How people are the same, different, and got here

Gaia Vince's book Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time is fascinating for several reasons. She has synthesized dozens of modern anthropological, sociological, psychological, and environmental studies of populations around the world to write an interesting book of how people are the same and different.

Because I have a vested interest in language and have done (and am doing) my best to add Japanese and Italian to my native English, I was particularly interested in Vince's section on language. Current research suggests that "bilingual people seem to have different neural pathways for their two languages, and both are active when either language is used."

Apparently our brains have evolved for multilingualism which may have been the norm in the deep past. I know that in Japan and Italy there are local dialects so distinctive—another way to say they are another language—they are incomprehensible to an outsider. A speaker must also speak and understand standard Japanese or Italian to function in the larger society.

Multilingualism affects the brain and the sense of self. Ask me in English what my favorite food is and I tend to answer steak or spaghetti. Ask me in Japanese and I automatically think of unagi or tonkatsu. That you gain a new personality with every language you speak is a profound one and is supported by some clever research studies. For example:

"In the 1960s, one of the pioneers of psycholinguists, Susan Ervin-Tripp, asked Japanese-English bilingual women to finish sentences, and found great differences, depending on the language. For instance, 'When my wishes conflict with my family . . .' was completed in Japanese as 'it is a time of great unhappiness'; but in English as, 'I do what I want.' From this Ervin-Tripp concluded that human thought takes place within language mindsets, and that bilinguals have different mindsets for each language—an extraordinary idea but one that has been borne out by subsequent studies."

This fragment may suggest how rich and thought-provoking Transcendence can be. And while it is a book I would not ordinarily have picked off the shelf, I am glad I did. I believe it has opened my mind to a wealth of new—for me—thoughts and ideas.