Charles Frambach Berlitz (November 20, 1914 – December 18, 2003) was a
linguistLinguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning...
and language teacher 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 HammarskjöldDag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was a Swedish diplomat and author and was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. He served from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. He is the only person to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously....
International Prize for non-fiction in 1976 for
The Bermuda TriangleThe Bermuda Triangle is a best-selling 1974 book by Charles Berlitz which popularized the belief of the Bermuda Triangle as an area of ocean prone to disappearing ships and airplanes...
(1974), which sold over 20 million copies.
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Charles Frambach Berlitz (November 20, 1914 – December 18, 2003) was a
linguistLinguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning...
and language teacher 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 HammarskjöldDag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was a Swedish diplomat and author and was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. He served from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. He is the only person to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously....
International Prize for non-fiction in 1976 for
The Bermuda TriangleThe Bermuda Triangle is a best-selling 1974 book by Charles Berlitz which popularized the belief of the Bermuda Triangle as an area of ocean prone to disappearing ships and airplanes...
(1974), which sold over 20 million copies. He was a
polyglotMultilingualism is the use of two or more languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population.-Multilingual individuals:...
and spoke 32 languages.
Life
Berlitz was born in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
. He was the grandson of
Maximilien (Maximilian) BerlitzMaximilian Delphinius Berlitz was a linguist and the founder of the Berlitz Language Schools, the first of which he established in 1878 in Providence, Rhode Island....
, 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 laudeLatin honours are Latin phrases used to indicate the level of academic distinction with which an academic degree was earned. This system is primarily used in the United States, though some institutions also use the English translation of these phrases rather than the Latin originals...
from
Yale UniversityYale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five...
.
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, Lynn. He died in 2003 at the age of 89 at University Hospital in Tamarac, Florida.
Anomalous phenomena
- The Mystery of Atlantis {1969)
- Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds (1972)
- The Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle is a best-selling 1974 book by Charles Berlitz which popularized the belief of the Bermuda Triangle as an area of ocean prone to disappearing ships and airplanes...
(1974, ISBN 0-285-63326-0
- Without a Trace (1977)
- The Philadelphia Experiment
The Philadelphia Experiment was an alleged naval military experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sometime around October 28, 1943, in which the U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Eldridge was to be rendered invisible to human observers for a brief period of time...
- Project Invisibility (1979)
- The Roswell Incident (1980)
- Doomsday 1999 A.D. (1981) ISBN 0-586-05543-6.
- Atlantis - The Eight Continent (G. P. Putnams Sons., New York, 1984)
- Atlantis: the lost continent revealed, Macmillan, London, 1984
- The Lost Ship of Noah: In Search of the Ark at Ararat (1987)
- The Dragon's Triangle (1989)
- World of Strange Phenomena (Little Brown & Company, New York, 1995)