An international science convention in Tokyo is over for the day. A South African Theoretical Physicist sits at his hotel bar stirring his drink and trying to strike up a conversation with the lovely lady on his left. He struggles to tell her about himself, where he’s from, etc. in Japanese and English but gives up after a few minutes. She leaves; he faces forward, dejected, and orders another drink. Smiling, a colleague on his right says to him, You know, I think I know what went wrong there.

Oh yeah, what?

I think she got confused when you said you were from Africa.

Well, I am. Born and raised.

Yes, but you are white. You cannot be truly African unless you are black like me. Am I not right? He asks a colleague sitting to his right who is also presumably from Africa.

Well, I don’t know. He says to him, winking. You speak French and Arabic, the languages of invaders. You can’t even speak an African language like me. Your family moved to France when you were fifteen and now you live in Switzerland. Are you really an African either?

Just as it seems a little silly for three grown men who were born and raised in Africa to argue over what an African is, it is silly for Polyglots to try to exclude one another by narrowing the definition of a word that has a broad definition. Polyglots come in different in many different varieties but can be generally grouped into three main categories: Dispersoglots, Perfectoglots and Lectoglots.

Lectoglots: Polyglot Bookworms

These Polyglots are very often academics and it is not unusual for quite a few of their languages to be dead. There are also a good number of Lectoglots who work in different government jobs reading newspapers and other texts in foreign languages and then making summaries in their native tongues for their superiors to read. Lectoglots are often translators but prefer to avoid reading translations whenever possible. Many think that anything worth reading is worth reading in the original language.

Cons to being a Lectoglot: Lectoglots have a tendency to be horrible at conversing in their languages. They focus so much on good input skills (i.e. reading and listening) that their output skills (i.e. speaking and writing) are woefully underdeveloped. They can read the Koran in Classical Arabic and the New Testament in Classical Greek but they generally only discuss what they read in their native tongue.

There are those that say that Lectoglots have no business calling themselves Polyglots because of their over emphasis on the poly (many) but lack of emphasis on the glot (tongue). I once saw a professor who was the son of Greek immigrants and was a specialist in Ancient Greek texts not dare to respond in Greek to a student who addressed him in that language. Again, this calls into question how well the Lectoglot knows the language.

Pros to being a Lectoglot: Lectoglots are not usually social butterflies anyway and don’t feel that they are missing out because they can’t speak fluent Phoenician. The reason a certain Lectoglot may not be fluent French, even though he loves reading Victor Hugo and Proust, is that he rarely goes to Francophone countries. Now, drop him in France for a month and just see how long it takes for him to become fluent. He’ll already have a HUGE vocabulary and know how the language works.

Not focusing on speaking and writing skills allow Lectoglots to learn languages quickly. These Polyglots are transported through time and space in ways that few people are or can be. Their connection with Rome, Egypt, India, China, etc. through these peoples’ texts is one of the reasons we have become aware of the Indo-European language and other such relevant and important aspects of the human experience.

Examples of Lectoglots: Dr. Alexander Arguelles, Sir William Jones.

It’s been fun writing about these three types of Polyglots. Between people who have left comments and people who I’ve spoken with, it seems that we’re having a hard time telling whether or not we are one, the other, or all three. I’m going to try and squeeze in another post about this before Thanksgiving that should clear a few things up. In the meantime, what do you think about the Lectoglots? Are you a Lectoglot or an aspiring Lectoglot?

Cloggers, ballroom dancers and break dancers put on very different shows. At a professional level, you are bound to be very entertained even if clogging isn’t necessarily your cup of tea. Break dancing fans also have to admit that there are some real posers out there who are not very good. Wouldn’t it feel just plain rude if you saw a clogger walk out of a professional ball room performance saying, “Well, it was a nice show but I just don’t understand how they can call themselves dancers.”

That is exactly the kind of thing I’ve heard many Polyglots and aspiring Polyglots say. What many of us fail to realize is that we often have different goals when we start learning languages. A ball room dancer is trying to do something different than what a break dancer is doing but they are both dancers. From what I can tell, there are three main types of Polyglots: Dispersoglots, Perfectoglots and Lectoglots.

Perfectoglots: Polyglottery’s Committed Polygamists

Many Perfectoglots are raised speaking two or three languages. It is not unusual for them to have lived in several countries or for them to have spouses and friends that speak several languages. Their jobs also usually include several languages. Being a Polyglot is a way of life for them. Perfectoglots generally know between four and six languages at a very high level. To them, any language worth learning is worth learning well. They are often so good that it is difficult to tell what the Perfectoglots’ native languages are or where they are from.

Cons to being a Perfectoglot: Perfectoglots run the risk of being bland and playing it safe. For many, their self-esteem is based on how well they can learn a language so they may avoid languages that are unrelated to those they already know. They are often only interested in Far Eastern, Indic, European, etc. languages but not usually a mix of them. Consequently, they wind up missing out on what many other cultures have to offer.

It’s not unusual for Perfectoglots to appear a little snobby. They expect a lot from themselves and that often transfers to their expectations of other self-proclaimed Polyglots. If you want to gain a Perfectoglot’s respect it’s best to stick to your strengths.

Pros to being a Perfectoglot: Perfectoglots really master their languages; they don’t let their languages master them. They leave few, if any, communication barriers between them and others who speak their languages. In fact, they almost always know more about the languages they speak than native speakers. If they don’t get showered with praise for how well they know a certain language it’s because people believe that it is their native language and it would be silly to praise someone for how well they speak their native tongue.

These formidable skills give them richly profound professional and cultural experiences. They feel that a cultural knowledge, in addition to a linguistic knowledge, is necessary to really understand a language. They can usually understand and tell jokes, make literary and pop-culture references and use special sayings and refrains very well. There are those who feel that Perfectoglots are the only real Polyglots because they think that the only worthwhile language learning goal is native like mastery.

Examples of Perfectoglots: Joaquim de Alameida, the UN interpreters.

Are you a Perfectoglot? Do you know one? Do you want to be one? Are you more of a Dispersoglot or are you reserving your judgement until you find out what a Lectoglot is? I’ll be back with another post about that in a few days.

What is an athlete? What do you have to do to be athletic? Are the only “true” athletes the Olympic decathlon competitors or can you be considered an athlete if you only run the 100 meter dash. How about football players? What about volleyball players? Do you have to be professional in order to be an athlete? That would exclude the best high school and university athletes. Do you even have to necessarily compete in a sport in order to be athletic?

I hope those questions feel like hair splitting to you because they certainly do to me. Different types of athletes have different types of goals but they are all athletes. Just like the word “athlete” the word “polyglot” is a broad term that includes many different types of language enthusiasts and professionals. Just like the different objectives are what make athletes different, a Polyglot’s main goals are what distinguish him/her from other Polyglots. As far as I can tell, these different types of polyglots fall into three major groups: the Dispersoglots, the Perfectoglots and the Lectoglots.

Dispersoglots: The Don Juans and Casanovas of Polyglottery

Dispersoglots usually love the Teach Yourself language series and every other decent audio/text language course out there. They are usually fluent in the basics of at least seven languages but it is not at all uncommon for them to tell you that they know as many as thirty languages. They are usually appalled at the idea of “only” studying ten languages and are often quite confident in their abilities to communicate with people from all over the world, which they often do with great confidence and pleasure.

Cons to being a Dispersoglot: Dispersoglots generally never master more than one or two of the languages they study. They typically learn how the writing system works, the main grammar points and how to use 300 to 1,000 words. After that they move on to flirt with and conquest a new language, quickly forgetting much of what they learned.

When most people hear the words “fluent” and “know” when applied to a language they suppose that the Dispersoglot has a near native command of his/her languages and are then heartily disappointed when he/she cannot say things like, “The Wall of China is the only man-made building that can be seen from space.” with near flawless pronunciation. Experiences like these often discredit not only the Dispersoglots but all other Polyglots as well.

Pros to being a Dispersoglot: Nobody knows more about how humans use language than the Dispersoglots. To some, the Dispersoglots are the only “true” polyglots because they don’t just learn languages, they learn entire language families. Their lives are enriched in ways that few people understand by being able to communicate with Moroccans, Romanians, Fijian Indians, Mongolians, etc.

The Dispersoglots don’t wait for ideal circumstances to come along for them to learn a language. They climb the mountain simply because it is there. If all they have is a dictionary from the nineteenth century and a janitor who works at their supermarket and speaks the language, these passionate language enthusiasts become fascinated and determined.

Examples of Dispersoglots: Dr. Carlos Freire, Ziad Fazah.

This is all I have for now. I’ll come back later and talk about the Perfectoglots and Lectoglots. In the meantime, what are your thoughts about Dispersoglots? Have you ever met any Dispersoglots? Do you think that you might be a Dispersoglot?

During the past few years youtube has become more and more important. Anyone can upload any video at any time from anywhere with internet access. As camera-phones become more and more common and broad-band internet is installed in more places, there are more and more people who upload videos. Some of those people are Polyglots.

Stuart Jay Raj the Australian Polyglot

As far as I can tell, this is where things really started to take off.  In this video Stuart appears on a Thai television show that encourages learning English and demonstrates his knowledge of nine languages (Thai, English, Lao, Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, Spanish, Sign Language, Cantonese and Hindi). Despite his considerable abilities, Stuart is not arrogant and is always encouraging to other polyglots. In fact, his videos were very influential in encouraging many of the polyglots below to post their own videos.

Luca the Italian Polyglot

Long time readers of this blog will remember the article I wrote and interview I had with Luca back in August of 2008. The video above was then followed up by more videos of himself speaking in each of his languages: English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch and Russian. One of the things that I find most inspiring about Luca is that he has a true passion for languages. In the past year or so he has learned Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese. I am told that the video in Chinese will be coming soon. By following his ingenious method his has also been able to improve his other languages that were not as solid as he wanted them to be, like Swedish and Russian. He’s still kicking around the idea of making another video in Russian. Like Stuart, Luca is not stingy with his knowledge and has made several videos about his language learning methods.

Mike the American Polyglot

Luca’s video inspired the video above where Mike demonstrates his skills in English, French, Spanish and Lebanese Arabic. One of the things that strikes me is the combination of languages each of these polyglots has. While they all speak languages that one would expect a polyglot to know (English, French, etc.) they all seem to speak at least one surprising language.

Joe the Swedish Polyglot

Also inspired by Luca, Joe decided to share his language abilities with the world. The Scandinavians are famous for speaking English very well and I imagine his Japanese is decent but what really strikes me is that he tries hard to learn Norwegian. Swedish is the dominant of the three Scandinavian languages and it is refreshing to see a Swede really try to learn the language of his neighbor. His video is vulgar in a couple of spots so viewers should be advised.

Richard the British Hyperpolyglot

Richard is an excellent example of what happens when interest, talent and opportunity all come together in one person. His astounding sixteen language video is extremely popular on youtube and it’s no secret why.  The real secret is why neither he nor I can figure out why I can’t get his video to show up here on this blog. If you have any interest in foreign language learning then you really need to watch it .

There are actually many places in the world where knowing three or four languages is normal and knowing six or seven is not at all unheard of. Nowhere else on youtube have we seen such fluency in so many languages. Richard is a family man and rather choosy about what he puts on youtube (an example that many should follow) so there have not been nearly as many follow up videos as we would like to see. He does, however, have videos about what it means to know a language (in Macedonian with English subtitles) and what types of techniques he uses to learn languages (in German with English subtitles).

Amir the Kazakh Polyglot

The world needs more positive domino effects like these.  Amir already had an interest in foreign languages before he saw Richard and Luca. Now that he’s seen what these two amazing polyglots can do, he himself is even more excited to learn different languages and get better at the ones he already speaks.

Mizton the Mexican Polyglot

This guy is one of the best Polyglots on youtube but few seem to know much about him. That’s a shame because this video shows a very good handle on seven languages: three Latin languages, two Germanic languages, Japanese and Nahuatl.  How’s that for variety? Mizton and I have had a few opportunities to chat in the Polyglot chat room and he’s been very helpful and patient with my German.

Steve the Canadian Polyglot

It’s very likely that you are already familiar with Steve’s blog and language learning website. He is quite possibly the most outspoken Polyglot in cyberspace and is a passionate reformer. He openly criticizes and debates formally trained linguists even though he himself has no formal linguistic background. Be that as it may, Steve usually sounds quite convincing since he can communicate, either very fluently or at basic levels, in ten different languages while his opponents often can hardly speak more than one other than their native tongue. It’s hard to argue with results.

There are other great polyglots on the net right now (Alexander Arguelles comes to mind) but this post is about the ones who have made interesting multilingual videos. Wendy Vo’s videos are definitely worth checking out but her language learning seems to be more her parent’s decision than her own since she’s probably only about ten years old. Have I missed anyone else? Are you aware of any noteworthy polyglots on youtube? What do you think of these amazing people featured in this post?

Even though television is supposed to be a reflextion of real life it seems apparent that it also turns back and influences the life that it reflects. This applies to language learning as well.

My brother actually tried someting similar to this in Spanish when he was a little boy.

Some people just don’t feel like talking in any language.

If you flaunt your language skills you can expect this type of treatment.

Why three way interpreting should be avoided.

Easier said than done.

Do these portrayls of languages and language learning help us or hurt us?

Although life is busy, the “dust has settled” a bit and I find myself missing this blog terribly. I would like to get back to writing but before I do I feel like there are some things that need to be communicated first. Your help and patience would be most appreciated.

Interview with Dr. Freire

I promise that I actually interviewed him. The problem is that the audio file is almost 100 megabytes. Do any of you know where I could upload this enormous file so it could be linked here for blog readers to have access to it?

Language Test for Ziad Fazah

Ziad has gone missing. In his last email he told me that he was moving to Southern Brazil, where he first lived when he moved from Lebanon. Unfortunately this project will be postponed indefinitely. That is really too bad since the slanderous video that I referred to in my post about him is back on youtube. I promise that Ziad and I have talked about this test in the past and that we have even met. Here is a picture of us when I visited him in Brazil in 2007.

Dynamite Comes in Small Packages

Though I will be writing again, I will not be able to write once or twice a week like I did before. I plan on producing a decent post once or twice a month. I hope that adding me to, or keeping me in, your feedburner will be an enjoyable experience for you.

I love the wisdom packed nicely into the Spanish phrase that says, Quien mucho abarca, poco aprieta (Jack of all trades, master of none or literally, He who embarks on much, grasps little). Like all good sayings that stand the test of time, it’s short, easy to understand and applies to many situations. In the past few months I have studied for and taken the written test to become a state certified court interpreter; I have become a sort of a layman Sunday school teacher/youth minister and enrolled in an international labor relations course. This is all in addition to my regular job of being a translator and running my own small internet translation agency. Needless to say, I’m feeling stretched quite thin. Last month I came to the sad realization that several things in my life were going to have to be set aside for a while and this blog is one of them.

Since my first article written in December of last year to my last interview with the super linguist Carlos do Amaral Freire I have absolutely loved researching and writing for this blog. My life has been enriched by learning new things in preparation for each article. I have had the privilege to correspond via email, MSN Messenger or Skype with extraordinary linguists like Stuart Jay Raj, Steve Kaufmann, Ziad Fazah, Alexander Arguelles and Carlos do Amaral Freire, among others. I have even had the chance to visit a couple of them in their homes and peruse their libraries.

As wonderful as these experiences have been they are no more gratifying to me than your readership. Some of you have been following this blog since December and some of you just started reading it a couple of weeks ago. In this busy period of human history time is perhaps the most precious of all assets. The fact that so many of you from all over the world have taken your time to read what I have written is an honor that I do not take for granted. I even took a picture of all of you so as not to forget you.

If you bookmarked this page or included it in your RSS feeder or Googlereader page then please do not delete it. Please check back! I developed the habit of writing down any and all topics for future posts that popped into my head right when they popped into my head. Because of this I still have several dozen topics that I would like to write about. I will not be deleting this blog or any of its posts. Feel free to read any of them as much as you like and to leave comments. You may also feel free to contact me whenever you like. I do not know whether I will be reduced to only writing one post a month or whether or not this is just a hiatus from which I will return to writing once or twice a week. Time will tell. One thing is certain though: I do not intend for this to be my last post.

Dr. Carlos do Amaral Freire is an extraordinary human being. Aside from learning one hundred and fifteen languages, Dr. Freire has made significant contributions to the field of linguistics (discovering a phonological relationship between Georgian and Aymara being just one of them). His poetry anthology, which includes poems from sixty different languages translated into his native Portuguese, has got people over at the Guinness World Book of Records talking about including him in an upcoming addition. He would be listed for being the one person who has translated poems from more languages into his native language than any other person. This morning he gave me the opportunity to conduct and record a telephone interview with him from his home in Southern Brazil.

A couple of months ago I was approached by Eleena, from the blog Voices en Español, who asked me if I would be interested being a guest writer from time to time on her blog. I was flattered and intrigued. I try to keep the focus of this blog to language learning, languages and polyglots. Three topics that often converge. I also publish exclusively in English to reach a wider audience. Writing for Voices en Español would give me the opportunity to write in both English and Spanish and take a more sociopolitical approach to certain linguistic topics.

My first post as a guest writer for Voices en Español is in English here and in Spanish here. It deals with the immigration controversy in the USA and how monolingual America is misunderstanding the problem and misdirecting its anger. Even if you are not American, I think that you can appreciate the issue since there is a similar situation in France, all of Scandinavia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Italy, Germany, Kuwait, Thailand, Canada, Great Britain, South Africa, etc. I invite you to read the post and tell me what you think on Eleena’s blog.

After watching the Olympics and the amazing feats of people like Michael Phelps it makes me reconsider what is possible for people to achieve. How fast can human beings swim; how fast can we run; how much weight can we lift? Similarly, it wouldn’t be strange for any linguist to wonder how many languages a human being could learn in the course of a lifetime.

It’s a Bigger Number than You Think

John Bowring was a British literary translator, economist, politician and diplomat whose service included being the fourth governor of Hong Kong. He claimed that he knew 200 languages and that he could speak 100 of them. Cardinal Joseph Caspar Mezzofanti knew more than 70 languages and could speak 38 without ever having left his homeland: Italy. In our day, the Brazilian linguist Dr. Carlos do Amaral Freire claims to know over 100 languages and the Lebanese language instructor Ziad Fazah claims 59. This article has information regarding great hyperpolyglots of the past and this article has information about the great polyglots that are still with us. You may find these numbers hard to believe but each one of these hyperpolyglots has publications or video recordings that suggest that their claims are true.

What Is Speaking a Language?

I used to naively think that this meant being able to say anything in the foreign language and in your own native language. That would mean that if you couldn’t explain how to change a carburetor, the difference between socialism and communism or the steps to buying a house in your target language, without making any obvious grammatical or pronunciation mistakes, then you couldn’t really say that you spoke it. That seems to be a bit demanding since there are many monolinguals that have a hard time doing that well in their own native language.

Even so, I get very annoyed with people who learn a dozen phrases in five languages and try to pass themselves off as cultured polyglots. I don’t think that we should claim to speak a language unless we can at least deal with native speakers well enough to say: I’m sorry. What is a wiggetybunket? I’ve never heard that word before. and then be able to understand the native speaker’s simple explanation. We should also be able to pronounce words well enough for native speakers to be able to understand almost every word we say. Lastly, we should have a good enough understanding of the grammar/structure of the language to form original sentences that are at least mostly correct. If you have a higher level of proficiency then so much the better. Qualifying the number of languages you speak is always a good idea. Statements like, I speak two fluently and am conversational in four others or, I know four and have studied eight are good examples of how to honestly portray your language abilities.

Studying, Forgetting and Remembering

Bowring and Mezzofanti died over 200 years ago but I have had the opportunity to personally deal with Freire and Fazah, as well as with a few other truly great linguists, and I imagine that the former pair were something like the latter. First of all, both Freire and Fazah have studied many languages that they have had no occasion to use in decades. They both admit that speaking them with no prior notice would be very difficult. Freire describes these languages as being deactivated. The curious thing is that they both claim that they can reactivate these languages after a few days of study. This means that if you were to drop them in Istanbul tomorrow and ask them to give a speech to an audience of locals they would probably struggle greatly with the task. If you were to give them a week’s notice they would probably receive praise for how well they spoke Turkish.

How Many Languages Is It Possible to Have a High Level of Fluency In?

That is what many people would really like to know. How many languages can you speak with near native fluency in and have an enormous vocabulary in? To date my experience has taught me that this number has everything to do with your lifestyle. If you have a life that not only gives you the opportunity but also necessitates that or greatly benefits from knowing thirteen languages well then you will probably speak thirteen languages well. If you have a very monolingual lifestyle then even maintaining one other language will most likely be quite difficult.

Limitless Possibilities

What if you studied a new language until you were proficient in it and then switched to another for ten years? Let’s say you’re not Mezzofanti and only became proficient in four languages during that time. Then life happens and you don’t touch the languages for another ten years. Your languages will have become quite deactivated but as soon as you choose to pick up an old book in one of them or spend more than a day or two in a country that speaks that language you will find that it all starts to come back to you. Will your time have been wasted all of those years ago? Only if being able to get around in a foreign country without the help of a third party is not enjoyable for you; only if reading good literature in its original form has no value; only if if learning foreign languages is not enjoyable for you.

How many languages can humans learn? They learn as many as they have time to study and practice. Scientists have yet to find any biological reason why everyone cannot learn twenty languages or even one hundred. Linguists like Bowring, Mezzofanti, Freire and Fazah suggest that our abilities are much greater than we think. As it is with so many things in life, we often become our greatest limitation or our greatest asset. Our attitudes, lifestyles, habits, practices, interests, hobbies, etc. are what usually what determine what we can achieve much more than our physical or mental capacity.