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Ziad Fazah - does he exist? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7041 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes  | Message 377 of 377 08 October 2007 at 9:16am | IP Logged |
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It has been clearly established that there is a man named Ziad Fazah who was a great lover of languages for a period earlier in his life. On the basis of that involvement with languages, his fate was to rise to a position of relative fame and prominence as the “world’s greatest living polyglot.” However, the official narrative about his abilities contains some inaccuracies, simplifications, and exaggerations, specific questions about which remain unanswered after a lapse of more than two years. Now, a clip from a sensationalistic televised show can be seen in which he fails to speak languages he supposedly knows. This is all terribly sad and depressing.
I dream of establishing Polyglottery as a respected and respectable formal academic field of endeavor. One of the main difficulties in doing this is the fact that so many people consider it to be impossible for one person to know many languages well. The ramifications of this are that the great majority can neither conceive of striving to learn many languages well nor appreciate the endeavors of those who do make this attempt. Worse still, many academic linguists regard all claims of polyglottery with extreme skepticism. As I wrote when starting this thread, I do believe that one human being could in some meaningful sense know a fair amount of fifty-eight languages although I do not believe that any one person can converse with any depth in anything like that number at any one time in his life, and I wince at the thought that an ability or inability to respond to questions in a game-show like competition could be taken as any kind of indicator of true linguistic abilities. I am one of those who have been waiting in vain for two years for the promised evidence explaining the specific questions I raised about the narrative. Indeed, one of the few reasons for my own long absence from this forum that had anything at all to do with the forum itself is the unresolved state of this issue. It may not bother Ziad Fazah to perform as a showman or to leave unresolved doubts about his achievements circulating abroad in the world, but this whole state of affairs bothers me very much. People regard him as the world champion polyglot, and if he fails or is found to be a fraud, the very notion of polyglottery is most negatively impacted. I would never dream of making a telephone call to Ziad Fazah in order to quiz him. However, fate has blown me around the world a fair amount already, and if I should ever find myself in his corner of the globe, I will certainly make an extra effort to visit him respectfully in person in the hopes of having a lengthy and substantive conversation in and about many languages. I do not know how he would feel about it, but if this encounter ever comes to pass, I would not object to having a documentary made to capture what would, at least for the kind of person who has joined this forum, most certainly be an extremely interesting exchange of ideas about what it means to really know a language. Indeed, if we could somehow get funding for such a project, I would be more than happy to make a trip to Brazil for just this purpose. I am sure that after such a meeting I could write an accurate biography of the true scope of Ziad Fazah’s linguistic achievements for inclusion in the chapter of biographies of polyglots in my own long-since promised book on the principles of polyglottery. However, I cannot repeat the information contained in the narratives in circulation, and since no other information is forthcoming, I will have to leave him out for the time being. Do not speak ill of others if you do not want ill to be spoken of you. If you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all. I like to live my life according to categorical imperatives such as these. I started this thread long ago and I would like to shut it down now as I will have nothing further to say about the matter until when and if I meet the man in person and I do not wish to have my name associated in any way with any dispute about him. This thread has in any case grown too long. It very clear that the only person who can shed any light upon what Ziad Fazah really knows is Ziad Fazah, and as he is aware of this forum and this discussion but does not care to elucidate, I think we should all just pass over him in respectful silence for the time being. The man exists, but the legend does not. Who is really surprised at this? In closing, I most strongly suggest that the description for this entire “Polyglots” room be changed from “discussion about real-life polyglots such as Cardinal Mezzofanti or Ziad Fazah” to something along the more simple lines of “discussion of actual polyglots and their learning techniques.” 13 persons have voted this message useful |
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