nothing” eye but only a “somethingand something” one. Among other things, this meant that individuals could be interesting even if they weren’t native-like in all their languages.
I left with the belief that Mezzofanti did things with languages that the people who speak them natively would never do. Topping the list was his ability to rapidly analyze languages and his prodigious memory (as evidenced by performance and his ownclaims); an apparent ability to mimic speech sounds that weren’t native to him; and an ability to switch among his languages without interference. These are unique skills; monolingual native speakers don’t necessarily have them, and, except for the language switching, neither do bilinguals. The native speaker wasn’t the hyperpolyglot’s twin, joined in comparisons; someone else would have to takethat role.
Mezzofanti’s time and place seemed distant and inaccessible. But was he truly one of a kind, the only member of his species? Or could others like him be living among us now?
Part 2
APPROACH:
Tracking Down Hyperpolyglots
Chapter 5
N earing retirement, Dick Hudson, a linguist at University College, London, took up an overlooked query: Who had learned the most languages ever? In the mid-1990s, he sent this question to LINGUIST List, a popular forum with language scientists. A flurry of postings listed the names of well-known hyperpolyglots of yesteryear, including Giuseppe Mezzofanti. Others cast doubts that theupper limit for languages would be very high. For all purposes, it remained an open question, a natural experiment whose results had never been analyzed.
A couple of years later, he received an email that began like this: “Sir, First, let me apologize for bothering you, but I saw an article you wrote and had to write.” The writer, N., had found Hudson’s posting and wanted to describe how hisgrandfather, a Sicilian with no formal schooling, had learned languages with such remarkable ease that by the end of his life he could speak seventy, as well as read and write in fifty-six. * This grandfather was twenty when he moved to New York in the 1910s. There he found a job as a railroad porter, which brought him into contact with travelers who spoke many different languages. N. saidhe oncewatched his grandfather translate a newspaper into three languages on the spot.
When N. was ten years old, in the 1950s, he accompanied his grandfather on a six-month world cruise. Whatever port they called at, N. said his grandfather knew the local language. Their trip took them to Venezuela, Argentina, Norway, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco,South Africa, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Japan. Assuming the grandfather spoke the local language at each port, one can figure that he knew some of at least seventeen (including English)—though there was no mention of what he could accomplish in each.
Even more amazingly, N. claimed that this talent ran in his family. “Every threeor four generations there is a member of my family who has the ability to learn many languages,” he wrote. His grandfather once told N. that his own father and great-uncle could speak more than one hundred languages.
When Hudson read this, its significance was crystal clear. Studying the genetic basis of abilities in language, especially the heritability of language disorders, is cutting-edgeterritory. In the 1990s, exciting work was performed on a family with developmental language problems who had the same mutated gene. Could there be a genetic link for exceptional abilities? Perhaps a hyperpolyglot gene?
With N.’s permission, Hudson passed the mail on to LINGUIST. Seeing a need for a better label for people who learn lots of languages, Hudson chose hyperpolyglot . Multilingual didn’t cut it; polyglot felt too pedestrian. A hyperpolyglot, in Hudson’s terms, was a person who could speak six or more
I left with the belief that Mezzofanti did things with languages that the people who speak them natively would never do. Topping the list was his ability to rapidly analyze languages and his prodigious memory (as evidenced by performance and his ownclaims); an apparent ability to mimic speech sounds that weren’t native to him; and an ability to switch among his languages without interference. These are unique skills; monolingual native speakers don’t necessarily have them, and, except for the language switching, neither do bilinguals. The native speaker wasn’t the hyperpolyglot’s twin, joined in comparisons; someone else would have to takethat role.
Mezzofanti’s time and place seemed distant and inaccessible. But was he truly one of a kind, the only member of his species? Or could others like him be living among us now?
Part 2
APPROACH:
Tracking Down Hyperpolyglots
Chapter 5
N earing retirement, Dick Hudson, a linguist at University College, London, took up an overlooked query: Who had learned the most languages ever? In the mid-1990s, he sent this question to LINGUIST List, a popular forum with language scientists. A flurry of postings listed the names of well-known hyperpolyglots of yesteryear, including Giuseppe Mezzofanti. Others cast doubts that theupper limit for languages would be very high. For all purposes, it remained an open question, a natural experiment whose results had never been analyzed.
A couple of years later, he received an email that began like this: “Sir, First, let me apologize for bothering you, but I saw an article you wrote and had to write.” The writer, N., had found Hudson’s posting and wanted to describe how hisgrandfather, a Sicilian with no formal schooling, had learned languages with such remarkable ease that by the end of his life he could speak seventy, as well as read and write in fifty-six. * This grandfather was twenty when he moved to New York in the 1910s. There he found a job as a railroad porter, which brought him into contact with travelers who spoke many different languages. N. saidhe oncewatched his grandfather translate a newspaper into three languages on the spot.
When N. was ten years old, in the 1950s, he accompanied his grandfather on a six-month world cruise. Whatever port they called at, N. said his grandfather knew the local language. Their trip took them to Venezuela, Argentina, Norway, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco,South Africa, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Japan. Assuming the grandfather spoke the local language at each port, one can figure that he knew some of at least seventeen (including English)—though there was no mention of what he could accomplish in each.
Even more amazingly, N. claimed that this talent ran in his family. “Every threeor four generations there is a member of my family who has the ability to learn many languages,” he wrote. His grandfather once told N. that his own father and great-uncle could speak more than one hundred languages.
When Hudson read this, its significance was crystal clear. Studying the genetic basis of abilities in language, especially the heritability of language disorders, is cutting-edgeterritory. In the 1990s, exciting work was performed on a family with developmental language problems who had the same mutated gene. Could there be a genetic link for exceptional abilities? Perhaps a hyperpolyglot gene?
With N.’s permission, Hudson passed the mail on to LINGUIST. Seeing a need for a better label for people who learn lots of languages, Hudson chose hyperpolyglot . Multilingual didn’t cut it; polyglot felt too pedestrian. A hyperpolyglot, in Hudson’s terms, was a person who could speak six or more
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