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Cyrus Gordon | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 7135 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 1 of 3 25 May 2005 at 10:08am | IP Logged |
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I thought these autobiographical extracts from the late Cyrus Gordon, a Semiticist, might be interesting.
The following is from Cyrus H. Gordon’s Forgotten Scripts: The Story of their Decipherment. Thames and Hudson 1968. Revised edition 1971. Pelican. Harmondsworth, England. "My foreign language study began with Biblical Hebrew when I was five years old. The values inherent in such a training are many. The content of the text makes an indelible impression on so young a mind, but it has other effects too. For one thing the child learns that there are languages completely different from his own; there are scripts that not only have different letters but may even run in the opposite direction. These facts may not be expressed to the child, but somehow or other they sink in through illustration. "In high school I majored in mathematics but also studied Latin and German, while continuing Hebrew and Aramaic extracurricularly. At the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing those languages, I added the study of Greek, Swedish, and Arabic. "Swedish played an important role in my linguistic training. My teacher, Axel Johann Uppvall, had a contagious love for his native language. After six weeks of Swedish, I was reading Swedish classics at sight. I had made a discovery: if anybody takes the trouble to look up and memorize every word and to understand every detail of the grammar in the first twenty pages of any book, he can read the rest of the book with scarcely any need of a dictionary. This is so because each author has his own style and mode of expression, which for the most part unfold in any twenty-page sampling of his writing. Having read one book (it happened to be Selma Lagerlöf’s Jerusalem), I could ready any book by the same author; I easily got into other authors such as Strindberg and Tegner) after mastering the details on the first few pages of one of their books. That I could do this with Swedish inspired me with confidence that I could duplicate the experience with other languages as well. One summer I decided to learn French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Dano-Norwegian by myself, through studying each one of them one hour per day during the three-month vacation. After reading through a grammar of each language rapidly, I would begin to translate a worth-while book whose contents interested me. Having mastered in detail the first twenty pages, I would read the rest more quickly, looking up only those words whose meaning I could not guess from context. I took sight-reading examinations in the autumn at the University of Pennsylvania and was awarded sight-reading certificates in all of them. "In graduate school I majored in Semitics in a department that required training in all the major Semitic languages as well as a reading knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, and German. The students were also obliged to study linguistic science. Emphasis was placed simultaneously on Biblical philology and on archaeology, along with the study of newly discovered inscriptions. Although there were no courses in history, in their written examinations to qualify for the doctorate, the students were held responsible for voluminous readings in history. The scope of such a programmed is hard to find nowadays in an age of growing specialization. (pages 146-147) "Margolis [a beloved teacher who would tell students to "go to hell" if they answered wrongly] would ask each student to take on a special assignment, such as a particular version or commentary and be responsible for its evidence. He told me on my first day in class to handle the Syriac version. ‘But I don’t know Syriac,’ I protested. He looked at me sternly and growled, ‘Where do you think you are? In a kindergarten? Go home and learn Syriac.’ Syriac script was then strange to me, but I got a grammar, quickly learned the characters, and found that it is not very different as a language from Aramaic, which I knew. The lesson Margolis rudely taught me stuck. If I need a language, I’ve got to learn it. And if I have to use a language right away, there is no time to wait for courses to be offered. (pages 151-152). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7259 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 2 of 3 27 May 2005 at 2:19am | IP Logged |
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Thank you very much for this useful and interesting contribution. The name Cyrus Gordon certainly rings a bell in my head, but I wouldn't have been able to identify him without this post. Is the excerpt that you gave all that was in extract about his language learning experiences? If not, I would be most eager to hear the rest. If so, could you please provide the dates of his brith and death and the titles of any of his other books that you might happen to be aware of?
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| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 7135 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 3 of 3 30 May 2005 at 2:59am | IP Logged |
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Ardaschir,
For Gordon's biography I'll quote from the publisher's blurb for "Forgotten Scripts." However, if you can find the New York Times obituary for him you'll find a much more rounded portrait of the man including an "eccentric" fascination that in later life made some colleagues shy away from him. (The obsession was his belief in much greater interaction between ancient Greece and the Middle East--sort of his way of reconciling Athens with Jerusalem). "Dr. Cyrus H. Gordon is Joseph and Esther Foster Professor of Mediterranean Studies at Brandeis University, where he founded the Department of Mediterranean Studies. Born in Philadelphia in 1908, he received his A.B. and Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania. His specialized training covered Semitic, Classical and Indo-Iranian languages and cultures. Between 1931 and 1971 he spent over seven years in the Near East, mainly occupied with field archaeology. "During the Second World War, his service in the U.S. Army included an assignment in the Persian Gulf Command that brought him to grips with the military and politcal problems of the East. He retired from the Air Force with rank of Colonel. "He also worked as a military cryptanalyst, breaking enemy codes. This experience, combined with his pioneering interest in recovering the lost languages of the Ancient Mediterranean, is shown in 'Forgotten Scripts.' He wrote the first grammar and dictionary of the Ugaritic language, and other books include 'The Ancient Near East' (1963), 'The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations' (1965), 'Evidence fo the Minoan Language' (1966) and 'Ugaritic Textbook' (1967). A book on the links between the Old World and Ancient America, appeared in 1971 under the title of 'Before Columbis.' "Dr. Gordon lectures on many aspects of his studies. He is married and has five children." 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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