Palmer Book Post #1

Babel No More

by Michael Erard

Part #1

     In Babel No More, Erard delves into the area of linguistics pertaining to language acquisition in order to clarify the mystery surrounding polyglottism. Erard asks, "How is it that certain people are able to accumulate what for the average person is a daunting number of languages?" and "What are the secrets of polyglots who can master 6, 26, or even 96 languages?"

     The book begins with Erard's investigation of one of history's most famous polyglots, Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was rumored to have known between 45 and 58 languages. He was known to hold banquets with visitors from all around the world and speak to each person in his or her native tongue. He was frequently proclaimed a fraud and many tried to prove his pretending by testing him against a dozens of languages at once (it is said successfully addressed each individually, proving his fluency with much composure). One story tells of a visitor that spoke to Mezzofanti in a language he did not know. Mezzofanti told the visitor to return in four weeks, at which point Mezzofanti spoke the visitor's language fluently with no accent. Many theories have been formulated to explain his abilities, such as the fact that he was only tested in situations (banquets and the like)  in which he could control the topics (he could stay on topics in which he had sufficient vocabulary and grammatical understanding). He also worked as a cardinal, which provided him with the finances and time to invest in his learning of foreign languages, as well as a stage in which to "perform" them (banquets, meetings, etc.). The only unexplainable facet of Mezzofanti is his extreme proficiency in mastering (gaining/losing) accents.