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Jose Rizal : Forgotten Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| hot_flip16 Newbie Philippines Joined 6665 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 1 of 9 31 January 2006 at 1:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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Dr. José Protacio Mercado Rizal y Alonzo Realonda (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896), variously called the "Pride of the Malay Race," "The Great Malayan," "The First Filipino," "The Messiah of the Revolution," "The Universal Hero," "The Messiah of the Redemption," was an eye surgeon and is the national hero of the Philippines.
Rizal was a polyglot. He mastered 22 languages which included Catalan, Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Latin, Malay, Sanskrit, Spanish, Portuguese, Tagalog, Cebuano and other Philippine languages. As a polymath, he was also an architect, artist, educator, economist, ethnologist, scientific farmer, historian, inventor, journalist, musician, mythologist, internationalist, naturalist, novelist, ophthalmologist, physician, poet, propagandist, sculptor, and sociologist. A patriot of the highest order, the anniversary of Rizal's death, December 30, is now celebrated as a holiday in the Philippines, called Rizal Day. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6146 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes  Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 2 of 9 11 April 2008 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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According to this site:
To learn a new language, Rizal memorized five root words every night before going to bed. At the end of the year, he learned 1,825 new words. He never forget these foreign words because of his retentive memory. Rizal made a good use of his knowledge of many languages in his travels in Europe and America, in communicating with foreign scholars and scientists, and in his writings. Many times during his travels abroad, he acted as interpreter for his fellow travelers who belonged to various nationalities-Americans, British, French, German, Italians, Spaniards, Japanese and others. During his exile in Dapitan, Rizal increased his knowledge of languages. He studied three more languages- Malay, Bisayan and Subanun. On April 5, 1896, he wrote to his Austrian friend, Professor Blumentritt: "I know Bisayan already, and I speak it quite well. It is necessary, however, to know other dialects." By the end of his exile in Dapitan on July 31, 1896, Rizal had become one of the world's great linguists. He knew 22 languages, namely, Tagalog, Ilokano, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, English, French, German, Arabic, Hebrew, Catalan, Dutch, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Swedish, Russian, Malay, Bisayan, and Subanun. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6159 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 9 16 April 2008 at 9:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alfonso Octoglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6648 days ago 511 posts - 536 votes Speaks: Biblical Hebrew, Spanish*, French, English, Tzotzil, Italian, Portuguese, Ancient Greek Studies: Nahuatl, Tzeltal, German | Message 4 of 9 16 April 2008 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
He seems to be an extraordinary guy, but I haven't heard anything about him. Thank you for sharing information about him in this forum. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Makrasiroutioun Quadrilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Canada infowars.com Joined 5893 days ago 210 posts - 236 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Armenian*, Romanian*, Latin, German, Italian Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 9 19 April 2008 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow, this guy is very impressive. He was all that within a lifetime? That surely defeats today's ultra-sub-sub-sub-subspecialisation frenzy where we train our professionals for a decade and they are utterly incapable of doing anything else than what they were trained for.
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| Puraw Newbie United States Joined 5804 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 6 of 9 04 June 2008 at 12:49am | IP Logged | |||||
He was also quite young when he did all that. He was only 35 when the Spanish executed him. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hot_flip16 Newbie Philippines Joined 6665 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 7 of 9 05 June 2008 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
He died very young indeed. Just imagine what other marvellous things he could have accomplished doing had he lived longer. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hot_flip16 Newbie Philippines Joined 6665 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 8 of 9 05 June 2008 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
By the way, Rizal was also a ladies'-man. He was known to have had girlfriends in every country he visited in spite of his short stature and average looks. He is also called the "Filipino Casanova". LOL. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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