If the story is to be believed, Blackthorne had an amazing nack with languages. Obviously English was his native tongue. He must have spoken excellent Dutch to be able to communicate with the Sailors on the Erasmus. When he got to Japan he was fluent in Portuguese as was shown by his conversations with the Jesuits and Mariko. Also he was well on his way to speaking the Japanese language at the end. Amazing for a 17th century Sailor!
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I disagree with the contention in the OP that there was something amazing about Blackthorne's language proficiency. In Europe even today, it's not uncommon for people to speak multiple languages. When I was taking a class in Ecuador, other students included a girl from France, one from Italy, and one from Germany. Each spoke the language of her homeland (obviously), plus the languages of the other two, plus English, plus Spanish. That's five.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect a 17th century seafarer to speak multiple languages. In fact, I'd expect that ability to be the rule rather than exception as he'd be having to deal with multiple languages in every port of call. You can't be a trader if you don't speak the local language.
As to learning Japanese, picking up an additional language is easier when you already have several "under your belt."
At the time he was shipwrecked in Japan, Blackthorne already spoke English, Dutch, Latin and Portugese.
English - native tongue
Latin - language of all educated men in Europe
Dutch - necessary to pilot a ship under a Dutch Flag
Learning a fifth language when you already speak four isn't that hard, even when it's Japanese. Note that he only learned to speak it, not write it which would have been much more difficult.
EDIT: Actually he already spoke five languages when he was shipwrecked. The four mentioned and Spanish. So Japanese was his sixth language.
If the story is to be believed, Blackthorne had an amazing nack with languages. Obviously English was his native tongue. He must have spoken excellent Dutch to be able to communicate with the Sailors on the Erasmus. When he got to Japan he was fluent in Portuguese as was shown by his conversations with the Jesuits and Mariko. Also he was well on his way to speaking the Japanese language at the end. Amazing for a 17th century Sailor!
I believe Mariko fell in love with him because he was a cunning linguist. Or something like that.
shareOf course it has to be believed. It's loosely based a true story, that of William Adams the first Englishman in Japan.
Yes he is supposed to have spoken many languages.
Read Samurai William his story.
I wouldn't go as far as to call him an amazing linguist. He apparently spent a large part of his youth in the Netherlands, where he would have picked up Dutch and Spanish (as the Netherlands was ruled by Spain at the time). A young person, younger than 20, will pick up languages easier than an older person because their brain is still developing, so a young person immersed in a multilingual environment wouldn't need to try all THAT hard to learn the languages Blackthorne could speak. As for Portuguese, the Portuguese were the world's leading seafarers at the time, so learning Portuguese as a sailor was, if not a must, at least a highly advisable and valuable skill to learn.
Being multilingual seems extraordinary to Americans because English and to a lesser extent Spanish (depending on where you live) are the only languages they ever really come across frequently. Americans really need to go out of their way (which few bother to do) to encounter more languages, but for a European, exposure to more languages isn't unusual, because there are so many countries with so many languages in a relatively small (from an American perspective) geographical area.
But when it comes to Japanese, Blackthorne actually did a pretty terrible job. I speak some Japanese and I was laughing out loud and shaking my head at some of his errors, mistakes that even a beginner shouldn't be making. I understand that Clavell wanted to convey the language barrier, and probably figured most of his readers wouldn't understand any Japanese and therefore wouldn't notice how bad it was, but I think he overdid it a bit. Japanese, while difficult in some ways, isn't really such an alien language as it's usually regarded to be, and it was silly how bad Blackthorne was at it. I was better at it, in terms of understanding the grammatical rules (though not in size of vocabulary), almost immediately than Blackthorne ever seemed to get, and I didn't have the benefit of immersion as he did.