http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/07/the-contested-title-of-the-person-who-speaks-the-most-languages/
I found this article by searching what the most languages a single person has ever spoken was. I was expecting around 30 or so. Instead, what I found was that a few people may be able to speak nearly twice that! I planned to be able to speak around 10 or so throughout my life, thinking that there simply wouldn't be time for more, but seeing this, maybe I will be able to do more.
The article does raise an interesting question though. At what point are you considered being able to speak the language? If being considered to speak a language only requires knowing some words or phrases, Then that would mean that I can speak over a dozen already. Maybe it requires being able to do basic or advanced conversation? The way I see it, there are different levels of it. 1: There is just knowing words and phrases. 2: Only having studied it. 3: Being proficient. 4: Being able to speak it. 5: Fluent.
In my opinion, being able to speak a language requires the ability to hold semi-advanced conversations for extended lengths of time over many different subjects. With that definition, I am able to speak only one language, English. I am proficient in Spanish and Japanese, being able to hold basic to intermediate conversations over some subjects. With Russian, Vietnamese, and Mandarin Chinese, I have only studied them some, being able to read and somewhat write and pronounce them, but not necessarily knowing what I am reading or saying. With Thai and Korean, I only know a few words and phrases and I am still learning their writing systems.
What would you consider as being able to speak a language?
After reading the article I agree with your comment; what is the definition of "speaking" a language? I'm with you on the litmus test being able to hold a semi-advanced conversation. The link between autism and polyglotism is interesting, but I'm surprised they didn't narrow it down to a form of Aspberger's. I wonder if the people who are claiming to "speak" counted different dialects as different languages? Which begs the question are dialects considered a language? Interesting article - thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting! I noticed that all the polyglots mentioned were men and I wondered if there was a reason for this trend, but then they brought it up! I think it's interesting that they relate autism to "male-brains" and that male brains are "compelled to master certain systems". I think that's sort of weird to think about. It makes me think of all the criminal mastermind stories about Evil MEN trying to take over the world. Hmm. Anyways, thanks for this link! I found it really thought provoking.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking many languges is hard, but it is good to learn as many as you can. The only thing is that not all of them you would learn to be fluent.
ReplyDeleteI've looked into this too and always just assumed that the people saying they could speak 20+ languages could understand everything said in that language, but maybe people are just going off knowing only a few phrases and justifying that as knowing a language. Although, many languages are linked and use the same root words so maybe people can learn multiple languages like that; an example being that Spanish and Italian are so similar that if someone knows one of those languages and reads the other one, it simply looks like there are multiple spelling errors but the meaning is still there.
ReplyDeleteYou have a good point. Another example would be with Japanese and Chinese. Being able to read Japanese, I can also read bits and pieces of Chinese, therefore being able to figure out the meaning of the sentences, even though I may not know how the Chinese is pronounced. A different example comes from the languages Thai and Laos. They are two different languages from two different countries that happen to be right next to each other. I believe that the languages use the exact same writing system (maybe a couple minor character differences), and the structure is the same. Even about 70% of the words are the exact same. Therefore, someone who knows Thai would be able to understand many words and even some full sentences from Laos, but the languages are still overall mutually unintelligible. I could give a whole separate thing of the similarities and differences of Mandarin and Cantonese, but I'm actually thinking of doing my next blog on this type of thing, so I don't want to write everything here.
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