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* [[Janet Hsieh]], an American-Taiwanese television host and violinist who is fluent in American English, Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien, Spanish, and French.<ref>{{cite web|title=But I speak only five languages|url=http://justwoman.asiaone.com/Just%2BWoman/News/Celebrities/Story/A1Story20080603-68705.html|work=asianone just woman (from The Strait Times)|publisher=Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. Co|accessdate=13 May 2013|author=Bernard Koh|date=2|month=June|year=2008}}</ref>
* [[Janet Hsieh]], an American-Taiwanese television host and violinist who is fluent in American English, Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien, Spanish, and French.<ref>{{cite web|title=But I speak only five languages|url=http://justwoman.asiaone.com/Just%2BWoman/News/Celebrities/Story/A1Story20080603-68705.html|work=asianone just woman (from The Strait Times)|publisher=Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. Co|accessdate=13 May 2013|author=Bernard Koh|date=2|month=June|year=2008}}</ref>

* [[Angel Chou]], originally from Taiwan, is fluent in Taiwanese, Mandarin, English, Japanese, Korean, and could speak a bit French. She finished her high school in New Zealand. After she graduated from her high school, she spent a year in Japan and studied Japanese, and then studied English literature in Auckland University. She then went to Korea for studying Korean for few months and could already speak fluently.


===European===
===European===

Revision as of 12:46, 25 June 2013

Polyglotism is a term for a person who can master numerous languages. Multilingual is a word with a similar meaning.

Origin

Richard Hudson, professor emeritus of linguistics at University College London, coined the term "hyperpolyglot" for a person who can speak six or more languages fluently.[1]

Theories

Numerous theories exist as explanations for polyglotism. For example, it has been recognized that someone who is interested in languages, with a sufficiently developed intellect, and who optimizes his/her learning technique with experience, will become increasingly efficient as each new language is learned; therefore, such an individual is able to master new languages with less effort than the average person. Also, different languages overlap in the areas of grammar and vocabulary, and this makes it easier to acquire connected languages, such as English and French words (the overlap is much smaller between English and German, and other Germanic languages).

One theory suggests that a spike in a baby's testosterone levels while in the uterus can increase brain asymmetry,[2] while others have suggested that hard work and the right type of motivation—which any adult can apply—are the key factors of polyglotism.[3] Neuroscientist Katrin Amunts studied the brain of German polyglot Emil Krebs and determined that the area of Krebs' brain that was responsible for language—the Broca's area—was organised differently in comparison to the brains of monolinguals.[citation needed]

Objective criteria

Due to the advent of computers, linguists obtained a better understanding of what it can mean to "know a language". It is estimated that the most frequently used 2000 words—in all or most of their multiple senses—cover approximately seventy-five to eighty percent of a general text in English and other European languages; such a limited vocabulary also allows one to express more complicated concepts, whereby they are described by means of circumlocutions (e.g. as a rule, 30,000 to 50,000 words in modern English learner's dictionaries are defined with merely 2000 to 3000 defining vocabulary words). On the other hand, a native speaker with an American college education may possess a 25,000- to 30,000-word passive vocabulary—of which various parts can be activated—that increases to possibly 50,000 words, or more, by the age of fifty to sixty years.[citation needed]

It is therefore difficult to objectively judge many claims of polyglotism, as what is ostensibly "fluent speech" can be achieved with the assertive use of a very limited general-purpose or specialized vocabulary.[citation needed]

Notable living polyglots

African

  • Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, a Ghanaian cardinal of the Catholic Church is able to speak English, Fante, French, Italian, German, and Hebrew, in addition to understanding Latin and Greek.[4]
  • Dikembe Mutombo, a former NBA player, is able to speak English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Tshiluba, Swahili, Lingala, and two other central African languages.[5]
  • Graça Machel, wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela and widow of Mozambican president Samora Machel, is fluent in seven languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and her native Tsonga. Machel is the only woman in the world to have served as the First Lady of two different countries: The First Lady of Mozambique, from 1975 to 1986, and the First Lady of South Africa, from 1998 to 1999.[citation needed]

North American

  • Alexander Arguelles, an American scholar of foreign languages who can read and fluently speak approximately thirty-six languages.[8]
  • Timothy Doner, a sixteen-year-old student, was featured in the New York Times for his ability to speak over twenty languages, including: English, French, Hausa, Wolof, Russian, German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Arabic, Pashto, Farsi, Chinese, Italian, Turkish, Indonesian, Dutch, Xhosa, Swahili, Hindi and Ojibwe.[11]
  • Carlos Diaz, a seventeen-year-old student, Youth Delegate of the United Stated of America, and a passionate polyglot. Language capabilities, include: Spanish, English, French, ASL (American Sign Language), and learning Italian, Arabic, and Portuguese. As Distinguished Delegate of the United States he is able to combine his language expertise to global and political applications and resolutions. [12]
  • Steve Kaufmann, former Canadian diplomat and cofounder of The Linguist Institute language company,[13][14] can speak eleven languages: English, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, Swedish, German, Italian, Cantonese, Russian, and Portuguese. As of January 2012, Kaufmann was learning Korean and Czech.[15]

South American

  • Jô Soares, Brazilian comedian, talk show host, author, theatrical producer, director, actor, painter and musician, can speak five languages, including English and his native Portuguese.[16]

Asian

  • Janice Vidal, a singer in Hong Kong, is of mixed parentage, with a Filipino father and a Chinese Korean mother. The majority of her songs are sung in Cantonese and English, but she also sings in Mandarin and Japanese, and she also speaks Tagalog and Korean after lessons with her parents.[citation needed]
  • Janet Hsieh, an American-Taiwanese television host and violinist who is fluent in American English, Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien, Spanish, and French.[22]

European

  • Bulcsú László, a Croatian linguist, writer, translator, information scientist and accentologist, speaks more then 40 languages, including Akkadian, Hittite, Sumerian, Sanskrit... among English, French, German, Latin...[23]
  • Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian philosopher, cultural critic and translator, speaks Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, French, German, and speaks English with a heavy and overpowering Slovene-language accent which inhibits some English from being understood. He also has basic knowledge of Italian.
  • Claudio Castagnoli, also known by his pseudonym "Antonio Cesaro", is a Swiss professional wrestler who is fluent in five languages: English, German, Italian, French, and Romansh. As a gimmick, he conducts interviews or speaks publicly in different languages.[24]
  • Alberto Arrighini, a young polyglot who lives in Brescia, a city close to Milan. Combining his passion of personal development and language learning, he has managed to speak English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Romanian. He has continued in his passion and developed a language learning website for Italian and is always looking for ways to make language learning more simple.[25] [26]
  • Daniel Tammet, British writer, essayist, and autistic savant, reportedly learned ten languages, including Romanian, Gaelic, Welsh, and Icelandic—the latter was learned by Tammet in a week for the purpose of a television documentary[27]
  • D. J. Mbenga, a Belgian basketball player who played in the NBA, can speak English, French, Lingala, Portuguese, and Tshiluba.[28]
  • Roy Hodgson, a football manager, speaks fluent English, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Swedish, as well as some Danish, Finnish, and French, despite having a rhotacism speech impediment.[citation needed]
  • Farin Urlaub, guitarist, singer and leader of German punk rock band Die Ärzte, speaks seven languages: German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Japanese, and Italian.[citation needed]

Notable dead reputed polyglots

In certain cases, claims of polyglotism cannot be confirmed for deceased individuals, and little or unverifiable evidence must be relied upon. The following list consists of deceased individuals who are associated with claims of polyglotism, by year of birth:

Polyglot savant

Savants are typically individuals with serious mental disabilities who demonstrate profound and prodigious capacities and/or abilities far in excess of what would be considered normal,[53][54] including the capacity for languages.

A well-known case of a polyglot savant is that of "Christopher", who participated in studies with Dr. Neil Smith, Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli, and Jamal Ouhalla. Christopher is fluent in approximately sixteen languages and possesses the capacity to acquire new languages very easily. Researchers taught him new languages, controlling the methods and exposure, so that they could study his language-learning process and extrapolate the results to determine how most people acquire languages. Christopher was taught two completely new languages: Berber language is a real language spoken in Africa, while Epun is an invented language. Some of Epun’s structures and rules were made to violate the parameters of universal grammar, which are hypothesized to underlie all human languages. Christopher was able to learn Berber as easily as he could any other foreign language, but had difficulties learning Epun. For example, he had trouble processing sentences structures that weren’t in the S-V-O order. This provided further evidence for the theory that there is a Universal grammar shared by all human languages which defines what is linguistically possible (in terms of word order, syntax, structure, etc.). The researchers applied what they discovered from studying how Christopher learned Berber and Epun to the general process of acquiring an L2 (a language that it is non-native). They conclude that L2 learning consists of transferring familiar rules from one’s L1 (native language) to the new language system and of applying the principles of universal grammar.

This research demonstrates the hope that studying how extraordinary individuals, such as polyglot savants, will help reveal how humans in general acquire languages.[55]

Christopher learned languages by quickly "devouring" introductory self-teaching books, interacting with native speakers, and receiving explicit instructions. Another remarkable capability that Christopher possesses is one similar to that of professional linguists. He can identify languages just by looking at their written form, although he cannot speak or translate them. For example, Christopher correctly identified Bengali, Chinese, Czech, Gujarati, Icelandic, just to name a few, when shown examples of these languages. This is especially interesting because these languages are from a range, both genetically and typologically. Also, they are written in many different scripts.[56][dead link]

While polyglot savants such as Emil Krebs may have anatomical or biological differences that allow them to organize language in a different and more efficient manner, it has also been suggested that the entire language acquisition process for polyglot savants is different than the process most humans undergo. It has been proposed that these individuals with unparalleled linguistic abilities undergo the same first language acquisition process over and over again with each new language. Because they are able to consciously or unconsciously learn the pragmatics, grammar, syntax, etc. of a language as if they were learning a language for the first time they are able to acquire it as proficiently as a native speaker. Most humans allow the grammar of previously learned languages affect and influence their ability to learn a second, third, etc. language. This is an issue that these polyglot savants do not struggle with. This ability may be tied directly to how these individuals organize Broca’s area of the brain however; their learning abilities for languages are unparalleled and still not 100% understood to this day.[57]

There is still much research that needs to be done regarding the mechanisms through which polyglot savants acquire language. Although it is apparent that polyglot savants, such as Christopher, have amazing linguistic abilities, quite often, their general intellectual ability is impaired. Poor hand-eye coordination, weak problem solving abilities, and social and conversational problems, make every day tasks very difficult for Christopher. This, paired with his incredible ability to process languages, demonstrates the fact that there is still much to learn about the nature of learning new tasks, and how it ties in with learning new languages.[57]

See also

Polymath

References

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Further reading

  • Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners. By Michael Erard. Free Press; 306 pages. ISBN 978-1-4516-2825-8
  • "Adventures of a Polyglot: My Life in Two Worlds". By Giovanna S. Phillips. iUniverse; 248 pages. ISBN 978-0-5953-9994-9

External links