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LIFE OF CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI
Home > Mezzofanti > Biography > 1843-1849 > Other languages

and both from that of the Island of Majorca." We have already seen that, at a very early period of his life, he studied the Mexican, Peruvian, and other languages of Spanish America. That he spoke both Mexican and Peruvian after he came to Rome, Cardinal Wiseman has no doubt. He is also stated to have learned something of the languages of Oceanica from Bishop Pompalier, of New Zealand. I may add here, though I have failed in finding native wit¬nesses, that it is the universal belief in Rome that he spoke well both ancient and modern Chaldee, and ancient Coptic, as also the modern dialect of Egypt. He had the repute also of being thoroughly familiar with both branches of the Illyrian family—the Slavonic and the Romanic. To the testimonies already borne to his skill in Armenian and Turkish, I must add that of the Mechitarist, Father Raphael Trenz, Superior of the Armenian College in Paris, who knew him in 1846. "Having conversed with his Eminence," writes this father, "in ancient and in modern Armenian, and also in Turkish, I am able to attest that he spoke and pronounced them all with the purity and propriety of a native of these countries."

Perhaps also, although we have had many notices of his skill in Russian and Polish from a very early period, it may be satisfactory to subjoin the reports of one or two travellers who conversed with him in these languages during his latter years.




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