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Are You A Polyglot And Why (Not)? | ||
Tags: Scientific Research | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6870 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 9 of 32 09 November 2008 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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1. Doesn't apply to me.
2. I am not yet a polyglot, as I can speak well only English, German, and Spanish, in that order so far. 3. Like Volte, I agree that number has more to do with polyglot than "impressiveness". And for that reason, I also agree that it doesn't matter much whether the languages are closely related or not. For me, "polyglot" means only a person who speaks a fair number of languages well. The accent, grammar, and vocabulary do not need to be perfect but I think they should be certainly fluent in terms of being able to understand and produce the given languages at a level that would get a person through the cultures without them needing to rely on their native language or an interpreter. I also think that they should sound educated in the language and be able to read or converse for an extended length of time. I know that a lot of that is rather vague, but basically I think the person should be comfortable and knowledgeable in how it is used. I have always considered 5 languages to count as being a polyglot, although I realize that my reason for settling on this number is kind of silly. 1, 2, and 3 languages is simply too low to count as "many", 4 is good, but still not there, yet 5 I think is high enough to finally count at the smallest level. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 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 10 of 32 10 November 2008 at 3:56am | IP Logged | ||
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I didn't coin the word "impressiveness", but as far as I can see a purely quantitative definition only relies on some people having a longer language list than most of their fellowmen and -women, and the only reason to find that an interesting fact must be the assumption that a long list is seen as more impressive than a short one, whatever the content.
I have instead emphasized the amount of knowledge and skills that a certain combination of languages represent, which means that I would accept a shorter list from people with very scattered languages or a very high degree of skills in each of them - but still with a bottom number that must be noticeably higher than the average for the population. I'm clearly in a minority here, but I have noticed that most of those that want a simple quantitative criterion don't like to give a precise number of languages either. Maybe that hesitation just is another way of tackling the inherent fuzziness of the notion of polyglot without complicating the matter by taking the reason for this in account? Edited by Iversen on 10 November 2008 at 3:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 11 of 32 10 November 2008 at 4:48am | IP Logged | ||
I take a somewhat 'literal' view of the term polyglot: (speaker of) "many" languages; I freely admit that this is extremely fuzzy. I see it as a somewhat 'neutral' word - ie, one that is not, in and of itself, tied with concepts like deep/wide understanding. A great scientist who speaks one language isn't a polyglot, no matter the depth of his/her knowledge, so depth of knowledge alone doesn't suffice. Neither is an author with an exceptional command of his/her native tongue, and no other language a polyglot; depth of language-related knowledge also doesn't suffice. Similarly, someone who can knowledgeably discuss the grammar of a few dozen languages, but doesn't speak more than a couple, is someone I can't call a polyglot. Given my definition of polyglot, I don't find it to be a particularly useful term; I fundamentally see it as one reflecting the number of languages spoken 'fluently', and very little else. I'm at a loss for a term or definition which is significantly more meaningful, though. 'Scholar' and 'impressive' are far too broad, 'linguist' has rather different connotations, etc. I'd say that being a polyglot is an accomplishment. It is, in some of its forms, less of an accomplishment than some other things (such as, perhaps, knowing 3 languages from different language families exceedingly well), or some non-linguistic accomplishments. I fully agree that it makes more sense to discuss the amount of knowledge and skills rather than the number of languages - I just fail to see a way to reduce such a complicated and multi-faceted topic to a truly meaningful single word; anything sufficiently broad would not be able to convey the range of accomplishments in a reasonable way. 'Polyglot' is an uncomfortable middle ground: it's narrow (in my definition), fuzzy, and only marginally informative. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FrancescoP Octoglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5952 days ago 169 posts - 258 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Norwegian Studies: Georgian, Japanese, Croatian, Greek | Message 12 of 32 10 November 2008 at 6:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Let's take a more elastic and detached view, before this turns into the same old thing again. Do you work in more than three languages everyday? Can you have relaxed conversations with people from different countries in their own languages and share in their culture and heritage? Can you sit between two people from different countries at a dinner and keep them both entertained? Can you read great writers in the original feeling grateful and happy that you can do it? Can you hum the songs of great artists whose names you would have never heard in a monolingual life? In my opinion this makes you a polyglot as far as the concept has any interest for me. Let's keep the agonistic spirit out of this. Learning many languages is about how richer a person you become, not being able to boast impressive achievements and shred your "competitors". An electronic dictionary is sure to know more foreign words than anybody can, if that's the point. But means are not the same as goals...
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| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5901 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes | Message 13 of 32 10 November 2008 at 9:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Another thing one needs to isolate is how a person conceives language and the use they make of it. For me, being a polyglot means having the capacity to think in different ways - something that is not exercised at dinner or business conversation. I've been studying German for a while now, and though I could entertain a German guest, I still don't have a clue what the German language is like because I haven't reached the level where I can read a Goethe or a Weber. The ideas I can express in that language are the same I would in Spanish or English - only transliterated. When German opens the way to meaningful thought and expression I'll regard it as mastered. Edited by JuanM on 10 November 2008 at 9:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6667 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 14 of 32 10 November 2008 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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FrancescoP, you just exactly summed up what I think about language learning! I completely agree and I really don't mind if I'm considered a polyglot by others or not. Edited by Marc Frisch on 10 November 2008 at 12:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ninja Bunny Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5794 days ago 42 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Danish, Mandarin, Afrikaans, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French | Message 15 of 32 21 January 2009 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Certainly doesn't apply to me.
English is my native language; I speak German semi-fluently. I'm conversational in Russian and Italian and know some basic phrases (so far) in a smattering of other languages. I'm just a humble language peon. :) Edited to add: My definition of a polyglot: Anyone who is fluent in three or more languages. One source I found states two or more and technically that may be correct but I reserve that for "diglot" or "bilingual." While there have been some exceptional polyglots in history and their achievements are commendable, I don't think being a basic polyglot is a rarefied thing - in the global population multilinguals outnumber monolinguals, nor do I think someone who has German, English and Spanish as their languages of choice is "less" of a polyglot than someone who speaks Mandarin, Zulu and Inuit, although the latter may make for more interesting dinner conversation. I also do not think an individual who speaks more languages than others typically do in their community makes the others non-polyglots. If everyone in that community speaks several languages, everyone in that community is a polyglot. Edited by Ninja Bunny on 22 January 2009 at 12:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6077 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 16 of 32 21 January 2009 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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FrancescoP and Marc Frisch summed it up perfectly.
Need we say more? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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