True, true...

Punny...

In the human brain, the two areas which play a critical role in language are Broca's area and Wernicke's area. However, other areas are involved, as well, as the left hemisphere processes the linguistic meaning of prosody, while the right processes the emotions conveyed by prosody. Prosody is the rythm, stress, and intonation of connected speech, as opposed to smaller elements like syllables or words.

Broca's area is principally handles the more complex aspects of grammar, such as the difference between "the goat was kicked by Tom" and "the goat kicked Tom."

Wernicke's area is involved with both speech comprehension as well as in naming things.

Have they identified clearly different areas for language and mathematical analysis?

ETA: the question seems ambiguous. I mean are the areas for language clearly different to those for maths?

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There was a lot of bantering and flaming in our garden the other day.The barbeque was a nice focal point for everyone.

Sorry, we neither bothered to measure the juicy marinaded bits being flamed, nor did I keep any maths for it. Let's just say it cost a few bucks.

I could've referenced a paper on it, but re-cycling took priority and paper away.

yah, I meant to ask what the initials mean. Pardon my ignorance.
I keep thinking snabbt, snabbt; hurry, step on it...

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clear skies

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. CARL SAGAN

Mak: Pass the pepperoni please.
Fazor: "Hail, Bautainia! We pledge our hearts to thee! Science and woo, some babbling too, and astron-oh-meee!"
slang: And it made ash out of yew and tree.

If you replace "English" with "whatever bastar​dized version of the English languages is spoken in their neighborhood" and replace "fluent" with "can communicate verbally" you'd probably be closer.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

I couldn't agree more. Living on a foreign island which is a popular holiday destination for the English, the 'English' I hear is hardly ever what I would understand as the English language, but a very primitive degenerate part of it pronounced very often with some unpleasant accent. Some British accents are in fact impenetrable for me. Sorry if that sounds elitist, but I am actually appalled at the poor standard of language spoken by your 'average Brit', something I was not really aware of when living in the UK.

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Sources of Mathematical Thinking: Behavioral and Brain-Imaging Evidence ::: Abstract

This title returned by a Google search functional mri mathematics probably has much to say in the PDF document, but it's a stale link: Functional brain imaging study of mathematical reasoning abilities ...

Wait. The view as HTML (link probably fragile) is still working, and probably provides enough to locate it:

Oh, this might be enough:

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

Thing is, these "bastar​dized versions" of English have their own vocabulary and grammar, and their speakers are indeed fluent in that vocabulary and grammar, in the sense that it "flows easily and readily from the tongue" (to paraphrase the relevant definition from the OED).
And such "native speakers" would readily identify you and Perikles as being non-fluent in their style of English, because of your limited vocabulary and distorted grammar.

Grant Hutchison

Another example of correct usage was that very sentence that started "If someone were to ask me...", which is an example of the subjunctive tense. I don't know why I remember that from school (I only remember a few *formal* rules, but like you I seem to have a pretty good understanding of how to use English).

I have noticed that a sizable minority of people would have written "If someone was to ask me..." and it grates on me like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Rob

I'll quite readily admit that.

I would however say that I consider the ability to communicate in writing to be part of fluency and that would be where many would fail.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

A number countable in billions worldwide, I suspect. Indeed, entire languages have come and gone without a single record written by a native speaker. Was no-one ever fluent in these languages?

Grant Hutchison

It would depend on the language, but you really have to be able to write to be fluent in English, just as you need to be able to read, draw, and think pictures to be fluent in Geometry. You DO at least have to know that text message speak is not written English.

At one time, telegrams were a common mode of communication, and the charge was "per word". So, there was no advantage to writing "txt msg", but plenty of advantage of writing "tmessage", say. But as far as I know, kids didn't turn papers in to their teachers in telegraphese.

And those who communicate by radio, such as pilots, don't generally say, "Pass the Alpha wun steak sauce for my niner ounce steak".

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

I strongly disagree! Many people who're fluent in a language can neither read nor write it, yet they're often hired as translators in light of their fluency not only in one language, but in two or more.

I believe you're confusing "fluency," which is defined as "capable of using a language easily and accurately" with "literacy," which means "able to read and write."

If you were to replace your use of the terms "fluent/fluency" in your previously preceding posts with the terms "literate/literacy," I believe you'd be much closer to the mark.

I agree with mugaliens. Fluency means it flows; when you're speaking another language, the word you need comes to you as you need it - you don't keep saying "err, umm" as you struggle to remember the word for "lampshade".

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Nothing beautiful was ever made from gravel.

It is usually classified as a mood, one of the five attributes of a verb (number, person, voice, tense, mood).It grates on me too, but I would like to know whether this sizeable minority is in fact a majority these days, and I'm certain there are differences between UK and American in this respect. This is particularly interesting for me at present, learning Spanish and living in the back of beyond with locals who are, let's say, a long way from Madrid. Spanish has a very nicely developed subjunctive mood system which I can detect on TV and in books, but I can't detect it locally.

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Almost certainly and I don't think so. There isn't a difference in correctness between its use in British and American English, at least, though I'll admit my experiences with talking to British people in general are fewer and probably not representative.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Very observant, Henrik.


Accents are fine, as they go, Perikles, it's the use of grammar, or lack of, that hurts to hear. On the street, I mean.


edit:
oops...missed a page.
i mean comments at #89 and #90, page three
inserting links...why do i keep thinking periwinkles...every time i see your name...peri...?

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clear skies

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. CARL SAGAN

Mak: Pass the pepperoni please.
Fazor: "Hail, Bautainia! We pledge our hearts to thee! Science and woo, some babbling too, and astron-oh-meee!"
slang: And it made ash out of yew and tree.

Good grief - I never meant that any dialect or any accent was per se in for criticism. It was the lack of grammar or simple inability to express oneself which hurts. The trouble is, I perceive there to be a correlation between accent and just bad grammar or inability to express oneself, but I'm inhibited about expounding lest I get ticked off again by a moderator.

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Perhaps you meant 'kicked off'.

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Forming opinions as we speak

British idiom: "ticked off" meaning "scolded". In potentially embarrassing contrast to the meaning in US idiom.
A "ticking off" is a reprimand, in the UK.

Grant Hutchison

I did not know that. So what you are saying is that Perikles has a "simple inability to express oneself".

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

While being entirely fluent in his own idiom, yes.

Grant Hutchison

I believe it George Bernard Shaw who defined Americans and British as "two peoples separated by a common language".

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

From what I've encountered here and across the pond, it sometimes seems were a common people separated by two languages.

Nice one - I had no idea the expression was so idiomatic. But it highlights an interesting point about an internet forum. Whenever I am aware that I am amongst people who do not have English as a mother tongue (and I mean English English) I have always consciously avoided idiomatic expressions (after an embarrassing meeting with some Germans once who had fluent English but were baffled by my claim that their argument was a red herring). Not only that, I always tried to modify my English according to where I was in the U.K. On a forum such as this one, the rules of engagement appear undefined, because unlike other forums (or fora) it does not appear to have an overwhelming flavour of a particular brand of English. Often, the only clue to a poster's origin is 'incorrect' spelling of a common word.

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The particular danger is when the same phrase has different idiomatic usages, as in the case of "ticked off": an American reader thinks you're saying that a moderator has made you angry, rather than that a moderator has reprimanded you.
There are others: one that the nanny software renders as a string of asterisks, which means "drunk" in British English and "angry" in American English. And then there's the classic "to knock up", which means "to waken by knocking on the door" in British English, and "to make pregnant" in American English. I have an Australian colleague who uses "knocked up" to mean "tired out" or "ill", and I have no idea of the regional affiliations of "to knock up" meaning "to hastily assemble".

Grant Hutchison

You may remember William F. Buckley, Jr., who seemed to speak English at a higher level than most of than most of the people with whom he argued. (In any event, he used bigger words.) Well, I read that he effectively learned English as a second language. He picked up Spanish first because his nanny spoke it (he was a rich kid).

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Later . . .

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Dialect can be a severe barrier to communication. When watching BBC or ABC reporters give the news, they speak in a non dialectical voice (? flat affect?)intentionally so as to communicate with the widest audience. Culturally induced dialects between two groups can cause distrust and rancor that can lead to the perception or reality of discrimination. There was a recent story in the news about a group of children of one ethnicity using a swimming pool that was of a different social group. Problems with the parents arose. A candid interview was given by one of the distressed parents. The parent expressed concern over his child "picking up" the vernacular of the other group. There was no concern amongst the parents of the other group of their children being exposed to the other dialect because it was common to experience both dialects in their environment. They just wanted equal access to the pool. The clash was primarily one of cultural language differentiating the two groups whose distinction was then relegated to a visual rather than a vocal cause. Whose fluency is correct? I do not have a solution.

The language of science used to be Latin. Communication was primarily written with the commonality of "tongue" fascillitating the spread of ideas. Now the language of science is English. The written form is non dialectical.

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(By the way, I hate it that so many papers in the areas of planetary science and geology are not easily available to the dreaded "non-subscribers". It is like they are screaming at me: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH". Good, I feel better now.)

"Quaerendo inventis"

I have firsthand experience of this. At the age of six my family moved from the south coast of England to Yorkshire. I was beaten up at school for 'talking posh' and I got into big trouble at home for adopting a Yorkshire accent. (It is a rather tender age for someone to conclude the world was insane, but experiences in the following half century have merely confirmed this view.) Anyway, my solution to the problem was simply not to speak much for a decade, after which I usually adopted the accent of whomever I was with, which was not always taken as a compliment.

Of course, Latin was used for any specialised area such as Law or the Catholic Church. Also, academic papers in the humanities as well, even into the 20th century.

By the way, in academic circles, someone used to be literate if they were fluent in Latin and Greek, and semi-literate if they had Latin but no Greek.

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