Talk:Ziad Fazah

Language names

I went through and disambiguated the lot, in the course of which, 2 small snags: Bhutanese is the same language as Dzongkha, which is the standard name of the language, so I have removed Bhutanese; and it is not clear what language is meant by "Singaporean", which I have therefore just linked to Singapore.HeartofaDog 16:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

"Cypriot" and Greek are the same language. Hindi and Urdu are basically the same language. "Singlish" is not a language but a sub-language, basically a dialect of English if you prefer. Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are basically the same language. The only evidence we have for him speaking those languages is a Youtube channel where he reads texts (does not improvise) claiming he speaks 59 languages. And the videos are only in a dozen languages. The videos were uploaded circa 2011 and deleted since. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.100.84.254 (talk) 22:47, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Limitations

The newspaper Las Últimas Noticias isn't wrong. Fazah didn't know a egyptian dialect of the arabic language. I know it because I saw it. --Warko2006 01:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I have been an arabist for forty years, and I find quite suspicious that a schooled native speaker of arabic, who necessarily studied the standard language at school, who lived in Lebanon from his birth to the 16th year, and who studied other 57 languages could fail to comprehend an egyptian speaking. I'm sorry to say this person questioning him wasn't speaking arabic, if she/he was speaking any language at all. Even if this is not true, it's just proof that the show was extremely dishonest: he does not list the egyptian dialect as one of the languages he speaks. The egyptian dialect is distinct enough from standard arabic to be considered a language on its own (see the Wiki article on it). The show obviously tried to take the best of the poor man by putting the egyptian dialect as arabic. If they had the nerve to try and disprove he could speak his very own native language, I can only imagine the bullsh* they pulled with the other less know languages. Quite disgusting.201.19.151.189 20:02, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

EVERY Arabic dialect is different from Standard Arabic. That's why there IS a Standard Arabic. Even a beginner who has only studied Standard Arabic can understand an Egyptian native speaker of Arabic with moderate success.

I would like to support the comment directly above mine. I know Mr. Fazah personally and have spoken with him in several languages. When asked about this experience on Chilean television, he said that the whole thing was a trap. If they wanted to discredit him they shouldn't have said that he couldn't speak his native language. If they actually tested him in Egyptian, a dead language, then it was also unfair because he doesn't claim to speak it. I also know someone who has learned Hindi taking lessons from Mr. Fazah and doubt that he would have much trouble with that language either. Portunhol 23:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

There is not much real evidence either way, actually. No one has shown any reliable sources that confirm the level Fazah masters any language at all. This article refers to popular press and television shows both to show that Fazah masters more than 50 languages and that he probably does not. The only thing we know for sure is that some people believe he does and that some people believe he does not.

Not even your statement of his giving lessons in Hindi is convincing. I could easily give some simple lessons in Polish to the average American, but I am completely lost when I watch Polish television. I would never claim I "master" Polish based on that. Mlewan 10:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

If the newly added youtube video is correct and not manipulated, it really seems Fazah's claims are vastly exaggerated. He got the Russian question "what day of the week is it?", and he seemed completely stumped. I would have understood his problem, if he had got a question like "what is Pushkin's influence on modern aesthetic theories?" But is there any simpler question than "what day of the week is it today"? Mlewan 10:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I got some more time to listen to the quoted video.

• My Finnish is close to non-existent, but from what I understood (something about the Finnish, Swedish and Sami nationalities in Finland), he was far off the mark in his answer.
• The Chinese spoke a standard dialect, but there were some non-trivial words in there. Anyhow Fazah's answer seemed mostly a stab in the dark. It was not that he had misunderstood the question. He had not understood it at all. Besides, if you claim to "master" a language, you should know even non-trivial words.
• My Farsi is non-existent, so I have no comment about that one.

As a summary, he does not speak much of those languages, and probably not all of the other 58 ones either. He does not understand even elementary Russian, and it is likely that he is at the same very basic level for many or most of the other 58 languages as well. He may be able to say "hello" and "goodbye" in 58 languages, and that is a good party trick, but it is not a linguistic accomplishment. If he has any further skills, we are still waiting for evidence of them. Mlewan 19:54, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Let me add that the information comes from serious magazines and newspapers, not just some random media. One of them reports the same kind of questioning that took place in the chilean show, with one japanese, one pole and one finn. Anyway, there is also the Guiness Book: they are know to be serious when testing for the records, since they give money away. I can't comment on any of the languages, but the participants seemed to be taking a strange amount of pleasure on torturing him, and why was no translation of what the participants said available? Anyway, that is all besides the point, you can contact him in person and report to us. Drop a line at ziadyfazah at yahoo.com.br and ask for a phone number/skype contact 189.25.60.20 15:13, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

You can find some translations of other parts of the YouTube video at this forum. Thanks for the mail address! Mlewan 08:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not joining the forum, but I hope my message does reach people and they contact him. But I must say I did take offense when you mocked the brazilian Guiness Book (it wasn't the brazilian edition, it was the british one, 1993) and the reference to the secondary sources. They are very serious, and I'm sorry to play the poor latino part, but you sound incredibly prejudiced when you put those sources down. It's like brazilians are monkey-like imbeciles who can't judge anything of their own (one creep on that forum went as far as saying as the guy can only say hello in all those languages --- like that's gonna give him the attention he generated throughout decades!) and even the native speakers of languages like polish become suddenly retarded by living here. I just don't see why you are not so eager to extend this discourtesy to that obivously cartoonish chilean show. Something I must add, and I hope it reaches the forum: he said his second participation there was good, so the uploader of the original one could put upt the other. Or even better, maybe someone could dig his participations in other shows around the globe (a few in Brazil, one in Greece, another one in Spain etc.) which he reclaim to have been highly successful. Please, do call him, and beware not to be hurtful to people. Geez, everyone is getting so touchy with this. 189.25.165.93 19:04, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I have answers to your concerns, but Wikipedia is not the place to discuss them. Feel free to join the forum, and I will answer you there. Mlewan 04:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I've watched the video and the egyptian give a text in farsi language (persian). --Warkoholic ²⁰⁰⁷ 17:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The video at Youtube has disappeared somehow, just like all negative statements in this Wikipedia article. For those who want to read extracts from the video and discussions about it, please see this post as well as this post. Mlewan (talk) 22:12, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

No certification

David, if you are really keen on keeping people in the dark about the exact level of knowledge Ziad has, be my guest. I will not add the sentence back again.

For the curious it can be mentioned here on the talk page, that a removed sentence apparently correctly stated that Ziad is no certified interpreter or translator of any of his 57/58 languages.

By the way, I would appreciate if you and the other anonymous IP addresses avoided phrases like "creep", "retarded", "monkey-like imbeciles" and "Go back to primary school". They are not very constructive. Mlewan (talk) 19:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC) --95.178.40.39 (talk) 09:36, 16 May 2012 (UTC) ÈÉ they said somewhere that he has been tested by FSI in some of his langs. --95.178.40.39 (talk) 09:36, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Does he ask which languages will be spoken in the TV shows?

I deleted the following paragraph:

Before being submitted to a televised language test he asks to be told which languages he will be required to speak and the general topics that will be discussed. Fazah claims that after about a week of preparation he feels confident speaking on television in any of his languages.

As far as I understand the provided reference[1], none of the facts mentioned above is confirmed there. Mixay (talk)

Sources

I have removed the citations to blogs and forums, per WP:Verifiability policy. Regarding the Guinness Book of World Records, Google book search shows he is listed up to the 1998 edition. I've tried to preview the 1999 edition onwards: as far as I can tell he wasn't mentioned from there onwards. This book also stated his nationality as Brazilian. Maybe someone can clarify. Marasmusine (talk) 08:05, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Hindi

<<Finnish, Russian, Chinese, Persian, Greek and Hindi. He even wrongly recognized Russian as Croatian in being unable to comprehend what "Какой сегодня день недели?" ("What day of the week is it today?") means.>>

Well, it is really surprising that he cannot understand Hindi? That is not one of the languages he claims to be able to speak. 209.86.226.18 (talk) 05:46, 13 March 2011 (UTC)