Name: Babel No More
ISBN: 9781451628258

Michael Erard

Assesses historical "hyperpolyglot" linguistic high achievers who demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for learning and speaking languages, and explains the sources of such abilities and what it reveals about the nature of memory and language.

The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners

Babel No More

Teresa Schultz

Babel No More takes a look at whether people really can learn a vast amount of languages and how they are able to do so. He starts off with almost mythological historical figures, then moves on to modern days ones and winds up studying the brain science behind it all. The short answer is that there is no clear, easy answer as to how these people (whom he calls hyperpolyglots) are able to learn more than six languages.

The book started off a bit hard to read, as Erard at first seemed more interested in talking about general, vague questions and talking about how he did his research, rather than what his research found. However, things picked up by the fourth chapter and you really start to dig into the lives of these people. It was interesting to see how each one tackles language learning and what it means to them. However, as Erard notes, there's not been a lot of actual scientific studies done on a large group of people, so many of the answers Erard came up with are not hard and fast. He also delves into the whole question of how do you define if someone is a hyperpolyglot? Do you have to speak a language as well as a native? Erard would argue no, and he's fairly convincing, as are the many people he speaks to who seem to agree with him.

Overall, I loved getting a picture into the lives of people I admire in that I would love to be like them, able to speak lots of languages. However, the book also shows that their abilities are not exactly glamorous and are the hard-won rewards of an insane amount of study. I guess my brain is just not engineered to help make me a hyperpolyglot.

Babel No More The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners

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