Job Discussion Forums

[fluffyhamster]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/apr/09/us-teen-speaks-23-languages-video

Any others? Off the top of my head, Steve Kaufmann, and maybe Benny Lewis?

[JN]

"He even speaks Native American." What is that?!
Well, I've never met anyone who spoke more than 5 languages fluently. I'll just continue teaching those I work with English and continuing working on my 3rd language.

[johnslat]

Dear JN,

Native American is a very broad category:

"A common misconception is that there was one Native American language. In reality, there were perhaps a thousand languages spoken in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans - about 250 in the present territory of the United States alone."

Here in New Mexico, the Navajo language is used:

"Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the U.S.�Mexico border, with between 120,000 and 170,700 speakers. This was the primary language used by the "Code Talkers" to baffle the Japanese in WWII.

In the States, these were the original "native speakers."

Regards,
John

[fluffyhamster]

It's hard to gauge fluency from snippets and/or prepared speech. One thing I'd like a better look at, and at all of them, are his books. I imagine he's made more of a start, and in more foreign languages, than most people ever will, though!

[JN]

Oh, I know that there is no "Native American" language, but that there are many different languages. I just thought it was funny that the reporter said "Native American." I hadn't heard that term used as a language before.

[Teacher in Rome]

Just a quick question about native American languages. I assume that most - if not all - L1 speakers of a native American language speak English. How many L1 speakers of English also try to learn or speak a native American language? For example, Johnslat, have you ever tried to learn Navajo?

[Perilla]

I knew a guy in HK who spoke 11 languages to a high level. I tried his Spanish, which is the only other language I'd claim to have any ability at, and he ran rings around me even though it was one of his "weaker" languages.

He had an interesting background to partly account for his ability. He was born in Thailand (hence Thai) to an Italian mother (hence Italian) and father from one of the Thai hill tribes (hence that language too), but was brought up using English at international school. He was later schooled in HK (hence Cantonese). Then he studied at university in Switzerland (hence French and German and he studied Spanish as a subsidiary). Then he did a postgrad degree in Taiwan and so added Putonghua.

The other two I can't remember, but there were 11. Portuguese was perhaps another one. He was head of hospitality at a big HK restaurant, so he got to use many of his languages frequently. It goes without saying, but he had a knack for it!

[Grimace420]

A modest but accomplished hyperpolyglot.

[simon44]

My father was a polyglot - he was professor of Scandinavian languages at Leicester University. He was born and raised in Egypt.

The languages that he was fluent in - as far as I can remember were:

English
Arabic
French
Swedish
Norwegian
Danish
Icelandic
Irish Gaelic
Greek
Latin
Ancient Greek
Romanian

and probably various others...

Simon

[spiral78]

simon, could you maybe define what 'Irish Gaelic' is? Not familiar with that one....

[HLJHLJ]

[Perilla]

[HLJHLJ]

I'd guess that's because Irish Gaelic is recognised both in Ireland and internationally as an official language but Scottish Gaelic isn't (it's a recognised language, but it's not an official language).

That's likely to change fairly soon as there is increasing pressure to have it recognised in the UK, so that it has the same status as Welsh.

[spiral78]

[HLJHLJ]