Ziad Fazah
| Ziad Fazah | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June 10, 1954 Monrovia, Liberia |
| Known for | his claim of being able to speak, read and understand 59 languages |
Ziad Youssef Fazah (Arabic: زياد فصاح) (born June 10, 1954 in Monrovia, Liberia) is a Liberian-born Lebanese polyglot. Fazah himself claims to speak 59 languages and maintains that he has proved this in several television shows, where he "successfully" communicated with native speakers of a large number of foreign languages.[1]
The Guinness Book of World Records, up to the 1998 edition, listed Fazah as being able to speak and read 58 languages, citing a live interview in Athens, Greece in July 1991.[2]
However, in Viva el lunes, a Chilean TV program featuring Ziad Fazah, he failed to fully understand phrases in Finnish, Russian, Chinese, Persian, Hindi and Greek, such as the Greek question "Πόσες μέρες θα μείνετε εδώ στη Χιλή;" ("How many days are you going to stay here in Chile?"). He also mistook Russian for Croatian upon hearing "Какой сегодня день недели?" ("What day of the week is it today?"). Also he failed to understand and reading the Persian, the phrase was: "می خواهم از آقای زیاد سوال کنم که شما در آموختن زبان فارسی فقط لغات عادی را یاد گرفتید و یا سعی کردید در فرهنگ فارسی رخنه کرده و بعضی از شعرای فارسی را بشناسید" ("I want to ask mr.Ziad that in order to learning the Persian language, did you learn only the simple words or you tried to learned the Persian language in deep? and would you please tell us the name of some greatest Persian poets?"). Also he failed to understand the Chinese phrase "在月球上，能够看到唯一的地球上的人造工程是什么？" ("Zài yuèqiú shàng, nénggòu kàn dào wéiyī de dìqiú shàng de rénzào gōngchéng shì shénme?" What is the only man-made structure visible from the moon?).[3]
Fazah claims he can speak, read and understand the following languages:
Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cambodian, Cantonese, Cypriot, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Dzongkha, English, Fijian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Kyrgyz, Laotian, Malagasy, Malay, Mandarin, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Pashto, Papiamento, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Shanghainese, Singlish, Sinhala, Spanish, Standard Tibetan, Swahili, Swedish, Tajik, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Uzbek and Vietnamese.[1]
Fazah currently lives in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
See also
References
- 1 2 Scapin, Rafael. "Ziad Youssef Fazah: o Maior Poliglota do Mundo" (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-11-12. - An article adapted from Fazah's "Ensinando a Aprender Espanhol". (Teaching How to Learn Spanish in English)
- ↑ Norris McWhirter (1997). The Guinness Book of World Records 1997. Random House. p. 249.
- ↑ Parts of Fazah's appearance on "Viva el lunes": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XA1Ifi-ntE
External links
- "First Person: Ziad Fazah". Financial Times. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
- "Ziad Fazah in Viva el lunes in Chilean TV". Viva el lunes, Canal 13 (in Spanish). Retrieved 2009-09-10.