Brazilian polyglot (news item)
Jeff560
By Simona de Logu
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuter) - Brazil's foremost linguist, whose ability to
speak 58 languages fluently has brought him fame but no fortune, hopes
the tide will turn in his favor with the Christmas launch of a series
of books in which he details his unusual method of learning
languages.
Ziad Fazah, who has earned himself an entry in the Brazilian edition
of the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's greatest living
polyglot, says he wants to pass his skill on to future generations.
``I think I am on a divine mission to harmonize the understanding
between people of different languages,'' said the 43-year-old Lebanese
immigrant, who has lived in Brazil for 25 years. ``I would feel very
satisfied to see other people learn the languages I learned.''
But, well-meant intentions aside, Fazah, who earns a living as a
language teacher and translator, does hope one of his books will land
him on the world bestseller list.
He acquired most of the huge number of languages he speaks between the
age of 14 and 17, and aside from Arabic, his mother tongue, and French
and English, which he learned at school in Lebanon, he taught himself
all the other languages.
He started with Armenian, then German, then Russian and other slavic
languages before moving on to such exotic tongues as Vietnamese,
Mandarin, Berber and most recently Papiamento, a language spoken in
the Dutch Antilles.
``My memory is like a biochemical laboratory, a photographic machine
which sees, registers, records and never forgets,'' Fazah told Reuters
in his modest apartment in Rio de Janeiro's middle-class neighborhood
of Flamengo where he lives with his wife and son. He admits not
everyone will be able to acquire his repertoire of languages but he
says anyone can learn to speak a foreign language ``reasonably well''
by following his method.
His first book, ``Teaching to Learn Spanish,'' reveals some of the
tricks that enabled him to learn three or four languages at the same
time in only three months. He would wake up early every morning, close
the curtains in his room and in the semi-darkness speak out loud to
himself in the language of the day for about 20 minutes. He would then
proceed to read sentences in the foreign language for two minutes
while listening to slow music.
``That way the sentences are mechanically absorbed into the
imagination,'' he said.
But his method also includes the well-known and arduous task of
memorizing vocabulary and finding one's way around the grammatical
intricacies of any language.
Fazah said with his experience he could now learn any language within
three weeks, but he is looking further afield and hopes to create his
own language one of these days.
``I am thinking about creating a world language like Esperanto,'' he
said. ``I could create a new language in three weeks, a simple
language with little grammar and phonetic spelling.''
Reuters/Variety
12:27 12-26-96
Esperanto League N America
jef...@aol.com (Jeff560) writes in a recent posting (reference <19961227011...@ladder01.news.aol.com>):
>
>Fazah said with his experience he could now learn any language within
>three weeks, but he is looking further afield and hopes to create his
>own language one of these days.
>
>``I am thinking about creating a world language like Esperanto,'' he
>said. ``I could create a new language in three weeks, a simple
>language with little grammar and phonetic spelling.''
>
camp of inventors/tinkerers: why doesn't he just learn & use Esperanto?
What if his sentence had read "I am thinking about creating a motorized
transportation machine like a car, a machine that you fill with petrol
which it converts to mechanical energy to take the driver where he wishes."
You might respond: "You don't need to *create* it: cars already exist!"
--
Miko SLOPER el...@netcom.com USA (510) 653 0998
Direktoro de la ftp.netcom.com:/pub/el/elna fax (510) 653 1468
Centra Oficejo de la Learn Esperanto! Free lessons: e-mail/snail-mail
Esperanto-Ligo de N.A. Write to above address or call: 1-800-ESPERANTO
Tom Wier
Esperanto League N America wrote:
>
> jef...@aol.com (Jeff560) writes in a recent posting (reference <19961227011...@ladder01.news.aol.com>):
> >
> >Fazah said with his experience he could now learn any language within
> >three weeks, but he is looking further afield and hopes to create his
> >own language one of these days.
> >
> >``I am thinking about creating a world language like Esperanto,'' he
> >said. ``I could create a new language in three weeks, a simple
> >language with little grammar and phonetic spelling.''
> >
> With this last sentence he places himself into the already-crowded
> camp of inventors/tinkerers: why doesn't he just learn & use Esperanto?
One could say this about any language. Why doesn't he just learn Klingon
or Interlingua? The decision to learn a language is
> What if his sentence had read "I am thinking about creating a motorized
> transportation machine like a car, a machine that you fill with petrol
> which it converts to mechanical energy to take the driver where he wishes."
> You might respond: "You don't need to *create* it: cars already exist!"
The whole point was that he thinks he could create a *better* one
with all that linguistic knowledge stored up inside himself.
Some people might think they can create a new and (important point)
*better* car which they can then sell on the market.
(One comment on the original quote: He thinks his language will
have little grammar, but this is not really possible and still be
able to communicate a sufficient amount of information; *all*
languages are sophisticated, whether they be inflected or not.)
Pax tecum et vale,
Tom
--
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
Tom Wier
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
Tomaso....@worldnet.att.net
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/index.html>
See also: <http://www.webcom.com/songbird/prophecy.html>
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
Don HARLOW
jef...@aol.com (Jeff560) lastatempe skribis:
>Fazah said with his experience he could now learn any language within
>three weeks, but he is looking further afield and hopes to create his
>own language one of these days.
>``I am thinking about creating a world language like Esperanto,'' he
>said. ``I could create a new language in three weeks, a simple
>language with little grammar and phonetic spelling.''
For anybody who might be interested, Ziad Fazah is a perennial; this
same article, or some variant, seems to pop up every few years, sort
of like the standard "fractured English" examples.
He expressed this same intention of quickly creating a new language
(at the time he did not mention Esperanto, only the phonetic-spelling
part) some five years ago. We're still waiting, Ziad.
Don HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/
(English version available at http://www.webcom.com/~donh/dona.html)
Anton Sherwood
: jef...@aol.com (Jeff560) lastatempe skribis:
: >``I am thinking about creating a world language like Esperanto,'' he
: >said. ``I could create a new language in three weeks, a simple
: >language with little grammar and phonetic spelling.''
Don HARLOW <d...@donh.vip.best.com> says:
: He expressed this same intention of quickly creating a new language
: (at the time he did not mention Esperanto, only the phonetic-spelling
: part) some five years ago. We're still waiting, Ziad.
A couple of Conlang listmembers recently discussed the sport
of sketching a language from scratch (i.e. no fair cloning Latino
sine Flexione) in one day......
--
Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DAS...@netcom.com
I wasn't always anarcho-capitalist, you know. -- Ubi scriptum?
Julian Pardoe
Anton Sherwood wrote:
> : jef...@aol.com (Jeff560) lastatempe skribis:
>
> : >``I am thinking about creating a world language like Esperanto,'' he
> : >said. ``I could create a new language in three weeks, a simple
> : >language with little grammar and phonetic spelling.''
>
> Don HARLOW <d...@donh.vip.best.com> says:
> : He expressed this same intention of quickly creating a new language
> : (at the time he did not mention Esperanto, only the phonetic-spelling
> : part) some five years ago. We're still waiting, Ziad.
>
> A couple of Conlang listmembers recently discussed the sport
> of sketching a language from scratch (i.e. no fair cloning Latino
> sine Flexione) in one day......
Any fool can sketch an implausible grammar; it takes a little
more effort to populate a dictionary and to write enough texts
to demonstrate that you grammar works. ("1000 word Glosa" is a
con!)
-- jP --
ann...@mail.snider.net
I forgot how many languages this guy was supposedly able to speak?
But have any of you personally known anyone who can fluently speak in
excess of 10 languages?
ke
Anders Blehr
Daniel von Brighoff wrote:
> Yup. Eric Hamp, Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago.
> (Although "fluently" is perhaps not the word; he knows a great many
> languages thoroughly, but they don't always flow naturally in conver-
> sation. Then again, how many of us stumble and pause when we speak
> our native languages?)
In my opinion, there's one aspect that says a lot about how well you
speak a language. When I speak Norwegian (my native language), I
express whatever thought it is I want to express without having to pay
too much attention to translating the thought into words. It's like
having a subconscious interpreter installed in your spine into which you
feed your thoughts, and out come the words.
When you first start to learn a language, you have to thing as much (if
not more) about the words you're going to use as about what you actually
*want* to say (which is why people with very limited knowledge of a
language tend to discuss very trivial subjects, like "Hi, my name is X,
what is your name?", "That is a nice house. Do you like that house?",
&c.). As you get better at the language, the thought-to-word
translation process moves further and furter into the back of your mind,
and when you're (close to) fluent, the process takes place your spine,
and thought-to-word translation happens (more or less) unconciously.
When you remember something someone said or something you read, and you
remember what it was all about, but don't remember what language it was
in, that means you're getting close to fluency.
Of course, this is my very own private theory, and has absolutely
nothing to do with science and such...
- Anders.
--
Anders Blehr (abl...@online.no)
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "annecy" == annecy <ann...@mail.snider.net> writes:
annecy> I forgot how many languages this guy was supposedly able
annecy> to speak? But have any of you personally known anyone who
annecy> can fluently speak in excess of 10 languages? ke
First of all, how do you define "language"?
Even those who are called monoglots can be claimed to know several
languages: a formal language for use with strangers or seniors, an
informal language for use with relatives and close friends, another
language for talking to little children, and perhaps another for
scolding people (swearing)...
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| http://www.cs.hku.hk/~sdlee e-mail: sd...@cs.hku.hk |
`----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
Daniel von Brighoff
In article <7fbuazu...@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>,
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> wrote:
>>>>>> "annecy" == annecy <ann...@mail.snider.net> writes:
>
> annecy> I forgot how many languages this guy was supposedly able
> annecy> to speak? But have any of you personally known anyone who
> annecy> can fluently speak in excess of 10 languages? ke
Yup. Eric Hamp, Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago.
(Although "fluently" is perhaps not the word; he knows a great many
languages thoroughly, but they don't always flow naturally in conver-
sation. Then again, how many of us stumble and pause when we speak
our native languages?)
>First of all, how do you define "language"?
>
>Even those who are called monoglots can be claimed to know several
>languages: a formal language for use with strangers or seniors, an
>informal language for use with relatives and close friends, another
>language for talking to little children, and perhaps another for
>scolding people (swearing)...
These are usually called "registers" and mastering two or more of them is
usually considered a prerequisite for being called "fluent" in a language.
I've yet to encountre a "language" with only one register, used by all
speakers at all times.
--
Daniel "Da" von Brighoff /\ Dilettanten
(de...@midway.uchicago.edu) /__\ erhebt Euch
/____\ gegen die Kunst!
Paul O Bartlett
On Mon, 6 Jan 1997, Julian Pardoe wrote:
> [...]
>
> Any fool can sketch an implausible grammar; it takes a little
> more effort to populate a dictionary and to write enough texts
> to demonstrate that you grammar works. ("1000 word Glosa" is a
> con!)
I would not call Glosa in 1000 words a con. I would merely call
it restricted in its applicability. I do think that there are useful
ways that human beings can communicate with a suitably chosen 1000-word
vocabulary and a workable grammar. I would not want to try to read a
modern law code or diplomatic convention translated into a 1000-word
vocabulary, however.
Paul <pob...@access.digex.net>
----------------------------------------------------------
Paul O. Bartlett, P.O. Box 857, Vienna, VA 22183-0857, USA
Finger, keyserver, or WWW for PGP 2.6.2 public key
Home Page: http://www.access.digex.net/~pobart
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Daniel" == Daniel von Brighoff <de...@midway.uchicago.edu> writes:
>> Even those who are called monoglots can be claimed to know
>> several languages: a formal language for use with strangers or
>> seniors, an informal language for use with relatives and close
>> friends, another language for talking to little children, and
>> perhaps another for scolding people (swearing)...
Daniel> These are usually called "registers" and mastering two or
Daniel> more of them is usually considered a prerequisite for
Daniel> being called "fluent" in a language. I've yet to
Daniel> encountre a "language" with only one register, used by all
Daniel> speakers at all times.
In some places, e.g. former European colonies, people usually use one
language for a register, and another language for another.
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Anders" == Anders Blehr <abl...@online.no> writes:
Anders> In my opinion, there's one aspect that says a lot about
Anders> how well you speak a language. When I speak Norwegian (my
Anders> native language), I express whatever thought it is I want
Anders> to express without having to pay too much attention to
Anders> translating the thought into words. It's like having a
Anders> subconscious interpreter installed in your spine into
Anders> which you feed your thoughts, and out come the words.
How about my case with English? In English, I can discuss anything on
academic topics. I don't have to do the translation. Words and
sentences pop up in my mind in English while I am discussing. So, am
I fluent in English?
However, when it comes to everyday life, I would have problems
speaking in English. I don't know how to name those "cupboards" in
which clothes are hung. I don't know how to name those bamboo sticks
used to hang wet clothes for drying under the sun. I cannot name the
cooking utensils that my mother uses to cook food for me. I cannot
name the various kinds of vegetables sold in a market. So, when it
comes to everyday life, I get stuck. I cannot express my everyday
needs easily in English, because I don't have a good vocabulary for
that purpose. I do know the sentence structures that can be used for
expressing myself, but I lack the words. My vocabulary is biased
towards academic purposes. So, am I fluent in English?
Anders> When you remember something someone said or something you
Anders> read, and you remember what it was all about, but don't
Anders> remember what language it was in, that means you're
Anders> getting close to fluency.
I have had this experience.
Anders> Of course, this is my very own private theory, and has
Anders> absolutely nothing to do with science and such...
I agree with your theory. However, "being able to express whatever
you want to say" needs refinement. Even in my native language --
Cantonese, I cannot say something that I want to say. I have been
studying using English, and hence do not know the Chinese translations
of many technical terms. So, when I have to discuss on academic
matters, I either have to insert English terms into my Cantonese
speech, or to use English completely. If I were to use Cantonese to
discuss such things, I would stop, pause and translate the words when
I come to a technical term.
Daniel von Brighoff
In article <7fiv569...@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>,
>
> >> Even those who are called monoglots can be claimed to know
> >> several languages: a formal language for use with strangers or
> >> seniors, an informal language for use with relatives and close
> >> friends, another language for talking to little children, and
> >> perhaps another for scolding people (swearing)...
>
> Daniel> These are usually called "registers" and mastering two or
> Daniel> more of them is usually considered a prerequisite for
> Daniel> being called "fluent" in a language. I've yet to
> Daniel> encountre a "language" with only one register, used by all
> Daniel> speakers at all times.
>
>In some places, e.g. former European colonies, people usually use one
>language for a register, and another language for another.
I wouldn't phrase it that way. I would say that they use different
languages in situations where speakers elsewhere use different registers
of the same language. The individual languages they are using in this way
all have their own registers even if the speakers use one register to the
virtual exclusion of all the others. (E.g. The fact that an Ivoirien may
use only a formal register of French because he only uses French in formal
situations does not change the fact that a great number of other registers
(from Biblical to blasphemous) are in common use elsewhere.)
Anders Blehr
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} wrote:
> How about my case with English? In English, I can discuss anything on
> academic topics. I don't have to do the translation. Words and
> sentences pop up in my mind in English while I am discussing. So, am
> I fluent in English?
>
> However, when it comes to everyday life, I would have problems
> speaking in English. [...] I cannot express my everyday
> needs easily in English, because I don't have a good vocabulary for
> that purpose. I do know the sentence structures that can be used for
> expressing myself, but I lack the words. My vocabulary is biased
> towards academic purposes. So, am I fluent in English?
This has to do with vocabulary, not fluency. Even in your native
language you don't know all words belonging to all aspects of life, as
you point out yourself:
> Even in my native language --
> Cantonese, I cannot say something that I want to say. I have been
> studying using English, and hence do not know the Chinese translations
> of many technical terms. So, when I have to discuss on academic
> matters, I either have to insert English terms into my Cantonese
> speech, or to use English completely. If I were to use Cantonese to
> discuss such things, I would stop, pause and translate the words when
> I come to a technical term.
This happens to me when I speak Norwegian, too.
> I agree with your theory. However, "being able to express whatever
> you want to say" needs refinement.
Agree.
STAN MULAIK
sd...@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) writes:
>>>>>> "Anders" == Anders Blehr <abl...@online.no> writes:
>However, when it comes to everyday life, I would have problems
>speaking in English. I don't know how to name those "cupboards" in
>which clothes are hung. I don't know how to name those bamboo sticks
>used to hang wet clothes for drying under the sun. I cannot name the
>cooking utensils that my mother uses to cook food for me. I cannot
>name the various kinds of vegetables sold in a market. So, when it
>comes to everyday life, I get stuck. I cannot express my everyday
>needs easily in English, because I don't have a good vocabulary for
>that purpose. I do know the sentence structures that can be used for
>expressing myself, but I lack the words. My vocabulary is biased
>towards academic purposes. So, am I fluent in English?
I don't know the words in English for most of those things either. We don't
hang wet clothes out to dry on bamboo sticks, but throw them in the drier.
I remember my mother hanging clothes out to dry on a clothes line, using
clothes pins. There are things on a farm I have no vocabulary for. My
mother had various pots and pans made of aluminum or steel in which she
cooked. My wife uses a few steel pots for cooking, but now we cook most
of our food in the microwave oven with ready-prepared food obtained from
the grocery store. But I remember once working as a pot cleaner in a
cafeteria, and we had to know some names for various sized large pots,
because the chef would call out for a clean one and we had to produce it
as quicky as possible. I don't remember those names now. I'm fluent
in English. It's my mother tongue. So, there are likely many terms in
English that are appropriate for a certain form of life, which people who
do not live that form of life may never learn or use.
--
Stanley A. Mulaik
School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!pscccsm
Internet: psc...@prism.gatech.edu
Larisa Migachyov
Anders Blehr (abl...@online.no) wrote:
: In my opinion, there's one aspect that says a lot about how well you
: speak a language. When I speak Norwegian (my native language), I
: express whatever thought it is I want to express without having to pay
: too much attention to translating the thought into words. It's like
: having a subconscious interpreter installed in your spine into which you
: feed your thoughts, and out come the words.
: When you first start to learn a language, you have to thing as much (if
: not more) about the words you're going to use as about what you actually
: *want* to say (which is why people with very limited knowledge of a
: language tend to discuss very trivial subjects, like "Hi, my name is X,
: what is your name?", "That is a nice house. Do you like that house?",
: &c.). As you get better at the language, the thought-to-word
: translation process moves further and furter into the back of your mind,
: and when you're (close to) fluent, the process takes place your spine,
: and thought-to-word translation happens (more or less) unconciously.
Hm. This is an interesting idea. I find that in my own
language-learning experiences (I am fluent in English and Russian, and
so-so in French and Italian), when I am just beginning to learn a
language, it's not that I have to think about the words I want to use so
much, but it's that my thought-world shrinks to only the subjects that I
can discuss comfortably. When I think in Italian, which is a language I
don't know well, I find that I hit a barrier when I try to think about
ideas for which I lack vocabulary. When I think of things that I can
express, the thought-to-word translation is unconscious, but these things
are very limited.
Larisa
Anders Blehr
Larisa Migachyov wrote:
> [...] when I am just beginning to learn a
> language, it's not that I have to think about the words I want to use so
> much, but it's that my thought-world shrinks to only the subjects that I
> can discuss comfortably.
I learned French by doing an intensive course over two months in La
Rochelle on the French Atlantic coast. When I arrived I didn't speak
one single word of the language, and I remember the amount of thought
going into every little utterance I was going to make. I had literally
steam coming out of my ears, and people couldn't stop themselves from
laughing because of the way I looked when I tried to come up with words,
conjugations, not to mention whole sentences... :)
> When I think in Italian, which is a language I
> don't know well, I find that I hit a barrier when I try to think about
> ideas for which I lack vocabulary. When I think of things that I can
> express, the thought-to-word translation is unconscious, but these things
> are very limited.
Interesting. I find that I don't think in terms of words at all, but
rather in terms of images or just shapes and hues of various colours...
What I find frustrating, be it in any language, even Norwegian, is when
I have a crystal clear thought, but no words to express it... :)
- Anders.
--
Anders Blehr (ablehr [at] sn.no)
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Anders" == Anders Blehr <abl...@sn.nono> writes:
Anders> Interesting. I find that I don't think in terms of words
Anders> at all, but rather in terms of images or just shapes and
Anders> hues of various colours... What I find frustrating, be it
Anders> in any language, even Norwegian, is when I have a crystal
Anders> clear thought, but no words to express it... :)
Agree!
Scientists often have to invent new words for new ideas. How can they
think about their new ideas before they have suitable words for them?
Mike Wright
Anders Blehr wrote:
>
> Larisa Migachyov wrote:
[...]
> > When I think in Italian, which is a language I
> > don't know well, I find that I hit a barrier when I try to think about
> > ideas for which I lack vocabulary. When I think of things that I can
> > express, the thought-to-word translation is unconscious, but these things
> > are very limited.
>
> rather in terms of images or just shapes and hues of various colours...
> What I find frustrating, be it in any language, even Norwegian, is when
> I have a crystal clear thought, but no words to express it... :)
Funny, I've long been convinced that I think *only* in terms of words.
But now I'm beginning to suspect that I am just suffering from some kind
of tragic neural flaw. I wonder if there is any treatment for it. I
would love to be able to think in hues.
--
Mike Wright
____________________________________
email: dar...@scruznet.com
WWW: http://www.scruz.net/~darwin/language.html