LANGUAGES REWIRE THE BRAIN

I have read Steven Pinker, Antonio Damasio, Irvin Yalom, Daniel Dennett, and some others interested in the brain and how it works. They all put forward interesting and very illuminating theories that give us a lot of food for thought. My favorite is Santiago Ramón y Cajal who said that each of us can be the architect of our own brains. He meant that there is plasticity in the brain and that as we acquire knowledge new neurons and new pathways among them are formed. This is very evident in the acquisition of a new language when we force the brain to rewire itself. The brain is far from being an open book, even to neuroscientists, but it is clear that if we lose so many cells per day, new ones can be formed and activated daily also, by learning new ways to express ourselves, especially by learning more language. Believing in the plasticity of the brain, in the possibility of rewiring it may be farfetched and optimistic, but we have little to lose trying, trying to augment the horizon of our languages. Little to lose and a lot to gain.