Sushma Subramanian, journalist and assistant professor in the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication, has published the story “My Forgotten Language” in the November issue of Discover Magazine. Her reported personal essay looks into the science behind how she lost the ability to speak her first language, Tamil, after moving to the United States as a child and being encouraged to only use English by teachers. She speaks to neuroscience researchers about how language is stored in the brain, why she retains the ability to understand but not speak in Tamil and what it might take to bring back the full range of her language abilities.
