Bilingual and Brains

There's an old joke:

What do you call someone who speaks three or more languages?  

Multilingual.  

How about two languages?  

Bilingual.  

How about just one language?  

American.

Okay, so it's not that funny, but it's the best I could come up with to lead into this story about a study that finds speaking two or more languages "may benefit our brains."  See the brief press release linked in this graf for more details.

All We Get is 20 Good Years?

A new British study finds "The brain's ability to function can start to deteriorate as early as 45." 

BBC version of story here.

As the father of two teenagers, I can definitely say the brain's ability to function at all probably doesn't begin until age 25.  In other words, we've got about 20 good years of cognitive capabilities.  Jeez.



Previous studies found the decline to begin at age 60.  I'm okay with that.  But being on the downside of 45, this new finding is damned depressing. 


Then again, it explains, um, it explains something.  What was I writing about?  Ah hell...