ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7259 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes
| Message 1 of 8 26 March 2005 at 11:06pm | IP Logged |
There is a site called "constipated wombats and the world's greatest polylgots":
Constipated Wombats
This site provides a short link to an Armenian professor named Hrachia Acharian who is credited with knowing 562 languages! Does anyone know anything more about this man?
Edited by administrator on 27 March 2005 at 7:39am
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victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7321 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map
| Message 2 of 8 26 March 2005 at 11:25pm | IP Logged |
I didn't look into the details of the site. But that example of Chinese was ridiculous. It said "private's pouch bear is bodily wastes"
Thanks for showing us the site, Ardaschir
Edited by victor on 27 March 2005 at 12:30pm
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KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7194 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian
| Message 3 of 8 27 March 2005 at 7:26am | IP Logged |
This site provides a short link to an Armenian professor named Hrachia Acharian who is credited with knowing 562 languages!
This less plausible than Wilt Chamberlain's claim to have slept with 20,000 women during the course of his NBA career.
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Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7318 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin
| Message 4 of 8 27 March 2005 at 12:57pm | IP Logged |
Victor: I suspect they did an electronic translation straight from the Japanese. Either that or the translator used a dictionary for each word and assumed that "si1" (watashi) means "I" in Chinese. I don't think it's worth correcting.
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ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7241 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog
| Message 5 of 8 27 March 2005 at 1:04pm | IP Logged |
Armenian language has more than 60 dialects!
So, one can imagine, what a tremendous job did this scholar in his life! He paid a high price for his scientific contribution: at the end of his life, he almost lost his eyesight.
This sounds like cheating to me. Hey I speak English, American English, Canadian English, Indian English, and Ebonics. Hey I'm a polyglot! 0:)
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ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7259 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes
| Message 6 of 8 27 March 2005 at 11:03pm | IP Logged |
This claim does indeed transcend the absurd -- while many linguists and experts in foreign language acquisition would deny that it is possible for anyone to really learn even 5 or 6 languages, and while better-willed credulity based on historical achievement is generally stretched in the range of about 56 languages, this individual has 100x or 10x these numbers attributed to him. However, where there is smoke, there is usually a fire, and I doubt this legend is built completely out of thin air.
Edited by Ardaschir on 31 March 2005 at 12:50am
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guillaume Pentaglot Groupie France Joined 7184 days ago 59 posts - 57 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Mandarin
| Message 7 of 8 28 March 2005 at 10:11pm | IP Logged |
Well from what I read, he is "the author of the Comprehensive Grammar of the Armenian language in comparison with the 562 (!) languages of the world."
It doesn't mean that he speaks the languages, just that he did a research on the grammar of many languages.
I can talk about some facts of the korean grammar even thought I am far from being able to speak korean (just started it)
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Seth Diglot Changed to RedKingsDream Senior Member United States Joined 7227 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian
| Message 8 of 8 30 March 2005 at 8:19pm | IP Logged |
"THE 562 languages of the world"????
There are more than 562 Earth languages.
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