MAN OF TONGUES

Evening Star, Issue 23147, 22 December 1938, Page 7

MAN OF TONGUES

Do you know Mezzofanti ? asks the ‘Cape Times.’ Or he may have been before your time, for ho was born at Bologna in 1774. A carpenter’s son, he would probably have, died a carpen-

ter had not a priest discovered his amazing memory. There is abundant proof that Mezzofanti had one of the most amazing memories any man has ever been blessed with, and he made good use of it. Languages were child’s play to him. Sent to Bologna’s University, he mastered Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, Greek,

Arabic, French, German, and Swedish before he finished his course. And he did it without any trouble—French without tears indeed. Two years after Waterloo—he was then a little more than 40, ho knew 20 languages, and three years later he knew 32. When he knew a language he know it perfectly. Ho could read it and

write it and speak it. He knew its idioms. Ho was conversant with its queer turns of speech, its odd expressions. _ Ho could write a perfect conversational letter. Ho went on to arid Dutch and Danish, Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Bulgarian ... on and on till he knew every language in Europe, and added

Coptic and Abyssinia, Amharic, Angolese, Syrian, and Chinese, and others, till he knew at least 70 before he died in March, 1849. What is more, ho knew variations of languages—ho knew the Yorkshire dialect as well as the King’s English; he could slip into patios. He could speak the rude jargon of the Black Forest, and the classic German of Dresden.