List of noted polyglots
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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 is 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 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 easily can 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.
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Record holders
The world's most prolific living polyglot may be Ziad Fazah (born 1954) who apart from his mother tongue Arabic is reported to speak 55 other languages. The greatest polyglot in history may have been cardinal Giuseppe Gaspardo Mezzofanti (1774-1849), who is reported to have spoken up to a hundred languages fluently (though about fifty of them were "only" dialects). On a visit from the Lord Byron, he surprised Byron by showing knowledge of certain things in local London slang that the poet himself was not aware of.
- Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti (1774-1849), Italian ecclesiast
- Sir John Bowring (1792-1872), British M.P.
- Kenneth Hale, (1934?-2001), MIT linguistics professor (over 50 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, speaks in 12 languages
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
20 or more
- Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890), British explorer/orientalist - spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages and countless dialects
- Sir William Jones (1746-1794), British philologist - reported to speak twenty-eight languages.
- Barry Farber speaks more than 25 languages
- Géza Képes, Hungarian man of letters, understands 25 languages
- Mithridates VI of Pontus (said to have known 25 languages)
- Dr. José Rizal (1861-1896), National hero of the Philippines, 22 languages
- Pico della Mirandola, Italian scholar of the Renaissance (said to have known 22 languages at the age of 18)
- 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.
10 or more
- Joăo Guimarăes Rosa - one of the most famous Brazilian writers, spoke more than twelve languages fluently, read eighteen.
- James Joyce - famous Irish writer, spoke thirteen languages.
- Anthony Burgess - British writer, knew thirteen languages, fluent in eight.
- Niels Ege, Danish translator, translates into 6 languages, interprets from 15 languages, knows 5 further languages
- Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) - Indian politician and former Prime Minister, could read and write 17 languages
- Sándor Kőrösi Csoma (aka Alexander Csoma de Körös), Hungarian scholar, explorer of Eastern languages, could read in 17 languages
- Kató Lomb, Hungarian translator and interpreter, spoke 17 languages, could read in 11 further languages
- Andrew Sugár, Hungarian translator, speaks 10 languages, understands 6 more languages
- Ármin Vámbéry, Hungarian linguist, spoke 16 languages
- Comenius (Jan Amos Komensky´), Moravian linguist, scholar of learning languages (said to have translated his own book into 15 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.
- Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832) - French egyptologist, mastered at least 13
- 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
- André Martinet, French linguist, speaks 12 languages
- Thomas Young (1773—1829), British scientist - 12
- Admirable Crichton, Scot musician, sportsman and linguist (said to have known 12 languages)
- Aleksandr Naumenko, Russian translator, speaks 8 languages, translates from 4 further languages
- Herbert Pilch, German scholar, speaks more than 11 languages
- Gedeon Dienes, Hungarian consultant, speaks 11 languages
- Jacques Berg, French historian and linguist, writer, speaks 11 languages
- Eva Toulouze, French, speaks or understands 11 languages
- Lajos Kada, Hungarian archbishop, spoke at least 10 languages
- Michel Thomas Polish born linguist spoke at least 10 languages
- Otto Back, Austrian, director of the Translators' College, speaks at least 10 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).
5 or more
- Roman Jakobson, famous Russian linguist, structuralist, knew at least six languages fluently.
- Alexander Lénárd or Sándor Lénárd (1910-1972), Hungarian linguist, doctor, musician, painter, writer and translator, spoke at least nine languages
- Julien Green, American-French, speaks at least nine languages
- Sol Plaatje, (1877–1932), South African journalist and statesman, spoke nine languages.
- Philip King, British teacher of English in Birmingham, speaks nine languages
- Sascha Felix, German professor of Language Institute at Passau University, speaks at least eight languages
- Otto von Habsburg, Hungarian-German diplomat, speaks eight languages
- Albert Lange Fliflet, Norwegian professor, speaks eight languages
- Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian linguist, mathematician, and philosopher could speak French and Italian by age 5 and Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, German, Latin by age 13
- Angelo Possimiers, Belgian translator of the European Parliament, speaks at least seven languages
- Susan Polgar, Hungarian, professional chess player, seven languages including Esperanto
- Will Hay, British comedian/actor, was first an accomplished translator — fluent in French, German, Latin, Italian, Norwegian and Afrikaans
- Juan Alvaro Sanges d'Abadie, English politologist, speaks six languages
- Julio Dam, Uruguayan Messianic Renewed leader, writes English, and Spanish, speaks Hebrew, Yiddish, and some French and Italian
- Yesudas, Malayali singer, recorded songs in Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Gujarati, Telugu and Bengali
- Arvydas Sabonis, Lithuanian basketball player, speaks Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, Spanish, and English
- Dikembe Mutombo, Congolese basketball player, speaks English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and five African languages
- John Milton, famed English poet of the 17th century, spoke English, Latin, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian and a great deal of Dutch.
Other polyglots
- Harold Williams (1876-1928), New Zealand journalist
- Pent Nurmekund (1906-1996), Estonian linguist (could translate from about 80 languages and spoke many of them)
- Emil Krebs (1867-1930), German interpreter and translator (could translate from over 100 languages and spoke around 60)
- Donald Kenrick
- Felix of Raguza, linguist
- Cleopatra (said to have not required interpreters at receiving messengers)
- Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), spoke, understood, read, and wrote in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew.
External links
- Data on multilingualism in India (http://www.censusindia.net/cendat/language/language_data.html)
- Discussion forum about polyglots (http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=11&PN=1)fr:Multilingue