Hyderabadi
culture is interpreted in different ways by different people. In the
pop culture of today, the city stands for Hyderabadi Biryani, pearls and
Charminar. For the upwardly mobile, it is the place for opportunity and
growth. Bollywood loves the city for its typical lingua franca – the
Hyderabadi. People coming from North India don’t feel out of place
because it is not ‘deeply southern’. Hyderabad is perhaps all this and
much more. It is difficult to capture the essence of Hyderabad in one
word or one sentence.
The best one can get near a definition of
Hyderabadi culture is ‘Ganga-jamuni tahzeeb’, which connotes synthesis
of different cultures. Hyderabad is truly a melting pot of cultures and
languages. Besides Telugu and Urdu, we can find a large number of people
who speak Marathi, Kannada and Tamil. For anyone who has grown up in
Hyderabad in the 1960s and the 1970s, knowledge of multiple languages
became part of the growing up process. Those days it was not difficult
to find elders who had studied in Osmania University or the City College
in an era when the medium of instruction was Urdu. In lanes and bylanes
of Kothi and Badi Chawadi you could hear people talking in Marathi.
Further down towards Kachiguda, you could do with smattering of Kannada.
Still these languages were not spoken in their pure forms but had a
tinge of Hyderabadi. The city truly represented the heart of Deccan.
Multilingualism is the most precious heritage of the Hyderabadi or
Deccani culture and it needs to be preserved for reasons other than
historical or nostalgic as well. For many years now, Western scientists
have been pointing to the important role knowledge of more than one
language plays in certain cognitive functions which are critical in
onset of dementias. A study published by scientists from York University
last year had explained how speaking more than one language may
translate into better mental health. It found that being bilingual can
offer protection from symptoms of dementia. Previous studies had
established that bilingualism has a beneficial effect on cognitive
development in children, but this one found out the same is true in
adults.Now it is heartening to see similar work done by Indian
scientists and that too from Hyderabad, which provides a perfect
cultural backdrop for multilingualism.
Scientists from Nizam's
Institute of Medical Sciences, working with researchers from the
University of Edinburgh, have found that people who speak more than one
language and who develop dementia tend to do so up to five years later
than people who speak just one language. They examined almost 650
dementia patients and assessed when each one had been diagnosed with the
condition. They found that people who spoke two or more languages
experienced a later onset of Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia and
frontotemporal dementia. Significantly, the bilingual advantage extended
to illiterate people who had not attended school. This means formal
education does not make a difference in language learning and its
beneficial impact. The impact of bilingualism on the onset of dementia
was tested after accounting for other influencing factors like
education, gender, occupation and whether they live in a city or in
rural areas.
Juggling languages means switching between sounds,
words, concepts, grammatical structures and social norms. This acts
like a natural training programme for our brain and scientists say that
it is more effective than any artificial brain training programme.
Lifelong experience in managing attention to two languages activates or
reorganizes specific brain networks. This, in turn, results in effective
ways for executive control and sustaining better cognitive performance
throughout the lifespan. In a way, a multilingual brain is uniquely
shaped and differently networked.
Another recent study by
American linguists had found that people adept at speaking more
languages also possess multi-tasking skills because they are able to
mentally negotiate between languages. Multi-lingual persons appear to
have special switching skills, when it comes to choice of language at
any given time. They can effectively negotiate through competition of
languages. The language selection – or code switching in scientific
parlance - is actually considered a form of mental exercise. New
research has demolished past theories of linguists that learning
multiple languages hinders cognitive development in children or that
multilingual adults have difficulty switching between languages.
With changing lifestyles and increasing lifespan, India is seeing the
rise of dementias. Perhaps it is time to look back. The comment made by
Thomas Bak of University of Edinburgh, who collaborated with Suvarna
Alladi of NIMS for the study, is eye opening. He says that bilingualism
might have a stronger influence on dementia that any currently available
drugs. It is time to say cheers to good old Hyderabadi culture and
embrace it for the sake of our brains.
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Dinesh C Sharma,The writer can be reached at dineshcsharma@gmail.com- Metro india
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