[lg policy] The cult of the hyperpolyglot

Thu Feb 23 16:50:45 UTC 2012

The cult of the hyperpolyglot
By Vanessa Barford BBC News Magazine

Many people want to speak a second language, but for some people two
can never be enough. Welcome to the world of the hyperpolyglot.
Ray Gillon speaks 18 languages. To be precise, he only speaks eight
fluently. His grasp on the other 10 is merely conversational.
Throw anything at him in Portuguese, Thai, Turkish, Russian, Polish,
Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Bulgarian or Mandarin and he will banter
back.

In the UK, where there has been a growing anxiety over the failure to
learn additional languages, Gillon might seem to be a bit of an
anomaly. More and more children have been giving up languages since
the last government made learning foreign languages optional in
England from the age of 14.

Publisher HarperCollins has been searching for the UK's most
multilingual student, and has discovered a 20-year-old Oxford
University undergraduate who can speak 11 languages. And a new book,
Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language
Learners, by Michael Erard, suggests Gillon is among a set of people
who are learning languages for fun. Ray Gillon says he sees etymology
as a sport and he enjoys looking up the origins of words

So what makes some people learn language after language? For
self-taught polyglot Gillon, 54, his love affair with language started
by accident. He says he first learned French and Latin at the age of
11, and later studied French and German as elective courses while
studying for his electronic engineering degree.

"But it wasn't until I got my first job, and was sent to live in the
south of France, that I had any real enthusiasm for languages," he
says.
It was during this chapter of his life, while designing audio visual
systems for a cruise liner, that Gillon was introduced to Italian
through colleagues. "I went to Italy for a weekend, and fell in love
with the language. I bought books and started teaching myself. By the
end of my three years in France, I was fluent in both languages," he
says.

Gillon's next job took him round the world, and pretty soon he was up
to speed on German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese and Swedish.
He says he used half a dozen languages every day for 10 years and his
current job, which involves supervising foreign language versioning of
Hollywood movies, means he has to stay on top of his skills.

"I have a massive foreign language book library, so I regularly keep
up to date, revising grammar, reading newspapers, watching satellite
television.

"My much better half is also Swedish and speaks six languages - we
probably speak them all every day," he says.

According to author and linguistics expert Erard, there are not many
hyperpolyglots like Gillon in the world. He has identified 11
languages as a significant watershed. Those who speak more than this
are very rare.

But he says it is difficult to define hyperpolyglots and polyglots
because essentially it has to be about speaking and knowing rather
than reading and writing. In some cases literacy is not possible, or a
language does not have an alphabet.

He says the question of "how much a language weighs" is also
significant in determining how unusual a linguist is.
Continue reading the main story
Rise of the polyglots

"Most people say it's easier to pick up languages when you're
younger," says David Green, of University College London, who
specialises in bilingualism.

"But people can learn languages at any point in their lives. Being
immersed in a language is important. Personality is a contributing
factor too - not being able to tolerate feeling foolish from making
inevitable errors will make learning a new language a difficult
process.

"Polyglots are definitely on the rise worldwide predominantly because
of migration. In 10 years' time, it is estimated that 50% of America
will be Spanish-speaking. Many of these people will speak both English
and Spanish."

"If the languages are English, French, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi and
Russian - that would be more significant from a learner's perspective
than 11 Romance languages such as Italian, French and Spanish," he
says.

People who are gifted linguists also often have to make the choice
between getting very highly developed skills in a smaller number of
languages, or focusing on one aspect like the oral language, he says.

For language-lover Matt Withers, 32, who speaks German, Portuguese,
Luxembourgish, French and Welsh, it is not his vocation, but a
fascination with language and the world that fuels his hobby.

But rather than relying solely on books, he also signed up to a series
of courses.

"When I lived in Germany, I shared a house with three Brazilians, so I
did an evening course in Portuguese to converse with them - it was
interesting trying to learn Portuguese through the medium of German,"
he laughs.
Continue reading the main story
Which words come easily?
Road signs in English and Polish

    Usually easier when second language is close to learner's native
tongue in terms of vocabulary, sounds or sentence structure
    So Polish speakers find it easier to learn Slavic languages like
Czech rather than Asian ones
    And Japanese speakers will find it easier to learn Mandarin than Polish
    Easiest language for native English speakers to learn is said to be Dutch
    Five most difficult languages for native English speakers are
Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean

Source: BBC Languages

"For the past few years, I've been living in Wales - I share an office
with predominantly native Welsh speakers, so I've been learning
Welsh."

Withers thinks that fluency in one language allows people to
accumulate others more easily.

"Most monoglots in this country aren't really able to explain English
in terms such as the perfect past tense and past tense. When you learn
about cases and tenses and grammatical formations, I think the tool
box is there for other languages," he says.

But he concedes it is not always the case, "as Welsh isn't like any
other major European language, in terms of the way it is constructed,
and is incredibly different".

So what enables hyperpolyglots to seemingly pick up a new language at
the push of a button?

Erard says it is hard to explain, but whatever an individual's
biographical reasons are, he believes there is something that
distinguishes hyperpolyglots neurologically.

"They have a neurological hardware that responds to the world, that's
fed by the world, that is suited to a pattern that is
recognition-heavy, sound-heavy and memory-heavy - that is very
structured, and also very sociable.
Manuel from Fawlty Towers Manuel probably spoke three languages -
Basil Fawlty just the one

"They have an ability to switch between languages very easily, and
that involves cognitive skills which are often heritable," he adds.

But Gillon says he has no idea what the secret to his success is.

He says some "blocks" - Germanic, Slavic, Latin - make it "easier to
go with the flow, and language becomes intuitive". He agrees that by
the third or fourth language, it also gets easier to assimilate
vocabulary and grammar much more quickly.

"Etymology is a sport for me. I enjoy looking up the origin of words
and seeing which particular invasion was responsible for bringing that
word into our vocabulary. I am immersed in it for my work and it will
continue to intrigue me for every day of my life."

But he concludes: "I can't explain it - if I could, I would bottle and
sell it."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17101370

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