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Georges Dumézil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| FrancescoP Octoglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5762 days ago 169 posts - 258 votes  Speaks: Italian*, French, English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Norwegian Studies: Georgian, Japanese, Croatian, Greek | Message 1 of 1 18 August 2008 at 2:05pm | IP Logged |
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I thought I’d devote a little post to a great master-polyglot who seems to have got little attention in this forum so far (or perhaps it’s just me and the search function): George Dumézil (1898-1986).
Dumézil is more usually remembered as a prolific historian of indo-european mythology and a remote influence of structuralism, but his achievements in linguistics were also impressive. A great friend of the last surviving native speaker of Ubykh, for example, he has long been the most authoritative source on this unusual caucasian language. His interest for languages was precocious. As a teenager he got interested in Sanskrit and learned to master it on his own, along with the usual Latin and Greek. Coincidentally, one of his comrades in school was the grandson of Antoine Meillet, one of the fathers of french comparative linguistics: he was introduced to him, and the old man’s encouragements pushed him further along the way. Later, still a kid, he found out about Basque and worked on it until he could speak it tolerably well. There was no stopping him now. By 30 he was teaching in Turkey and, as a I learned from documents published by his pupil Georges Charachidzé, he knew enough Georgian to pen a translation of Alexander Qazbegi’s novels in his spare time (still unpublished). It is a widely reported fact that he used to know between 30 and 40 languages. I have always been impressed by this particular piece of academic lore, and his example was probably the very spur that got me going. It wasn’t until a few months ago, however, that I laid my hands on a copy of the book-length interview he wrote with Didier Éribon, who is also Michel Foucault’s biographer (I just didn’t know it existed, it’s not rare or anything). Well, there is a page in this book that shocked and further motivated me. I wish to share it with you all, because I think it’s an important complement to the oral legends about the old man (in certain academic circles he’s sometimes mentioned as the idea itself of a language genious). On one hand it brings down the big myth a little, as it shows that great polyglots are also men after all, with problems, doubts and shortcomings. On the other hand it made me cherish Dumézil’s example even more, because it allowed me to see through the human side of his achievements. I loved to discover that he, too, seemed to greatly prefer the written side of polyglottery over the spoken-communicative side. Although I think he was excessively modest in playing down his own skills (grand old French gentleman), I guess I belong to the same school. Anyway, here’s a rough translation of p. 90 of G. Dumézil, “Entretiens avec Didier Éribon”, Paris, Gallimard, 1987. “D. E. How many languages have you learned in all? G. D. I don’t know. About thirty. D. E. How many of these could you speak with perfect fluency? G. D. None. I never could speak a foreign language properly. Antoine Meillet had the same problem, for example, so I will hide behind this precedent. D. E. Not even English? G. D. No. When I deliver a lecture in English I have to write it down first and then read it. When I saw one of my grandchildren, a mathematician, write his dissertation straight to English I was impressed and a little jealous. D. E. You can speak Turkish by all means. G. D. Turkish is actually the language I speak “less worse”. Or I should say the one that I used to speak “less worse”, as one of these days I was fumbling for a very common word and I couldn’t recall it. You know, languages can be learned, but they can also be forgotten. A few decades ago I had learned Hungarian with the help of some books. Within six months I knew enough to read novels and Pétöfi Sandor, the national poet. I can’t remember a thing.” 1 person has voted this message useful |
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