Multilingualism
A multilingual person or a polyglot is someone with a high degree of proficiency in several languages. (A bilingual person can speak two languages fluently, a trilingual three.)
Record holders
The world's most prolific living polyglot is Ziad Fazah (born 1954) who apart from his mother tongue Arabic is reported to speak 55 other languages. Calculations as to how many languages now-dead polyglots spoke is difficult, since no one can offer an objective description of what is required to "know a language" fluently, but the greatest polyglot in history is believed to be 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 a more extensive knowledge of local London slang than the poet himself.
Noted polyglots
(6 or more languages):
- J.R.R. Tolkien - famous 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.
- James Joyce - famous Irish writer, spoke thirteen languages.
- Georges Dumézil - famous French philologist, knew up to forty languages.
- William James Sidis - child prodigy, knew around forty languages and could apparently learn a language in a day.
- Kenneth Hale, (1934?-2001), MIT linguistics professor (over 50 languages)
- Roman Jakobson - famous Russian linguist, one of the key figures of Structuralism
- Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti (1774-1849), Italian ecclesiast
- Sir John Bowring (1792-1872), British M.P.
- Harold Williams (1876-1928), New Zealandish journalist
- Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890), British explorer/orientalist
- Sir William Jones (1746-1794), British philologist
- Narsimha Rao (born 1921), Indian politician
- Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), French egyptologist
- Thomas Young (1773-1829), British scientist
- Pent Nurmekund (1906-1996), Estonian linguist
- Emil Krebs (1867-1930), German interpreter and translator
- Donald Kenrick
- Pico della Mirandola, Italian scholar of the Renaissance (said to have known 22 languages at the age of 18)
- Admirable Crichton, Scot musician, sportsman and linguist (said to have known 12 languages)
- Felix of Raguza, linguist
- H. K. Freher, linguist and singer (said to have known 36 languages)
- Mithridates (said to have known 25 languages)
- Cleopatra (said to have not required interpreters at receiving messengers)
- Comenius (Jan Amos Komenský), Moravian linguist, scholar of learning languages (said to have translated his own book into 15 languages)
- Rasmus Christian Rask, Danish philologist, could read in 35 languages
- Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, Hungarian scholar, explorer of Eastern languages, could read in 17 languages
- Heinrich Schliemann, German linguist, who discovered the ruins of Troy, spoke more than 8 languages
- Ármin Vámbéry, Hungarian linguist, spoke 16 languages
- Alexander Lénárd, Hungarian linguist, doctor, musician, art historian, spoke at least 9 languages
- Lajos Kada, Hungarian archbishop, spoke at least 10 languages
- André Martinet, French linguist, speaks 12 languages
- Otto Habsburg, Hungarian-German diplomat, speaks 8 languages
- Ferenc Kemény (Francis Kemeni), Hungarian translator, understands 40 languages, out of them writes in 24 languages, out of them speaks in 12 languages
- Aleksandr Naumenko, Russian translator, speaks 8 languages, translates from 4 further languages
- Gedeon Dienes, Hungarian consultant, speaks 11 languages
- Albert Lange Fliflet, Norwegian professor, speaks 8 languages
- Otto Back, Austrian, director of the Translators' College, speaks at least 10 languages
- Andrew Sugár, Hungarian translator, speaks 10 languages, understands 6 more languages
- Kevin Golden, British translator, speaks or understands 21 languages
- Julien Green, American-French, speaks at least 9 languages
- Géza Képes, Hungarian man of letters, understands 25 languages
- Niels Ege, Danish translator, translates into 6 languages, interprets from 15 languages, knows 5 further languages
- Sascha Felix, German, professor of Language Institute at Passau University, speaks at least 8 languages
- Jacques Berg, French historian and linguist, writer, speaks 11 languages
- Juan Alvaro Sanges d'Abadie, English politologist, speaks 6 languages
- Angelo Possimiers, Belgian translator of the European Parliament, speaks at least 7 languages
- Herbert Pilch, German scholar, speaks more than 11 languages
- Taneda Teruyoto, Japanese, interpreter, leader of a conference centre, speaks 20 languages
- Eva Toulouze, French, speaks or understands 11 languages
- Philip King, British, teacher of English in Birmingham, speaks 9 languages
- Kató Lomb, Hungarian translator and interpreter, spoke 17 languages, could read in 11 further languages
- Dr. José Rizal (1861-1896}, National hero of the Philippines, 22 languages including Latin, Spanish, French, etc.
- Zsuzsa Polgar, Hungarian, professional chess player, 7 languages
- Maria Gaetana Agnesi
