/sci/ - Science & Math

Good brains

>>11963580
Once you know a few languages, many similar ones become easier. Shared words, grammatical structure, etc. I would guess once he learned his first 20 or so, the rest just kind of snowballed. Still impressive and shows a dedication to learning, as it's easy to forget a language you don't use.

>>11963580
>Italian is a higher tier than Portuguese, despite Portuguese having far more speakers
>Cree is higher than Yoruba
>Volapük is included, but other conlangs like Esperanto and Lojban aren't
This chart is actual garbage

>>11963580
He could probably say few sentences in every of those languages and said he knew them.

>>11963580
While it's popular to argue all human brains developed to learn languages, hyperpolyglots don't have normal brains. Their language centers are abnormally large, and they tend to have amazing memories. I don't think there's much correlation with intelligence, though.

>>11963649
i don't know how it works for other languages, pastaman here
modern italian comes from a multitude of smaller dialects, many of which are still commonly spoken through the nation
they're very differentiated, for example as a Lombard i can't really understand strict venetian or piedmontese, even tho we live about 150km apart
if you're interested there's tons of books in the /his/ library MEGA link

>>11965347
Isnt "Italy" and "Germany" as a country newer than America?

>>11963580
Brain mutation

>>11965177
i think you are right.
I remember one case in my country in south america, a very poor and simple man with no formal education, he learned some 5 languages, if I'm not mistaken, and the only exposure he had was radio stations in different languages. The guy had 0 materials, 0 instructions, and he was able to "figure out" the language just by hearing a radio program made for natives of whatever languages.

>>11965177
>Having abnormally large language centers doesn't correlate with intelligence
Perfect example of retardation.

>>11963580
Many languages are related - Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese count maybe as two, English, Dutch, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish count, (given his native German) count as one) Svak being the sort of average of all other slavic language allows you to automatically understand most slavic languages to a certain degree with little further effort. Also reading only takes about 1/4 of the effort it takes to learn to talk.

The list is still impressive if true, though.

>>11963580
Many languages are related - Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese count maybe as two, English, Dutch, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish count, (given his native German) count as one) Slovak being the sort of average of all other slavic language allows you to automatically understand most slavic languages to a certain degree with little further effort. Also reading only takes about 1/4 of the effort it takes to learn to talk.

The list is still impressive if true, though.

>>11963580
>Georg Julius Justus Sauerwein (15 January 1831 in Hanover – 16 December 1904 in Kristiania (now Oslo))
Who verified his claims by 1904? Is there any proof he spoke these languages at any level beyond being able to order food?

Also this >>11968860, most of the "languages" he "spoke" are just dialects of each other. If you strip it down it's barely 5 or 6 languages.

>>11965718
I mean, the current “version” of the german state exists since 1949.
But its countries have been around for a long time, same with italy.
The Bavarian law of what beer is allowed to contain is about 1000 years old.
Historically, the nonexistence of a formal german state is a huge influence on the origin of nationalism.

autism

>>11965177
>I don't think there's much correlation with intelligence, though.
Kind of off topic, but this reminds me of dyscalculia and dyslexia. It’s surprising that some significant differences in the brain don’t influence IQ.

>>11968868

>>11968860:Many languages are related - Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese count maybe as two, English, Dutch, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish count, (given his native German) count as one) Slovak being the sort of average of all other slavic language allows you to automatically understand most slavic languages to a certain degree with little further effort. Also reading only takes about 1/4 of the effort it takes to learn to talk.

The list is still impressive if true, though.

>>11969055
I agree. Even if it’s easy to learn to understand related languages, being able to produce them is a totally different matter.

>>11965718

German here — depends on definitions. Indeed the current German state (BRD) was technically founded only in 1949 and absorbed East Germany in 1990, but there was a German state as early as 1000 years ago (although it covered much more of what has now become neighbouring countries back then). So Germany as a nation (meaning a country with a more or less common language and culture) is much older than the US, but technically the BRD is younger than the US.

I don't know as much about Italian history, but my impression is that it's similar: The current state is relatively young, but the concept of Italian people goes back much further.

>>11963580
Polyglotism is usually a collection of many very shallow understandings of a language coupled with a good “script” of phrases that make you sound better than you really are. You are unable to really tell if someone is good at a language unless you yourself speak it to a very high level. Because of this, people can go on the internet and “introduce myself in 50 languages” and never really get caught. There are some real polyglots out there but hyperpolyglotism is almost always just confidence.

>>11969280
Well, to a point. DIVERSE polyglotism is usually faked. If one claims to be at a very high level of Zulu, French, Japanese, and Welsh, I’d be very sceptic. But obviously Romantic/Germanic/Bantu polyglotism is very possible

>>11969294
>French
wtf

>>11969370
Yes, it's a language.

>>11969370
Yeah, why would being at a high level at it be suspicious?

>>11969491
It’s not the French that’s suspicious, it’s the lack of relation between the languages

>>11963580

Sanskrit isn't on that list

Absolutely pathetic

>>11970024
Look again:
>Georgian, Sanskrit, Romani,

>>11963580
Possibly just super smart but much more likely he had tourist level ability in each language

>>11969491
French is hard because it has a lot of rules, exceptions and verbs are difficult to conjugate. The big majority of French native speaker can't write a text properly without using internet. I often speak French and use it since I am very young, I study it a lot, and I still have a lot of difficulties when it comes to official texts etc

>>11970085
That's because French is diglossic - written French is almost a different language from spoken French.

>>11970121
True, but that doesn't prevent >>11970085 from being a retard not able to master two languages at once.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rowan_Hamilton#Early_life

>>11970135
I speak French better than most of French, and I still study it. I also try to improve my English. I speak fluently Arabic and Kabyle berber, retard. Don't even try to compete.

>>11970268
> I speak French better than most of French
> I speak fluently Arabic and Kabyle berber

It is indeed a shame that fellow maghrebi speak a better French that the retarded sandniggers that constitute nowadays the majority of the French population. Yet, competing against those is like winning the special olympics.

>>11966730
Why would it? I'm not seeing exceptional abilities in hyperpolyglots outside of languages, but there's plenty of geniuses who didn't excel even in their native languages.