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’Must have languages’ for polyglots? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6651 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 41 of 149 06 February 2007 at 7:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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While I agree that there are no "must-have" languages for polyglots, I have to admit that I would be surprised to meet a polyglot (particularly a Westerner) who spoke neither English nor French.
Ardaschir's post about which languages a polyglot should speak is pretty specific about which languages a Westerner should speak and which languages people from other parts of the world should speak. I think there is some merit to his list. The languages he mentions have cultural and economic importance and provide a good intellectual workout. However, I would not deny that a person who only speaks Dutch, Korean, Quechua, Swahili, Navajo and Hungarian would qualify as a polyglot. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7173 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 42 of 149 06 February 2007 at 8:25am | IP Logged | |||||
Is there such a hyper polyglot that doesn't speak English or French? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6695 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 43 of 149 06 February 2007 at 10:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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In my opinion there are no "must have" languages for polyglots, - but due to the worldwide use of English it would be quite unexpected to find one who didn't speak English.
Maybe traders in West Africa could be polyglot on Peul, Haussa, Arabian, French and a couple of local languages without ever thinking about learning English. Maybe there are other comparable settings around the world, but you have to think hard to find them. So much for the 'environment-aided' polyglots. What then about 'self-driven' polyglots? In principle it might be possible for a person in Latin-America to get a burning desire to learn ten native languages without ever getting around English, but with much of the methodology for describing new languages being of (North) American provenience that would mean skipping a major part of the practical and theoretical literature about the subjet. Inconvenient, but not impossible. All in all you would have to look hard for a polyglot without English, but there is no pardon for any other language. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see a growing group of Asian polyglots learning English, but apart from that choosing all their languages in Asia. Edited by Iversen on 08 February 2007 at 2:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sigiloso Heptaglot Groupie Portugal Joined 6771 days ago 87 posts - 103 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, PortugueseC1, Galician, French, Esperanto, Italian Studies: Russian, Greek | Message 44 of 149 07 February 2007 at 8:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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I like the civilizational approach already hinted by you. According to Huntington's account:
MAJOR CIVILIZATIONS OF THE WORLD I) Western II) Orthodox III)Islamic IV) HIndu V) Sinic VI) Japanese (however from a linguistic point of view I will consider it a "minor" civilization because of its relative isolation or geographical dimension) PLUS, can be considered 1.Latin-American ( probably distinct from western civ.) 2. African 3. Buddhist (Thailand, etc. +Sri Lanka + Tibet, Mongolia ( There are a few micro-civilizations such as Jewish, Ethiopian, etc., as well) Then let us consider a Western polyglot who wants to be in posession of powerful tools to gain insight into other major cultures as welll (this seems to be a wise strategy in present and round the corner world). This would be the ideal to tend to in a lifetime, even if we never come to fulfill it: I)FROM WESTERN CIVILIZATION: characteristic of Western languages is their expansion beyond their own civilization, getting full suzerainty of Latin civ. and to a good extend African civ., plus being the most influential in the world (Max Weber's memorable and now old article listed firs English, French, Spanish...) As David Graddol says, as Western influence wanes, Western languages are learnt most enthusiastically nonetheless. Because of this, and the fact we have a Western polyglot in mind, the picking is bound to be heavy: a)There are two must-haves: English and Spanish. There's widespread evidence French is not a must-have anymore, just key in a search machine "franÇais en peril" and see, no need to go into detail here. b)However it remains an international language, in a second layer of influence as it were, together in my view with two more: German and Portuguese, each of the three getting clout from different sources, geographical dissemination, economic power, demography, etc. So must be picked one of these, ad libitum. c)One more of your choice, depending on your personal circumstances: could be your mother tonge if is not one of the above, a minority language in the particular country or region you live in, a second choice in the b) group, an attractive choice such as Italian or Dutch, etc. All in all 4 Western languages. II)FROM ORTHODOX CIVILIZATION: unmistakably Russian. Sorry continue in next post Edited by sigiloso on 07 February 2007 at 1:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sigiloso Heptaglot Groupie Portugal Joined 6771 days ago 87 posts - 103 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, PortugueseC1, Galician, French, Esperanto, Italian Studies: Russian, Greek | Message 45 of 149 07 February 2007 at 8:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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II)FROM ORTHODOX CIVILIZATION: unmistakably Russian. Russian's importance should not be downplayed in my view. It is much more spoken outside Russia and Belarus than reference books would make us to believe. I met people from Mongolia and Afganistan who knew it as a matter of fact. Cannot believe less than 200 mil. native speakers, 100 second and foreign
III)FROM ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION: one out of these four: Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Indonesian, corresponding to major cultural areas within Islamic civilization according to Huntington. And I am not sure Arabic stand out as a choice as many of us would be apt to think, in presence of factors such as poor "cognitive capital" (staggering rates of illiteracy, both plain and functional, low intelligence averages, scarcity of sound lexicographic works and books published per year, etc.), problems of extreme linguistic variation, etc. in the Arab League countries. IV)FROM HINDU CIVILIZATION: unmistakably Hindi, because it allows comprehension with other biggies in the family, the fact of Urdu, reportedly merging of smaller hindic languages into it, etc. V) FROM SINIC CIVILIZATION: unmistakably Mandarin Chinese. VI) Then at least 1 (but desirably up to 5) "idiosincratic" choices, from one or more of the following areas: a)the "smaller" civilizations: one out of these: Japanese, Swahili, Thai b)one or more classical languages for those inclined to have a sound cultural, philological or literary foundation: tipically out of : Latin, Ancien GReek, Sanskrit, old stages of existing languages, Arabic or Hebrew if considered as such, and weren't picked before c) a language of personal religious importance for those who are religious; eg Pali for someone into Theravadha Buddhism, Hebrew for a Jewish even if living outside Israel, Old Church Slavoni for an orthodox, Arabic if considered so, etc. Sorry continue in next post Edited by sigiloso on 08 February 2007 at 1:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sigiloso Heptaglot Groupie Portugal Joined 6771 days ago 87 posts - 103 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, PortugueseC1, Galician, French, Esperanto, Italian Studies: Russian, Greek | Message 46 of 149 07 February 2007 at 8:41am | IP Logged | |||||
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d)the international language Esperanto, which progresses slowly but steadily and has formed a remarkable international community of very nice people(:)) and doesnt't take much time and is useful as a revision of vocabulary from usual languages and as a conceptual grid to tackle particularities of natural languages
e) a purely idiosyncratic choice, e.g. the language of a loved one, or your ancestry, a second language from a civilization of our special interest, such as Korean, or a really minority language out of blind love, or an obscure language we choose as sort of a hobby or out of mere linguistic interest, etc. I believe an approach along these lines elegantly solves the made apparent in this thread contradiction of an undeniable existence of languages so called "of wider comunication", which allegedly would be felt as missing in the weaponry of a polyglot worth his salt, and the fact of an unavoidable area of personal variation. Case example: someone from Poland with an academic interest and a devoted languages lover; this could be his/her list: English Spanish German Polish (native) Russian Arabic Hindi Chinese Japanese Latin Ancient Greek Esperanto Kashubian This would be a fine "globly" well-rounded polyglot wonderfully prepared to live (survive?) the XXIst century. (Not to be continued in next post :) -sorry-) Edited by sigiloso on 07 February 2007 at 1:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6651 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 47 of 149 08 February 2007 at 7:18am | IP Logged | |||||
I doubt that such a person actually exists. My point is simply that it isn't a matter of "must have" languages to be a polyglot, but any person who speaks that many languages owuld be a polyglot. In the real world, very few polyglots--if any--don't speak either French or English or both. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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