National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Genes May Influence Language Learning, Study Suggests


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Ma? If you are learning Mandarin Chinese, you'd better mind your tone: "ma" can mean both "mother" and "horse" depending on your inflection.

New research shows a possible link between people's genes and their abilities to learn tonal languages such as Mandarin versus nontonal languages such as English.

Photograph by Ian C. Martin/NGS