Charles Berlitz
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| Charles Berlitz | |
| Born | November 20, 1914 New York City, USA |
|---|---|
| Died | December 18, 2003 Tamarac, Florida |
| Occupation | Linguist, author |
| Spouse | Valerie Seary |
Charles Frambach Berlitz (November 20, 1914 – December 18, 2003) was a linguist and language teacher[1] known for his books on anomalous phenomena, as well as his language-learning courses. He is listed in People's Almanac as one of fifteen most eminent linguists in the world and was awarded the Dag Hammarskjöld International Prize for Non-fiction in 1976 for The Bermuda Triangle (1974), which sold over 20 million copies. He was a brilliant polyglot and spoke 32 languages[citation needed].
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[edit] Life
Berlitz was born in New York City. He was the grandson of Maximilien (Maximilian) Berlitz, who founded the Berlitz Language Schools. As a child, Charles was raised in a household in which (by his father's orders) every relative and servant spoke to Charles in a different language: he reached adolescence speaking eight languages fluently. In adulthood, he recalled having the childhood delusion that every human being spoke a different language, and wondering why he did not have his own language like everyone else in his household. His father spoke to him in German, his grandfather in Russian, his nanny in Spanish.
He began working for the family language school, The Berlitz School of Languages, during college breaks. The publishing house, of which he was vice president, sold, among other things, tourist phrase books and pocket dictionaries, several of which he authored. He also played a key role in developing record and tape language courses. He left the company in the late 1960s, not long after he sold the company to publishing firm Crowell, Collier & Macmillan. He graduated magna cum laude from Yale University.
Berlitz spent 13 years on active duty in the U.S. Army, mostly in intelligence. In 1950, he married Valerie Seary, with whom he had a daughter. He died in 2003 at the age of 89 at University Hospital in Tamarac, Florida.
[edit] Bibliography
- The Bermuda Triangle (1974) ISBN 0-285-63326-0
- Without a Trace (1977)
- The Philadelphia Experiment - Project Invisibility (1979)
- The Roswell Incident (1980) ISBN 1-567-31132-6
- Doomsday 1999 A.D. (1981) ISBN 0-586-05543-6.
- The Lost Ship of Noah: In Search of the Ark at Ararat (1987)
- The Dragon's Triangle (1989)
- The Mystery Of Atlantis
- Atlantis: The Lost Continent Revealed, Publisher Macmillan London 1984
- Without a Trace: More Evidence from the Bermuda Triangle
- Mysteries from forgotten worlds
- Roswell Incident, The
- World of Strange Phenomena, Little Brown &Company, New York, USA, 1995
- Charles Berlitz′s World of Strange Phenomena - Volume 3: The Odd and the Awesome
- ATLANTIS - THE EIGHTH CONTINENT (G. P. Putnams Sons., New York., 1984
[edit] Language-Related
- Native tongues, Publisher: London ;PP|New York :: Granada. 1983 ISBN 0-7858-1827-8
- Around the World in 80 Words: The 80 Key Words You Need to Communicate in 25 Languages
- Passport to Spanish, Publisher: N A L, New York, USA, 1993
- Passport to Russian, Publisher: N A L, New York, USA, 1992
- Passport to Italian, Publisher: N A L, New York, USA, 1979 and Penguin.
- Spanish Step-by-Step, Publisher: Wynwood, Ada, USA, 1990
- German Step-by-Step [1]
- Learn German, Diamond Books, 1995
- El Berlitz sin Maestro: Ingles
- Czech: Start Speaking Today
- Athens Travel Guide
[edit] Language/30 series of books
For Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Swahili, Latin, Japanese, Thai, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and many more.
[edit] Films
- "The Bermuda Triangle" and "The Philadelphia Experiment" [2] both turned into films [3].
- "Roswell" was a film based on "The Roswell Incident" [4].
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Eminent Linguist dead", WashingtonPost, Dec 31, 2003.
