What it’s like when you learn languages with synesthesia

All the letters are different colours

Photo by Amador Loureiro on Unsplash

Χαιρετε! That word, that opening, means ‘greetings’ in Ancient Greek. I do notice that most of the letters I’ve read from Greeks themselves often use the infinitive. I should probably start my newsletters with ‘To readers, friends, family, χαιρειν. Today’s post is all about Ancient Greek, learning it, and what it’s like to learn it when you have synaesthesia. There will be smatterings of Greek words and letters, but if you don’t know Greek, fear not! There won’t be many, and hopefully it’ll be interesting anyway.

Let’s start with synaesthesia (or synesthesia, if you’re in the States). It’s a strange, not-very-well-understood condition that comes from (we think) activities in the brain in utero, when the connections between the different areas that are supposed to process senses get pruned. We start off with a lot of connections, and they are gradually whittled down so that when we see, that’s processed in the visual cortex, and when we smell, that’s handled by the bit that does scent.

Except in synaesthetes, this seems not to happen, or happen unreliably. Most commonly, synaesthetes end up with extra senses being routed through vision. Sometimes, though, people get more unusual effects, being able to taste words or colours. My own synaesthesia is colour-based…