LINGUISTIC MARVEL.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 770, 19 March 1910, Page 14

LINGUISTIC MARVEL.

CARDIFF MAN SPEAKS MANY • LANGUAGES. ■ "' ■ Tnere ia a young man in Cardiff (says the "Daily Chronicle) named Paul Pairweather.; Physically, he is a model of symmetry,' virility, and, alertness, . His commaijd and reserve'. of speech afford passing - lessons in brevity and terseness. Paul Fairweather's ; father was till re- j oently a sculptor in Dundee, who" dabbled in ancient languages, with 1 "strong weakness" for Hebrew .aad" Latin. H« ; encouraged his son Paul to study languages, and long before the lad hid left school at sixteen, he could both writ* Latin and speak it, using the Italian pronunciation, which, after deep and seri.oll3,study, he contends is the nearest ve can get to the true sounds of the Latin tongue. At about ten years of age be stumbled across a German grammar. It fascinated him, and before twenty-four hours had passed he translated about onehalf .of the exercises..'The. passion to .master German was. fixed in him by the act, however, and so perfect now is hie knowledge of the idioms and principles, as well as the pronunciation of German, that an educated German resident in Cardiff preferred to hand over his children, born .in- Cardiff,, to be taught their mother tongue by this foreigner. ..'■'.- : ..■■■;.-. He is fond-of Arabic, Hindustani, and Chinese,. and, besides being - master of nearly every European language, he appears to have, some acquaintance with almost every written tongue. Hβ is only twenty-eight.. ..-'.. , . ' The methods by which weather has attained his profioiency.and his views as--to-what, is requiredirto-rlifti England to its; rightful place in th© matter ,of foreign languages are better expressed in his own words:— .■....-• .

"The English tongue contains ,a much larger number, of distinct sounds than any other European language. Languages must be taught by. people who speak properly, and fluently the.; foreigs tongues, and no one who calls Tibn jour, monsieur,' "bong zhaw, mer-see-her' or Txing' zhore, my-shoe, , is fit to impart any idea whatever of the sounds of the French language. The difficulty is not overcome by getting a Frenchman to teach French himself has acquired a faultless pronunciation of English. ' If the .professors own pronunciation of Eng-. lish is not perfect there will be Tlitue hope-.of'.his .piipile acquiring'a decent French pronunciation from liim , unless they, are much better mimics, than, their master. '.; .. '. ':' /-..., "In studying a living language we should start by learning every sound in that language, and at the same time a phonetic sign to repiesent. each sound. Grown-up .people utterly fail to catch sounds by the ear ■ alone. Most Tingliali people believe that our: English word 'long h»g approximately the same sound as the French word long.' As a matter of fact the nearest equivalent we have to the Trench word is lor' in the coster's phrase' lor , lumme.' Now, would 'any sane Englishman' suggest that a costermonger, though epeaking with a distinct nasal twang, would say anything like long lumme j" You will therefore eee that approximate phonetic transcriptions only mimnari, and it is almost impossible to unlearn a wrong pronunciation once acquired. "I do not deprecate the use of a grammar; in fact, all serious students of languages must learn the' grammar thoroughly, but I do maintain-that a grammar will not in itself enable anyone to speak a foreign language fluently unless the examples contained in it are'eommitted to memory, on the mastery principle. A teacher of languages should be required to produce ■ 6ome diploma ■■ or ; certificate testifying that he speaks • fluently and correctly the languages be professes . to teach." '■ " ■ ■ ■ .