Language and math

Thinking and speech go together. They influence one another. Linguistic structures influence the structures of our thinking. In some languages, for example, there are no words for numbers. The speakers do not understand the concept of numbers. So math and language also go together in some way. Grammatical and mathematical structures are often similar. Some researchers believe that they are also processed similarly. They believe that the speech centre is also responsible for math. It can help the brain to perform calculations. Recent studies are coming to another conclusion, however. They show that our brain processes math without speech. Researchers studied three men. The brains of these test subjects were injured. As a result, the speech centre was also damaged. The men had big problems with speaking. They could no longer formulate simple sentences. They couldn't understand words either. After the speech test the men had to solve math problems. A few of these mathematical puzzles were very complex. Even so, the test subjects could solve them! The results of this study are very interesting. They show that math is not encoded with words. It's possible that language and math have the same basis. Both are processed from the same centre. But math doesn't have to be translated into speech first. Perhaps language and math develop together too... Then when the brain has finished developing, they exist separately!

Guess the language!

Slovakian is counted among the West Slavic languages. It is the native language of more than 5 million people. It is very closely related to the neighboring Czech. This is due to their mutual past in former Czechoslovakia. The vocabulary of the two languages is largely identical. The differences are primarily in the phonology. Slovakian emerged in the 10th century in the form of multiple dialects. It was then influenced by neighboring languages over a long period of time.

Today's standard language was not established until the 19th century. Some elements could thus be simplified compared to those in Czech. The many different dialects have been upheld until today though. Slovakian is written with the Latin alphabet. And it is the language that is easiest to understand for other Slavic speakers. It could be said that Slovakian is a type of intermediate language in the Slavic region. This is a good reason to grapple with this beautiful language.