Oddlet: George Psalmanazar · 1 min read
Sep 12, 2026
The Formosan
How did a blonde Frenchman convince 1700s London he was from Formosa?
George Psalmanazar was born, almost certainly, in the south of France. He arrived in London in 1703 as the first native of Formosa ever seen in Europe: blonde, blue-eyed, pale as chalk. Formosan aristocrats, he explained, lived underground during the hot months.
To sell the part, he ate his meat raw at dinner parties, spiced with pepper and cardamom, and slept sitting bolt upright in a chair with a candle burning through the night. In 1704 he published a full description of Formosa, complete with a 20-letter alphabet, right-to-left, into which he had translated the Lord's Prayer. He mentioned, in passing, that Formosans annually sacrificed eighteen thousand boys under the age of nine on a gridiron before an ox-headed god.
The response, from serious men, was to give him rooms at Christ Church, Oxford, and ask him to teach the language.
At the Royal Society, Edmond Halley finally set the trap. Why, he asked, did the tropical sun not shine straight down Formosan chimneys at noon?
Formosan chimneys, he said, are corkscrew-shaped.
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- Wikipedia — George Psalmanazar — Comprehensive biographical overview: dates, French origin, meeting with Innes, the 1704 book, Formosan language invention, Oxford lectures, Samuel Johnson friendship, confession, and posthumous Memoirs.
- The Appendix — 'Made in Taiwan: An Eighteenth-Century Frenchman's Fictional Formosa' — Academic-style essay covering the invented language's internal consistency, viper's blood breakfast claim, 18,000 sacrificed boys detail, and the 1711 Spectator satire.
- Dictionary of National Biography (1885-1900) — Psalmanazar, George (Wikisource) — Primary reference-work biography with 19th-century scholarly assessment of the language's internal regularity and his London society reception.
- Historic Mysteries — 'Living the Lie: Who Was the Mysterious Man from Formosa?' — Details on the 20-letter invented alphabet, the raw-meat dinner-party performances, and note that his true identity was never uncovered.
- Public Domain Review — 'Made in Taiwan? How a Frenchman Fooled 18th-Century London' (Benjamin Breen)
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