Mother Tongue

Languages are stored in separate areas in the brain of bilingual people,which means that different groups of neurons are used to generate each language.This prevents the two languages from interfering with one another.Damage to one area of the brain can result in the complete loss of one language,while the other remains intact.The brain treats a second language learned later in life differently from the mother tongue.A language that has been absorbed from infancy has wider and more intense associations than a second language,so the brain is more active when the person reads in the mother tongue than in any other language.