Notes on Language and Brain

On a recent visit to the library, I came across How Language Works, by David Crystal. In chapter 27, How the brain handles language, Crystal simplifies how language is interpreted in the mind and how the mind constructs language. I will make notes on what he has to say in this chapter (the images are scanned and uploaded from the chapter as well):

Cerebrum: the largest region of the brain. It is divided into the left cerebral hemisphere and the right cerebral hemisphere.

Brain stem: connects the cerebral hemispheres to the spinal cord. The brain stem consists of the mid-brain, the pons, and the medulla oblongata.

Cerebellum: responsible for body posture and the smooth coordination of all body movements. The cerebellum is located at the back of the pons.

(Cerebral) Cortex / Gray Matter: Nerve cells found on the surface of the cerebrum. The cortex is involved in the control of voluntary movements and intellectual functions, and the decoding of information from the senses.

White Matter: fiber tracts that transmit signals between the different parts of each hemisphere, and between the cortex and the brain stem.

Median Longitudinal Fissure: separates the cerebral hemispheres.

The brain is divided into four main lobes:
1. frontal
2. temporal
3. parietal
4. occipital


Theory of Cerebral Localization: "The idea that a single area of the brain can be related to a single behavioural ability, such as vision or speech."

Support for this theory came from the work of Paul Pierre Broca and Carl Wernicke (both were neurologists who found that damage done to certain parts of the brain results in reduced linguistic and/or motor capabilities; please see my previous blog post about aphasia, the loss of language due to brain damage).

Other areas of the brain which are associate with speech, listening, reading, writing, and signing are located in the image below:


- The front part of the parietal lobe, along the fissure of Rolando, is primarily involved in the processing of sensation, and may be connected with the speech and auditory areas at a deeper level.

- The area in front of the central fissure (aka the fissure of Rolando) is mainly involved in motor functioning, and is thus relevant to the study of speaking and writing.

- An area in the upper back part of the temporal lobe, extending upwards into the parietal lobe, plays a major part in the comprehension of speech (This is Wernicke's area).

- In the upper part of the temporal lobe is the main area involved in auditory reception, known as Heschl's gyri, after the Austrian pathologist R. L. Heschl.

- The lower back part of the frontal lobe is primarily involved in the encoding of speech (This is Broca's area).

- Another area towards the back of the frontal lobe may be involved in the motor control of writing. It is known as Exner's centre after the German neurologist Sigmund Exner.

- Part of the left parietal region, close to Wernicke's area, is involved with the control of manual signing.

- The area at the back of the occipital lobe is used mainly for the processing of visual input.

NEUROLINGUISTIC PROCESSING (Here is the amazing part):

- Speech production: Wernicke's area (utterance structure) --> Broca's area (encoding) --> adjacent motor area (articulation)

- Speech comprehension: speech --> auditory cortex (speech reception) --> Wernicke's area (interpretation)

- Reading aloud: written form --> visual cortex (reception) --> angular gyrus --> Wernicke's area (auditory representation) --> Broca's area (processing)

Language Isolates

I hesitate to use the term “isolate” in this context. Past, present, future, any language that is an “isolate” could possibly (actually very likely) be/has been/become part of a larger group. Some “isolate” languages have only become so when all other family members die off. Some languages are “isolate” because linguists are not aware of any languages that are/were related to it. Does this then mean that such a language simply sprung out of nowhere? Presumably all language is derived from language, so the term “isolate” is actually misleading.

I will put so-called “isolated” languages into two categories:

A) A language for which there is no proof or disproof that any other languages are related to it, one that is completely unrelated to any known language in existence (past, present, future). Although such a language may be presumed to have had, at the very least, a predecessor, the fact that there is no evidence to support even that much makes it classified as an isolate.
B) Formerly had known language relatives that became obsolete over the course of history.

A few type A language isolates include Korean, Basque (Spain), Ainu (Japan), Etruscan (Italic Peninsula, extinct), Sumerian (Mesopotamia, extinct), and Zuni (SW US).

Pirahã (Brazil), is the last surviving member of the Muran Language Family (and so it is a type B language isolate), and only has about 200 active daily speakers. I will reference this language in another post which I am scheming.

“Japanese” was once considered a language isolate. That was before the realization that Ryukyuan languages (such as Okinawan) are actually different languages from Japanese rather than a dialects of it, though they are still related (I will later post about how and why languages that are different from one another come to be considered different dialects of the same language, and why different dialects are sometimes considered different languages). So the umbrella term of “Japanese” has become the Japonic Language Family, a.k.a. the Japanese-Ryukyuan Language Family, to include Japanese and the sub-branch of Ryukyuan languages.

Some linguists believe Korean and Japonic Languages to be part of the Altaic Language Family (which includes the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungistic subgroups) but the general consensus is that they are isolates. This may also become another post for another time.

And as for the languages that have no known relatives in existence…where did they come from? From what were they derived? That is the mystery that continues to intrigue historical linguists but which no amount of research seems to resolve.