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Language Savants | ||
Tags: Savant | Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5637 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 9 of 33 03 November 2011 at 8:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's exactly what they say in the Geo DVD documentary! Fasulye 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5556 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 10 of 33 03 November 2011 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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People with Williams-Beuren syndrome show lower general mental abilities, but have average to good language abilities; I heard that they may learn foreign languages well if you discount for their problems with abstract reasoning.
There are also some individuals with autism spectrum disorders that show a talent for languages. Christopher Taylow was mentioned in this thread, and there are some other videos here.
The reason being that ASD have a relatively high prevalence rate in comparision to other disorders or circumstances that can cause savant syndrome. Edited by Bao on 03 November 2011 at 9:44pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josh Cohen Newbie United States mnemotechnics.org/ Joined 4666 days ago 35 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese, Esperanto | Message 11 of 33 15 November 2011 at 4:28am | IP Logged | |||||
There are no sour grapes involved at all. Please read the whole thread carefully, and examine the links. The discussion is well-referenced. The video where he "learns Icelandic in a week" had someone from his PR company as an associate producer, and there is no proof that Icelandic was learned in a week. See also the der Spiegel article about how he "learns German in a week" for them, but the article doesn't mention that in 2001 he had previously claimed to have "mastered" German in school using mnemonic techniques. The memory community would love to see a fellow mnemonist succeed, but not by hiding the techniques. The use of memory techniques is being carefully concealed. Edited by Josh Cohen on 15 November 2011 at 4:32am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6493 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 33 15 November 2011 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have now read the complete thread at mnemotechnics.org through (se Josh Cohen's post above), and it was quite thoughtprovoking. Apparently David Tammett had considerably more experience with German than we have been told, and that he apparently has been a mnemonist long before getting the diagnose of autism and/or Asperger was also new to me. Even his synaesthetism has been questioned, but that's one point where the argumentation against him is less solid.
I'm personally not really interested in number learning or advanced calculation*, but the claims about Tammett learning Icelandic and German in one week each were of course relevant for another language learner like me. I have in earlier threads stressed that he spent his week on Iceland in a very intensive way, which included fulltime access to a native tutor. Given that Icelandic after all is a related Germanic language and that Tammett already knew other languages (including German!!) learning enough Icelandic to survive a TV interview was impressive, but not totally superhuman - if you had a more than average memory, that is, and Tammett's main asset would be having the almost eidetic memory of a savant. Things fitted together, and even his alleged synaesthesia might something to do with that memory. The new information gives a quite different explanation for his memorizations skills, and one possible conclusion might be that Tammett may not have been totally honest with us, but that memory training in some form could be a good idea for other budding speed-learners. But now it must also be relevant to have a look at the TV presentation in Icelandic, which unfortunately was very brief - and even briefer in the edited version at Youtube. One thing I noticed is that he compared his level of speaking with the breathing of an astmatic patient - very modest formulation, but certainly a metaphor. Who said that he couldn't think in metaphors? My impression was that this was a 'ready made' formulation which he had memorized in the expectation of getting a chance to use it during the interview. No hard feelings, I also use prememorized formulations when I make videos, but it indicates that he wasn't a fully fluent speaker after that week. Which just added to the credibility of the video. I still assume that he got quite far during that week (based more on the opinions of the Icelandic TV people than on his own two or three sentences), but when the prime alleged language learner among the autists/Aspergers happens also to be a memorist we may have to revise the ideas about the special skills of savants. It was already very few of these that claimed any skills in languages, but now there is probably even less reason to see language learning as a potential 'killer skill' for savants. * (by the way, how come that Trachtenberg isn't ever mentioned when speaking about mental calculation?) Edited by Iversen on 15 November 2011 at 10:06pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josh Cohen Newbie United States mnemotechnics.org/ Joined 4666 days ago 35 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese, Esperanto | Message 13 of 33 15 November 2011 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
Check out the book Moonwalking with Einstein for a look at the synesthesia claim.
Thanks -- I will mention it today. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5941 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 14 of 33 21 November 2011 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
I read this book on my recent trip in Indonesia, and there's a lot on Daniel Tammet. The author meets him on a couple of occasions, and probes him on his memory skills. I'd recommend this book as he also discusses numerous memory techniques. The book also mentions Bruce Balmer who learnt 2,000 foreign word in a day (18 hours). Edited by DaraghM on 21 November 2011 at 4:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5801 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 15 of 33 22 November 2011 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
He did -- on a live interview on UK daytime TV (Richard and Judy). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6493 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 16 of 33 23 November 2011 at 1:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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My point was that he also did it when he compared his Icelandic to an asthmatic person's breathing. Actually it is somewhat reassuring that he can think in metaphors because metaphors are an important part of language. I'm not quite sure whether autists in general have a problem with this. Edited by Iversen on 23 November 2011 at 3:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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