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Polyglots and "idiots savants" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6963 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes  Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 1 of 9 18 December 2005 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Idiot savants are a group of humans that are incapable of learning, writing or reading, yet they have unlimited access to specific, accurate knowledge in the fields of mathematics, music, and other precise areas. Now the irony of an idiot-savant is that this group of individuals does not acquire knowledge by learning as the average human does. They mysteriously 'know' explicit, exact, correct information. One may wonder: "How do idiots savants know certain information or possess certain skills?" By whatever means they obtain this information, they undermine current definitions about intelligence. Does their knowledge show that a source of intelligence exists? Is it possible to tap into this source and not know of its existence?
Dustin Hoffman made idiot-savants famous in the Hollywood movie "Rain Man." He played the role of a mathematical genius able to keep track of cards at the casino, yet unable to go to the bathroom alone or to make simple decisions about what clothes to wear or foods to eat. Modern science cannot explain this phenomenon. Maybe some Hyper polyglot are just idiot savants especially that ones that speak unuseful languages like the most faraway aboriginal dialect of South Australia and maybe never move frome their village in Northern Greenland .....And what about xenoglossia the divine gift to "speak in tongues" ?? Anyone knows something about it? ...... Ciao Vilas 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raistlin Majere Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Spain uciprotour-cycling.c Joined 7155 days ago 455 posts - 424 votes 7 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, FrenchA1, Italian, German Studies: Swedish | Message 2 of 9 18 December 2005 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Let's see if I'm understanding well what you're saying; are you suggesting a paranormal phenomenon where somebody acquires knowledge about something without ever having learnt about it or not even having met the thing in question?
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| Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 7107 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes 2 sounds | Message 3 of 9 18 December 2005 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think "Autistic Savants" is a more common term than Idiots. Of course idiot is a term for a specific level of mental retardation and a savant is socially retarded.
Back to these savants, it always seemed to me like certain functions of the brain were overdeveloped, therefore making the functioning of these skills appear practically impossible. I've seen a TV programme that featured a bloke who could replay a previously unheard musical piece completely on the piano after only one play! Anyway, Maurizio's post is a copy of part of the page here. I'm disinclined to believe these hyper polyglots are autistic (or even less an autistic savant) because the basic definition for these mental conditions implies social and communication problems, yet no extreme talent linguistically. Edited by Sir Nigel on 18 December 2005 at 3:56pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6952 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 4 of 9 24 December 2005 at 3:03am | IP Logged | ||
Of course it's not reasonable to suggest that all hyperpolyglots must be savants, but there are such people as "linguistic savants". Steven Pinker addresses this phenomenon in The Language Instinct. These people are incredibly gifted linguistically, but do not seem to know what they're saying, e.g. they very vividly and eloquently describe events which never really happened to them. I wish I could remember the details -- it was really strange. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TDC Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6924 days ago 261 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian | Message 5 of 9 02 March 2006 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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I say something where a guy was playing piano. Diane Sawyer (probably) asked him to play Fur Elise, then asked him to play it as if it was written by Mozart, then as if it were some other style. He was fairly impressive. They also had a little boy who could play any number of notes played. Diane played something like 8 different notes all at one time, which, basically, sounds like a bunch of noise and the kid reproduced it exactly without having seen what she had played. 'twas pretty cool...
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| Eidolio Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 6864 days ago 159 posts - 164 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, Greek | Message 6 of 9 03 March 2006 at 11:36am | IP Logged | ||
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I think you're talking about the Asperger-syndrom, a variant of autism.
People with this syndrom are extremely gifted, but only on one very specific domain. They lack social competences and can't express emotions, they're very closed and only focusing on themselves. Most people who are very intelligent have got some symptoms of the Asperger-syndrom, but only a minority really has got the syndrom. Polyglots are often very intelligent people, so it's possible that they have some Asperger-symptoms. So these people would be able to learn foreign languages very quickly and apply all their knowledge without any difficulties, but when it comes to comforting people or saying things in a subtle, tactful way they would be hopeless. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6855 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 7 of 9 03 March 2006 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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As Eidolio said, those peoples' social skills are often limited. They may read a book in a pace 8 times faster than average readers (almost photographic memory), and remember most of it (like Kim Peek, the real Rainman) but may not be able to tie their shoes. This is because of the fact that different parts of the brain are stimulated. Just type savants in google and it'll tell you all about it.
Two weeks ago I saw an interesting program on Discovery channel. There was this guy with miraculous math abilities. He could say Pi number to x decimal place (I don't remember and I don't want to lie, but it took him hours to say it all, almost without stoping. We're talking thousands of digits here, so there has to be something in it :/ ) They figured out later that he's autistic (his parents' stories helped establish that, he had all the syndromes as a kid). Nevertheless, he was able to develop all the normal, social skills. None of his other skills or senses was noticably impaired. Science finally had an "insider" in savant world. Someone who can describe what he's seeing. But why am I writing about this. Well, another of his talents was language learning. He spoke 7 (or something like that, and he's twentish) and claimed, that he can achieve basic fluency in approximately a week. So they sent him to Iceland for a week :P After the deadline he was checked on national tv (old style sideshow-polyglots style. Wasn't Mezzofanti tested in a similar fashion? ) He definitely knew what was going on. The intervieviewers said afterwards that he was doing just fine, they could talk, and his mistakes although present we're not diminishing his succes by any means. Sorry for a long post, but I found that interesting and very unfair :D It would make us mad if people would develop a chemical stimulating parts of the brain responsible for such abilities... when we're in our seventies. Edited by Kubelek on 03 March 2006 at 10:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Al-Malik Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member United Kingdom arabicgenie.com Joined 7137 days ago 221 posts - 294 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French, Arabic (classical) Studies: Mandarin, Persian | Message 8 of 9 04 March 2006 at 5:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Also compare this thread for a discussion of the relation between Asperger's and linguistic ability.
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