Stroke sufferers often lose the (ability) to speak or remember events, but how difficult or easy it is to re-learn language can (depend )on which part of the brain was affected by the stroke and which language is being learnt.
Professor Anthony Kong from the University of Central Florida (noticed) this when working in Singapore. He found a big (difference) in stroke patients' symptoms depending on whether they spoke English or Chinese.
Professor Kong
'In Chinese there is a (higher) portion of right hemisphere (activation), in terms of processing the language, and this (contrasts) with English or other Latin based languages in which most of the activations are on the left side of the brain.'
He says brain (imaging) techniques show tonal languages, such as Chinese, make more use of the right side of the brain, whereas the (processing) for Latin based languages, such as English, tends to (occur) in the left side. This means for Chinese speakers, most of the medical research on re-learning language after a (stroke) may not be relevant to them, as it comes from investigations with English (speakers).
Professor Kong is now about to start the first Chinese (specific) research project on the way brain damage affects speech. He hopes this will lead to better after stroke therapy for speakers of Chinese and other tonal languages.
Julian Siddle, BBC