“Wow,” Gerolamo said. “That’s incredible.”
Yes, it’s incredible, isn’t it? I thought. Incredible that someone could do what he wanted in so many languages. Incredible that someone could spend his lifetime accumulating more languages than twenty ordinary people would use in theirs. Incredible that his hometown had done so little to commemorate his passage through this life.
Every morning, “Buongiorno!” in the Archiginnasio’s manuscript room had brought new boxes with bona fide treasures: the unpublished manuscript in which Mezzofanti analyzed the Codex Cospi, or the description of Luiseño, written by Pablo Tac, a young student from Southern California. I found lists of languages. Not one but six of them, scattered among different boxes, undated, untitled, and unusable. Surely they were Mezzofanti’s—they were written in the cardinal’s cramped handwriting that by then was dancing in my dreams. But the lists were inconsistent. One had 24 languages, another 123. They could have been books in his library or poems for the Accademia Poliglotta. Two lists didn’t even mention Latin or Italian.
Then, on my last day in the archive, I found something entirely unexpected. There was one final box, what the inventario labeled as “miscellaneous.” After days of looking at files and flat pages, I was surprised to see, when I opened the lid, squarish lumps. My heart jumped. I took out a lump. It was a block of paper, about three inches long and one inch wide on each side, wrapped in dry paper and tied with red waxed string. I untied the string’s tiny knot and peeled back the cover. It contained a stack of thin paper slips, darkened with age. On each slip of paper was written a word with a corresponding word in a different language on the reverse.
Flash cards? Is that was these were? Was this the Holy Grail that Starchevsky said he’d found?
“It does not appear that the Cardinal possessed any extraordinary secret,” Charles Russell wrote, “or at least that he ever clearly explained to any of his visitors the secret process, if any, which he employed.” Some, like the Russian Starchevsky, ignored this and sought one anyway.
The universe had been smiling on my mission. I had discovered the ponderous reality of the massimo poliglotta’s language learning.
In Mezzofanti’s own time, his methods must have seemed sensibly industrious. Today they dazzle us only by their vigor and persistence. Mezzofanti himself once said that, even as an adult, he learned languages like a schoolboy: writing out words and verb conjugations and memorizing them. He made good use of his time, making it more abundant. He talked to himself in his languages while he was alone. He read dictionaries, catechisms, vocabularies, and literature of great variety. He sought people to talk to, and he took notes on their conversations. He also translated among his various languages. Labors and games, routines and diversions, he invented or discovered them all. And whatever his method was, he stuck to it. The story of his life said he’d been rescued from carpentry. If his language life had really been such drudgery, one wonders whether it amounted to a rescue at all.
Discovering hard work is a disappointment if, like Starchevsky, you were looking for Bolognese potions or gnostic formulas. But hard work, a superior ability to switch among languages, and an excellent memory for language don’t disappoint if you have the advantage of some neuroscience with which to understand it. So what did Starchevsky take home with him? I’m confident that it was nothing, nada, awan, nashi, niente, niets—it was linguistic snake oil, the Russian’s attempt to dig up hyperpolyglot relics to sell under his own counterfeit brand.
Most of the flash cards were in Mezzofanti’s hand. The first was labeled as Georgian; the next one, thinner, was Hungarian. The librarians, as surprised by the discovery as I was, became alarmed at seeing me unpack them all at once to take a photograph and excitedly pantomimed that I could examine only one packet at a time.
The paper was brittle, the string dry, the wax seals of another set of cards crumbling. In all, I counted thirteen packets, all different sizes, for Georgian, Hungarian, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Algonquin, Russian, Tagalog, and three unlabeled sets in Arabic writing. Some packets were thin—there were only twenty-two cards in Armenian. But the Russian cards made a stack ten inches thick; Tagalog (though not in Mezzofanti’s handwriting) was three inches thick.
Stack of flash cards from the Mezzofanti archive.
Box of flash cards from the Mezzofanti archive.
One reason that Mezzofanti and people like him are so fascinating is that they seem to have leapfrogged the banality of method. They don’t learn languages; they “pick them up.” They don’t sit down and read lists of words; they absorb them. We hope that the methods are magic, and that if we adopt those methods too, we might achieve great things. The truth is, Mezzofanti and others haven’t escaped the banality of methods at all; they make the banality more productive. Their minds enjoy the banality. The nature of the methods themselves doesn’t seem to matter. Johan Vandewalle told me something that bears repeating: “Whatever the method is,” he said, “stick to the method. That’s the method.”
Think of the polyglot spectacle that Mezzofanti became: the popes and the cardinals, the poets and the emperors, the Russian princesses, the Texan colonels and the German barons. Then imagine him shuffling home through the quiet arcaded streets, flipping through his Tagalog verbs, and blowing out the candle. It’s difficult to hold these two images together. But this little collage is an instructive reminder: before there was a myth, there was a man whose pleasure in language never faltered, and because of that pleasure—with no hope of future rewards—he would do what he did, leaving no followers and no intellectual heirs, no students. As certainly as he’d lived, he was gone, leaving us with our fascination and few answers. A miracle? No, a parable. Parabole. Parábola. Npumua. Līdzība. Mfano. Ddameg.
Acknowledgments
The generosity of the Ralph Johnston Foundation enabled me to write and research a good portion of this book as a Dobie Paisano Writing Fellow. I am enormously grateful to the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Institute of Letters for their support.
Dozens of people have contributed in great and small ways to every page of this book, and I can mention only a small number of them, though I would much prefer to invite everyone to a big party. At the top of the list are all those devoted language learners who let me into their lives and helped me understand their passion, for which I’m extremely grateful. I was also aided immeasurably throughout by the patient efforts and companionship of Richard Hudson, Loraine Obler, Susanne Reiterer, Ellen Winner, and Andrew Cohen, and those of other experts who provided their insights into massive multilingualism, including Neil Smith, Ianthi Tsimpli, David Birdsong, Claire Kramsch, Robert DeKeyser, Arturo Hernandez, Rita Franceschini, and Stephen Krashen. To each and every expert in neuroscience, anthropology, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, American immigration, psycholinguistics, and language typology whom I interviewed or exchanged emails with, thank you.
Loren Coleman, cryptozoologist, was a helpful early inspiration, and Ben Zimmer sent hard-to-find information about polyglots abroad. In Düsseldorf, Katrin Amunts, Karl Zilles, and Peter Sillmann were gracious hosts at the Vogt Brain Institute. Hannes Kniffka provided early encouragement, as well as a big lunch and tour of Köln. I’m exceptionally grateful for Franco Pasti’s tour of the University of Bologna’s library, and to Paola Foschi at the Archiginnasio. For conversations about Hippo/Lex Language Project, I would like to thank Yash Owada, Elizabeth Victor, Miguel Duran, Nayiba Thomas, Kenshi Suzuki, and Chad Nilep for their insights and, to the Salas family in Chihuahua City, their hospitality. For the India trip, I would like to thank Sri, Kala, and all of their family members; also Zainab Bawa, Robert King, Gail Coelho, Reena Patel, Krishnamuthy Nagamangala, Joshy Eapen, and Aparna Mohan. I am grateful for the statistical expertise of Kris Arheart, James Ha, and Amanda Erard. Individuals at the Foreign Service Institute, the Defense Language Instititute, and the Center for Applied Linguistics assisted in the development of my survey and answered related q
uestions. Michael Adams at the University of Texas at Austin was a huge help during my stay at the Paisano Ranch.
I would also like to thank the families of Lomb Kató, Ken Hale, and Erik Gunnemark for answering questions and providing photos. Thanks to Helen Abadzi, Alexander Arguelles, and Johan Vandewalle for the permission to use photos. I also thank the editors of Glot for permission to excerpt their interview with Ken Hale.
A number of early readers provided excellent feedback on portions of the manuscript; I’d like to especially thank Stephanie Bush, Jill Nilson, Colleen Moore, Lynn Davey, Cara Schlesinger, Roger Gathman, Gary and Deana Gurney, Ron Peek, Stefano Bertolo, Scott Blackwood, Neil Sattin, Deborah Snoonian Glenn, Katherine Gibbs, and my parents, Michael and Jeanette Erard.
From its early inception, Dan Green and Simon Green of POM, Inc. were wonderful stewards of a nebulous project about polyglots, first as a magazine article and as it morphed into a book, and I am eternally grateful to David Patterson of Foundry Literary + Media who has been both the best friend and best agent a writer could hope for through all the lives of this book. Roger Gathman supplied his innate gifts to excellent translations and brilliant editing, as did Mimi Bardagjy with thoroughness and insight into facts and typography. I also thank Pilar Archila of the University of Houston for neurological fact-checking advice. The succinct brilliance of Hilary Redmon at Free Press transformed the manuscript several times over; her favorite Japanese noodle shop in Manhattan is, by chance, the one that opens chapter 2. I also have to thank Sydney Tanigawa and Anne Cherry, a polyglot copyeditor, for improving the details of the story I had to tell.
I am exceptionally indebted to my wife, Misty McLaughlin. The greatest untold story about the making of this book is the deepening discovery of her companionship, support, and wisdom.
Appendix
In my online survey, I asked people for their top three methods of learning new languages. For simplicity, I focus here on the reports from people who said they know eleven or more languages. Some of their answers were straightforward, such as “I relax and enjoy the language; I accept mistakes and uncertainty; I listen and read a lot” or “I learn the grammar; I read; I speak.” More detailed accounts with some interesting strategies I quote on the following pages, with the caveat that these are methods developed by highly passionate individuals to match their own cognitive styles. As one researcher told me, a method is like a medication: for some people it works; for some it has no effect; for some it’s toxic.
One person wrote in the survey that, “Rather than sheer, blind repetition, I do consistent, continuous and regular mindful practice. I do shadowing (listening) with various audio sources and speaking. I use as many resources (paper, audio, online) as I can get my hands on and adapting them for my specific purposes. I also try to get short periods of immersion.” Someone else wrote:
In the beginning: I make hyperliteral translations of genuine written texts, using grammars, dictionaries, and “ordinary” translations. I also make three-column wordlists (target, base, target, divided into blocks of 5–7 words) and repeat them on a schedule. I also learn grammar from my own tip sheets; these include morphological points. I also write small bits about difficult points.
One of the most detailed accounts was this:
I draw mind maps of the phonological system and vocabulary roots to connect them with languages I already know. In this way I build memory anchors so that I have the ability to increase vocabulary at a very fast rate (as many as several thousand words in the first week). I also build lists of relationships between words and build working memory through organized repetitions, which is a method I’ve developed and teach. I work through conversational dialogues that cover nine major areas of everyday life: home, school, work, leisure (eating/shopping), travel, transportation, business, medical, emergency.
This comment also contained useful detail:
First I acquire a working knowledge of the structure of a language with minimum vocabulary, so that I am able to apply that structural knowledge to my own understanding and production of the language. The Michel Thomas courses are good for this, as they provide me with the structure of the language that I can immediately use. Next, I develop my passive listening skills as well as furnishing the structure I have learnt with vocabulary and idioms. This is followed by applying my new vocabulary to the previous learned structure and developing my active speaking skills. Dialogues are a good way to do this. However, they must be spoken dialogues that appear in a written form, as I have to hear the pronunciation of the words and sentences. Assimil’s method is perfect for this. Finally, I would perfect my knowledge by spending an extended period of time in a country where the language is spoken. I am therefore immersed in the language and fully develop my skills as well as building my knowledge of vocabulary and idiom.
The Assimil and Michel Thomas courses, as well as products from many other companies, can be easily found online. Other further resources with perspectives from successful language learners that I can recommend are all in English: Andrew Cohen, Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language (Longman, 2011); Andrew Cohen and Ernesto Macaro (eds.), Language Learner Strategies: Thirty Years of Research and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2008); Earl Stevick, Success with Foreign Languages: Seven Who Achieved It and What Worked for Them (Prentice-Hall, 1989); and Carol Griffiths (ed.), Lessons from Good Language Learners (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Other books, written by polyglots themselves, will be of special interest, including: Amorey Gethin and Erik V. Gunnemark, The Art And Science of Learning Languages (Intellect Books, 1996); Claude Cartaginese (ed.), The Polyglot Project (available online, 2010); and Brendan Lewis, Language Hacking Guide (available online).
Notes
PART 1 QUESTION: Into the Cardinal’s Labyrinth
Introduction
3 account of his narrow escape: Charles Russell, The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti, with an Introductory Memoir of Eminent Linguists, Ancient and Modern (London: Longman, Brown, and Co., 1858), 168–71.
3 “but will you tell me yourself?”: Ibid., 343.
4 fifty on display: For a full list, see Thomas Watts, “On Dr. Russell‘s Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti,” Transactions of the Philological Society (1859), 255.
4 “monster of languages”: Ibid., 228.
5 “correctness of accent that amazed me to the last degree”: Ibid, 243.
5 “not stuttering and stammering”: Ibid., 243.
5 “was a most inferior man”: Charles Lever, “Linguists,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh, XCVI: DLXXXV (1864), 12.
5 “‘never said anything’”: Russell, Life, 484.
5 Roman priest quoted in a memoir: George Borrow, The Romany Rye (London: John Murray, 1857).
5 “does not seem to abound in ideas”: Russell, Life, 345.
6 “rather of a monkey or a parrot”: Ibid., 390.
6 “He is the Devil!”: Ibid., 201.
6 “but an ill-bound dictionary”: Ibid., 395.
6 Mezzofanti could not be bested: Ibid., 314.
Chapter 1
9 the most popular language to learn: See David Graddol, English Next ([2006]: www.britishcouncil.org/learning-research-english-next.pdf), 14.
9 thirty thousand companies offering English classes: Greg Dyer, “English Craze Highlights Chinese Ambitions,” Financial Times, Jan. 19, 2010.
9 $83 billion worldwide language-learning market: Gregory Stone, “Rosetta Stone: Speaking Wall Street’s Language,” Time, April 25, 2009.
9 70 percent of college students in foreign-language classes: Modern Language Association, “Enrollments in Languages Other than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education” (Washington, DC: MLA, Fall 2009), www.mla.org/2009_enrollmentsurvey.
10 London . . . the most multilingual city in the world: See Andrew Buncombe and Tessa MacArthur, “London: Multilingual Capital of the World,” www.independent.co.uk/news/london-multilingual-capital-of-the-world-1083812.html, March 29, 1999.
&nbs
p; 11 “grasped the language’s sounds and rhythms”: Russell, Life, 46, 158.
11 “flexibility of the organs of speech”: Ibid., 157.
11 One writer compared it to “a bird flitting from spray to spray”: Guido Görres, quoted in Ibid., 420.
13 “don’t take this claim seriously”: Carol Myers-Scotton, Multiple Voices: An Introduction to Bilingualism (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), 38.
15 “When I’m an adult”: Daily Mail, Oct. 29, 2007.
Chapter 2
16 puzzled the language genius by speaking to him in Ukrainian: “Russia’s Polyglot College,” San Francisco Bulletin, Sept. 12, 1885.
Chapter 3
27 gates to the Archiginnasio public library: Nadir Maraldi, Giovanni Mazzotti, Lucio Cocco, and Francesco A. Manzoli, “Anatomical Waxwork Modeling: The History of the Bologna Anatomy Museum,” The Anatomical Record (New Anat.), 26:1 (2000), 5–10.
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