OTTAWA, ON ― An alarming new study out of the University of Ottawa suggests that years of recommendations to learn a new language in order to stave off cognitive decline may in fact have the opposite effect, as bilingual people tend to forget double the amount of words as they age.
Furthermore, the problem compounded for polyglots, with trilingual people forgetting three times as many words, tetralingual four, and so forth.
Emmanuel Dasilva, a neurologist at University of Toronto who was not involved with the study, said this issue warranted more attention as soon as possible. “We do have decades of research saying language learning is good for your brain, and one study doesn’t overturn that. But on the other hand, the methodology was solid and it was large scale.
“For the time being, I would advise people to only learn the bare minimum possible. Not only for languages, but for everything. It’s simple logic, after all. You can’t forget anything you never knew.”
The authors of the study did not keep track of which words the participants were forgetting in each language, so it is possible that they still benefitted by being able to swap in the translation for the word they forgot. However, as the lead author of the study, Sylvie Dufresne, points out, Franglais is “kind of annoying” to listen to, and will probably soon be illegal in Québec.
“It’s been so frightening to see how much I’ve declined since hitting um… hmm… whatever quarante is in English,” explained Sherbrooke resident Cécil Gagné. “I try to keep up by doing those grid puzzles… the name escapes me right now in every language… you know, the ones with the letters in the boxes. They’re supposed to prevent cognitive decline, but whatever they’re called, they sure aren’t much…uh… ayuta.
“Wait. That’s Spanish. Seriously, what the fuck is happening to me? Getting old sucks. But I still remember all the words to the Oscar Meyer weiner ad, somehow.”
A small minority of academics have criticized the findings, suggesting that the authors did not control for the possibility that Québecois participants were just pretending to forget English to be obnoxious.
The study adds to a new but growing body of research that says the best ways to avoid old age involve preempting it. These include dyeing your hair gray from your early 20s, never following trends or being popular, or growing up in an AI-ridden technocapitalist hellscape that gives you the same critical thinking skills, attention span, and jaded outlook young people once criticized in baby boomers.
