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Daniel Tammet’s amazing mind | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 19 11 March 2009 at 3:31pm | IP Logged |
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There are two factors to take into account in this discussion, one is Tammett's synaesthesia, the other (the one mentioned by TheBiscuit) the question of missing filters.
Being synaesthetic should give him a possibility to form some associations that others wouldn't consider (or even discover). Maybe it gives him a slight edge, but I don't think it is a decisive factor. However in the first thread there was a link to a video, where he told about his way of seeing numbers - not as single items to be calculated and maybe learnt by heart, but rather as global shapes. I have not seen an equally clear reference to this when he speaks about languages, though his talk about a special logic in (for instance) the German language could point in that direction. Seeing global shapes would drastically change the enumeration of things to be learnt, just as being able to remember melodies changes the basic task of remembering a lot of notes. The other factor, i.e. the absence of certain filtres, is a common theme when speaking about savants. The idea is that most people actually don't remember the things they see and hear, but rather an elaboration on the things they see and hear. If you see a town, most of us focus on a few houses and start thinking about the inhabitants, out last lunch, how that house there would look if painted green and so on, - so when we are asked later to reecall the view we actually can't remember what it looked like. So being able NOT to think about your impressions actually saves them from destruction, and it is stated that some savants are fairly close to this - in the extreme form this skill would give you the socalled eidetic memory, but it has been shown that even savants with supposedly photographic memory to some extent interpret their impresions, just less than other persons. I have actually not seen any statements that Tammett is extreme in this respect, but being able to remember words and phrases just slightly better than the average would be an important asset for any language learner. Edited by Iversen on 11 March 2009 at 11:58pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Gamma Octoglot Groupie Brazil Joined 6942 days ago 82 posts - 85 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, English, GermanC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Icelandic, Dutch | Message 18 of 19 12 March 2009 at 11:15pm | IP Logged |
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Icelandic and German are friendly sweet-as-sugar languages.
Truly interesting would be instead to test Tammet's powerful brain plasticity through a one-week exposure to the Greenlandic language - just to point out an example -, if he is looking for a minimally serious opponent among the occidental language families for his challenge. Edited by Gamma on 12 March 2009 at 11:25pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| judesanti Triglot Newbie BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5986 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: French Studies: Mandarin, Portuguese*, English Studies: Italian | Message 19 of 19 28 February 2012 at 8:42pm | IP Logged |
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Gamma, I totally agree.
It is obvious that we are not underestimating Tammet's power, and neither icelandic''s complexity. But it would be inspiring to watch Tammet tamming this untamable language. What do you think? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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