Ep199: Path of the Polyglot - Dr Alexander Arguelles
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- Опубліковано 3 сер 2024
- In this episode I am joined by Dr Alexander Arguelles, linguist, world-renowned polyglot, and scholar of comparative religion.
In this episode, Dr Arguelles recounts his unusual upbringing in counter-culture America, traces his academic career through institutions such as the Universities of Columbia and Chicago, and details his remarkable life as a scholar and teacher.
Dr Arguelles illuminates the inner world of the polyglot, listing his dozens of ancient and modern languages and revealing his methods of study, his surprising daily routine, and how deep immersion in language families such as Germanic or Romantic, can unlock all related languages without the need for extensive study.
Dr Arguelles also reflects on his own spiritual life, including his mystical conversion to Catholicism, the unravelling of his vocation as a Benedictine monk, his time in Buddhist meditation retreat, and the ways in which a life of study and language learning can be a profound spiritual path of meditation.
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www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep...
Also available on UA-cam, iTunes, & Spotify - search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.
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Topics Include:
00:00 - Intro
01:14 - How Steve met Dr Arguelles
02:40 - Inspiration behind the Academy
05:06 - The power of peers
07:54 - Dr Arguelles’ unusual upbringing
11:49 - Discouraged from language learning by polyglot father
14:41 - Areligious family context
16:19 - Dr Arguelles’ brother’s catastrophic brain disease
17:45 - Encountering Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas at Columbia University
19:24 - Drawn to the Mystery and conversion to Catholicism
21:53 - The unravelling of his vocation as a Benedictine monk
24:03 - Obtaining a PhD at the University of Chicago about dreams in the Old 24:56 - Norse sagas
25:30 - Reflecting on his conversion experience
28:18 - Dr Arguelles’ current spiritual position
31:10 - Thomas Merton and the Mystery
32:37 - Born to be a monk
34:08 - Dr Arguelles’ language learning journey
35:29 - Learning French, German, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit at Columbia
36:58 - Old Norse, Old High German, Middle High German, Old English, Medieval French at University of Chicago
38:34 - The murder of Ioan Petru Culianu
40:03 - Postdoctoral work on 1890s neo-paganism at the Berlin Centre for Advanced European Studies
41:09 - Immersing in the Germanic and Romance language branches
44:23 - Seeking a greater challenge
45:30 - Unlocking the entire language branch
46:59 - Different personalities in different languages?
47:55 - Awakening languages rather than learning them
51:09 - How many languages does Dr Arguelles speak?
54:04 - Dr Arguelles’ regret
54:44 - The advantage of reading texts in their original languages
58:21 - Monastic phase in South Korea and intense learning
01:03:42 - Learning more languages and immersing in self-study
01:07:08 - Dr Arguelles’ daily routine, beginning at 2am
01:08:46 - Emerging from the monastic phase and getting married
01:09:32 - Immersion in Sanskrit and pruning his languages
01:11:55 - Immersion in Arabic in Lebanon
01:13:05 - Attending Buddhist retreats at Haeinsa in South Korea
01:16:47 - Committing faux pas on retreat
01:18:11 - Meeting and marrying Park Hyun-Kyung
01:20:44 - Dr Arguelles’ language meditation techniques and learning as a spiritual path
01:22:14 - Languages offered at the Academy
01:24:27 - Learning Sanskrit
01:25:37 - Comparative religions and the Great Books
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To find our more about Dr Alexander Arguelles and his Academy, visit:
- www.alexanderarguelles.com/ac...
For more interviews, videos, and more visit:
- www.guruviking.com
Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James - Розваги
Splendid. Part 2, please
I've been following Dr. Arguelles off and on for years! So awesome that you had him on this podcast, thanks for that!
fascinating talk, can´t wait for the 2nd part
thank you
Thank you for watching🙏
Excellent. I appreciate your presence as an interviewer. Dr. Arguelles' life is a case study of inspired dedication to a passion.
Wow, I didn't expect to see Dr Arguelles on here, although it makes perfect sense after viewing the episode. I remember watching a video with him detailing his daily language learning routine which provided me with alot of motivation back in the day
thank you Josh! 🙏🏻
"a lot" is two words: _a_ lot; _an_ allotment. A is referred to as "an article". Articles are used before nouns. "Lot" is a noun. Lot is a very interesting word. In ancient Greece, many important functions, like who would fight in abattle were decided by casting lots.
I couldn't resist the irony. Hope that helps.
It was very interesting to hear the Professor's story of his early life and religious views, you don't often get to hear that! Or maybe I just missed the right videos where he talked about that in the past. Thank you very much for this video, Steve!
Thank you, Yan! 🙏🏻
A sequel would be absolutely appreciated
Nice shout out for Christian Buddhist mystic Thomas Merton! My own spiritual father.
Alexander has been a polyglot whose UA-cam content I've been following for years. I want to be able to read literature in multiple languages like him.
I'm surprised to see him here as the reason I discovered this channel was Shinzen Young. Shinzen may also speak multiple languages but he never made that the focus of what he does.
Fantastic!
Great interview!
@51:33 right answer. Even better answer: he speaks one and studied many.
He speaks more. He writes fluenty in German. In a video about Afrikaans, he reads Afrikaans with a Dutch pronunciation according to viewers. So he must have a good Dutch pronunciation.
I think it is at the limit of human capabilities to speak, say, five very different languages at C2 level. For example, English, Russian, Hungarian, Arabic and Chinese. A polyglot like that has to practice all the languages constantly. Many people think they know a foreign language if they can say hello and good morning in that language.
My goal is to become C1 and read the material and the content, occasionally with the help of dictionary. I think it is not necessary to learn the language to c2 level if you don't live in that country ( except English of course). Because it doesn't justify the time spent on it, you can learn another language instead of progressing from C1 to c2.
@@SuperAykt I agree, you're right. I think it also makes a difference whether, for example, a Czech learns English or an American learns Czech. It is very unusual for an American to learn perfect Czech. Actually, I don't know anyone like that.
90% don't know their own language at C2 level.
Is not a cliché it is true for some of us as polyglots we developed other personalities. The more difficult the language the more interesting I find it too. Like Slovenian for me for example. Coming back to where I grew up has been boring for me after 20 years. Is like most of them stayed in kindergarten level of their mother tongue.
Just WHAT, i wonder, does he feel he has missed out on (in his life) because of his focus on learning languages?
7 minutes in, and very boring, so far