Who hasn"t wanted to master not just two languages but 10 Take Giuseppe Mezzofanti, a 19th-century priest who was said to be 41 in as many as 50 languages. Native speakers came from all over the world to test his 42 , and many left astonished.
In Babel No More , Michael Erard investigates the legend of Mezzofanti and 43 linguistic geniuses. 44 on Erard asks what it means to really know a language. Claire Kramsch tells him the question 45 not be "How many languages do you know" but rather "In how many languages do you live" Understanding the 46 cultural difference of a language requires extensive and 47 contact with its speakers, and for that reason Kramsch 48 that anyone could ever live in more than four or five languages.
Fair enough, 49 what about the astonishing feats of memory and calculation that people display when they 50 up a new language, or eight Erard points out that, for no good reason, this question has been 51 by science. After all, we study extraordinary 52 in mathematics and music; why not linguistic geniuses
Erard 53 down Mezzofanti"s papers, speaks to many language experts and even learns that some bilingual people experience mental illness in one 54 but not another. Most interestingly, he 55 a group of modern linguistic geniuses. Memory, motivation and practice are all important, they say, but 56 is a practical strategy. 57 who claimed to speak 11 languages did not much care about 58 like a native. Unlike Mezzofanti, their goal was not to 59 but to do—see the world, read the local paper and not get 60 .