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Who is your favourite polyglot? | ||
Tags: Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Rael Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6628 days ago 24 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean | Message 17 of 30 17 May 2009 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Stuart Jay Raj was the first person to make me think being multi-lingual was possible for everyone. Very inspiring.
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| Archimedes Tetraglot Newbie Belgium Joined 5576 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Spanish Studies: Finnish, Albanian, Modern Hebrew, Italian | Message 18 of 30 21 August 2009 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Giuseppe Mezzofanti is my star! He´s by far the greatest polyglot ever and his skills were proved which is very important to me as some other polyglots as for example Ziad Fazah answer completely wrong when they asked simple questions in some languages they speak "fluently". I know he said that nobody informed him that his skills were tested in the show, but in case you consider yourself fluent in a language you shouldn´t need any preperation to speak some basic sentences! Over and above it is amazing that Giuseppe Mezzofanti never left Italy so it was even more difficult for him to get fluent in something like 60 languages.
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| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6371 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 19 of 30 21 August 2009 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I take Mezzofanti's claims with a grain of salt. -_-
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| metafrastria Diglot Newbie Turkey Joined 5701 days ago 20 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English, Russian* Studies: French, Turkish, Ancient Greek | Message 20 of 30 21 August 2009 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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For me, Kato Lomb will probably always be the number one polyglot. It was her book
How I Learn Languages that encouraged me to pursue my passion for languages. The story of her career and the advice she dispenses in her book (with a good dose of humour) are a source of great inspiration for me. And, surely, my admiration for Ms. Lomb only increased when I discovered that she was one of the first simultaneous interpreters (I work as a conference interpreter in those rare moments when I have some time off from my academic commitments). After joining this forum, I've also developed immense appreciation and respect for Prof. Alexander Arguelles. By sharing his systematic approach to polyglottery, he provides language learners with invaluable insight into how foreign languages can be learned and maintained over an extended period. Finally, his discipline and commitment to language learning are truly inspiring! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 21 of 30 22 August 2009 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Burton and Schliemann are inspirational for me.
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| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5908 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 22 of 30 22 August 2009 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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JRR Tolkien is my linguistic hero, for his inspiring sense of aesthetics. He had a remarkable sense of beauty in languages and managed to create it too (the world would be a better place if we wrote in Tengwar), and obviously found great joy in his study of language. I wrote my IB Extended Essay on his works and read some of his letters while researching (they've been compiled and published in book form, quite handy) and it was just a joy to read. Wish we could've had him on the forum :-)
Luca, the guy on Youtube, is great too. His Swedish could've fooled me at several points, and his enthusiasm and drive is contagious. And nobody's mentioned Iversen, but he's definitely an inspiration to me and I know to many others as well. Liz Edited by Lizzern on 22 August 2009 at 11:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Xenoguy Triglot Newbie Taiwan Joined 5636 days ago 16 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English*, French, Mandarin Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 23 of 30 26 August 2009 at 3:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I second the Burton nomination for greatest polyglot. I'm about halfway through reading the Edward Rice biography of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton. Burton often put his life at risk to learn a language and then use it on some adventure.
Example from his first East Africa trip (pg 325) "Burton spent his time working on a vocabulary of the Harari tongue with a Harari who had been banished from the city and a Somali poet [...]" Rice then quotes Burton, "Our hours were spent in unremitting toil...the hut was ever crowded with Badawi critics...on the evening of the third day my literati started upon their feet, and shook my hand, declaring that I knew as much as they themselves did." Hyperbole aside, it is the kind of feat he managed again and again under non-ideal conditions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rNajera Triglot Groupie Canada rafaelnajera.com Joined 6136 days ago 45 posts - 60 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Latin, German, Korean | Message 24 of 30 26 August 2009 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||
Thank you very much to pointing to Kato Lomb, I didn't know about her before. What an interesting and amazing woman. I found her book online at http://tesl-ej.org/ej45/fr1abs.html (PDF file to download at the end of the page) and I'm devouring it right now. A must read for sure. Cheers, Rafael. Edited by rNajera on 26 August 2009 at 3:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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