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The remarkable brain of a carpet cleaner who speaks 24 languages

Trying the WaPo gift link feature again...

https://wapo.st/35VugrY

Read about an equal polyglot a few decades ago, only he was an acknowledged Asperger's.

This one is extraordinary IMO because he's sociable and able to get on with others.

I don't care what they've discovered about his apparently only minimally different brain structure, I suspect there's a particular brain difference, that facilitates their unique language acquisition - similar only a different structure to other extraordinary innate talents like Mozart. Specially distinguishing them from Aspergers who are effectively defective in other areas ("idiot-savants").

That plus their enjoyment/attraction to learning many languages. This fellow stands out to me because of his delight in being able to reach out to so many other cultures/people. Without that enjoyment, I can't see him succeeding as he has. Fascinated too by his uniquely fine-tuned accents.

My grandson Rory is on the autism scale somewhere. As he’s gotten older (almost 3) he’s gotten pretty much in control of his emotions but he doesn’t really speak. He signs, and with motions and a few words he can convey what he wants, but speech hasn’t come yet.

I think it will happen. My Dad didn’t talk until he was 4, and was speaking in full sentences a few weeks after. He never was all that much for talking and had no close friends, but he ended up with a PhD in sociology and programmed computers for nearly 50 years. I think Rory may end up like my Dad. Married 50 years and raised a family so there is that.

Rory can focus, and he does. Since they moved to Boston he’s been pronounced “wicked smaht!” By several acquaintances. His current focus is marine life and he arranges, names and plays with a giant box of plastic marine animals for hours at a time. The aquarium is his favorite place and he never wants to leave. He’ll watch marine biology shows for hours if you let him, selecting the fish or whatever from the box that matches what’s on the screen.

I wouldn’t mind seeing him transfer this focus to language or music but that remains to be seen. His great uncle spent some 50 years in the marine biology departat the University of Washington so there is that.

Fascinating stuff.

I read that WaPo article, it's a nice intro to the subject.

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their unique language acquisition

The thing that's always fascinating to me about polyglots is that the language acquisition itself is not unique -- IOW, all humans (who are born without cognitive impairment) acquire language in ways not dissimilar to Vaughn Smith's acquisition. And all humans start out with the capacity to acquire any language, and all humans (again if they are born without cognitive impairment) eventually acquire language fully. When babies are exposed to more than one language, they tend to acquire more than one language.

The only difference ("only") are the "little" details of 1) his age, and 2) the number of languages not only acquired but retained.

But the devil is definitely in the details!

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Fascinating stuff.

Steve, re your grandson, I agree. There is still so much that is not well-understood with regard to language development when it does follow the "typical" path and timelines.

Once there was this family that had a boy who couldn’t talk. No specialist was able to diagnose any specific problem, he was just mysteriously mute.

Then one day when he was 5, the boy sat up at dinner and said “the spaghetti is cold”.

To say the family was shocked would be an understatement. His dad said “Jimmy, you can talk? Why did you wait until now to say anything?

Jimmy says “Well up to now everything has been fine.”