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Polyglot Writers | ||
Tags: Literature | Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 4932 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes  Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 1 of 9 17 November 2010 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||
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For trivia, I always search about writers - I like books. Many were genial polyglots.
Jorge Luís Borges was a prodigy in languages at childhood. At seix years he learned English and translated Oscar Wilde´s "Happy Prince" to Spanish at ten years. He learned German only with help of a dictionary and Heine´s poems. He spoke Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Old Norse, Middle English, Anglo-Saxon and maybe Portuguese, beyond having studied Japanese. The Brazilian writer Guimarães Rosa also: He spoke seven languages - German, French, English, Spanish, Italian, Esperanto and Russian - and had minor knowledge in four - Dutch, Swedish, Latin and Greek. Other polyglot writers: *Edgar Allan Poe: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew. *Lope de Vega: Spanish, Latin, French, Italian, Greek and Portuguese. *John Milton: English, French, German, Italian, Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Dutch. *Anthony Burgess: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Malay, Welsh, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Hebrew and Swedish 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5131 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 2 of 9 17 November 2010 at 2:37am | IP Logged | ||
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The Colombian philosopher Nicolás Gómez Dávila. It is said his personal library of thousands of volumes contained books in some 14 languages, making it impossible to find a buyer for it as a whole after his death, given that very few people would be capable of understanding any given percentage of it. It was finally donated to Bogota's main public library. I should probably seek to visit and peruse it some day.
Interestingly with regards to language, Italian and German intellectuals among whom Davila's work has gained appreciation have resorted to learning Spanish in order to read his aphorisms in the original, as much of its genius is hopelessly untranslatable. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 4932 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 3 of 9 17 November 2010 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dávila. He was a reaccionary. I knew him, but it isn´t informartions about him in the
internet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5131 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 4 of 9 17 November 2010 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||
Here's a picture of him in his library:
An excerpt about his language interests:
According to an acquaintance of mine in his library there were books in oriental languages as well, particularly Sanskrit. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 4932 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 5 of 9 21 December 2010 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I liked these informations about Gomez Dávila. I always liked his story. Thank you
Juan!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6654 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 6 of 9 25 December 2010 at 12:21am | IP Logged | ||
Where did you find this out about Poe? I'd like to read more about it if it's true. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 4932 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 7 of 9 26 December 2010 at 12:54am | IP Logged | ||
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The informations about Poe were gotten
fromNotable Polyglots - Eddie Donovan. But, I found few information about his skills: Poe´s Wordlist. I´m not sure of his abilities, so I´m sorry. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Adamdm Groupie Australia Joined 5223 days ago 62 posts - 89 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Dari, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 8 of 9 23 February 2011 at 7:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, here are some who might qualify:
Vladimir Nabokov (a great novelist in Russian and then in English, fluent from childhood in French, I don't know what else); Khushwant Singh - novels in English, but, like most educated Indians, no doubt knows a heap of Indian languages. What counts as a "writer"? Bertrand Russell apparently _averaged_ writing three thousand words a day over 50 years, so he must be a writer! As for polyglot, research is needed, but I think he had a few languages, as did Australian philoopher (and poet, so therefore "writer") A. D. Hope. Scientist Hugo deVries has books (so he's a writer too, even though they aren't novels) written by him in Dutch, German, French and English (I have seen them at the library where I work). There is an interesting anecdote in Simon Winchester's biography of sinologist Joseph Needham, who, in later life, was speaking to a Russian scientist in his (Needham's) office: the Russian sees a copy of his (the Russian's) book, in English, on Needham's shelves, and enquires who the translator was. Needham opens the book, and finds that he was its translator, when he was an undergraduate. Of younger generations, Nicholas Awde has, as well as dictionaries and phrase-books etc of numerous languages, written a few novels too. Edited by Adamdm on 23 February 2011 at 7:14am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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