wedge Posted January 12, 2012 at 05:18 AM Report Posted January 12, 2012 at 05:18 AM I saw this review of Babel No More, a book about hyperpolyglots (didn't read the actual book). It discusses lots of interesting points, including many that are debated on this forum. Among them: the author, in the process of doing his research, found it very difficult to verify modern claims of hyperpolyglotism. http://www.economist.com/node/21542170 The gift of tongues What makes some people learn language after language? Dec 31st 2011 Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners. By Michael Erard. Free Press; 306 pages; $25.99 CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI of Bologna was a secular saint. Though he never performed the kind of miracle needed to be officially canonised, his power was close to unearthly. Mezzofanti was said to speak 72 languages. Or 50. Or to have fully mastered 30. No one was certain of the true figure, but it was a lot. Visitors flocked from all corners of Europe to test him and came away stunned. He could switch between languages with ease. Two condemned prisoners were due to be executed, but no one knew their language to hear their confession. Mezzofanti learned it in a night, heard their sins the next morning and saved them from hell. 1 Quote
WestTexas Posted January 12, 2012 at 05:54 AM Report Posted January 12, 2012 at 05:54 AM Great review. So good that I feel like I've already read the book, and have no interest in looking into it further. Quote
roddy Posted January 12, 2012 at 09:51 AM Report Posted January 12, 2012 at 09:51 AM Edited the first post - please don't copy and paste in entire articles, a few selected quotes to comment on is fine. Quote
heliogabalo Posted January 12, 2012 at 10:16 AM Report Posted January 12, 2012 at 10:16 AM I would love to hear the formula to learn so many languages. I think we all know that after you learn your first foreign language, the rest comes easy as long as they have something in common, for example latin languages. But it's completely different if you want to approach Chinese! At least that's my opinion. I also heard about people with some kind of brain disorder with the side effect that they can learn some things like languages easer. Will some day be possible for us to insert a "program" into our brains and learn things on the spot like in Matrix? Who knows... Quote
Insula Formosa Posted January 12, 2012 at 03:33 PM Report Posted January 12, 2012 at 03:33 PM A polyglot in medieval Bologna. My bet is that a good part of his languages are Italian dialects and other Romance languages. Quote
roddy Posted January 12, 2012 at 03:38 PM Report Posted January 12, 2012 at 03:38 PM My bet is that he also played 38 under par first time he ever played golf. Quote
New Members timwatt Posted January 18, 2012 at 03:31 AM New Members Report Posted January 18, 2012 at 03:31 AM Actually, Mezzofanti spoke perfect Chinese (Kiang-si, Hu-quam)! Below is his language table: http://how-to-learn-...uage-table.html Quote
wushijiao Posted February 1, 2012 at 09:15 AM Report Posted February 1, 2012 at 09:15 AM You might want to check out this by Alexander Arguelles, who while giving the book a certain amount of praise, also tries to dispel some misperceptions that it has caused. Arguelles was in part this inspiration for my post "Some Thoughts on Polyglottery". Quote
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