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Emil Krebs (1857 - 1930) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 12 14 December 2006 at 7:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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Outstanding language competence and cytoarchitecture.
Emil Krebs was a legendary polyglot, who could translate from at least 100 languages. According to the article above he learnt Armenian in only 9 weeks: 2 weeks for the grammar, 3 weeks for Old Armenian language, and 4 weeks for spoken language. Now after more than 70 years his brain has been dissected and compared to 11 control brains from more normal persons. The result was that his brain did show some peculiar traits, mainly concerning Broca's area which is one of the areas that control language. So, now the question is: is this the case also for other superpolyglots, or is it just mr. Krebs who had some special equipment? And next question after that: are you hopelessly lost in misery if your brain isn't specially equipped with an exceptional Broca? Edited by Fasulye on 08 November 2010 at 7:06pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6657 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 2 of 12 14 December 2006 at 10:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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I suspect that superpolyglots may have super equipment, but there's another possibility. Perhaps learning lots of languages has some sort of effect on the brain.
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 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5845 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 12 08 November 2010 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There is a very interesting article in German written on the website of Auswärtiges Amt (= Foreign Affairs in Germany):
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/de/AAmt/Dienste/Aktuell esZumThema/EmilKrebsNeu,navCtx=72324.html PS: There seems to be a problem with my link. Thanks for you assistance, Iversen and Doitsujin! Here is another interesting link to a pdf-file about Emil Krebs: "Das Sprachwunder" (in German) http://www.tsingtau.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/emil_kreb s_tsingtau_org.pdf Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 08 November 2010 at 8:45pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 12 08 November 2010 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I had to make a search on the homepage of the German Foreign Ministry, which gave this link.
More about this language genius: www.weikopf.de - with a language list, which concentrates on his skills as a translator/interpreter rather than his ability to speak - though it doesn't sum up to 100 active languages www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov about the examination of his brain (short abstract with links, but not the real deal) en.wikipedia.org Edited by Iversen on 08 November 2010 at 7:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5318 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 5 of 12 08 November 2010 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
Unfortunately, the Forum software added a space to Fasulye's link. I fixed it in this post. BTW, the article mentions that he achieved most fame as a Mandarin translator and learned several languages using text books written in languages other than German. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5845 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 12 08 November 2010 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks a lot Doitsujin! This is exactly the article I have meant to present. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 08 November 2010 at 8:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5845 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 12 08 November 2010 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting to know that Emil Krebs was also a "L3 via L2" - learner, which is one of my preferred methods.
(Quote Doitsujin: "...and learned several languages using text books written in languages other than German.") Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 08 November 2010 at 8:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 12 08 November 2010 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In itself there isn't anything special about using your L2 to learn L3. Those of us who come from small language communities are used to that, - many of my grammars and dictionaries have English or other languages as their basis language. I'm more impressed by the fact that Krebs could find anything useful in any language about some of the languages he studied, such as Manchu which was barely alive during his lifetime and is all but stonedead now. I don't know whether the Chinese or Japanese or other Asians had made text books and dictionaries for languages from that part of the world during his lifetime, and the number of publications by Western scholars can't have been too overwhelming. Presumably he must have been relying heavily on the study of genuine sources rather than textbooks and other pedagogical publications.
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