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Christopher Taylor - 20+ language savant | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6864 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 1 of 3 19 December 2011 at 1:13am | IP Logged |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFi7BXTGqJ8
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| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5728 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 2 of 3 19 December 2011 at 9:56pm | IP Logged |
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There’s a book by Smith & Tsimpli from 1995 called “The Mind of a Savant: Language Learning and Modularity.” This excerpt is from the textbook “Introduction to Language” seventh edition, by Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams. His last name is not given in the textbook, though, but it sounds like him.
From page 50: Christopher has a nonverbal IQ between 60 and 70 and must live in an institution because he is unable to take care of himself. The tasks of buttoning a shirt, cutting his fingernails, or vacuuming the carpet are too difficult for him. However, linguists find that his “linguistic competence in his first language is as rich and sophisticated as that of any native speaker.” Furthermore, when given written texts in some fifteen to twenty languages, he translates them quickly, with few errors, into English. The languages include Germanic languages such as Danish, Dutch, and German; Romance languages such as French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish; as well as Polish, Finnish, Greek, Hindi, Turkish, and Welsh. He learned these languages from native speakers who used them in his presence, or from grammar books. Christopher loves to study and learn languages. Little else is of interest to him. His situation strongly suggests that his linguistic ability is independent of his general intellectual ability. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5846 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 3 22 January 2012 at 1:31pm | IP Logged |
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About Christopher Taylor - who lives in the UK - I found an interesting press article written in German on the website of the magazine "Focus online". By the way, he was born in 1963, so he is two years younger than I am.
Inselbegabung: Das Sprachgenie Christopher Taylor Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 22 January 2012 at 1:36pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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