategies".

He asked volunteers to watch different films and dwell on positive or negative events in their life, designed to put them in either a good or bad mood.

Next he asked them to take part in a series of tasks, including judging the truth of urban myths and providing eyewitness accounts of events. Those in a bad mood outperformed those who were jolly - they made fewer mistakes and were better communicators.

Professor Forgas said: "Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, co-operation and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world."

The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style".

His earlier work shows the weather has a similar impact on us - wet, dreary days sharpened memory, while bright sunny spells make people forgetful. 

Est-ce que les gens grincheux écrivent mieux, voient mieux les détails et par conséquent donnent un produit plus fidèle?  Lorsque je pense aux collègues traducteurs que j’ai connus au cours des ans, je dirais que la majorité étaient plutôt du genre sérieux, qui voient la vie telle qu’elle est et non pas en rose.

Faudrait-il alors ajouter la « grinchite » aux qualités nécessaires à un traducteur?

Computer detective/L’inspecteur Clouzot informatique

Unless he or she is an IT specialist, the ordinary translator gets bewildered by any malfunction of his computer and has to rely on a specialist to solve the problem. It does help, though, to be a curious and inquisitive person, because answers are out there, to be found.

When my laptop’s clock recently started losing time, first an hour at time, then more, I did a Google search. Little by little, an answer of sorts came out. It was my CMOS (a small battery) that was either failing or was bad.

Revenant alors sur le site web du fabricant – Lenovo, j’ai trouvé un nombre de descriptions de cette panne, sa cause et même un diagramme de la position de cette batterie sur la carte mère de l’ordinateur. Malheureusement, son remplacement était déconseillé au commun des mortels.

M’adressant alors à un réparateur agréé, j’ai pu lui décrire les symptômes que j’avais observés. On me demanda de leur laisser l’appareil pour effectuer un diagnostic. Deux heures plus tard, on me rappelle pour m’apprendre que mon CMOS est en parfaitement bonne santé! Ils ont découvert qu’une des soudures du CMOS à la carte mère s’était défaite et c’est cela qui provoquait mon problème. La soudure est refaite et me voilà avec un ordinateur en parfaite santé!

I have described this way of dealing with adversity in an earlier post dealing with cap guns.

The detective work was lots of fun. That is the spirit which continues to drive me to provide translations: to help my clients communicate in a language that they do not know or do not know well, while having a ball doing the work.

Bilingualism & dementia/ Bilinguisme et la démence sénile

Because Women’s College Hospital was affilitated with the Sunnbrook Health Centre for a short time, I subscribed to the French version of their Women’s Health Matters newsletter. Today’s issue covers a very interesting article on bilingualism and dementia which I would like to share with all my bilingual (and multilingual) colleagues.

Here is the lead French paragraph:

“Des chercheurs canadiens ont découvert des preuves étonnantes selon lesquelles l’utilisation de deux langues pendant toute sa vie aiderait à retarder de quatre ans l’apparition des symptômes démentiels, comparativement à l’utilisation d’une seule langue.”

http://www.femmesensante.ca/news/news_show.cfm?number=298

On the English side we have the following:

“Canadian scientists have found astonishing evidence that the lifelong use of two languages can help delay the onset of dementia symptoms by four years compared to people who are monolingual.”

http://www.womenshealthmatters.ca/news/news_show.cfm?number=599

I had mentioned this in my post of January 12 but thought that this new write-up would be of interest. J’avais mentionné ce sujet le 12 janvier dernier mais voici qu’il est à la une de nouveau. Je vous en souhaite bonne lecture.

Dementia/Speaking two tongues

The Globe and Mail carried today a very interesting article on the relationship between being bilingual and dementia.

Canadian researchers have linked multilingualism to the delay in the onset of dementia. While the sample of people tested was relatively small (184), it still points to a very interesting phenomenon.

“The findings extend previous research that has appeared to show the benefits of crossword puzzles and other mental workouts.”

I am not a medical person, but have been multilingual most of my life, with two predominating languages: French and English. Over the years, I have found that my fondness for multilingual communications has increased (or certainly not diminished) and that I seem to thrive on the mental challenges it poses. I also happen to love crossword puzzles and other mental workouts.

Who would have thought that being bilingual would be good for your health?

Cap guns and translation/Le pistolet à amorces et la traduction

"A cap gun or cap pistol is a toy gun...

As I was reflecting upon the mechanism of translation, I remembered how fascinated I had been, when around the age 8 or 10, I received a cap pistol for Christmas. In addition to the novelty of the item and the noise it could make, I was immediately intrigued by how it worked. I had noticed several screws in the metal and proceeded to take the gun apart, revealing the springs, ratchets, and magazine for the cap tape. Over the next while, I attempted many times to put the gun back together, without success. Finally, one day, things fell literally into place and I was able to put the gun back together.

I am realizing that translation is a bit like that too, and that may be the reason that I like it so much. Indeed, one has to completely understand the message, be able to recognize its component parts, be able to see how they work with each other, and then put (back) a translated original, making sure that the parts are similar, that they work together properly, and that the whole piece holds together.

In commercial translation, one does not always have the leisure of unlimited time but a conscientious translator will demand and allow enough time to disassemble, analyze and assemble the piece again. Machine translation can remember the parts, can line them together but so far has been unable to reason and therefore to think things through.

I have read about machine translations from English to German or Danish, which stick to the English syntax (word order), therefore completely taking the German or the Danish "spirit” out of the text. It is this feeling that one has reading some of the recent translations from Chinese into English. The words are there but the meaning has been missed. Do you wish to send out messages without "feeling"? Hire a machine, it will be fast and cheap and the reader will probably be insulted. Great for repeat business!

Toenail Health / La santé des orteils

Biology 101: Toenails are living tissue so they grow and need trimming. Just because the spike was removed, that did not mean it won’t regrow – it did. Fortunately, the chiropodist was monitoring the situation and was able to trim the nail again.

La solution à long terme est une chirurgie locale qui consiste à supprimer au phénol une partie de la racine fabricant la portion d’ongle qui s’incarne. Cette procédure est effectuée sous anesthésie locale, avec quasi-absence de douleur et aucune cicatrice visible.

It is amazing how much one can learn on the Internet. The procedure was explained to me in English and I was able to find the corresponding French text. A text written in the original language uses the proper syntax and wording whereas a mere translation might be stilted or take the wrong point of view.

That is the reason for having technical translations validated by an expert in the target language who can vouch for the proper tone, proper terminology and syntax. Using machine translation for this sort of copy is obviously very dangerous.

Cerveau – Université McGill – Broca, Wernicke et autres aires du langage

Je viens de découvrir lors d’un moment de cybernautisme, un site très intéressant sur le cerveau et en particulier sur le langage.

Je connaissais déjà les travaux de Broca et de Wernicke, mais ici le site en donne des explications sur plusieurs niveaux : débutant, intermédiaire et avancé. Donc, le lecteur peut choisir le niveau de technicité qui lui convient.

McGill’s site on the Brain contains a very interesting section on language. The link above will get you to the French section from which you can transfer to the English one.

Root canal treatment 2nd step – Traitement radiculaire - 2ème étape

Once this space has been cleansed, the next treatment involves filling in and sealing up the interior of the tooth. The antiseptic compound used will harden and seal the canal to prevent any bacterial reinfection.

Le canal est élargi, désinfecté puis obturé avec une pâte antiseptique qui durcira et donnera une étanchéité à ce canal afin de prévenir toute nouvelle infiltration par des bactéries.

At this stage, the tooth may be more fragile and breakable so a crown may be required. One first has to reinforce the tooth and rebuild it, then take an imprint, have an artificial crown made by a specialized lab and cement the crown in place.

La dent dévitalisée est fragile et cassante, il est préférable de la couronner. Il faut d’abord la renforcer et la reconstituer, préparer et prendre une empreinte, faire réaliser une couronne prothétique par un laboratoire de prothèse et sceller la couronne.

In my case, I actually enjoyed the procedure since there was no pain (since the tooth nerve had been removed). The traditional reaction of fear and pain created by the sound of drill was no longer there. Keeping one’s mouth open for a long time was tiresome but not painful.

Dans mon expérience personnelle, cette étape du traitement était agréable car elle était sans douleur (le nerf de la dent ayant été enlevé). Ma réaction habituelle de crainte et de douleur suscitées par le son de la fraise du dentiste n’avait plus de raison d’être. Il est vrai que rester la bouche ouverte pendant longtemps est pénible, mais sans douleur.

Root Canal / Traitement radiculaire

A recent dental emergency required a root canal treatment, which I never had had before. I decided to write several bilingual entries in my blog on the experience and at the same time illustrate some of the ways a translator goes about gathering information on his work.

Une récente urgence dentaire a nécessité une intervention chirurgicale appelée traitement radiculaire. J’ai donc décidé d’en faire l’objet de plusieurs articles dans mon blogue, ce qui me permettrait également d’illustrer le cheminement d’un traducteur lors d’un travail de documentation.

Root canal treatment is a situation in which a dentist treats the inside of a tooth, its pulp, or its nerve tissue. Both Termium and the Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique give “traitement radiculaire” as an equivalent. Whereas the word “dévitalisation” (suggested by one Internet source) is found not only in dentistry but in skin aging (poor diet, exposure to sun) and in agriculture (procedure which renders vegetables incapable of germinating).

En anglais, le terme descriptif root canal (canal de racine) représente l’objet de l’intervention. Le GDT et Termium donnent tous les deux l’équivalent « traitement radiculaire ou pulpectomie". Cette dernière enlève la pulpe pour empêcher la détérioration de ou des racines. Il est important de remarquer que dévitalisation (donné par certaines sources sur Internet) peut également se produire dans la peau humaine (sous l’influence du soleil ou de l’alimentation) ou pour rendre des végétaux ou produits végétaux incapables de germer, de se développer ou de se reproduire.

According to sources on the Internet, teeth are calcified objects that have a centre which contains their nerve tissue. This tissue plays an important role in the growth and development of the tooth, and, in a mature tooth, a sensory function (ability to feel hot and cold).

Mes recherches sur Internet révèlent que les dents sont des objets calcifiés mais dont le centre contient une pulpe (c.-à-d. un filet nerveux et de très fins vaisseaux sanguins). Ces derniers jouent un rôle très important dans la croissance et le développement de la dent ainsi, qu’après sa maturation, aux sensations de chaud et de froid qu’elle permet.

During a root canal treatment, the infected or inflamed tissue is removed so as to provide a healthy environment for the tooth. A drill or reamer are used to thoroughly clean each root canal (depending on its placement in the mouth, a tooth may have from one to four roots).

L’objet d’un traitement radiculaire est d’enlever le centre de la dent (la pulpe) pour lui redonner un environnement sain. Une fraise de dentiste est utilisée pour évider le canal dentaire, l’élargir et le mettre en forme. Selon leur position dans la bouche, les dents peuvent avoir d’une à quatre racines.

The resulting holes are then plugged with a special compound and the tooth is restored to its original shape. On obture (ou bouche) ces cavités avec une pâte spéciale et l’on referme l’orifice.

(to be continued / à suivre)

Protect your left caudate

An recent article in the Technology section of the Globe & Mail, entitled "Wire for sound", describes the following:

"Brain-imaging studies have shown that people who are fluent in two languages use the same brain circuitry for both. This left scientists wondering how the brain differentiates between two languages.
in Britain, Germany and Japan have found evidence that part of the brain known as the left caudate helps bilingual people distinguish the language they hear and control the one they speak.

Researchers
The study involved a group of people comfortable in both German and English and another group fluent in Japanese and English, but the researchers suggest that the same system is at work in all bilingual brains.

They say their conclusions are supported by a trilingual woman who suffered damage to her left caudate. She retained her ability to speak all three, but would involuntarily jump from one to another."

As a bilingual person, I am not aware of my mental processes to that extent but I do know that if I am tired, my English is greatly interfered by French than when I am rested.

L'aire de Broca

Pour les langagiers intéressés par la biologie, voici un lien menant à l'université McGill

On ne pense pas souvent à la façon dont on parle et comprend les langues - voici une explication.