František Vymazal (6 November 1841, Topolany – 6 April 1917,

Brno Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...

) was a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

and

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions, but also of learners ( ...

writer.

Life and work

Vymazal was born in a poor family and worked as a corrector in printing house. His life was quite eccentric and solitary. Later in life he lost his sight because of the hard work in the printing house, and he died in a traffic accident. He wrote a widely used series of easy-to-learn

textbooks entitled ''Snadno a rychle'' (

for ''quick and easy''). In his textbooks he taught the basics of more than thirty languages, including Turkish,

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

and Lithuanian, and

Bohemian Romani Bohemian Romani or ''Bohemian Romany'' was a dialect of Romani formerly spoken by the Romani people of Bohemia, the western part of today's Czech Republic. It became extinct after World War II, due to the genocide of most of its speakers in ext ...

. Vymazal's learning method was based on simple presumptions: short, simple sentences are better to memorize than single words and complex grammatical rules. All

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

and

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

is explained in short sentences taken from ordinary life. Students should memorize these sentences by heart. Vymazal's books were widely used in prewar

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, some of them were translated into German. He also wrote a cycle of short, mostly

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...

aphorism An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tra ...

s in the style of

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

, entitled ''Zrnka'' (''Grains''), which are still quoted sometimes.Milan Klapetek, ''Zrnka moudrosti od Františka Vymazala'', Sdružení Facultas moraviensis straecorum, Katedra strécovské filosofie, 1993

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vymazal, Frantisek 1841 births 1917 deaths Linguists from Austria-Hungary Language teachers People from Vyškov District