Polyglotism

A polyglot is someone with a high degree of proficiency in several languages. (A bilingual person can speak two languages fluently, a trilingual three. One who can speak six or more languages fluently is known as a hyperpolyglot.)

The following list must be seen as anecdotal. Calculations as to "how many" languages anyone speaks are impossible for several reasons.

To start with there is no clear definition of what it means to "speak a language". A tourist who can handle a simple conversation with a waiter may be completely lost when it comes to discussing current affairs or even using the past tense. A diplomat or businessman who can handle complicated negotiations in a foreign language may not be able to write a simple letter correctly. A four-year-old French child usually must be said to "speak French fluently", but it is unlikely that he can handle the subjunctive as well as even a mediocre foreign student of the language does.

In addition there is no clear definition of what "one language" means. The Scandinavian languages are so similar that a large part of the native speakers understand all of them without much trouble. This means that a speaker of Danish, Norwegian or Swedish can easily get his count up to 3 languages. On the other hand, the differences between variants of Chinese, like Cantonese and Mandarin, are so big that hard studies are needed for a speaker of one of them to learn even to understand a different one correctly. A person who has learnt to speak five Chinese "dialects" perfectly has achieved something impressive, but his "count" would still be only one "language".

Sometimes a new language is "created" or "deleted" for purely political purposes, like when Serbo-Croatian was split into Serb and Croatian after Yugoslavia broke up, or when Ukrainian was dismissed as a Russian dialect by the Russian Czars to discourage national feelings.

To take it to its extreme, there is an apocryphal story about a Bavarian linguist who spoke 126 languages, none of which could be identified.

With this in mind, the following list contains some people who for some reason have a reputation of good language skills.

Highest Claims

• Ziad Fazah born June 10, 1954, claimed to speak 63 languages.
• Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti (1774–1849), Italian ecclesiast, is reported to have spoken thirty-eight languages and fifty dialects fluently.
• Emil Krebs German sinologist, (1867–1930). Spoke 68 languages fluently, and understood more than 50 further languages.
• Kenneth Hale (1934?–2001), MIT linguistics professor (over 50 languages)
• Rolf Theil Endresen, Norwegian linguistics professor (over 50 languages)
• Georg Sauerwein (1831–1904), German linguist (over 50 languages)
• The German Francis Sommer, who died in 1978, was said to be fluent in 94 languages.
• Carlos do Amaral Freire has mastered more than a hundred languages, published translations from 60 languages, but is a fluent speaker of 30. He still studies one or two new languages every two years.
• Hans Conon von der Gabelentz (1807–1874) reportedly was fluent in eighty languages.
• Uku Masing (1909–1985), an Estonian linguist, theologian, ethnologist, and poet who was fluent in approximately 65 languages and translated from 20. [1]
• István Dabi, Hungarian translator, translated from 103 languages
• Sir William Jones (1746–1794), British philologist - reported to speak forty-one languages.

40

• Georges Dumézil (1898–1986), famous French philologist, knew up to forty languages.
• William James Sidis (1898–1944), child prodigy, knew around forty languages and could apparently learn a language in a day.
• Ferenc Kemény (Francis Kemeni), Hungarian translator, understands 40 languages, writes in 24 languages out of them, speaks 12 languages out of them

30 or more

• H. K. Freher, linguist and singer (said to have known 36 languages)
• Rasmus Christian Rask, Danish philologist, could read in 35 languages
• Mario Pei, Italian American linguist, fluent in five languages (English and his native Italian but also Latin, Greek, and French), capable of speaking some 30 others

20 or more

• Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890), British explorer/orientalist - spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages and countless dialects
• Kató Lomb, Hungarian translator and interpreter, spoke 17 languages, could read in 11 further languages
• Barry Farber speaks more than 25 languages, including Serbo-Croatian, Norwegian, Finnish, Russian, Korean and Chinese
• Géza Képes, Hungarian man of letters, understands 25 languages
• Pico della Mirandola, Italian scholar of the Renaissance (said to have known 22 languages at the )
• Kevin Golden, British translator, speaks or understands 21 languages
• Taneda Teruyoto, Japanese interpreter, leader of a conference centre, speaks 20 languages
• Paul Robeson (1898–1976) American actor, athlete, singer, writer, and political and civil rights activist. He was conversant in over 20 languages, including Yiddish, Russian, German, Welsh, Spanish and several African languages.
• José Rizal, eye surgeon and national hero of the Philippines, is said to have known 22 languages including Catalan, Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Latin, Malay, Sanskrit, Spanish, Cebuano and other Philippine languages in addition to his own Tagalog.

10 or more

• Sir John Bowring (1792–1872, British M.P., according to article claimed to "know" 200 languages and "speak" 100, but in truth knew only 15, with an instrumental knowledge of 35 dialects.
• Dic Aberdaron (1780–1843) - Welsh linguist, reputedly taught himself 14 languages.
• Otto Back, Austrian, director of the Translators' College, speaks at least 10 languages
• Jacques Berg, French historian and linguist, writer, speaks 11 languages
• Wojciech Bobowski, also known as Ali Ufki, Polish dragoman at the court of the Ottoman sultan, reportedly spoke 16 languages.
• Mariano Lavid, translator at the "Cour Européene de Justice", Luxembourg, masters, apart from his native Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Russian and modern Greek, and some Arabic.
• Anthony Burgess - British writer, knew Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Persian and Swedish well and spoke English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Malay and Welsh fluently.
• Joshua Chamberlain, Union Army Officer during the American Civil War, spoke 10 languages
• Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832) - French egyptologist, mastered at least 13
• Comenius (Jan Amos Komensky´), Moravian linguist, scholar of learning languages (said to have translated his own book into 15 languages)
• James Crichton the Admirable Crichton, Scot musician, sportsman and linguist knew Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, English, Dutch, Flemish and Slavonic
• Gedeon Dienes, Hungarian consultant, speaks 11 languages
• Sándor Kőrösi Csoma (aka Alexander Csoma de Kőrös), Hungarian scholar, explorer of Eastern languages, could read in 17 languages
• Niels Ege, Danish translator, translates into 6 languages, interprets from 15 languages, knows 5 further languages
• Michael Everson - speaks English, Irish, Danish, German, Spanish, and French well, and has some facility with Swedish, Bokmål, Nynorsk, Portuguese, Italian, Breton, Russian, and Estonian.
• João Guimarães Rosa - one of the most famous Brazilian writers, spoke more than twelve languages fluently, read eighteen.
• James Joyce - famous Irish writer, spoke thirteen languages, including English, his native language, French and Italian, which he studied at University, and German, which he learnt to read the literature and later when living in Zürich. He wrote a letter to Henrik Ibsen in Norwegian and learnt the language supposedly solely to read his works. He travelled in the Netherlands for a time, learnt Dutch, and wrote several letters in fluent Spanish. He frequently read and studied works in Greek, Latin, Russian and Danish. He referenced these languages and fifty-four others in his book Finnegans Wake, most prominently Irish.
• Lajos Kada, Hungarian archbishop, spoke at least 10 languages
• André Martinet, French linguist, spoke 12 languages
• Aleksandr Naumenko, Russian translator, speaks 8 languages, translates from 4 further languages
• Edgardo Donovan, American/Italian, speaks, writes, reads, and understands 9 languages and 21 related dialects. His varying levels of proficiency among 16 languages and dialects has been certified by the Defense Language Institute.
• Fan S. Noli - Albanian writer, bishop, Prime Minister etc. spoke 14 languages.
• Herbert Pilch, German scholar, speaks more than 11 languages
• Pope Benedict XVI, current head of the Roman Catholic Church, speaks at least ten languages (his native German, Italian, English, Spanish, and ecclesiastical Latin among them).
• Pope John Paul II, former head of the Roman Catholic Church, learned as many as eleven languages during his lifetime, including Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, Italian, German, English, Portuguese, his native Polish, and also had some facility with Russian.
• Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) - Indian politician and former Prime Minister, fluent in Telugu, English, Hindi, and Marathi,, he could read and write 17 languages.
• Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist, who discovered the ruins of Troy, was familiar with English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian, Greek, Latin, Russian, Arabic and Turkish
• Sam Sloan, U.S. chess player, speaks or understands 15 languages
• Andrew Sugár, Hungarian translator, speaks 10 languages, understands 6 more languages
• Michel Thomas Polish born linguist spoke at least 10 languages
• J.R.R. Tolkien - British writer and conlanger, as well as a professor at Oxford. He is known particularly for the Lord of the Rings. He knew some thirteen languages, in addition to his own creations.
• Eva Toulouze, French, speaks or understands 11 languages
• Ármin Vámbéry, Hungarian linguist, spoke 16 languages
• Thomas Young (1773—1829), British scientist - 12
• L. L. Zamenhof, linguist and creator of Esperanto, spoke Esperanto, Polish, German, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, English, Italian, Spanish and Lithuanian in addition to his native languages Russian and Yiddish

External links

• Data on multilingualism in India
• Discussion forum about polyglots
• Multilingualism and Word Memorizing
• Forum on studying foreign languages