雙語達人:語言的天賦

The gift of tongues.

語言的天賦。

What makes some people Learn language after language?

何者吸引一些人接二連三地學習多門語言?

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

消逝的巴別塔：尋找世間最卓越的語言學習者。

CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI of Bologna was a secular saint. Though he never performed the kind of miracle needed to be officially canonised, his power was close to unearthly. Mezzofanti was said to speak 72 languages. Or 50. Or to have fully mastered 30. No one was certain of the true figure, but it was a lot. Visitors flocked from all corners of Europe to test him and came away stunned. He could switch between languages with ease. Two condemned prisoners were due to be executed, but no one knew their language to hear their confession. Mezzofanti learned it in a night, heard their sins the next morning and saved them from hell.

博洛尼亞的Mezzofanti紅衣主教是一個身處於俗世的聖人。儘管他從未演示過任何奇蹟而被正式冊封爲聖徒，其能力也近乎超自然了。據說Mezzofanti可以說72抑或50種語言，若說精通則是30種。對此，沒人能說得準，但總之很多。成羣結隊從歐洲各地趕來驗證他能力的遊客都帶着瞠目結舌的神情離去。他可以輕鬆地任意在幾種語言之間切換。曾有兩個被定罪的囚犯即將行刑，卻因說一口無人知曉的語言使得最後的懺悔無人聽得懂。Mezzofanti用一夜學會了這種語言，並於隔天早晨傾聽了他們的罪孽，救贖了他們的靈魂以免於淪落地獄。

Or so the legend goes. In "Babel No More", Michael Erard has written the first serious book about the people who master vast numbers of languages—or claim to. A journalist with some linguistics training, Mr Erard is not a hyperpolyglot himself (he speaks some Spanish and Chinese), but he approaches his topic with both wonder and a healthy dash of scepticism.

如此這般，傳言之謂。《消逝的巴別塔》是Michael Erard所寫的有關於精通或聲稱自己精通許多種語言之人的第一本嚴肅書籍。Erard先生雖是個受過些許語言學訓練的記者，但卻並沒有通曉超多種語言的特殊能力（他能說一點西班牙語和中文），不過他在處理論題時，即帶着驚奇豔羨，又帶着幾許健康的懷疑態度。

Mezzofanti, for example, was a high-ranking clergyman born in 1774. In most of his interactions, he would have been the one to pick the topic of conversation, and he could rely on the same formulae he had used many times. He lived in an age when "knowing" a language more often meant reading and translating rather than speaking fluently with natives. Nonetheless, Mezzofanti clearly had speaking talent; his English accent was so good as to be almost too correct, an Irish observer noted.

如Mezzsfanti生於1774年，曾是高級神職人員。多數情況下，他可能正是在與人交流中掌握選擇話題主動權的人，如此，他便能夠仰仗用過許多次的同一種模式交談了。他所生活的年代對於“知曉”一種語言的理解更多的是指能讀能譯而非能夠流利地與母語使用者交流。儘管如此，Mezzofanti顯然還是擁有語言天賦的：一個愛爾蘭目擊者指出，他的英語口音好到幾乎過了頭。

To find out whether anyone could really learn so many languages, Mr Erard set out to find modern Mezzofantis. The people he meets are certainly interesting. One man with a mental age of nine has a vast memory for foreign words and the use of grammatical endings, but he cannot seem to break free of English word-order. Ken Hale, who was a linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and died in 2001, was said to have learned 50 languages, including notoriously difficult Finnish while on a flight to Helsinki. Professional linguists still swear by his talent. But he insisted he spoke only three (English, Spanish and Warlpiri—from Australia's Northern Territory) and could merely "talk in" others.

爲了弄清是否真有人能夠學如此多的語言，Erard先生啓程去尋找現代的“Mezzofantis”。他果真遇到了有趣之人。一個心理年齡僅9歲的男子擁有大量關於外語單詞和詞尾的記憶，但似乎不能打破英語詞序的思維定式。另據說Ken Hale，這位於2011年去世的麻省理工學院的語言學家，生前學習了50種語言，甚至在一架飛往赫爾辛基的航班上學會被公認極難的芬蘭語。語言專家們至今仍對他的天賦確信無疑。而他本人確堅稱自己只會三門語言（英語，西班牙語和沃匹利語——來自於澳洲北領地），而對於其它語言，聊聊尚可。

Mr Erard says that true hyperpolyglottery begins at about 11 languages, and that while legends abound, tried and tested exemplars are few. Ziad Fazah, raised in Lebanon and now living in Brazil, once held the Guinness world record for 58 languages. But when surprised on a Chilean television show by native speakers, he utterly flubbed questions in Finnish, Mandarin, Farsi and Russian (including "What day is it today?" in Russian), a failure that lives in infamy on YouTube. Perhaps he was a fraud; perhaps he simply had a miserable day. Hyperpolyglots must warm up or "prime" their weaker languages, with a few hours' or days' practice, to use them comfortably. Switching quickly between more than around six or seven is near-impossible even for the most gifted.

Erard先生稱真正的精通超多語言者應從掌握11門語言算起，而且儘管傳言四起，能經受住考驗的實例確少之甚少。成長於黎巴嫩現居於巴西的Ziad Fazah曾因會58種語言而被載入吉尼斯世界紀錄，卻在一臺智利的電視節目中在無準備狀態下受到母語使用的突襲，以至於完全弄錯了用芬蘭語、普通話、波斯語和俄語問的問題（包括俄語的“今天周幾？”），這個失敗帶了的恥辱在因YouTube得以長存。也許Ziad Fazah是個騙子，也許他那天只是特別倒黴。精通超多語言者必須對他較薄弱的語言進行幾小時甚至是幾天的熱身或者說是“事先準備”，才能自如運用這些語言。而迅速地在六、七種語言之間來回切換，即使對於那些天賦異稟者來說，也幾乎是不可能的。

Does that mean they don't really know them? Is instant availability of native-like competence the only standard for "nowing" a language? How should partly knowing a tongue be tallied? What if you can only read in it? Mr Erard repeatedly peppers his text with such questions, feeling his way through his story as a thoughtful observer, rather than banging about like an academic with a theory to defend or a pitchman with a technique to sell.

這就意味着他們並非真正知曉這些語言麼？擁有與母語使用者那樣呼之即來來之能用的能力即是“知曉”一種語言的唯一標準嗎？該如何評估部分知曉一門語言呢？又如果你僅能閱讀呢？Erard先生在他的文章中接二連三地提出問題，如一個善思考的觀察者根據故事尋找線索，而非言辭激烈地如同一個專家用理論來辯解或像個宣傳員以技巧來銷售自己的觀點。

Hyperpolyglots are more likely to be introverted than extroverted, which may come as a surprise to some. Hale's son always said that, in his father's case, languages were a cloak for a shy man. Another, Alexander Arguelles, has learned dozens of languages only to read them, saying "It's rare that you have an interesting conversation in English. Why do I think it would be any better in another language?" Emil Krebs, an early-20th-century German diplomat who was also credited with knowing dozens of languages, was boorish in all of them. He once refused to speak to his wife for several months because she told him to put on a winter coat.

令很多人感到驚奇的是，精通超多語言者們的性格更趨於內向。Hale的兒子總是說，在他父親看來，語言是靦腆者的僞裝。另一個名爲Alexander Arguelles的人會許多種語言卻都僅限於閱讀，他解釋說“如果你對用英語交談都罕有興趣的話，又怎會對說其他語言有更多好感呢？”20世紀上半葉的德國外交官Emil Krebs也被公認會幾十種語言，但不管說哪一種都是生硬無禮。他曾有一次幾個月都拒絕跟他妻子說話僅因爲她讓他添一件冬衣。

Different hypotheses may explain part of the language-learner's gift. Some hyperpolyglots seem near-autistic. In support, Mr Erard points to the theory of Simon Baron-Cohen, of Cambridge University, that autists have an "extreme male brain" that seeks to master systems. Another hypothesis is the "Geschwind-Galaburda" cluster of traits. Supposedly resulting from abnormal antenatal exposure to hormones, this cluster includes maleness, homosexuality, left-handedness, poor visual-spatial skills, immune disorders, and perhaps also language-learning talent. Brain areas are also keyed to certain skills. The left Heschl’s gyrus is bigger than average in professional phoneticians. People who learn new vocabulary quickly show more activity in the hippocampus. Krebs's brain, preserved in slices at a laboratory in Düsseldorf, shows various unusual features.

不同的假說也許能夠解釋語言學習者的部分天賦。有一些精通超多語言者顯現出自閉的傾向。Erard先生以劍橋大學Simon Baron-Cohen的理論作爲例證，即自閉症患者擁有“極端男性大腦”以尋求對事物系統性地掌握。另一個假設則是“Geschwind-Galaburda”的特徵簇。這一被推測爲因孕期非正常接觸到荷爾蒙而導致的特徵包括男性向、同性戀、左撇子、立體空間辨別力差、免疫系統紊亂，也可能是學習語言的天賦。大腦的區域與特定的人體機能相聯繫。專業語音學者的左聽皮質區比常人大，而能夠快速學習新詞彙的人大腦海馬區域較常人活躍。Kreb的大腦切片被保存在杜塞爾多夫的一個實驗室裏，其顯示出多種不同尋常的特質。

The discovery of the FOXP2 brain gene, a mutation of which can cause language loss, was met with considerable excitement when it was announced over a decade ago. But the reality is that many parts of the brain work together to produce speech and no single gene, region of the brain or theory can explain successful language-learning. In the end Mr Erard is happy simply to meet interesting characters, tell fascinating tales and round up the research without trying to judge which is the best work.

十多年前，對FOXP2大腦基因突變會導致語言能力喪失這一發現的公佈使衆人激動不已。事實上，話語能力是大腦的許多部分共同運作而產生的，沒有任何單獨的基因、大腦區域或理論的不同領域可以成功解釋語言學習。最後，Erard先生只能滿足於結實有趣之人、敘述精彩故事和蒐集科研的喜悅之情，而非對這些研究的優劣妄加評判。

At the end of his story, however, he finds a surprise in Mezzofanti's archive: flashcards. Stacks of them, in Georgian, Hungarian, Arabic, Algonquin and nine other tongues. The world's most celebrated hyperpolyglot relied on the same tools given to first-year language-learners today. The conclusion? Hyperpolyglots may begin with talent, but they aren't geniuses. They simply enjoy tasks that are drudgery to normal people. The talent and enjoyment drive a virtuous cycle that pushes them to feats others simply shake their heads at, admiration mixed with no small amount of incomprehension.

然而，在著述的末尾，他在Messofanti的檔案資料中找到令人驚訝的發現：抽認卡——一大堆的抽認卡，格魯吉亞語，匈牙利語，阿拉伯語，阿爾貢金語以及另外九中語言——舉世最著名的通曉超多語言者也要依靠這一現今我們爲語言初學者所準備的工具。結論呢？精通超多語言者最初確實可能由能力而起，但他們也並非天才而只是能夠對一般人覺得單調乏味的工作感到樂在其中。這一由天賦和興趣所形成的良性循環驅策着他們成就另他人望而卻步的事業，而在得到他人欽佩的同時也伴隨着更多的不解。