The Words We Use

Imagine you are lying quietly in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine, listening to a woman recite lines from the children's book The Little Prince on headphones as the MRI thumps gently around your head, measuring your brain activity: "It is only in the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye," the voice says softly in Spanish, then in Hungarian. Then the voice calmly recites a series of nonsense words.

Now imagine you are a dog.

Attila Andics, head of the Department of Ethology (the study of animals) at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary, and neuroethologist Laura Cuaya designed the study to determine where and how canine brains react when exposed to varying languages -- from familiar to unfamiliar to gobbledygook. The result? Andics and Cuaya determined that dogs indeed can recognize different languages and scrambled speech, as unique areas of the brain lit up when a known language was spoken versus an unknown, and different brain patterns emerged when the words were nonsense.

"This is the first nonprimate species for which we could show spontaneous language ability -- the first time we could localize it and see where in the brain this combination of two languages takes place," Andics said.

The team gathered five golden retrievers, six border collies, two Australian shepherds, one labradoodle, one cocker spaniel, and three mutts for the experiment. For some, Spanish was their familiar language, and for others, Hungarian. According to Cuaya, the dogs' owners were present and the dogs were "comfortable and happy" throughout. "It's important to mention that all the dogs [were] free to leave the scanner at any point," she said.

While previous studies have proven that our tone as we speak to dogs is important in conveying meaning, this study expanded that understanding to include the words themselves: "We saw that some words are indeed processed independently of intonation," Andics said. "Both how we say it and what we say matters. It is actually a very exciting follow-up research question whether the thousands of years of domestication gave dogs some advantage for speech processing."

Now imagine you are a nonbeliever. Or someone who has been hurt by the church. Or someone who is wary of all things Christian. How will you experience the words of a Christian who is sharing Jesus' promises? What intonations will you hear, and what words will make little sense to you?

I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. -- John 16:33

As you move through your week, consider those around you who need a word of hope or joy. What will you say, and how will you say it? What would Jesus say to them, and how would He say it?

While we tend to assume that everyone around us experiences the world just as we do, that is rarely the case -- particularly when we come from ideologically different places. Our communities are hurting this week as the virus spreads and life feels uncertain all over again. How can you speak peace into the unrest that reverberates around us?

May the Lord bless you with hope and health this week,

Jennie