[70] Polyglotism - how many languages are we able to speak?

Actually, there is no clear answer to this question. Nor is it clear how many languages we should speak to be called a polyglot. In the present article I will try to show you some interesting facts about polyglotism and present some selected polyglots. 

Polyglotism is generally referred to as the ability to speak several languages. Several - then how many is that? In fact, it means more than three languages, as people able to use two and three languages are called bilingual and trilingual people respectively. We may then conclude that the phenomenon of polyglotism starts around the fourth foreign language that we may use for communication. Of course, at this point we may face another problem - what does it mean to know language? What is more important, grammar, or vocabulary? Or maybe it is just enough to communicate meanings without thinking about pronunciation, word order, grammar, vocab and the rest...? It is hard to say and we are not going to solve these problems as simply again there are no clear-cut answers. For the time being we may agree that to know language is 'to know some rules of grammar and vocabulary to communicate meanings that are necessary for co-existing in a given language society'. Practically it may mean from 2000 to 5000 words in a foreign language, depending of course on the type and the size of the language. 

If you are interested, I can discuss some learning processes taking place in human brain, also with regard to polyglotism in some other article. Now let`s meet some polyglots!

It may be hard to believe, but Andrzej Gawroński, a distinguished polish linguist (born in 1885, died in 1927) knew around 40 languages! Once he said: "I can speak and write in 40 languages, but I also am able to read in and understand 100 other languages". As I mentioned, he was a linguist; in his academic work he used and described languages every day, which definitely helped him master such a number of languages. An Italian cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti (1774 - 1849) is said to have spoken 38 languages. From among living people it is worth mentioning Jagadguru Ramanandacharya, a Hindu religious leader, who speaks 22 languages, or Daniel Tammet from London, who, for the sake of some reality show, learned Icelandic within a week and afterwards was able to use this language in conversations with its native speakers! He speaks 11 languages. Obviously, if people travel a lot, need languages at work, or in their private life, they may easily found their way to polyglotism. Hence, the people who know two/three and more foreign languages are usually professional athletes, clergymen, politicians, scholars etc. 

Some people say (also polyglots themselves) that one has to be extremely talented to be a succesful polyglot. But there are also people who claim that hard work may also be sufficient (on condition that we want to practice several hours per day!). Sometimes polyglotysm can be a result of some brain disorders. Tammet suffers from so-called Savant Syndrome, which is normally a mental disability, yet sometimes people with this disorder may tend to learn and understand more than people without Savant Syndrome. It has also been discovered that in  the polyglots` brains the area that is responsible for language production is relatively bigger than in average people. 

And here you may see and listen to some polyglotic performances. Enjoy!

Video 1 - you may also follow the author`s channel, which includes a couple of interesting things/vids. 

Video 2

Some other resources connected with polyglotism: 

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