Quote: (03-19-2013 04:13 AM)Thomas the Rhymer Wrote:
I remember reading Nietszche talking about how polyglottism is degenerate. His argument was that if you are good at many languages, you will never learn to be excellent at one of them.
He further mentioned that cultures that generate the most 'classics' are those that refused to learn other languages, eg. the ancient Greeks, because they spend time refining their language to literary perfection instead of learning other languages.
Not to say I'm personally against learning other languages, but it's worth a thought.
I don't really agree, and historically it isn't really true. Most educated men had to poly-lingual anyway because the language of Science has been Latin, and that hasn't been the native tongue for any scientist.
Also, mastery of language doesn't preclude knowledge of another. The two might correlate, but they aren't mutually exclusive. I suppose they would be if you wanted to be both Shakespeare and Tolstoy and write epic novels in your target languages, but I'd imagine that's a bit abstract.