Babel No More (41 page)

35
Jesuit missionaries who had been expelled: Charles Russell
, The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti, with an Introductory Memoir of Eminent Linguists, Ancient and Modern
(London: Longman, Brown, and Co., 1858), 133.

36
“Through the grace of God”: Ibid., 54.

37
“I made it a rule to learn every
new grammar”: Ibid., 156–57.

37
noted one writer, “indicates delicacy”: Ibid., 263.

37
“monkey-like, restless motion”: Ibid., 389.

37
“never . . . permitted himself the indulgence of a fire” Ibid., 161.

37
scaldino
(or
scaldén
): Pietro Mainoldi,
Vocabolario del dialetto bolognese
(Bologna: Arnaldo Forni Editore, 1996).

37
would not let people kiss his ring: Russell,
Life,
429.

37
confer
God’s forgiveness before they went to the gallows: Ibid., 129.

38
enough Sardinian to hear the maid’s sins: Ibid., 158–59.

Chapter 4

41
disparate accounts of the Bolognese lion of languages: Thomas Watts, “On the Extraordinary Powers of Cardinal Mezzofanti as a Linguist,”
Transactions of the Philological Society,
5 (Jan. 23, 1852), 115. See also Thomas Watts, “On M. Manavit’s
Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti,
”
Transactions of the Philological Society,
7 (1854), 133–50; Thomas Watts, “On Dr. Russell’s
Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti,
”
Transactions of the Philological Society
(1859), 227–256.

41
Watts himself was said to read fifty languages: George Borrow,
Isopel Berners
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1901).

42
British traveler Tom Coryat: Charles Russell
, The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti, with an Introductory Memoir of Eminent Linguists, Ancient and Modern
(London: Longman, Brown, and Co., 1858), 120.

42
who said that he knew twenty-eight languages: By Jones’s own admission. Russell quotes a document written by Jones: Ibid.
,
89.

42
“Cardinal Mezzofanti” will be found: Ibid.
,
121.

43
“pronunciation, at least, is described as quite perfect”: Ibid.
,
470.

43
“and with a purity
of accent, of vocabulary, and of idiom”: Ibid.

43
“speak it correctly and idiomatically”: Ibid., 460.

43
“on a level with the majority of the natives”: Watts, “On the Extraordinary Powers,” 112.

43
“great spirit and precision”: Watts, “On Dr. Russell’s
Life,
” 237.

44
eleven linguistic families: Russell,
Life,
467.

44
reduced the overall repertoire to sixty or sixty-one
:
Watts, “On Dr. Russell’s
Life,
” 242.

45
Arab audiences also prefer truthful speech: “Arabic Media and Public Appearance Forum” (Washington, DC: Center for the Advanced Study of Language, 2005), 16.

45
are born to hearing, nonsigning parents: Brendan Costello, Javier Fernández, and Alazne Landa, “The Non-(existent) Native Signer: Sign Language Research in a Small Deaf Population,” paper presented at Ninth Theoretical
Issues in Sign Language Research Conference, 2006.

45
no native signing community: MLA, 2009. Also see Tamar Lewin, “Colleges See 16% Rise in Study of Sign Language,”
New York Times,
Dec. 8, 2010.

46
“too correct to appear completely natural”:
Russell,
Life,
403.

46
knowing French to the satisfaction of Harvard College: “A knowledge of the language itself, rather than of the grammar, is expected;
but proficiency in elementary grammar, a good pronunciation, or facility in speaking the language will be accepted as an offset for some deficiency in translation,” read the Harvard handbook. Cited in David Barnwell,
A History of Foreign Language Testing in the United States
(Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press, 1996), 1.

47
fluent, though accented, Arabic: See Fawn M. Brodie,
The Devil Drives
(New York:
W. W. Norton, 1984). Brodie’s book has notes to sources of the claim of twenty-nine languages and eleven dialects that I mention in the footnote. The information about Burton’s Hindustani exam comes from Edward Rice,
Sir Richard Francis Burton: A Biography
(New York: Da Capo Press, 2001). See also James Milton, “The Lessons of Excellence: Sir Richard Francis Burton and Language Learning,”
The Linguist,
40:5 (2001), 135–39.

48
who made the fastest progress: Joseph De Koninck, “Intensive Language Learning and Increases in Rapid Eye Movement Sleep: Evidence of a Performance Factor,”
International Journal of Psychophysiology,
8 (1989), 43–47.

48
improved the most: Joseph De Koninck, “Intensive Learning, REM Sleep, and REM Sleep Mentation,”
Sleep Research Bulletin,
1:2 (1995), 39–40.

49
[the language] they used right before they slept: David Foulkes, Barbara Meier, Inge Strauch, et al., “Linguistic Phenomena and Language Selection in the REM Dreams of German-English Bilinguals,”
International Journal of Psychology,
28:3 (1993), 871–91.

49
greener, less purple color: Leigh Caskey-Sirmons and Nancy Hickerson, “Semantic Shift and Bilingualism: Variation in the Color Terms of Five
Languages,”
Anthropological Linguistics,
19 (1977), 358–67.

49
even conceptualize time differently from monolinguals: Panos Athanasopolous and C. Kasai, “Language and Thought in Bilinguals: The Case of Grammatical Number and Nonverbal Classification Preferences,”
Applied Psycholinguistics,
29 (2008), 105–23.

49
aren’t equally disordered in each of their languages: F. I. de Zulueta, N. Gene-Cos,
and S. Grachev, “Differential Psychotic Symptomatology in Polyglot Patients: Case Reports and Their Implications,”
British Journal of Medical Psychology,
74 (2001), 277–92. See also R. E. Hemphill, 1971, “Auditory Hallucinations in Polyglots,”
South African Medical Journal,
Dec. 18, 1971, 1391–94.

50
spoke in English, he went ‘mad’”: F. I. de Zulueta, “The Implications of Bilingualism in the
Study and Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: A Review,”
Psychological Medicine,
14 (1984), 541–57.

51
“a community imagined by language”: Benedict Anderson,
Imagined Communities
(London: Verso 1983).

52
“not failed native speakers”: Vivian Cook, “Going Beyond the Native Speaker in Language Teaching,”
TESOL Quarterly,
33:2 (1999), 204.

52
two or three monolingual speakers’ worth of language
in his or her head: Vivian Cook, “Multicompetence and the Learning of Many Languages,”
Language, Culture, and Curriculum,
8:2 (1995), 94.

53
current European Commission standard
:
Brian North,
The Development of a Common Framework Scale of Language Proficiency
(New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 281.

53
language competitions . . . German government: J. R. Campbell, H. Wagner, and H. Walberg, “Academic
Competitions and Programs Designed to Challenge the Exceptionally Talented,” in Kurt A. Heller, Franz J. Mönks, Robert J. Sternberg, and Rena F. Subotnik (eds.),
International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent,
2nd ed. (Oxford, UK: Elsevier, 2000).

54
Yet only 2 of the 104 pilots: Patricia Sullivan and Handan Girginer, “The Use
of Discourse Analysis to Enhance ESP Teacher Knowledge: An Example
Using Aviation English,”
English for Specific Purposes,
21:4 (2002), 397–404.

55
only about one-quarter . . . concerns the actual flying: Jeremy Mell, “Dialogue in Abnormal Situations of Air Traffic Control,”
Cahiers du Centre Interdisciplinaire des Sciences du Langage,
10 (1994), 263–72.

55
“What does ‘pull up, pull up’ mean?”: Atsushi Tajima, “Fatal Miscommunication: English in Aviation Safety,”
World Englishes,
23:3 (2004), 456.

55
confusion was a major cause of the accident: David A. Simon, “Boeing 757 CFIT Accident at Cali, Colombia, Becomes Focus of Lessons Learned,”
Flight Safety Digest,
May/June 1998, 1–31.

55
couldn’t convey his misgivings to the crew: Peter Ladkin, “AA965 Cali Accident Report near Buga, Colombia, Dec 20, 1995,”
http://sunnyday.mit.edu/accidents/calirep.html
.

57
about the period of Mezzofanti’s life between 1812 and 1831: Franco Pasti,
Un poliglotta in biblioteca: Giuseppe Mezzofanti (1774–1849) a Bologna nell etá della restaurazione
(Bologna: Patron Editore, 2006).

Part 2 APPROACH: Tracking Down Hyperpolyglots

Chapter 5

67
a popular forum with language scientists: LINGUIST 7.881, Wed., June 12, 1996.

68
Hudson passed the mail on to linguists: LINGUIST
14.2923, Sun., Oct. 26, 2003.

71
£1.3 billion a year: David Graddol,
English Next
(2006),
www.britishcouncil.org/learning-research-english-next.pdf
.

71
the most multilingual city on the planet: Philip Baker and John Eversley,
Multilingual Capital
(London: Battlebridge, 2000).

Chapter 6

73
read his
Washington Post
obituary: Joe Holley, “George Campbell Dies; Spoke 44 Languages,”
Washington Post,
Dec. 20, 2004.

74
Elizabeth Kulman: “Mastering Languages,”
Dakota Republican,
14:45, Supplement 4 (Nov. 12, 1874).

74
should be content to serve the humble role of a blacksmith”: “Rome’s Learned Vulcan,”
Idaho Daily Statesman,
Oct. 27, 1898, 5.

74
manual labor and reading foreign languages
:
Ibid., 21.

75
granted Burritt thirty languages: Peter Tolis,
Elihu Burritt: Crusader for Brotherhood
(Hamden, CT: Archon Press, 1968), 16–17.

75
carried his Greek and Latin grammars to work in his hat: Elihu Burritt, “Autobiography of the Author,” in
Ten-Minute Talks on All Sorts of Topics
(Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1873), 11.

76
“His compulsive and erratic study of languages: Tolis,
Elihu Burritt,
21.

77
“there was something to live for”: Elihu Burritt,
Lectures and Speeches
(London: Sampson
Low, Son, and Marston, 1869), 174.

77
never paid for a hotel room or riverboat passage: Ellen Strong Bartlett, “Elihu Burritt—The Learned Blacksmith,”
New England Magazine,
16: 4 (1897), 21–22.

77
Sanskrit Lessons for Young Yankee Ladies: Letter from Burritt to “Miss Butler,” 1878.

77
a plaster cast of Burritt’s skull was taken: Everything in this section comes from Lorenzo Fowler,
The American Phrenological Journal and Miscellany,
OS Fowler (ed.) Fowlers and Wells, 9 (1847), 269. There was also an earlier note that appeared in the
American Phrenological Journal and Miscellany,
3, (1841).