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You are not a real polyglot if... | ||
Tags: Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4717 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 273 of 299 04 November 2013 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Why does it matter that we all agree what a polyglot is? Do you care whether I can or
cannot? Does it matter to you? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5440 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 274 of 299 04 November 2013 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I tried my best. We have been recently discussing what it means to be a polyglot. I poliitely made some simple suggestions and this is what I get. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5344 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 275 of 299 04 November 2013 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I had so far assumed that polyglot was someone who could sustain a conversation comfortably in at least 4 languages including his own. I do not remember where I saw it, but I also seem to remember that the threshhold for speaking comfortably was suggested at B1. I would at least sell my soul to the highest bidder if I could thruthfully say that I was at a B1 level in Russian - and I would definitely say that I could speak it. But I suppose that much like fluency we have 40 different ways of defining that. On a different note I see that we all have different ways of discussing, and we sometimes come off a little harsher than we intend to. Let us interpret eachother's words in the most positive way possible, shall we? :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5440 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 276 of 299 04 November 2013 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'll drink to @Solfrid Cristin's suggestion. Four languages at B1 level qualifies one as a polyglot.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4717 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 277 of 299 04 November 2013 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well? It's a question. Why does a definition actually matter? If people call me a polyglot or not, I will still do whatever I'm doing. If that means I get shoved into whatever mental category people have of me, so be it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5440 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 278 of 299 04 November 2013 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Let me try to answer this question. We are in a discussion forum. It seems to me that definitions are important in discussions so that we know what we are talking about. How can we discuss if we can't at least agree to some common meanings for the words we use? We've just had a long, interesting and sometimes heated debate over what constitutes a distinct language as opposed to a variant of a language. I've taken position A and other people have taken position B. The purpose of all this was to decide what is a real polyglot as opposed to a false polyglot. More recently, the discussion has turned to what constitutes a polyglot, a term that we have been using constantly without definition. This has nothing to do with whether I care about anything. I really don't care what people do with their lives. I care about my own. What I do care about is trying to have an amicable discussion about what it means to be a polyglot. I suggested four languages at C1. Everyone jumped on me. Taking someone's suggestion, I said two and the ability to travel in them. Not much of a response. Finally, at @Solfrid Cristin's urging, we have four languages at B1 level. I'm comfortable with that. Are there any other proposals? If everybody can agree that this is a minimalist definition of a polyglot, then we can move on to other topics. Nobody is shoving anybody into any mental categories. Everybody can keep on doing as they please. Edited by s_allard on 05 November 2013 at 2:24pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7215 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 279 of 299 05 November 2013 at 9:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||
If you're talking about drinking, then you should probably use the definition of an alcoholic - someone who drinks more than you do. A polyglot is someone who speaks more. Edited by luke on 05 November 2013 at 9:16am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6713 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 280 of 299 05 November 2013 at 10:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Does at it matter whether any word has a stable and usable definition? Is it necessary that we agree on the definition of a word? A polyglot? The subject of a sentence? Nominative? Personally I don't care about the definition of offside in football (soccer), but for those who play or watch the game it seems to be quite important, and it can actually have dire economical consequences whether a specific action on the battlefield is accepted as offside or not. In the case of language definitions it matters a lot to those who have learnt and like a certain way of speaking whether that way of speaking is defined as a language or not, because the answer may decide whether there will be public funding of schools and .. ok, it may also be a matter of national pride. And it may matter in job applications if some persons underplay their cards while others take credit for even the most shaky skills. The definition of polyglot is based on the definition of what a language is - it is a person with "many" languages. We can discuss what 'many' is, but this is where the general baselevel of people around you plays a role - "many" must be more than the average number of languages, and at least for me the diversity also is relevant (this being said in spite of the fact that this criterion doesn't really favor myself). Similarly the definition might be relevant for job applicants, but I personally won't ever have to write one again so I could in principle have left an empty language list to the left. But from the moment I write a list I want it to be as accurate as possible, and then it matters whether others base their lists on totally different criteria - both upwards and downwards. If I accept B1 as 'speaks' then I feel that I cheat if everyone else fill out the list based on a criterion of C1. But in this case I can give a solid argumentation for using B1 rather than C1, namely that I have had long discussions about weird topics in languages where I know I have (or had) serious problems. Like on my trip to Romania and Moldova in 2006, where I hardly had restarted my language studies, but managed to survive several such discussions with something that objectively seen can't have superseeded a mere A2. So C1 would be overkill seen from my perspective. Does it matter at all whether you are a polyglot or not? Well, some monoglots have had extraordinary skills in nonlinguistic spheres, and some monoglots have even had a lot of influence in linguistics. And some polyglots could in principle be extremely versatile measured on the number of their languages without being able to say anything sensible in any of them. Some monoglots can't either, even though they should have had time to learn it in the time they didn't study languages. For me the term 'polyglot' simply signifies that I have accomplished something I find relevant and spent a lot of time on, namely learning languages AND using them actively. This activity is part of my identity in the same way as mathematics and chess and painting and composing music were in earlier periodes and travelling still is. And I know that there are people who have learnt more languages and who can speak them both more fluently and more correctly so I notice with glee that I don't have to worry about winning any competitions - I hate competitions, so that's fine with me. But I would not be happy if the definition of something I actually spend so much time on would be changed dramatically in a way that either made my achievements irrelevant or ridiculous - and that's why I'm squarely against the idea that you have to pass formal tests and also against extreme opinions on the number of languages you need to have on your CV. Edited by Iversen on 06 November 2013 at 11:57am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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