If You Only Speak One Language, It Could Spell Bad News In Your Old Age

Could learning multiple languages be a secret weapon against the ravages of old age? C’est une possibilité.

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In a new study, researchers show how people who speak two or more languages have a decreased risk of accelerated aging – and the benefits of being multilingual increase with the number of languages spoken.

An international team of researchers studied data on 86,149 people aged 51–90 years from 27 countries in Europe. They found that people who speak only one language were approximately twice as likely to experience accelerated ageing, whereas multilingual individuals were on average about half as likely to do so.

So why does speaking multiple languages help people feel and act young? The hypothesis is that practising different languages helps to maintain neurological nimbleness, slowing both cognitive and physical decline. Like other known lifestyle factors that promote overall health in old age – such as strong social ties and regular physical activity – juggling multiple languages appears to be a particularly effective way to keep the brain buzzing and preserve long-term vitality.

However, the link isn’t perfectly clear and a number of factors could be at play. Perhaps, for example, cultures more inclined to learn multiple languages also tend to have healthier diets or more active social lives, while monolingual populations may be less socially engaged in later years.

It’s also notable that the study did distinguish between people who once studied another language in school and someone who master multiple languages in their everyday life.

That said, the researchers found that the protective effect of speaking multiple languages remained significant even when they adjusted for other factors, such as their age, their physical health, their physical environment, and their sociopolitical environment. It is also not the first study to connect multilingualism with better cognitive health in old age.

All of this is welcome news for much of the world, where 50 to 70 percent of people can speak more than one language. It’s less encouraging, though, for the English-speaking world, where the majority of people can only converse in their mother tongue. 

Furthermore, many predominantly English-speaking countries – including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland – are also confronting a looming demographic time bomb, with rapidly aging populations and healthcare systems increasingly strained by rising rates of cognitive decline. 

For these nations, starting to flex those little-used linguistic skills might be more important than ever.

"While we can’t determine exact figures, we know that 50-75 percent of the world’s population speaks more than one language. In other words, bilingualism and multilingualism are the norm internationally. And yet, most of those who speak English as a first language – again, up to 75 percent are monolingual, they only speak English. So, these results on the positive cognitive and health effects of bilingualism and multilingualism in any combination of languages as we age may come as a surprise to them,” Professor Stephen May, a linguist from the School of Māori and Indigenous Education at the University of Auckland, who was not involved in the study, commented.

These findings could help inform multiple policies for the well-being of the general population, ranging from public health to education, especially those with aging populations, the authors suggest.   

"In addition to the important enduring cognitive benefits in relation to ageing highlighted here, educational research over the last 80 years has also consistently highlighted the overall cognitive, social, and educational benefits of being bi/multilingual," May added. 

The study is published in the journal Nature Aging.