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OK, so just what is a polyglot? | ||
Tags: Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Zwlth Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 5022 days ago 154 posts - 320 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, French, Persian, Greek | Message 9 of 38 14 July 2011 at 4:36am | IP Logged |
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On the point raised by Wyndhamfan, I would say:
A polyglot is someone who knows foreign languages as a result of having studied them. A multilingual person is someone who grew up in an environment where more than one language was actively spoken and used. In other words, it goes back to the learn vs. acquire issue: A polyglot learns languages, a mutilingual person acquires them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6499 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 10 of 38 14 July 2011 at 9:46am | IP Logged |
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If we really take this issue seriously then it isn't enough to separate native speakers from second language learners. In my log I have some time ago commented on research that shows that you have to learn a language before 5 years of age to be a true native speaker of a given language - otherwise your brain reactions will be different (generally weaker) from those of a true native speaker (the test persons were interpreters and translators from EU, i.e. very advanced language learners/native speakers). After that age limit there is a vaguely defined period (roughly up to early puberty) where your chances of acquiring a spotless accent are much better than if you learn a language later.
To complicate matters further you also have to consider the extent of your exposure: having a neighbour who speaks a certain language isn't as good as having parents or comrades speaking that language. This is actually not different from the situation of an adult learner, but the big question is how little exposure you can have and still become a native speaker, grade 1 or 2. For instance children in Denmark can't avoid hearing Anglophone music or watching TV in English - but does that make them bilingual? So the cut between native speakers and second language learners isn't as simple as that, and therefore the division between -linguals and -glots is also somewhat fuzzy. But ultimately the important thing is what you can do with each of your language now, not how you acquired them. And if you have learned them early and/or had massive exposure then congratulations. If not, then you may have to settle for a lower level. Edited by Iversen on 14 July 2011 at 9:51am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4830 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 11 of 38 14 July 2011 at 5:39pm | IP Logged |
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I like the purposefulness mentioned in Zwlth's post.
I, too, have recently been wondering about polyglottery if only because I have perceived a type of snobbery from some corners. I know six languages--some of them well, some of them not. (I even have a hidden seventh language that I decided to let fade into oblivion.) As Iverson mentioned in one of his posts, there is a ladder of progression from native to just starting to scratch the surface. But sometimes the perceived attitude I find is that "No, you can't be a polyglot. That's only six. You have to do fifteen!" Or something similar. No one actually says this, but it's the attitude I seem find. It's confusing to me because I think to myself how I have six languages within me (you can even drop it to 5 if you want to nitpick because my Russian is very poor right now), and yet I can't consider myself a polyglot? Before I became a part of online communities, I thought I was one... It's confusing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6499 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 12 of 38 14 July 2011 at 7:29pm | IP Logged |
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To Jdmoncada: You have six languages (OK, five and a half for the nitpickers) and they represent three families within the Indoeuropean languages plus two languages outside that group. If you just knew 2 or 3 languages or all your 'languages' were dialects of English then the term polyglot would not be appropriate, but you are far from that situation. You are a polyglot by any reasonable definition.
The problem with Zwlth's post is that somebody might get the idea that languages you have got 'for free' from your surroundings don't count. Of course they do. But it must be legal to say that learning very closely related languages doesn't represent as much hard work as learning very different languages, and that learning a language passively is easier than learning it as an active language. On the other hand a language is a language, whether you got it from you comrades and parents as a child or you had to learn it by hard work at the flickering light from a candle. It is the endresult that counts. So I personally don't like to say that you need a specific number of languages to be a polyglot. You have to look at the level, and you have to look at the distance between the languages. But the methods you used are irrelevant. Sometimes five languages are more impressive than seven, and if you managed to learn them in your childhood then you were just smarter (or luckier) than most of us. Edited by Iversen on 14 July 2011 at 7:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Zwlth Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 5022 days ago 154 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, French, Persian, Greek | Message 13 of 38 15 July 2011 at 11:30am | IP Logged |
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If you really want to deny that there is a distinction between being a polyglot and being multilingual, then why not look at this type of research, which suggests that you need to be exposed to the phonetic inventory of a language before the age of 6 months in order to hear all distinctions? Honestly and frankly, Iversen, your response is a classic example of not being able to see the forest for the trees. In a world of billions of people, and with a human phenomenon as complex as language learning and language use, of course you are going to find millions of fuzzy exceptions to rules. But, that doesn't mean that rules don't exist. And, the rule for language knowledge is that there are two fundamentally different ways to attain it: a) by acquiring it from the environment you grow up in, and b) by consciously studying it when you are older.
Why on earth would you fear that this basic fact is problematic because polyglots might look down on the multilingual? Have you ever observed that? Don't we, on the contrary, wish we had had that head start? On that note, it would be SO much more interesting if this thread would continue in the direction of the relationship between polyglottery and multilingualism (or the lack thereof, for it does seem that many if not most polyglots are not naturally multilingual) rather than, as sadly seems to be the case, in the same old direction of how many languages you need to know, whether or not they are related, how well you have to know them, etc., etc., in order to be considered a polyglot. Hasn't that been hashed out umpteen times already? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6499 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 14 of 38 15 July 2011 at 1:35pm | IP Logged |
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I have apparently not stated my case in sufficiently clear terms.
I certainly don't want to deny that there is a distinction between being a polyglot and being multilingual - on the contrary I refer to research that points to an age limit of about 5 years, not just the usual one of some 10-13 years or so for learning a language as a native speaker, and now you add a criterion based on an age limit of just 6 months. My point is that it doesn't matter how you learnt your languages (and that's not the same thing as fearing something). The thing that matters is what you can do with them, and some native speakers may know a lot of words and expressions but still be unable to speak in grammatically correct sentences (judged against the standard of other native speakers), some speak in a slurry or aberrant way and some don't know a thing about things they haven't discovered through Facebook. On the other hand the best second language learners are probably those we don't notice, and right below them you find people who may have a slight accent, but who write or speak clearly and with an impeccable grammar. One thing more: when I went to school in the 60s we had lessons in Danish, so I did study my native language (yes, also its grammar). And on the other hand: I began learning English when I was around 9 or 10 years old, and since then I have read and heard tons of English. I didn't learn it as a native language, but the time frame and amount of my English exposure makes it more than just than just a hobby. The distinction between studied and acquired is as blurry as can be in these two cases. So even though the division between 'glots and 'linguals is based on real facts it is much too simplistic. If you really want to characterize the languages of a certain person in quantitative terms then you have to look at fluency versus correctness, spoken against written, passive against active competence and so forth - and my point is that once you have considered all these factors then tagging the person with a number or level isn't relevant any longer. - - - The observation that most HTLAL polyglots have just one native language is interesting, but not surprising, given that this forum is specifically about language learning (read 'studying'), and that most Westerners live in fairly monolingual surroundings. If we considered people who became multilingual through living in a multilingual area then we would probably find that they are quite common, but unless they also have studied additional languages then the thought would probably not occur to them to write here. Edited by Iversen on 15 July 2011 at 10:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6664 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 16 of 38 16 July 2011 at 7:29am | IP Logged |
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My two cents: a polyglot is someone who speaks several languages (in my opinion at least five because 3 and maaaaaybe 4 seem like too "few" to me to feel like several). I don't care if they learned two or three or whatever natively from parents and environment, or if they learned all of the L2s later in life. I also don't care if they all belong to the same language family, ie, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese, etc.
I'm up in the air about "dialects", ie is Scots a dialect of English or a separate language? What about the "dialects" of German or Chinese? Many of them seem divergent enough from the "official" form of the language to be their own languages. This is a whole topic itself as to what constitutes a dialect vs a language, like "Is it linguistic or political?" for one thing. As far as skill level goes, they have to be at least conversationally fluent. That means having an intelligent grasp of nuances, be able to talk about almost anything they want, be able to speak fluidly and not haltingly, be passably literate (I don't care if they can't read profound literature exactly, but simple things like newspapers, emails, pulpy novels and still get at LEAST 70% or 80%). If they are studying a language like Arabic or Chinese, knowing the written language should also be a factor; however there are some people who know just the written language (ie those who take Latin) and some who just know the spoken language like people who speak Arabic dialects but don't know the written forms, or like immigrants of Chinese families who speak the language at home but don't pass the written language on to their kids. This doesn't mean they don't know the language, but simply that their skill levels are weaker in some areas. I like the term polyglot, and if people are going to use it there needs to be some idea of standards, although I certainly don't think we have to agree on those standards. The other thing is though, most people don't even know what a polyglot is, so it's kind of a silly term unless you are among language learners, and all of even them have their own ideas and standards! :-P EDIT: Typos Edited by Journeyer on 17 July 2011 at 12:07am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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