ONE VERY INTELLIGENT CHILD
Local boy heads to college at age 9
Greek Orthodox Priest Peter Maillis was discussing his son William’s ability at age 5 to recite the English, Greek, French, Spanish and Hebrew alphabets, along with other language skills.
One day his son met a Chinese girl at school, and he learned to count to 100 in Chinese plus the primary and secondary colors and the names of family members — mother, father, etc. — in an hour.
“He also learned the Chinese alphabet,” Father Maillis said. But that remark caused William to give his dad a piercing glare. “There’s no Chinese alphabet,” he scolded, noting that the main Chinese dialects are Mandarin and Cantonese. “Every word has its own symbol.”
That’s when William launched into discussion of “alphasyllabary” — consonant-based — languages, one of which he’s creating based on Phoenician consonants and Greek vowels. William is 9. He will be 10 on Oct. 3. And he’s a genius. On May 26, the spirited, erudite and boldly confident boy from Penn Township, Westmoreland County — looking every bit the scholar while speaking professorially — graduated from PennTrafford High School after passing all required exams. He was invited to enroll this summer at Carnegie Mellon University, his father said.
Believing William needed a break, Father Maillis, who serves as priest of the Presentation of Christ Greek Orthodox Church in East Pittsburgh, and his wife, Nancy, decided to enroll William at Community College of Allegheny County’s Boyce campus to get him acclimated to a full college schedule, with expectations he’ll enroll at CMU next year at the advanced age of 10.