Definition of a Polyglot

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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Le Baron » Fri Apr 15, 2022 2:22 pm

[...] Poof! Gone.

I changed my mind and did something more practical and useful. It was a hard choice between watching paint dry or grass grow, but I chose the grass.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Cainntear » Fri Apr 15, 2022 2:36 pm

Le Baron wrote:It's only difficult for people who are deliberately stubborn to things in front of their noses. Some because they like the charade, others because they want to appear like researchers or 'clever' for really no sound reason at all apart from psychological comfort.

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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby zenmonkey » Fri Apr 15, 2022 5:21 pm

Cainntear wrote:
Le Baron wrote:It may be difficult for some to grasp or accept the fact that in 2022 the concept of 'polyglottery' has come to mean stacking up study of a lot of languages and somehow being proficient in them all, even when this is mostly not true or possible, but it has become that. The additional fact that some people are proficient in several languages and also choose the word to describe themselves is not something that counters that.


It is difficult for people to accept unproven facts, yes, because many people insist on having evidence before accepting an opinion as fact.

I have no problem accepting that the "polyglot identity group" use the term in a way that has a more specific meaning than the traditional use of the term, but I do not see any evidence that the majority of people outwith the identity group would recognise that meaning. Maybe when Ollie Richards is presented in the media as a polyglot, your average person hears that as "guy who speaks a lot of languages" and not "guy who deliberately speaks a lot of languages including many he only learned for fun because that's how he chooses to define his identity and lifestyle".

I would personally be surprised by any evidence that suggested this restricted definition was common outside "language enthusiast" circles.


Agree, I was thinking about this. I don't think that the restricted definition is used in an exclusionary sense even within the community.
Whether you fell into the potion as a kid or have to actively drink to learn - Obelix or Asterix polyglots - they are both still Gauls described as polyglots.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Le Baron » Fri Apr 15, 2022 5:32 pm

True believers must always defend and rationalise the movement they aim to belong to.

The mule-headed insistence that in primarily English-speaking media the word polyglot and the whole idea of being a polyglot hasn't been re-imagined and recast as people devoting themselves to accumulation of languages in a dubious way, is just that: mule-headed pettifoggery.

I have to discount a lot of what Cainntear does. It's never meaningful arguments, he'll dispute at maximum out-of-context-quoted length about whether or not a paper coffee cup is really made of paper or can only be used for coffee (since tea or lemonade is also valid). With that sort of thing, which is just a waste-of-life black hole, it's just not worth competing. It's just empty argument for the sake of it.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby sirgregory » Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:29 pm

Iversen wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:(...)I've had the same conversations with a lot of people studying fields like mathematics, literature, and even engineering. Asking "to do what?" seems to be a surprise to many, as if the topic of study was an end to itself.


You can study all kinds of things without having a clear picture of how it can be used for earning money. Some people manage to find a job or at least a way of living that brings them into contact with people speaking a variety of languages, others don't - but it can still become an entertaining (and time-consuming!) hobby. It is sad if you thought you could earn a lot of money by learning a lot of languages, just as it is sad if you thought that you would be speaking all your languages with your neighbours and collegues, but the world is as it is. Take it or leave it..

I have earlier in this thread accepted the label 'polyglot', but I would find it irritating if people thought that covered my whole existence - I have other hobbies which in certain periods take up as much time as languages, and I have also a 'job title' (retired!). For me it's a totally neutral word that just makes clear what I can do - just as 'sportsman' would indicate a different set of interests and skills.

The main difference between being a polyglot and being something else is that the word in itself suggests that you are something of a collector, just as some people collect Ming vases or expensive watches. But apart from "collector" there is no special word for people who own six Ming vases (but less than eleven), so a better parallel would be learning to play several musical instruments - but we can say "multiinstrumentalist" about someone who just can play the guitar and sax and accordeon, or in other words: you can be called 'multi' with far less than six instruments (one, two, many..). I would also think that mathematics or biology have become such wide fields of knowledge that adding one more field of in-depth expertise might take as long time as learning another language, but I still have to see an entomologist who also is an expert on molluscs and cactusses and the corona virus being named as a 'polybiologist'. Ot take computer games: I have (briefly) watched professional teams killing fictive screen characters in counterstrike as if it was some kind of sport, but if the players also can play Mindcraft and Grand Auto Theft and Chess and a few more they still don't get the label 'polygamer'. The only place where I have seen the poly- prefix used is for people that span several art forms, like dancing, painting, writing novels and playing a musical instrument.

That being said I still think that we should keep the word polyglot, especially when it is used about people who makes an effort of learning a number of languages (with the -lingual series mainly used about people who are native speakers of their languages). And then the word "linguist" can finally be reserved for people who study languages on a scientific basis...


One difference with music is that music is an inherently performative art whereas talking generally isn't. Yet for whatever reason people find mundane speech very impressive when it's a language you aren't "expected" to know (especially an "exotic" language or an "easy" language but at a very high level). For better or worse, "performative polyglottery" seems to be an emerging phenomenon, and while many people strongly dislike it, I myself am highly curious to see what direction it will end up taking. There seem to be somewhat contradictory objections to it. On the one hand, some people find it distasteful and see it as showing off. It is showing off to be sure, but, to return to the music comparison, you will rarely hear people criticize good musicians for showcasing their talents and it's not clear why showcasing language skills specifically should warrant condemnation. And then there are critics from the opposite direction demanding better proof of fluency, i.e., the polyglot has failed to show off in a convincing enough way.

In real life situations, from what I've seen, people are usually overly modest about their foreign language skills. (Fake monolinguals?) The most common response by far to "Do you speak X?" is "a little" and this can mean anything from almost nothing to quite advanced. Most people it seems like to set expectations very low. But such false modesty starts to feel ridiculous once you are a few sentences deep into a comfortable conversation in a language you supposedly don't speak.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby zenmonkey » Fri Apr 15, 2022 9:33 pm

sirgregory wrote:For better or worse, "performative polyglottery" seems to be an emerging phenomenon, and while many people strongly dislike it, I myself am highly curious to see what direction it will end up taking.


Excellent, I like this term. It also somehow reminds me of some of the language transformations in Cloud Atlas where a sense of time and otherness is demonstrated with some very mundane speech made into a performance by an imaginary evolution of speech. Polyglottery of sorts for the monolingual movie crowd. It was something I found both jarringly false and curiously interesting.

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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby IronMike » Sun Apr 17, 2022 12:35 am

MISTER Anderson....

I <3 that actor, in every movie. His Old Georgie is a great take on the character in a great book AND movie.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby s_allard » Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:58 pm

Iversen wrote:I have no idea how Mr. Chohan himself, the founder of Hypia, was tested, but it seems that people who apply have to submit a rather long essay about their qualifications (videos and writings on the internet may be taken into account) and they may be interviewed by existing members in their claimed languages. I am not terribly worried about the level of this screening for the simple reason that I don't intend to apply, but since it is a non-profit and no-obligations club they don't have to be as rigorous as a university or even one of those institutions that provide A-B-C certificates for cash. They just ask you to know six languages OR at least one rare and moribund one (plus a few more), so the quantitative demands aren't excessive.

….


I had a look at the HYPIA website that I found quite interesting and intriguing. I was a bit surprised that they defined hyperpolyglot in terms of six or more languages. I’ve always thought that polyglot started at six and hyperpolyglot at ten. But that’s not such a big deal.

I have to say that the definition of a polyglot irritated me a bit :

We adhere to the definition of Hyperpolyglots as proferred by the general consensus to mean “a person who is fluent in six or more languages.” However, we expand our association to include persons who are conversant in eight or more languages.

What exactly do “general consensus”, “fluent” and “conversant” mean? That is actually clarified somewhat by reference to the CEFR model.

So far, I haven’t found anything that I would call a show-stopper in a field that is notorious for loose definitions. I think I might just qualify, and I’ll consider applying later this year.

What I like in what I have seen is that there is a sort of peer review mechanism in the selection process. You get a chance to actually demonstrate what you say you can do in your target languages.

It makes me think of a presentation I saw a few years back at the LangFest conference here in Montreal in which a presenter gave a talk in three languages, switching seamlessly from one to the other all the while allowing monolingual speakers to follow the presentation. It may not actually qualify as polyglottery but it was pretty impressive indeed. When I spoke to the presenter afterwards he explained to me that he intended to do a next presentation in four languages. COVID-19 killed that but it might be resurrected at a later date.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Apr 18, 2022 2:48 am

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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Cainntear » Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:57 pm

Le Baron wrote:The mule-headed insistence that in primarily English-speaking media the word polyglot and the whole idea of being a polyglot hasn't been re-imagined and recast as people devoting themselves to accumulation of languages in a dubious way, is just that: mule-headed pettifoggery.

I have not insulted you for holding an opinion I disagree with.
What has gone so wrong in your world that you think it's acceptable to sling insults at me for holding one you disagree with?

As yet, I have never met anyone outside of the internet language learner sphere who uses "polyglot" the way Simcott does.

I do not see it as "mule-headed" to refuse to accept as fact something that you have made no attempt to demonstrate empirically and that goes against my own experience of the world.

I have to discount a lot of what Cainntear does. It's never meaningful arguments, he'll dispute at maximum out-of-context-quoted length about whether or not a paper coffee cup is really made of paper or can only be used for coffee (since tea or lemonade is also valid). With that sort of thing, which is just a waste-of-life black hole, it's just not worth competing. It's just empty argument for the sake of it.

Well what exactly is it that you do?

At least I argue in an academic sense -- you merely argue in the colloquial sense. You haven't offered any evidence here -- you've just derided and insulted people who don't immediately defer to you as an ultimate authority.
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