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Thursday, December 4, 2014

Ziad Fazah, Polyglot who spoke 58 languages

Ziad Fazah is definitely my hero. Here is a video where he shows his language skills in a tv-show. I like the courage he has in a difficult interview and the strong attitude he maintains. The video is also a bit funny.


Background

So lets talk more about Ziad Fazah. He is lebanese who was born in Liberia in 1954. Already an interesting starting point, an arab who was born in an African country. This was because his dad had work there. He lived here and there including native Lebanon and moved at some point to Brazil where he lives currently.

Language skills

Ziad claims to speak these following 59 languages:

AlbanianAmharicArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBengaliBulgarianBurmeseCambodianCantoneseCypriotCzechDanishDutchDzongkhaEnglishFijianFinnishFrenchGermanGreekHebrewHindiHungarian,IcelandicIndonesianItalianJapaneseKhmerKoreanKyrgyzLaotianMalagasyMalayMandarinMongolianNepaliNorwegianPashtoPapiamentoPersianPolishPortugueseRomanianRussianSerbo-Croatian,ShanghaineseSinglishSinhalaSpanishStandard TibetanSwahiliSwedishTajikThaiTurkishUrduUzbek and Vietnamese

Scandals

The video above is from the chilean tv show "Viva el lunes" where he was asked to speak with some diplomats with their native languages. Ziad wasn't prepared to speak any languages because he was informed that this was only an interview and not a language test.

So this video contains the worst fails he made.

He was at one point in the Guinness Book of World Records listed as the man who spoke the most languages on earth. That category was afterwards deleted because it's so hard to define who really speaks the most languages and at what level.

My comments

Ziad has published his own books and he hasn't been afraid of being in publicity and being confident even after pretty epic fails.

I will definitely adopt his confidence of being like a boss after failing to do something I have claimed to be able to do.

It's a great learning experience to see his videos and I have to take steps forward in being the most amazing polyglot ever seen. We shall see when I'll post my first youtube videos.

Here are some blog posts about Ziad Fazah if you want to know more: 

http://thelinguistblogger.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/the-many-languages-of-ziad-fazah/
http://ardentagnostic.blogspot.fi/2009/03/ziad-fazah-man-who-does-not-speak-59.html

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