英语词汇a briareus of languages的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

a Briareus of languages. Briareus was a mythological giant with 50 heads and 100 hands, but the phrase Briareus of lan- guages first honored Cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti (1774–1849), chief keeper of the Vatican library. The term is used to describe an accomplished linguist, having been invent- ed by the English poet Byron, who called the cardinal “a walk- ing polyglot; a monster of languages; a Briareus of parts of speech.” Mezzofanti, we are told, learned Latin and Greek flu- ently while listening to an old priest giving lessons to students next door to the shop where he had been an apprentice to a carpenter. He eventually mastered 39 languages, from Alba- nian to Wallachian, speaking these as well as he did his native tongue. All in all, he could speak 60 languages and 72 dialects fluently and could translate 114 languages. Among these were such exotics as Bimbarra, Geez, Kurdish, Tonkinese, and Chippewa.

词汇	a briareus of languages
词源	a Briareus of languages. Briareus was a mythological giant with 50 heads and 100 hands, but the phrase Briareus of lan- guages first honored Cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti (1774–1849), chief keeper of the Vatican library. The term is used to describe an accomplished linguist, having been invent- ed by the English poet Byron, who called the cardinal “a walk- ing polyglot; a monster of languages; a Briareus of parts of speech.” Mezzofanti, we are told, learned Latin and Greek flu- ently while listening to an old priest giving lessons to students next door to the shop where he had been an apprentice to a carpenter. He eventually mastered 39 languages, from Alba- nian to Wallachian, speaking these as well as he did his native tongue. All in all, he could speak 60 languages and 72 dialects fluently and could translate 114 languages. Among these were such exotics as Bimbarra, Geez, Kurdish, Tonkinese, and Chippewa.
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