Omniglot: Difference between revisions

** Possibly [[Justified Trope|justified]] in that amnesia can affect memories, especially facts, and theoretically even one's own name, but languages and basic communication tend to be on a whole other, lower, level of consciousness; given that Wolverine's 130 years old he's had plenty of time for these languages to become part of his basic vocabulary, and so untouched by surface memory loss.

*** Real amnesia often does involve language loss - in fact, victims may even need to relearn how to ''walk'' - but [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|fictional amnesia]] almost never does, and that's the kind Wolverine tends to get. (Considering most of it is inflicted by telepathy and mad scientists, that actually makes sense).

** Her [[Platonic Life Partners|Platonic Life Partner]] Nightcrawler is similarly gifted. Justified in that he spent his youth travelling around Europe as the star performer in a circus and knowing the language of wherever they were that week was very handy. Aside from the Russian and Japanese everyone learned he also speaks German (his native laguage) English, French, Spanish, and Italian

** The ''X-Men'' [[Spin-Off]] ''[[New Mutants]]'' featured the character Doug Ramsey/'Cypher' whose power was to do this with ''any'' language, even if it should have been completely incomprehensible to the human mind. This extended even to raw computer binaries, dead written languages for which no "Rosetta stone" exists, and an alien [[Starfish Language]].

** As of the ''Necrosha'' arc, in which he was resurrected and [[Brainwashed and Crazy|insane]], he became capable of doing this with ''body'' language as well. His first appearance involved reading all of the unspoken parts of a reunion between the New Mutants and Xavier, and he later used it to hand them their asses in a fight. Though this only works when they're of their own minds. When Karma took control of the entire team, he could no longer predict what they would do.

** While we're on the X-men, Xavier himself can psychically learn any language by reading the mind of a fluent speaker. Presumably he knows quite a few of them. He can also teach a language to someone else this way, like how he taught the whole team Japanese when they attended Wolverine's wedding to Mariko.

* [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] [[Superman]], by virtue of super-intelligence, being one of his (rarely used) powers. He went and taught himself every language on Earth just because he wanted to be able to talk to anyone he was saving in their native tongue. Speaks a few alien languages, too.

** He still has a bit of this.