Literary notes about polyglot (AI summary)
The term “polyglot” appears in literature with a diverse range of applications, often symbolizing a blending of languages, ideas, or cultures. In George Santayana’s discussion of non-dialectical morality, for instance, “polyglot” is used metaphorically to denote a mix of impulsive ethical responses—what he terms “prerational morality” [1, 2]. Similarly, the term labels compilations of texts or proverbs, as seen in titles like A Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs and the Complutensian Polyglot, which highlight collections gathered from various linguistic sources [3, 4, 5]. In narrative fiction, authors such as Bram Stoker, Jules Verne, and H. G. Wells employ “polyglot” to describe characters noted for their multilingual abilities or idiosyncratic expressions, thus enriching both their characterizations and the texture of dialogue [6, 7, 8, 9]. Even in journalistic or encyclopedic contexts, “polyglot” is harnessed to evoke the dynamism of multiple languages coexisting [10, 11, 12]. This multifaceted usage underscores the word’s capacity to evoke both literal multilingualism and metaphorical mixture.
- When morality is in this way non-dialectical, casual, impulsive, polyglot, it is what we may call prerational morality.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - When a polyglot person is speaking, foreign words sometimes occur to him, which he at once translates into the language he happens to be using.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - A Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs
— from A Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs - This translation is contained in the "Complutensian Polyglot" (1541-17).
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein - For over fifteen years he laboured under the auspices of Cardinal Ximenes, in the preparation of the Complutensian Polyglot.
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein - The captain swore polyglot—very polyglot—polyglot with bloom and blood; but he could do nothing.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker - "Is he dumb?" cried the Professor, who was rather proud of his polyglot knowledge of languages, and made the same demand in French.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne - There was a vociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in a pepper-and-salt suit, very long in the arms and legs and very active.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - And my uncle ought to have known, for he was a perfect polyglot dictionary in himself.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne - [ 'The Polyglot News Letter,' Melbourne, Dec. 1858, p. 2.]
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin - She was called the 'Walking Polyglot'.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. A to Amide by Various - I like well our polyglot construction-stamp, and the retention thereof, in the broad, the tolerating, the many-sided, the collective.
— from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman