Charles Berlitz, a world-renowned linguist who gained wider fame for his books on paranormal phenomena, including the best-selling "The Bermuda Triangle," has died. He was 90.
Berlitz, grandson of the founder of the famous Berlitz language schools and the company's onetime head of publications, died of undisclosed causes Dec. 18 in a hospital in Tamarac, Fla.
As the grandson of Maximilian D. Berlitz, who founded the first Berlitz School of Languages in Providence, R.I., in 1878, Berlitz developed an early command of foreign languages. There was no way to avoid it.
Born in New York City, he grew up with his mother speaking to him in French, his father in English, his grandfather in German and a cousin and the domestic help in Spanish.
His bedroom walls were lined with picture charts of animals, foods and different parts of the world, and on his grandfather's instruction, each person would point to things on the charts and ask the boy in their particular language, "What is this?"
"I didn't realize they were speaking different languages," Berlitz told the Washington Post in 1982.
"I thought each person had their own particular way of speaking. Since I'd hear my mother switch to German when she spoke to my grandfather, I thought everyone had to learn everyone else's way of speaking to communicate."
By the time he was 3, Berlitz was speaking four languages.
He ultimately spoke a reported 32 languages with varying degrees of fluency.
"I tend to think speaking only one language is like having a big house and living only in one room," he told United Press International in 1988. "Every language is like adding another outlook. Language just adds to a person's knowledge and enjoyment of our planet."
While studying French and Spanish literature at Yale University in the 1930s, Berlitz began his association with the family business by teaching summer courses at the New York Berlitz school.
He later directed several of the language schools and in 1946 -- after serving as an officer in the Army counterintelligence corps during World War II -- he became a vice president of Berlitz Schools of Languages and head of Berlitz Publications.
Over the years, he oversaw the production of scores of textbooks, tourist phrase books and pocket dictionaries. He also was instrumental in the development of language courses on records and tapes, and he established special courses in various languages for employees of U.S. firms doing business overseas.
