Some people are able to speak so many languages that it is almost unbelievable. How do they do it, and what other people can learn from polyglots.
In Berlin, sitting on a sun-drenched balcony, Tim Keely and Daniel Kraza engage in a verbal gunfight. First like bullets fly out german words, then into Hindi, and then Nepalese, Polish, Croatian, Chinese, Thai ... In the course of a conversation, the languages of easy flow into one another. These two went through a total of 20 different languages or so!
Returning from the balcony to the hall, I find several small groups there, the participants of which compete in tongue twisters. Others, broken up in threes, are preparing for a rapid-fire game, during which it is necessary to simultaneously translate from two languages. It all looks like a guaranteed recipe for a migraine, but those present are absolutely unperturbed.
Learning even one foreign language can be a daunting task. In Berlin, I ended up at the Gathering of Polyglots, which brought together 350 people who speak many languages, and such unusual ones as, for example, the language of the inhabitants of the Isle of Man, Klingon (the language of aliens from the Star Trek TV series), Sami - the language of the nomad people - reindeer herders in Scandinavia. There are surprisingly many “hyperglots” among the assembled, capable, like Kili and Kraza, of speaking at least 10 languages.
One of the most eminent linguists I met here was Richard Simcote. He leads a team of polyglots at a multilingual management company called eModeration. social networks, and he speaks almost 30 languages.
With my limited knowledge of Italian and rudimentary Danish, I feel somehow out of place among the "hyperglots". But, as folk wisdom says, you need to learn from the best - and here I am to try to find out their secrets.
Cure for dementia
Considering all the complex brain tasks that learning a foreign language poses for us, it is not surprising that most of us consider this a task that requires significant rewards. A person has many different memory systems, and when learning another language, each of them is involved.
There is a so-called procedural memory - this is a subtle programming of muscles to improve pronunciation. There is declarative memory, i.e. the ability to remember facts (for example, keep at least 10 thousand words in your head if you want to approach the fluency of a native speaker, not to mention grammar). What's more, if you don't want to sound like a stuttering robot, these words and phrases should be on the tip of your tongue in a split second. This means that they must be programmed into "explicit" and "implicit" memory. The first stores information that we deliberately tried to remember, the second contains things that were deposited unconsciously, involuntarily.
We try to memorize individual words or phrases, but this is not the main thingSuch mental exercises, however, bear abundant fruit; it is claimed to be the best brain training available. Numerous studies have shown that multilingualism improves attention and memory, and also provides a "cognitive reserve" that delays the development of dementia - senile dementia.
Studying the experiences of immigrants, Ellen Bialystok of the University of York in Canada found that those who spoke two languages were diagnosed with dementia five years late. Trilingual people were diagnosed 6.4 years later than monolinguals. At the same time, people who spoke four or more languages fluently could boast nine additional years of healthy consciousness.
Learning a new language at an older age is easier than we think
These long-term benefits contrast sharply with the failure of most commercial brain training games that can be downloaded from the Internet. In general, they are not able to provide long-term improvement in memory and attention.
Until recently, many neuroscientists assumed that in most cases we are too old to achieve native fluency in a new language. According to the "hypothesis critical period» There is a narrow time window in childhood when we are able to absorb all the nuances of a new language. However, Białystok, based on her research, argues that this is somewhat exaggerated: instead of a sharp decline, as she found out, over the years there is a very slight weakening of our abilities.
Indeed, many of the "hyperglots" I met in Berlin did not acquire foreign languages at a young age. Keely grew up in Florida, at school he was in close contact with the guys for whom Spanish was their mother tongue. As a child, he tuned his radio to foreign radio stations, although he could not understand a word.
As an adult, he began to travel the world. First he went to Colombia, where he studied French, German and Portuguese. Then he moved to Switzerland, then to Eastern Europe, after which he went to Japan. He is now fluent in at least 20 languages, and learned almost all of them as an adult.
The question arises how polyglots master so many new languages, and whether everyone else can at least try to follow suit. It is true, of course, that they may still be much more motivated than most people. Many polyglots are avid travelers like Keely, who, moving from country to country, learn new languages along the way. Sometimes the alternative is: either swim or sink.
Even with the most powerful stimuli, many of us find it difficult to speak another language. Tim Keely who is now writing a book on "the social, psychological, and emotional factors of multilingualism," is skeptical that it's a matter of baseline intelligence.
"Cultural Chameleons"
Instead of dwelling on the level of intelligence, he argues, we should look into the depths of our own individuality. According to Keely's theory, when we begin to learn a new language, this leads to the fact that we seem to develop a new sense of self. No wonder the best linguists so easily adopt a new identity.
Psychologists have long known that the words we speak leave an imprint on our personality. According to established clichés, French makes you more romantic and Italian makes you more passionate. But in fact, each language begins to be associated with cultural norms that affect the way you behave. It can be something very simple, for example, you can prefer open trust or quiet contemplation. The important thing is that according to various studies, multilingual people behave differently - depending on what language they are speaking at that moment.
Different languages bring to mind different memories from your life. This was found out by the writer Vladimir Nabokov when he was working on his autobiography. Nabokov, whose native language was Russian, began writing his memoirs in his second language, English. The matter proceeded with “painful labor”: his “memory was tuned in one way - musically unspoken Russian - and another way was imposed on it, English and detailed,” Nabokov wrote in the preface to the Russian edition of the book “Other Shores”.
When the memoirs were finally published, he decided to translate them into the language of his childhood, but as soon as the Russian words began to flow, he found that the memories began to be saturated with new details, and the blank spots began to fill in and take on form and content.
In her book The Bilingual Mind, she explores many of these effects. As for Nabokov, one would think that each of his two essences - Russian and English - had a somewhat different past.
Resistance to the process of a new identity prevents you from properly learning another language, says Tim Keely, now a professor of intercultural management at Kyushu Sangyo University in Fukuoka, Japan. Not so long ago, he conducted a study among carriers Chinese Japanese learners, during which he considered the "permeability" or "transparency" of their ego. He asked students to rate statements such as "it's easy for me to put myself in another person's shoes and imagine how they feel" or "I can impress people." Then he asked questions like "can the respondent change his mind so that it suits others." As he predicted, people who scored high on these scores achieved faster fluency in the new language.
How to explain it? It is well known that if you identify with someone, you are more likely to imitate them. In the process of imitation, the degree of mastery of the language increases almost effortlessly. At the same time, the acquired identity and the memories associated with it can help you not to confuse the language you are learning with your native language by creating neural barriers between them.
Indeed, perhaps this explains the ease with which Keely switches to any of the 20 languages he knows.
Language is theater
Among all polyglots, Michael Levy Harris is the best at demonstrating this principle in action. Harris, who has received an acting education, also has an advanced knowledge of 10 languages and a good understanding of another 12. From time to time this creates certain difficulties for him. Once he came across an advertisement on the Internet about a meeting of the Maltese. Going to the address where he expected to meet a group of people from Malta, he found himself in a room full of middle-aged ladies with white domestic dogs - Maltese. This adventure he reproduced in the recently released short film "Hyperglot".
It's not just about how much time you spend studying and how much you speak a foreign language
When we meet him in a cafe near the Guildhall School of Music and Dramatic Art in London, he effortlessly shifts to a very sophisticated English pronunciation(received pronunciation or RP - "standard English" without regional or social accents), despite the fact that he is a native of New York. At the same time, his demeanor changes, he simply dissolves into a new personality. “I am not at all trying to consciously change my character or my own personality. It happens on its own, but I know I'm suddenly different."
It's also important, says Harris, that anyone can learn to pull on the skin of another culture, and he's ready to give a few tips, based on his acting experience, where to start.
An important technique, he says, is to try to imitate without thinking about how the word is spelled.
He advises paying close attention to things like facial expressions, as they can be key to making sounds. If, for example, you pout your lips slightly when speaking, you will sound a little more "French".
Finally, he says, you need to try to get over the embarrassment of having to make "weird" sounds like guttural sounds. Arabic. “You should understand that there is nothing “foreign” about them for us. For example, when you are disgusted, can you make a burp sound? Once you acknowledge this and allow your subconscious mind to do the same in speech, you will be able to make an unfamiliar sound.”
It may seem silly, but the point is to help you overcome your natural inhibitions. " It's about about mastering a language is the same thing that actors have to do to make the audience believe that the words they utter are their own. When you master words, you can speak with more confidence, and then people will be imbued with confidence in you.
However, most agree that you should not be too ambitious, especially at the beginning.
According to these attitudes, you should practice little and often. At least 15 minutes four times a day.
So said Alex Rawlings, who worked with Richard Simcott to develop a series of polyglot workshops in which they teach participants their techniques. Even if you're too busy or tired for serious work, acting out a dialogue or listening to a popular song in a foreign language will do the trick, Simcott says.
In the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, one can easily come to the conclusion that there is no need to strain. In fact, until I met the "hyperglots" face to face, I kept trying to figure out if their passion was worth the effort expended on it. Perhaps, I thought, it was all about an innate, though not always deserved, gift.
Yet the hyperglots I met were genuinely enthusiastic about the fantastic benefits that can only be achieved by total immersion in other languages. Among them is the opportunity to find new friends and establish contacts, even despite the high intercultural barriers.
Here is how Harris describes, for example, his life in Dubai. “As a Jew living in the Middle East, it was not easy for me. But, as it turns out, one of my best friends is from Lebanon,” he says. - And when I left, he told me: when we first met, I did not think that we would become friends. Now you're leaving, and I'm desperate."
As Judith Mayer, the organizer of a polyglot rally in Berlin, told me, she saw Russians and Ukrainians, Israelis and Palestinians talking among themselves. “Language after language, you discover new worlds.”
Have you ever heard the name of a person who knows many languages? Of course, each of us has seen such people and has always been surprised by this gift. Or maybe even jealous of their abilities. Someone needs such skills for work, and someone just wants to travel with ease, while communicating freely with local residents and feeling at ease.
A person who keeps in his arsenal the knowledge of five or more foreign languages is called - polyglot.
Secrets of polyglots or how to learn so many languages?
So, now we have found out that a person who knows many languages is called a polyglot. Perhaps they have secrets in reserve that allow the possession of such a store of knowledge? Let's consider:
- There is no gift from above (although, in certain cases - there is a place to be), all these people have achieved success solely by everyday hard work;
- Without willpower and perseverance, nothing will come of it either, it is imperative to have a great desire and not take great steps towards your aspiration;
- The trick here is that learning each next language will come out much faster and easier. Many groups of languages are very similar.
Polyglots have a well-developed ear. Writers and musicians, as a rule, know many foreign languages.
What you need to do in order to know many languages - basic things
- It is important to create your own study plan. The first time will not interfere with professional help. Further, it is already possible to cope on your own, having determined for yourself the most suitable scheme;
- Correct pronunciation skills. There are separate exercises for this. A person who knows many languages, a polyglot, will definitely develop this skill in himself;
- Good memory. Even if you do not memorize everything "on the fly" - thanks to diligent work, quick memorization will develop rapidly.
Fun fact: 22% of people around the world are very good at 3-4 languages. But, only at the conversational level.
A person who knows many languages \u200b\u200bis called - we already know. Who are the most famous polyglots in the world:
- The man who entered the Guinness Book of Records, Giuseppe Casper Mezzeofanti, was the custodian of libraries in the Vatican, spoke fluently in 60 languages, composed poetry in 50 of them.
- Willy Melnikov, served in Afghanistan and, by coincidence, received a shell shock. After recovering, he discovered the ability to learn languages. He was able to write poems in 93 languages. In how many languages he could carry on a conversation is still a mystery.
- It may surprise you, but the well-known Queen Cleopatra spoke 10 languages!
- Russian writer Alexander Griboedov already knew 9 languages in his youth.
- Ishtavan Dhabi, writer from Hungary. Throughout his life, he managed to master more than 100 dialects.
And the list can go on for a very long time!
In general, he says that he knows "only" 100. But he is being modest. During the conversation, we calculated that Sergey Anatolyevich is the head of the department of the Russian University for the Humanities, Doctor of Philology, Corresponding Member Russian Academy natural sciences- familiar with at least 400 languages, including the ancient and languages of small endangered peoples. It takes him only three weeks to learn the language. Among colleagues, this 43-year-old professor has a reputation as a "walking encyclopedia". But at the same time, he is distinguished by ... a bad memory.
The most difficult question for me is: "How many languages do you know?". Because it is impossible to answer it exactly. Even 10 languages cannot be known to the same extent. You can know 500 - 600 words and be able to communicate perfectly in the country. For example, I know English very well, because I have to travel and talk all the time. But I think that my German is better in my passive. And you can speak badly, but it's great to read. For example, I read the ancient Chinese classics better than most Chinese. Or you can not read and not speak, but know the structure, grammar. I can't speak Negidal or Nanai, but I remember their vocabulary well. Many languages go into passive, but then, if necessary, they return: he went to Holland and quickly restored the Dutch language. Therefore, if we count all the languages that I am familiar with at different levels of knowledge, then there will be at least 400 of them. But I actively speak only 20.
Do you feel your uniqueness? - No, I know a lot of people who already know several dozen languages for sure. For example, an 80-year-old Australian professor, Stephen Wurm, knows more languages than I do. And he speaks fluently in thirty. - Collecting languages - for the sake of sports interest? - It is necessary to distinguish between linguists and polyglots. Polyglots are people who specialize in absorbing a colossal number of languages. And if you are engaged in science, then language is not an end in itself, but a working tool. My main activity is comparison language families between themselves. To do this, it is not necessary to speak every language, but you need to keep in mind colossal information about roots, grammar, and the origin of words.
Are you still in the process of learning languages? - In 1993, there was an expedition to the Yenisei, they studied the Ket language - an endangered language, 200 people speak it. I had to teach him. But I learned most of the languages at school and university. From the 5th grade, for five years at the Olympiads at Moscow State University, I was a winner: I could write a sentence in 15 Indo-European languages. At the university, he taught mainly oriental. POLYGLOTS ARE BORN.
With the ability for languages are born or it is achieved by effort constant training? - I thought about it a lot. Naturally, this is heredity: in my family there are a lot of polyglots. My father was a well-known translator, edited Doctor Zhivago and knew several dozen languages. My older brother, a philosopher, is also a great polyglot. The older sister is a translator. My son, a student, knows at least a hundred languages. The only member of the family who is not passionate about languages is younger son but he is a good programmer. - But how can a person store such an array of information in memory? - And, paradoxically, I have a very bad memory: I don’t remember phone numbers, addresses, I can never find the second time the place where I have already been. My first language, German, was given to me with great difficulty. I spent a lot of energy only on memorizing words. In his pockets he always carried cards with words - on one side in German, on the other - in Russian, in order to check himself on the way on the bus. And by the end of school, I trained my memory. I remember that in the first year of university we were on an expedition to Sakhalin and studied the Nivkh language, which is also dying out. I went there without prior preparation and just like that, on a dare, I learned the Nivkh dictionary. Not all, of course, 30,000 words, but most. - In general, how much time do you need to learn a language?
Three weeks. Although the eastern, of course, is much harder. Japanese took a year and a half. I taught him at the university for a whole year, my grades were excellent, but one day I picked up a Japanese newspaper and realized that I could not read anything. I got angry - and learned it on my own over the summer. - Do you have your own learning system? - I am skeptical about all systems. I just take a textbook and study from beginning to end. This takes two weeks. Then - differently. You can tell yourself that you have become familiar with this language and, if necessary, you will take it off the shelf and activate it. There were many such languages in my practice. If the language is needed and interesting, then literature should be read further. I have never taken a language course. To speak well, you need a native speaker. And the best thing is to go to the country and live there for a year.
What ancient languages do you know? - Latin, ancient Greek, Sanskrit, ancient Japanese, Hurrian language, in which in the II century BC. e. spoken in ancient Anatolia. - And how do you manage to remember dead languages - there is no one to talk to? - I'm reading. Only 2-3 texts remain from the Hurrian. There are languages from which two or three dozen words have been preserved. HOW ADAM AND EVE TALKED.
You are looking for the parent language of mankind. Do you think that once all the people of the world spoke the same language? - We are going to discover and prove - all languages were one, and then fell apart in the thirtieth or twentieth century BC. Language is a means of communication and is transmitted as an information code from generation to generation, so errors and interferences are sure to accumulate in it. We teach our children without noticing that they already speak a slightly different language. Their speech has more subtle differences from the speech of the elders. Language inevitably changes. 100-200 years pass - this is a completely different language. If speakers of the same language once parted ways different sides, then in a thousand years there will be two different languages. And we have to find out if 6,000 had modern languages, including dialects, starting point? We are gradually moving from modern languages to ancient ones. It's like linguistic paleontology - step by step we reconstruct sounds and words, approaching the parent languages. And now the stage has come when it is possible to bring together several large language families, of which there are now about ten in the world. And then the task is to restore the proto-languages of these macrofamilies and see if they can be brought together and reconstruct a single language that Adam and Eve probably spoke.
LAUGHING CAN ONLY IN RUSSIA. - Which language is the most difficult and which is the easiest? - Grammar is easier in English, Chinese. I learned Esperanto in an hour and a half. Difficult to learn - Sanskrit and ancient Greek. But the most Difficult language on earth - Abkhazian. Russian - medium. It is difficult for foreigners to assimilate it only because of the complex alternation of consonants (hand-pen) and stress. - Are many languages dying? - All languages in the Urals and beyond the Urals, Nivkh and Ket from the Yenisei family. AT North America dying by the dozen. Terrible process. - What is your attitude to profanity? Is it trash? These words are no different from other words. The comparative linguist is accustomed to dealing with the names of the sexual organs in any language. English expressions significantly poorer than Russians. Japanese is much less littered with swear words: they are more polite people.
Sergey Anatolyevich Starostin (March 24, 1953, Moscow - September 30, 2005, Moscow) is an outstanding Russian linguist, polyglot, specialist in the field of comparative studies, oriental studies, Caucasian studies and Indo-European studies. The son of a writer, translator, polyglot Anatoly Starostin, brother of the philosopher and historian of science Boris Starostin. Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Department of Literature and Language (linguistics). Head of the Center for Comparative Studies at the Institute of Oriental Cultures and Antiquities of the Russian State Humanitarian University, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Honorary Doctor of the University of Leiden (Netherlands).
Who among the polyglots of the whole world knows (or knew) the most languages?
According to the academic dictionary foreign words, POLYGLOT (from the Greek polyglottos - "multilingual") - a person who speaks many languages.
The legend says that the Buddha spoke one and a half hundred languages, and Mohammed knew all the languages of the world. The most famous polyglot of the past, whose abilities are quite reliably attested, lived in the last century - the keeper of the Vatican library, Cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti (1774 - 1849)
There were legends about Mezzofanti during his lifetime. In addition to the main European languages, he knew Estonian, Latvian, Georgian, Armenian, Albanian, Kurdish, Turkish, Persian and many others. It is believed that he translated from one hundred and fourteen languages and seventy-two "dialects", as well as from several dozen dialects. He was fluent in sixty languages, wrote poems and epigrams in almost fifty. At the same time, the cardinal never traveled outside of Italy and studied this unimaginable number of languages on his own.
I don't really believe in such miracles. Moreover, the Guinness Book of Records claims that Mezzofanti was only fluent in twenty-six or twenty-seven languages.
Among foreign linguists, the biggest polyglot was, apparently, Rasmus Christian Rask, a professor at the University of Copenhagen. He spoke two hundred and thirty languages and compiled dictionaries and grammars for several dozen of them.
In the UK, the unsurpassed polyglot today can be considered a journalist Harold Williams, who knows eighty languages. Interestingly, Harold learned Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French and German when he was only eleven years old.
Just released to the public new volume Guinness Book of Records for English language. Forty-year-old Ziyad Fawzi, a Brazilian of Lebanese origin, who speaks fifty-eight languages, was recognized as the most important polyglot of the planet in 1997. Despite his outstanding abilities, Senor Fawzi is a man in the highest degree modest. Modestly teaches foreign languages at the University of Sao Paulo. Modestly translates. From any of fifty-eight languages. And he wants to translate from a hundred. And - from anyone to anyone. Now he is preparing textbooks in several languages for publication, using his method of quick assimilation of the material.
Willy Melnikov can be called the most amazing of our polyglots. His story is simple and incredible at the same time. The guy was sent to afghan war. Further, as in the film "The Diamond Arm": he fell, woke up - a cast ... Willie came out of a coma a different person. But instead of diamonds, he got something more expensive - unlimited access to the world's linguistic "Internet". Since then, Willie has been studying several languages every year. Although "studies" - not quite right word to describe what is happening. Eyewitnesses say this: "Tongues seem to come to him." Willie carefully looks at a person speaking in an unfamiliar dialect, listens to his speech, then seems to tune in, trying different registers, and suddenly, like a receiver, he "catches a wave" and gives out clear speech without interference ...
How many languages Melnikov actually knows is unknown. Every time when they conduct an experiment to study his method, Willy meets with the carrier of another unique dialect. After the conversation, his personal "linguistic" asset is replenished with a new language... "This is no longer a method, but something beyond," scientists say.
