#and I'm always happy to talk about neurolinguistics so *vibrates in excitement*

[kyoupann]

You mentioned language/writing disorders in your handwriting headcanons. I'm curious about them since I know very little about those disorders [I only know a bit about dyslexia cuz my cousin has it]. Would you mind talking about them? Please and thank you.

I’m more than happy to share these language headcanons with y’all!! c:

For now, I’ll just address the two disorders I mentioned here, aphasia and agraphia

Quick disclaimer: I am not a professional and I’m very much still learning about language disorders. To be fair, it’s been only about a year and a half since I found out aphasia existed at all. All my knowledge on these disorders come from a couple of classes in my applied linguistics and phonetics courses and my own research. I encourage everyone interested in incorporating any type of condition into their writing to do your own research as I’m sure you’ll find better explanations than mine out there <3

I love seeing everyone’s take on Link’s lack of speech. I’ve seen people writing Link as hard of hearing, mute, autistic and all of them are amazing ideas that I’m sure represent many people in the fandom. However, I have yet to find someone who has attributed him a specific language disorder (and if you know of anyone, please let me know!!!)

Funnily enough, I haven’t played BoTW yet my headcanons are for that Link

My language headcanons for Wild (in both LU and general LoZ)

If the shrine could cause him total memory loss, or amnesia, I consider it very plausible that other areas of his brain were affected as well. After all, he died and his brain must have been inactive for quite a few minutes which is obviously big yikes in any situation. So, inactivity/damage in the brain = possible language disorder/expressive aphasia

               Language disorders are, basically, of two kinds: those which affect comprehension speech and those which affect production of speech. For Wild’s case we are of course looking at the latter. There are two areas in the brain that are responsible for language: Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area. Wernicke’s area is involved in the comprehension of language (both written and spoken), while Broca’s is responsible for the production of language. Damage to either one of these parts is likely to result in one type of aphasia.

               Aphasia is the loss of language comprehension and production due to damage in one area of the brain. Common causes are strokes and head trauma. There are many types of aphasia but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just focus on Broca’s aphasia or Expressive aphasia, which is the specific condition I headcanon Wild to have.

               Although its name is a bit confusing, Expressive aphasia prevents Wild from creating complete sentences. He would be able to speak, but his sentences would mostly consist of words with meaning (horse, house, beautiful) and will be missing articles and prepositions (the, this, a, on); he wouldn’t be able to create grammatically correct sentences, his speech would be slow and something like:  morning….uh…I…er…first… uh…. Apple… apple… er…. Eat... (The first thing I ate in the morning was an apple).

               The biggest issue is that expressive aphasia doesn’t affect language comprehension as much as it affects production. Wild could be able to understand written and spoken language with mild limitations (can read simple sentences but might have problems with indirect speech and multiple-subject sentences) And I say biggest issue because most patients with aphasia are aware of their struggles. Their intelligend is unaffected. Wild would be very aware that he is missing some words. This often leads to feelings of frustration and insecurity.

Think of expressive aphasia as “I know the word for it, but I cannot remember what it is” but… for most of your vocabulary.

               However, aphasia can be ‘treated’ with speech therapy. Language will not be the same as before, but it can get better. And there are many cases of people with aphasia using sign language as means of communication because gestures are produced/perceived by a brain area different to language areas! So, Wild would prefer to be mostly silent and use sign language to communicate with strangers, but would feel more comfortable speaking with close friends like Zelda and Twi, who he knows will be patient with him so he doesn’t have to worry about taking long to remember words.

               The other language disorder I mentioned was apraxia, but I meant to write agraphia. However, it is still relatively new to me and I haven’t had the chance to find enough material to work with, so I’m still not sure if I’ll ever really to commit to this headcanon.

But long story short, agraphia often appears with other disorders (like aphasia), there are so many types of agraphia! some affect the movement areas while others affect language areas in the brain. When there is no sign of other disorders it’s called pure agraphia and it’s the inability to write while still being able to read and speak. People with agraphia might have problems sounding out words, making sound-to-letter connections and they sometimes heavily rely on their orthographic memory for writing which results in frequent spelling errors.

As for Wind, I’ve been considering either agraphia or aphasia for him as well since he has been thrown against walls enough times, hard enough to cause at least some concussions :( that battle with Ganondorf? Yikes! But since he is young ™, he has a greater chance at easily strengthening his remaining language skills, they will not be on the same level as kids his age, but there’s the possibility of getting better than Wild with less difficulty.

So, tldr:

Broca’s Aphasia: loss of language production, can understand with mild difficulties but has problems coming up with complete sentences and speech is robot-like.

Agraphia: loss of the ability to write due to either damage to motor areas or language areas in the brain. Can read and speak with mild difficulties but has problems producing written language.

I definitely didn’t expect this to be so long 😂 I’m sorry! I hope I was clear 😞 still, I had a good time writing this since I never had the opportunity during my classes, so thank you so much for asking, Silver!! 💛💛

If you got this far, then you might want to be check my handwriting headcanons. If you have a hc about language/culture (or any type, tbh), feel free to share them with me anytime! I’d love to read them!!! 💛

#linkeduniverse #linked universe #silverdragonms #ask #silver #lu headcanons #lu wind #lu wild #I'll probably have to edit this later #ksksksk #thanks for asking silver #this helped me reconsider many things #and assess my understanding of the conditions #it was a good practice! c: #and I'm always happy to talk about neurolinguistics so *vibrates in excitement*