Ioannis Ikonomou

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ioannis Economou ( Greek Ιωάννης Οικονόμου * 1964 / 1965 on Crete ) is a Greek polyglot who speaks more than 30 languages. He works as a translator for the European Commission in Brussels .

Life

Ikonomou grew up as the son of a teacher and a civil servant. As a child on the Cretan beach, he was amazed at the numerous languages ​​of tourists that he did not understand and began to learn English at the age of five. At school he learned ancient Greek and Latin . He learned German at seven and Italian at ten ; followed by Russian and Swahili . At 16 he wanted to learn Turkish, for which there was no textbook in Greece at that time due to the long-lasting hostility between Greece and Turkey ; his parents found an architect who had fled from Northern Cyprus as a teacher. His motto at the time was: "I didn't want to have enemies, I wanted to talk to them."

Ioannis Ikonomou studied Comparative Linguistics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and then at Columbia University in New York. At Harvard University he wrote his thesis on Zarathustra . He then went to Vienna and received a scholarship from the European Parliament in 1994 . After seven years as an interpreter , he joined the Translation Directorate .

Ikonomous "philosophy of language"

Ikonomou learns the languages ​​from the feeling of fascination for a civilization, its culture, its music and its food. When he learned Arabic, he became enthusiastic about Sufism . Later he wanted to immerse himself in Indian culture and learned Hindi , Urdu and Sanskrit , which is no longer spoken today ; during this time he became a consistent vegetarian . The Gothic language , Maya , Old Irish and Old Iranian followed . Standard Chinese is his favorite language today; he sees it as the "key language of human civilization". He thinks of himself that he failed because of Vietnamese . Ikonomou keeps his language skills active by watching foreign programs on the Internet and chatting at night . He is a member of Mensa International .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ European Commission: Frequently Asked Questions: Multilingualism and Language Learning September 25, 2012 [1]
  2. ↑ Christoph B. Schiltz: The man who speaks 32 languages ​​fluently. welt.de, September 6, 2014, accessed on September 6, 2014 (with video interview)
  3. ↑ Hendrick Kafsack: The omnipotent. faz.net, February 6, 2009, accessed September 6, 2014
  4. ^ Svetlana Jovanovska: Ioannis Ikonomou speaks 47 languages. derwesten.de, May 6, 2009, accessed on September 6, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Ikonomou, Ioannis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek translator
DATE OF BIRTH 1964 or 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Crete , Greece