The Spec: Found in translation: John Colarusso 'is not your usual person'
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Circassian World Newsletter
Apr 28, 2018, 11:05:39 AM4/28/18
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Found in translation: John Colarusso 'is not your usual person'
A polyglot who can speak 18 languages and also talk mythology, philosophy, physics and Faulkner, McMaster’s John Colarusso seems from another era.
By Jon Wells
The professor lingers near one of McMaster's stone archways; mythic symbols, he says, of entering or returning to a realm.
Students pass the bearded man who sports a blue and white polka-dot cravat and who could greet them in 18 languages. (Maybe 17, his Maori is rusty.)
Cravat or ascot? Ascot, says John Colarusso, adding that cravat, from the Croatian Hrvat, originated from Croatian troops wearing scarves in the Napoleonic Wars.
This is classic Colarusso: you talk neckwear and soon his mellow voice has you floating 200 years through the mists of time and hearing exotic tongues.
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