What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

General discussion about learning languages
acorngalaxy
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What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

Postby acorngalaxy » Wed Nov 03, 2021 6:35 pm

Obvious economic / show-off benefits aside,

What is the point of mastering so many languages? (we’re talking more than 4-5) I don’t doubt many (hyper)polyglots’ ability, but I wonder often if it’s worth doing something like that.

Isn’t it better to be immersed in the cultures of these 4-5 languages after mastering them, rather than spending the time to pursue after the mastery of another 2-3 languages?

Isn’t it like eating a hamburger, but with nothing in between the buns? It’s so dry just mastering a language but not enjoying the culture and reaping the benefits (other than the economic ones, like I mentioned earlier.)
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Re: What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

Postby iguanamon » Wed Nov 03, 2021 7:04 pm

acorngalaxy wrote:What is the point of mastering so many languages? (we’re talking more than 4-5) I don’t doubt many (hyper)polyglots’ ability, but I wonder often if it’s worth doing something like that. ...

Says the person with five languages under their profile- learned and learning. If it's not worth it, then don't do it.
acorngalaxy wrote:...Isn’t it better to be immersed in the cultures of these 4-5 languages after mastering them, rather than spending the time to pursue after the mastery of another 2-3 languages?...

Nobody said that learning a language requires being immersed in the culture. It's not a requirement. Personally I enjoy the cultures of the languages I've learned, some more than others.
acorngalaxy wrote:Isn’t it like eating a hamburger, but with nothing in between the buns? It’s so dry just mastering a language but not enjoying the culture and reaping the benefits (other than the economic ones, like I mentioned earlier.)
Many people here have learned English, and don't particularly care for any Anglophone cultures. The language is useful to them as a lot of the world's information comes to them in English. It's not a requirement that they learn about baseball, cricket, rugby, reggae, the blues, country music, the story behind "Waltzing Matilda", or why Monty Python is so funny.

All that being said, speaking for just myself, I don't learn languages for nothing. I'm not collecting them like pokemon. If some are doing that, well, there are worse things to do to occupy one's time.
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Ezra
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Re: What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

Postby Ezra » Wed Nov 03, 2021 7:26 pm

acorngalaxy wrote:Obvious economic / show-off benefits aside,

What is the point of mastering so many languages? (we’re talking more than 4-5) I don’t doubt many (hyper)polyglots’ ability, but I wonder often if it’s worth doing something like that.

Isn’t it better to be immersed in the cultures of these 4-5 languages after mastering them, rather than spending the time to pursue after the mastery of another 2-3 languages?

I blame the Enlightenment and national-state spree. Let's imagine that those two never happened and we made it to the Internet and electricity with Medieval/Renaissance approach to languages. Basically it would mean that to enjoy European literary culture one could well make do with Latin and Ancient Greek only or, if Church Slavonic were to take as literary language for science and secular culture in our imaginary world, add it to a basket to enjoy the Orthodox part of Europe.

Instead of this, to enjoy European literary culture alone, one needs to learn English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Polish... The list is just going on. And one still needs Latin and Ancient Greek!

Or let's look at the Far East. Instead of one good old Literary Chinese to rule them all we have Mandarin, Japanese and Korean, and to add insult to injure — with three different sets of Chinese characters (Traditional, Simplified and Japanese). Well, and yes, one still needs Classical Chinese to go really deep in literature and philosophy.

Personally, I would be glad to concentrate on classical languages alone, but the problem is that in order to learn them I need to learn even more modern ones! :shock:
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Re: What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

Postby einzelne » Wed Nov 03, 2021 8:05 pm

Ezra wrote:Instead of this, to enjoy European literary culture alone, one needs to learn English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Polish... The list is just going on. And one still needs Latin and Ancient Greek!


Hmm, and what's your point? The OP's argument is precisely this: if you have too much languages under your belt, you cannot go deep enough in all of them. Precisely in how many languages can you read comfortably high register literature now?

I sympathize with your feelings because I basically learn languages for the reasons you outlined. But it's one thing to read A Little Prince or Harry Potter in a dozen of languages and completely another to reach the level when you can comfortably read Dante in Italian, Pessoa in Portuguese, Kawabata in Japanese, Sophocles in Greet etc.
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Re: What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

Postby Monty » Wed Nov 03, 2021 8:08 pm

Some people who never learned any foreign language ask “What’s the point? Everyone speaks English, or they should, at any rate!”

Some people who have learnt one foreign language to a very high level ask “Why waste your time dabbling in two languages? It takes one whole lifetime to properly master one!”

And so on.
Last edited by Monty on Wed Nov 03, 2021 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

Postby Le Baron » Wed Nov 03, 2021 8:16 pm

Ezra wrote:I blame the Enlightenment and national-state spree. Let's imagine that those two never happened and we made it to the Internet and electricity with Medieval/Renaissance approach to languages. Basically it would mean that to enjoy European literary culture one could well make do with Latin and Ancient Greek only or, if Church Slavonic were to take as literary language for science and secular culture in our imaginary world, add it to a basket to enjoy the Orthodox part of Europe.

Instead of this, to enjoy European literary culture alone, one needs to learn English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Polish... The list is just going on. And one still needs Latin and Ancient Greek!

Or let's look at the Far East. Instead of one good old Literary Chinese to rule them all we have Mandarin, Japanese and Korean, and to add insult to injure — with three different sets of Chinese characters (Traditional, Simplified and Japanese). Well, and yes, one still needs Classical Chinese to go really deep in literature and philosophy.

Personally, I would be glad to concentrate on classical languages alone, but the problem is that in order to learn them I need to learn even more modern ones! :shock:

That's a very interesting take. I wonder though if we would have ever come to the internet age with just those few languages. The dissolution of Latin into the romance languages alone (and their subsequent elevation to national languages) has run parallel with the history of the struggle for democracies; whereas the classical languages so often functioned as languages of elites (the church, scholarship). Like you say national pride does play a part so that now English has become a widespread lingua-franca, but is some people's national language, parity is demanded for other national languages.

iguanamon wrote:It's not a requirement that they learn about ... cricket.

I should be though. :P
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Re: What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

Postby Ezra » Wed Nov 03, 2021 10:19 pm

einzelne wrote:Hmm, and what's your point? The OP's argument is precisely this: if you have too much languages under your belt, you cannot go deep enough in all of them. Precisely in how many languages can you read comfortably high register literature now?

I sympathize with your feelings because I basically learn languages for the reasons you outlined. But it's one thing to read A Little Prince or Harry Potter in a dozen of languages and completely another to reach the level when you can comfortably read Dante in Italian, Pessoa in Portuguese, Kawabata in Japanese, Sophocles in Greet etc.

OP's question on why to master or simply learn too many languages fell close to my own thoughts during some recent more depressive phases of language learning, so I decided to share them. "Why on Earth I need to learn all these languages?" — implored I once during German goldlisting, — "do I really need German?! I do not! I can live without modern foreign languages! I already speak English after all."

And then there was a Voice: "No, my impatient classical language learner. You need German. Did not you claim you are going to learn Classical Chinese?"

"Yes, but —"

"Best Chinese grammars are in German. And you need French as well because best western Classical Chinese dictionary is in French. And luckily you somehow managed to learn English, you need this for textbooks. And grammar."

"Then why—"

"Do not even think about it, German is a must. One does not learn classical languages without German. And good thing you already invested some time in Japanese. You will eventually need it for the Morohashi dictionary. Or you can learn Mandarin instead of Japanese and use another big dictionary", — added the Voice with a tint of sarcasm, — "and do not forget Italian, these days we do not learn Ancient Greek without Italian.".

Sigh. So the bottom line: in my case I do not need to master too many languages, but I still need to learn too many languages in order to master some. I would like to have my Classical Chinese textbooks, dictionaries, grammars and readers in Latin only, Or, fine, in Church Slavonic. Instead, to master one classical language I have to learn — to some level at least — three-four modern languages! :o

And who is to blame?! Modernity, the Enlightenment and national states! :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

Postby einzelne » Thu Nov 04, 2021 1:03 am

Ezra wrote:I would like to have my Classical Chinese textbooks, dictionaries, grammars and readers in Latin only


Well, given the fact that it was Jesuits missionaries who introduced Classical Chinese culture to the Western World (see, for instance, Leibniz's correspondence on the binary numeral system and I Ching), I wouldn't be surprised to find Latin books on Classical Chinese...

You do not need German, but if you're into Classical studies, one of the best books have been written in German, that's true.
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Re: What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

Postby Leurre » Thu Nov 04, 2021 3:11 am

acorngalaxy wrote:What is the point of mastering so many languages? (we’re talking more than 4-5) I don’t doubt many (hyper)polyglots’ ability, but I wonder often if it’s worth doing something like that.


For some people, I imagine it's like climbing a mountain. Don't waste your breath suggesting you can get a better view halfway up, before you enter the clouds; they're not in it for the view, not really. They climb the mountain because it is there to climb, that's all. Man was meant to storm Heaven, and all that.
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Re: What is the point of mastering/learning so many languages?

Postby Querneus » Thu Nov 04, 2021 5:08 am

einzelne wrote:
Ezra wrote:I would like to have my Classical Chinese textbooks, dictionaries, grammars and readers in Latin only


Well, given the fact that it was Jesuits missionaries who introduced Classical Chinese culture to the Western World (see, for instance, Leibniz's correspondence on the binary numeral system and I Ching), I wouldn't be surprised to find Latin books on Classical Chinese...

I'm aware of De Guignes' Classical Chinese - Latin dictionary (1853), and would love to hear of any other "textbooks, dictionaries, grammars and readers"...

Sometimes, Ezra, you have to be the change you want to see in the world though. :P
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