Complexity Digest 2012.02 - 19.01
2012/01/20
Editor-in-Chief: Carlos Gershenson
Founding Editor: Gottfried Mayer
Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners, Free Press
Summary: We all learn at least one language as children. But what does it take to learn six languages, twenty, seventy? Such feats of linguistic prowess provide a glimpse into what the human brain is capable of and hold up a mirror to our desire to live without language barriers on a shrinking planet. In this book, Michael Erard sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like the nineteenth-century Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages and was such a legend that when he died people all over Europe vied for his skull.
- Source: Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners
[ http://www.amazon.com/dp/1451628250/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=compldiges-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1451628250&adid=153SP29923AMHK01KXM6& ], Michael Erard, Free Press, 2012/01/10 - Contributed by Anton Joha - antonjoha
gmail.com
