Michael Erard has graduate degrees in linguistics and rhetoric from the University of Texas at Austin. He's written about language, linguists, and linguistics for Wired, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other publications and is a contributing writer for The Texas Observer and Design Observer. He is the author of Um... Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.
""Babel No More" is a thorough delight. People always have
questions for linguists about learning new languages and being
bilingual, unaware of the peculiar fact that modern linguistics has
nothing to do with learning how to speak new languages. This book
finally gives an informed and even addictive guide to why some
people pick up new languages so easily and how maybe you can too."
- John McWhorter, Columbia University and "New Republic"
Contributing Editor
"A fascinating study of the unusual ability to learn multiple
languages. This opens up a new area of research in the study of
giftedness." - Ellen Winner, author of "Gifted Children, Myths and
Realities"
"A fine addition to our favorite books about language...Captivating
and illuminating, "Babel No More" is as much an absorbing piece of
investigative voyeurism into superhuman feats as it is an
intelligent invitation to visit the outer limits of our own
cerebral potential." -"The Atlantic Monthly"
"Among the surprising qualities of "Babel No More, " Michael
Erard's globe-trekking adventure in search of the world's virtuosos
of language learning, is that a book dealing with language
acquisition and polyglot linguistics can be so gripping. But indeed
it is - part travelogue, part science lesson, part intellectual
investigation, it is an entertaining, informative survey of some of
the most fascinating polyglots of our time." -"The New York Times
Book Review"
"An intrepid and savvy linguistic explorer, Michael Erard sets out
to find the world's masters of multiple languages. He discovers the
best of them, and much more about their talents and brains, their
motivation and habits, and their places in society. "Babel No More"
brings the genius language learners to life. It will delight the
enthusiasts who love the challenge of learning foreign languages,
and will comfort the weary who dreaded facing Latin verb
conjugations." - Deborah Fallows, author of "Dreaming in Chinese:
Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language"
"Erard gets beneath the surface of the hyperpolyglot, piercing the
myth of perfect competence, to show the actual landscape of
motives, obstacles and satisfactions that texture the world of the
long-distance language-learner. [They] are revealed as a
tantalizing tribe, individually reticent and even charming, as they
offer their incomprehensible fluency to the world at large." -
Nicholas Ostler, author of" The Last Lingua Franca" (2010)
"In "Babel No More", Michael Erard has written the first serious
book about the people who master vast numbers of languages...
[Erard] approaches his topic with both wonder and a healthy dash of
scepticism ... repeatedly pepper[ing] his text with such questions,
feeling his way through his story as a thoughtful observer, rather
than banging about like an academic with a theory to defend or a
pitchman with a technique to sell...fascinating." - "The
Economist"
"In this book, Michael Erard takes us on a captivating journey in
search of hyperpolyglots- those rare and unique individuals who
have mastered six or more languages. Part biography, part detective
story, Erard's spellbinding book offers us a window through which
we may view the lives of these remarkable (and remarkably diverse)
characters, telling their stories while trying to answer the
fundamental question: "how did they do it?" "- Claude Cartaginese,
Editor, "The Polyglot Project"
"You'll be awed by the incredible characters in this eye-opening
book." - Joshua Foer, author of "Moonwalking with Einstein"
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