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For the human brain, the conlangs Like the “Game of Thrones” Dothraki, the “Star Trek” Klingon, the Na’vi of “Avatar” or Esperanto are similar to any natural language
A new study reveals that natural languages and conlangs Invented, such as Game of Thrones’ Dothraki, Star Trek’s Klingon, Na’vi of Avatar or Esperanto, cause similar reactions on the language processing network of language.
In the human brain, a network of regions has evolved to process the language. These regions are consistently activated whenever people hear their mother tongue or any other language in which they are proficient.
A new study by MIT researchers reveals that this network also reacts to languages completely inventedlike the, which was created in the late nineteenth century as a way to promote international communication, and even invented tongues for TV series – such as Star Trek’s.
The conclusions of the were presented in an article published this week in the magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To study the brain’s reaction to these artificial languages, MIT neuroscientists gathered about 50 speakers of these languages over a weekend.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging images (fMRI), researchers found that when participants heard a built language in which they were proficient, the same regions of the brain illuminated as the activated when they processed their mother tongue.
“We find that built languages recruit the same system as natural languages, which suggests that the key characteristic to activate the system may be related to the types of meanings that both types of languages can express,” he says Evelina FedorenkoAssociate Professor of Neuroscience in MIT and the main author of the study at one from the University.
The results help to define some of the MAIN LANGUAGE PROPERTIES and suggest that It is not necessary for languages to have evolved naturally For a long period of time or that have a large number of speakers.
“This helps us define the question of what a language is and to do so empirically, testing the way our brain responds to stimuli that may or may not be similar to a language,” he says Saima Malik-MoraledaPostdoctoral of MIT and first author of the article.
Gather the community of conlangs
Unlike natural languages, which evolve within communities and are shaped over time built languages, or conlangsare usually created by a person who decides which sounds to use, how to label the different concepts and which grammatical rules.
Or Esperanto, a conlang most spoken, it was created in 1887 by L.L. Zamenhofwhich intended to be used as Universal Language for International Communication. Currently, it is estimated that about 60,000 people around the world They dominate Esperanto.
In, sfedorenko and his students found that the languages of Computer Programming, such as Python – Another type of invented language – do not activate the cerebral network used to process the natural language.
Instead, people who read computer code resort to the so -called multiple requirementsa brain system that is often recruited to difficult cognitive tasks.
Smelly and others also investigated the way the brain responds to other stimuli share characteristics with language, including music and nonverbal communication, such as gestures and facial expressions.
“We spent a lot of time analyzing these various types of stimuli and repeatedly discovered that None of them involve the processing mechanisms of language, ”says Fedorenko.“ Therefore, the question is: what natural languages have to None of these other systems have?”
This led investigators to wonder if artificial languages, such as Esperanto, would be processed more as programming languages or more as natural languages.
Like programming languages, built languages are created by an individual for a specific endwithout natural evolution within a community.
However, unlike programming languages, both conlangs like natural languages can be used to transmit meanings about the state of the outside world or the inner state of the speaker.
To explore the way the brain processes conlangsthe investigators invited speakers from Esperanto and several other languages built for one in MIT in November 2022.
The other languages included or Klingon (from “Star Trek”), the Na’vi (“Avatar”) and two languages of “Game of Thrones” (High Valiriano and Dothraki).
For all these languages, there are texts available to those who want to learn the language and, for Esperanto, Klingon and Alto Valitoria, There is even a duolingo application available.
“It was a very fun event in which all communities came to participate and, for a weekend, we collected all the data,” says Malik-Moraleda, who co-led the data collection effort with Maya Taliaferroformer Post-Bachelor of MIT, now a doctoral student at the University of New York.
During this event, which also featured several conlang creators, the researchers used FMRI to analyze 44 speakers of conlangs while hearing phrases from the built tongue in which they were proficient.
The creators of these languages, which are co-authors of the article, helped build the phrases that were presented to the participants.
While they were at Scanner, participants also heard or read phrases in their mother tongue and performed some non -linguistic tasks for comparison.
Investigators found that when people heard a conlangthey were activated the same linguistic regions of the brain that when they heard their mother tongue.
Common characteristics
The results help to identify Some of the main characteristics Necessary to recruit the linguistic processing areas of the brain, the researchers say.
One of the main characteristics that drive linguistic responses seems to be the ability to transmit meanings About the inner and outer world – a characteristic that is shared by natural and built languages, but not by programming languages.
“All languages, both natural and builtexpress meanings related to the inner and outer world. Refer to objects in the worldthe properties of objects, to events, ”says Fedorenko,“ while programming languages are much more similar to mathematics“.
“A programming language is a symbolic generating system that allows to express complex meanings, but It is an autonomous system: The meanings are highly abstract and mainly relatedand are not linked to the real world we have experienced, ”says the researcher
Some other characteristics of natural languages, which are not shared by the built languages, do not seem necessary to generate a response in the linguistic network.
“It doesn’t matter if the tongue is created and shaped over time by a community of speakers, because these built languages are not, ”says Malik-Moraleda.” And No matter your agebecause the conlangs With only a decade of age involve the same regions of the brain as the natural languages that have existed for many hundreds of years. ”
To improve language characteristics that activate the linguistic network of the brain, the Fedorenko lab now plans to study the way the brain reacts to a conlang call Loycreated by the Logical Language Group in the 1990s and conceived for Avoid ambiguity of meanings and promote more efficient communication.
