Most languages fluently spoken!

BYU grad John Henry Jorgensen is credited with being fluent in 15 languages when he was a senior at the Y, in 2002. The languages are American Sign Language, Arabic, Arabic Sign Language, Eastern Armenian, Western Armenian, English, French, Georgian, German, Italian, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, Syrian and Turkish. He was at that time learning five others, Japanese, Ukrainian, Mongolian, Persian and Czech, and was planning on learning an additional five more.


Per a Google search, the next time he shows up is in 2005, when he was teaching "furby", that Hasbro language.

Here's a little articel about that event. Notice how many languages he's to at that point, three years after the 15 language plateau:

"Thursday, August 4, 2005

"‘World’s Greatest Linguist’ Wrapping His Tongue Around Furbish
NEW YORK (Wireless Flash - FlashNews) – John Henry Jorgensen has a lot to say, and he has a choice of 28 languages to say it in.
Jorgensen is only 28 but he’s already billed as the “World’s Greatest Linguist” because he can speak 18 languages fluently, and another 10 conversationally.

"Jorgensen’s goal is to learn a new language every year, and in his words, “If I live to be 100, I’ll speak 100 languages.”

"He’s already learning language No. 29 – “Furbish” – the official language of Hasbro’s Furby doll and spent earlier this week in New York serving as the official Furbish translator at the United Nations Plaza.

"Jorgensen taught kids from around the globe Furbish phrases like Oo nye boh doo – which translates to “How are you?”

"It took him a month to learn Furbish, but Jorgensen says it wasn’t as hard as Arabic or Japanese."


After that, Google has nothing. Nothing, I tell you!!

Anyone here got anything on Jorgensen? He was supposedly very well known during his time at the Y... He was in a Russian/Armenian speaking mission.

(I'm wondering about counting Western & Eastern Armenian as separate languages...)

No fluency in Reformed Egyptian?

Shame.

Sick a Sambo tiger on 'em.

What exactly does this have to do with recovery from Mormonism?

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Columbo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What exactly does this have to do with recovery
> from Mormonism?

I love these threads, personally and learned a lot from both #1 and #2. It's fascinating to learn where and in whom Mormonism appears throughout history.

Highest percentage of young men with blue balls?

Ah, yes, the dreaded blue balls of no nooky!

'The gang' would drag into priesthood meeting, and after opening exercises, we'd stagger upstairs to the priests' classroom, where we'd brag about how horny we'd been the night before and how swollen with portent our balls had become as we necked and petted the night away...

The innocence of ward youth, which makes sense, as the opposite of wayward youth: mormon ward youth, horny, virginal and lying our asses off about masturbation.

Dawg, you as an innocent ward youth member? That’s a lot of tapir to swallow! Hugs, Bro!!

"Swollen with portent."

You can't make this stuff up. Or at least I can't!

SAMBO'S!!!!!

That's it! Thank you, elder-!

I was wondering what restaurant we use to frequent in the 70s when we drove down from Canada through the States. I remembered the racist cartoon black boy and a tiger and at some point wondered if the who thing was a memory gone wrong, a dream or something.

Nope! It was Sambo's!!!

My guess is that he SAYS he can speak all those languages, but can either say only a few things, or converse at a very low level. I spent 43 years in language, and I've found that every time a person went through any Defense Language Institute course, they claimed to "speak" the language; when called upon, they can't even order a beer. Sure, they've been trained. Sure, they are able to understand stuff. And they are required to pass certain tests of their ability to understand. But speak? Almost never. So when these military guys I served with for so many years have become re-treads in four different languages, they love to say things like, "I can speak Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu!" But they can't. They just know some Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu. I've been trained in Chinese, German, French, and Lingala. Can I speak them? Just one--German, but I lived there for 13 years. I cheated. I speak Italian okay, but went on a mission to Italy, then lived an additional 4 years there. Again, I cheated.

Can he properly translate things like Jah-oh-eh, Oliblish, Enish-go-on-dosh, Kli-flos-is-es, or Hah-ko-kau-beam??

:-) :-) :-)

Jenny made her mind up when she was twelve
That into foreign languages she would delve
But at seventeen to Vassar it was quite a blow
That in twenty-seven languages she couldn't say no!

From LADY IN THE DARK, lyrics by Ira Gershwin.