How come people that have amnesia forget all their memories but don't forget languages?

Question

How come people that have amnesia forget all their memories but don't forget languages?

Answer 1

Things like knowing how to speak a language, form large, self-sustaining neural networks. Think about it this way, skills are often a large system of  cognitive and motor abilities coupled with systems for determining if they are being executed properly. If partially damaged, these systems can often repair themselves, because both the governing and initiating systems are capable of checking and training one another.  A memory has nothing to check it against but itself, and an accepted model of reality. It's far easier to disrupt them. Also complex activities like speaking a language call upon many different regions of the brain, whereas the formation of memory from a combination of sight and sound really only takes place in one small lobe of the hippocampus.

Answer 2

ive always wondered that. or why they dont forget what everything is and how to do things. like what food is, how to eat. idk. good question.

Answer 3

Some people with amnesia do forget...

I worked in a ward that looked after these people (I am a nurse) and beleive it or not, some people do forget how to speak completly or may just forget say english if they moved here from say italy and may go back to speaking only italian it happends gradually though.

Also it is common for people to forget what to do with food, or forget what it feels like to need to use the bathroom, or even forget to walk..

Really really sad.

Answer 4

.你的那麼熱的嬰孩

  :]

Answer 5

i believe it's because language center and memory center are separate in the brain. amnesia affects the memory center.  

Answer 6

hm that is a good question! i now wanna look into that!!

Answer 7

IDK, but i have always wonder the same thing!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 8

because language is processed and stored in a different way than memories.

Answer 9

Because they don't forget everything. The don't forget who they are