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The Mezzofanti table of languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Sinfonia Senior Member Wales Joined 6747 days ago 255 posts - 261 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 33 of 41 10 June 2006 at 5:41am | IP Logged | ||
I agree with you to a certain degree, but most people barely achieve PERFECT ability even in their first language (with constant exposure, omnipresent mass media and competent education systems), let alone in a few dozen others. I could well imagine someone 'dabbling' in even 50 languages, but nowadays 'communicative competence' in a second language is thought to require a vocabulary of 5000 words or more -- so at say 50 words a day he'd need twelve years just to learn the vocabularies, let alone all the intricacies and idiosyncracies of the syntaxes and semantics, pronunciations, writing systems, idioms and so on. The list of languages is inherently dubious anyway: how come Danish but no Norwegian? How come 'perfect' Dutch but 'writing only' in Frisian? How come Russian and Polish, but no other Slavonic languages -- especially Ukrainian or Belorussian, which are very similar to Russian? Similarly, how come Czech but no Slovak? Bulgarian but no Macedonian? And as for the 'languages of Oceania' -- this is such a diverse group of language families that it really proves that the author didn't know what he was talking about (and presumably thought no one would notice)! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6893 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 34 of 41 10 June 2006 at 6:34am | IP Logged | ||
I guess it's not impossible. I can more or less understand written Catalan and Galician thanks to my background in Spanish and French but I would never say I was fluent in these as I can't speak the languages or write in them. Closely-related languages are not always as close as people imagine as there as 'false friends' and nuances to consider and these can vary a bit even between dialects, let alone languages. Maybe he just hadn't gotten around to improving his abilities in those languages. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sinfonia Senior Member Wales Joined 6747 days ago 255 posts - 261 votes Speaks: English* | Message 35 of 41 10 June 2006 at 9:51am | IP Logged | ||
Well, precisely really -- all the more reason why the claim made for perfect knowledge in so many languages must be spurious. I think that people, even many of the posters on these boards, seriously underestimate what it takes to really learn a language (the casual 'which shall I learn next, do you reckon?' type of question is a giveaway) -- certainly far more than some graded textbooks! And for many non-first languages the only real way to 'linguistic enlightenment' is through structured, applied study over several years. Yet even then, how many can say they have perfect knowledge of even their first language, let alone five or ten or twenty more? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6893 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 36 of 41 10 June 2006 at 10:39am | IP Logged | ||
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It depends very much on the person. Some people are naturally gifted when it comes to languages and pick them up in surprisingly quickly. One guy on my Mandarin class had near native fluency by his 2nd year while the rest of us were still struggling with the basics.
I don't think many of us here underestimate our linguistic abilities and we all have our obstacles to overcome. I certainly wouldn't say I was fluent in anything other than my native language (English) and near native language (Spanish). I recognise I have a long way to go with my other languages but I am not aiming for perfect fluency anyway. Different people set different goals for themselves and wanting to move on to another language isn't necessarily frivolous. We only get one chance at life, after all, so why not try and learn as much as possible, eh? :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sinfonia Senior Member Wales Joined 6747 days ago 255 posts - 261 votes Speaks: English* | Message 37 of 41 10 June 2006 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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[QUOTE=lady_skywalker] It depends very much on the person. Some people are naturally gifted when it comes to languages and pick them up in surprisingly quickly. One guy on my Mandarin class had near native fluency by his 2nd year while the rest of us were still struggling with the basics. </QUOTE>
I don't doubt that at all...but that's ONE language, not 30-odd... <quote>I don't think many of us here underestimate our linguistic abilities and we all have our obstacles to overcome.</quote> I didn't say people underestimate their linguistic abilities; rather that some seem to think that if you work your way through three textbooks (beginner, intermediate, advanced), you've somehow at the end of it 'learnt' a language. I suppose we understand different things by 'learn a language'... <quote> I certainly wouldn't say I was fluent in anything other than my native language (English) and near native language (Spanish). I recognise I have a long way to go with my other languages but I am not aiming for perfect fluency anyway. Different people set different goals for themselves and wanting to move on to another language isn't necessarily frivolous. </quote> Absolutely. I know a lot of languages myself, indeed, some a lot better than others. But this is not really the point I've been trying to make -- I'm not trying to put anyone down, except perhaps Russell :-) <quote> We only get one chance at life, after all, so why not try and learn as much as possible, eh? :) </quote> Again, I agree entirely. Polyglots rule! Mezzofanti undoubtedly had a brilliant mind...just not *that* brilliant! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6893 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 38 of 41 10 June 2006 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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True. I do understand all the points you're making as I am quite a skeptical individual myself. I guess we could analyse his abilities to the ends of the earth as there are many issues that could indeed be inaccurate (for all we know).
Still, even if he wasn't perfectly fluent in all those languages, it's nice to have a particular role model in mind while we're all slogging away at our languages. If I had a tenth of the abilities this man allegedly had, I'd be a very happy woman. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6871 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 39 of 41 10 June 2006 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Off of what lady_skywalker said, if someone has the mind enough to master one language almost fluently with such ease, why not more than one language?
I am not such a skeptic, actually. Maybe sometimes that's a disadvantage of mine, but I am reluctant to call someone a fraud off of such little information than a list. I guess I think back to the Ziad Fazah thread, where people were wondering if he even existed, and it turns out that indeed he does. I guess I am more interested in the possibility that he did have the mind to master such languages. Misleading writing and faulty research (I'm guessing here, I haven't read the book yet) don't mean that he indeed didn't have the abilities...although, true, it doesn't make for reliable information either. But lady_skywalker, you hit the nail on the head: Life is short so learn as much as you can. :-) Sinfonia, polyglots *do* rule! Edited by Journeyer on 10 June 2006 at 6:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7379 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 41 10 June 2006 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Gentlemen, may I recommend that you read this chapter about how the Mezzofanti language table under discussion has been created? The man who made it has been dead for a good century now but he took great care in verifying his facts, since A great name is but tarnished by unmerited praise—non eget mendacio nostro.
I think the discussion would become even more interesting if you discussed specific languages based on the book (whose entire text is available on this website) rather than the table, which is only a summary. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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