Flex your brain – learn Māori to delay Alzheimer’s
Flex your brain – learn Māori to delay
Alzheimer’s
Learning te reo Māori
could help aging New Zealanders keep Alzheimer’s at bay
for up to five years, according to international
research.
That’s just one of many
good reasons to become bilingual, says UC’s Associate
Professor Jeanette King (Aotahi: School of Maori and
Indigenous Studies) who speaks English and te reo
Māori.
Other reasons, backed up by
New Zealand research, show learning more than one language
is good for general brain development and cognition, she
says.
“Bilingualism gives people a
stronger cultural identity and sense of belonging to a
group. And it provides a window into other ways of thinking,
doing and being – it gives you access to another world
view, if you like,” says Professor King.
“Tim Groser, our trade minister, recently made
this point when he said it was his personal view that all
New Zealand five-year-olds should take up te reo Māori. He
felt trading and doing business overseas really well
requires a faculty for language and learning
languages.”
Professor King is one of
30 top minds working in UC’s New Zealand Institute of
Language, Brain and Behaviour.
The
institute, led by UC’s Professor Jennifer Hay, was set up
in 2010 as a way to encourage more collaboration among
academics in related fields.
“At the
institute, we’re keen to explore new ideas and come up
with fresh, multidisciplinary ways of looking at things,”
says Professor Hay. “It’s about creating a fertile
environment for research. It’s also about achieving things
together that would be impossible to achieve
alone.”
The institute has five major
research themes including language and aging, language and
social cognition, language variation and change, language
acquisition, and bilingualism.
It has
a permanent staff of more than 30, as well as six
postdoctoral researchers and many PhD students. External
research partners such as MARCS Auditory Laboratories in
Sydney also work with the institute
Its state-of-the-art facilities include two
observation labs for language, brain and behaviour
experiments and equipment such as tracking systems for
tracking tongue, speech and body movements.
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