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Are You A Polyglot And Why (Not)? | ||
Tags: Scientific Research | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6554 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes  1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 17 of 32 21 January 2009 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | ||
By this description I am a polyglot - I work in 3-4 languages every day, and the people around me, even those that know numerically more languages, consider me as such mostly because of my mastery in chosen ones, and the discussions we can have about literature, etc. - But I certainly do not consider myself as such - I just like languages not labels and I am certainly not learning as some sort of salon trick. Numerical goals, I'll leave to others. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 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 18 of 32 25 January 2009 at 4:37am | IP Logged | ||
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1. Reply to your first question: I regard myself as being a polyglot.
Why so? As a definiton, polylgot has do doe with speaking many languages, (poly = many), but there is no exact quantification. So I don't agree with you, Iversen, about a certain number of languages. 1) A polyglot uses actively many languages - (I use 7 and am learning language number 8) 2) A polyglot is motivated intrinsingly (= out of oneself) for language learning - so am I 3) A polyglot is dedicated to lifelong language learning - so am I 4) A polyglot is able to think in his/her languages and can distiguisch them well - so do I For me polyglottery is a way of life and it is part of my personality. I think this is also very typical of polyglots. Fasulye-Babylonia Edited by Fasulye on 25 January 2009 at 4:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6254 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical) | Message 19 of 32 16 March 2009 at 6:40am | IP Logged | ||
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2. I don’t see myself as a polyglot (yet) because I don’t really think that I speak enough languages and the ones I know are pretty closely related.
3. This is the fun question to answer. Are the fifteen-year-old who plays third chair clarinet in his high school orchestra and the first chair clarinet player at the Metropolitan Opera both musicians? Absolutely. In the same way, when I achieve fluency in German (this year hopefully) I feel that I will be a polyglot. I’ll be an American who speaks fluent English, Spanish, Portuguese and German with a passive knowledge of Italian and French. I will also be much more like the high school kid than the Metropolitan clarinetist. Like many have already said, there are varying degrees of polyglottery. The Metropolitan equivalent would be someone with a handle on ten languages or more, with a mastery of at least three, and whose languages come from several families and cultural back grounds. I personally have more respect for living languages than dead ones but I think it would be good for a true polyglot to know at least one dead classical language. So, for example, I think that it would be really cool to know English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Danish, Arabic (two or three dialects), Mandarin Chinese, Tagalog and Ancient Greek. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lindsay19 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5823 days ago 183 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC1 Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic | Message 20 of 32 16 March 2009 at 6:54am | IP Logged | ||
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1. Would you describe yourself as a polyglot, and if so, why? N/A
2. If you do not see yourself as a polyglot, why not? - I do not, because I simply haven't had the time to develope into one. I'm 19 years old, and only just starting having an interest in languages 2 years ago. Ask me again in 10 years, my answer might be yes. 3. If you do not see yourself as a polyglot, how would you describe a polyglot: - A polyglot is someone who is fluent in at least 3 languages (excluding their native one), which perhaps a passive knowledge of many others. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| culturev Heptaglot Newbie United States culturev.com Joined 5740 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French, Sign Language, Cantonese, Mongolian, Spanish | Message 21 of 32 19 March 2009 at 6:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Very interesting reading.
I don't know if I'm a polyglot or not. However, I do enjoy learning languages and interacting with different ways of thinking and different ways of putting value to life with words. For me, I guess, giving myself a new label is not so important as becoming the best I can be. I wish I spoke more in each language, including my native one, and better in all languages. Sometimes I grope for words in English but they are right there in Chinese. Environment plays a big role too. For someone who lives in Switzerland being a polyglot will be much easier than for a person living in large countries where they don't have a need for languages outside their native one. Europeans naturally have a better environment for being polyglots, or multilingual if you will. Interesting concepts though. 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 22 of 32 19 March 2009 at 7:03am | IP Logged | ||
I don't think living in Switzerland really makes it all that much easier to be a polyglot... at most, the school system helps a little, and everyday situations may be somewhat easier if you speak some rudiments of a few languages. Cultural factors contribute a bit too (it's common for people to study at university in a non-native language; the ones who pass tend to end up quite fluent). In general, I'd say Europe makes it slightly easier than North America, but neither are as conductive to picking up as many languages as some other regions are. In Morocco, there were a huge number of people who knew at least a few basics of a dozen or more languages (and were quite decent at a number of them), generally vendors. Similarly, in some regions of India, people are surrounded by quite a few languages. In the end, though, it's not a matter of location. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bart_anderson Hexaglot Newbie United States Joined 5802 days ago 2 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, French, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Swedish, Portuguese, Latin | Message 23 of 32 20 March 2009 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think these are the wrong questions to ask. They set up quantitative goals that appeal to our competitive natures, but do not promote depth or insight.
Like the bird watchers who race to see who can tick off the most species, but who have little feel for nature. Concentrating on numbers destroys pleasure and meaning. There's enough of this in everyday life, why bring it into languages? I prefer Fasulye's definitions:
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6036 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 24 of 32 20 March 2009 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Let's assume speaking N different languages is the low boundary of polyglottery. Everybody can assign some value to N, depending on their country of origin X and personal bias.
What really matters is that people in X often learn less then N languages for various "practical reasons" but a larger number shows a different kind of attitude. It doesn't matter what is the exact value of N because if you have the attitude, then after 5 years you will speak N+5 languages. And after Y years, you will speak N + Y languages And to answer the original question: I don't consider myself a polyglot (in case anybody is in doubt about that) and don't have the goal of becoming one. I'm just one of the practical people who aims at N but not higher. I would say... hmm.. N=4. Personal opinion :). Trying to find the best N is like trying to find our (common) favourite colour. Edited by Sennin on 20 March 2009 at 11:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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