#hyperpolyglots

[marimuntanya]

The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages

What can hyperpolyglots teach the rest of us?

[linguisticalities]

Meet the Hyperpolyglots, the People Who Can Mysteriously Speak Up to 32 Different Languages

Polyglot, as its Greek roots take no great pains to conceal, means the speaking of multiple languages. Somewhat less obvious is the meaning of the associated term hyperpolylot.

[linguisticalities]

(via The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages | The New Yorker)

[mirrorontheworld]

The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages

What can hyperpolyglots teach the rest of us?

[uncodar]

Epun is a language specifically constructed to break what are thought to be some rules of humans' inborn Universal Grammar. This paper discusses its character, and the results when a hyperpolyglot subject was asked to learn it.

[uncodar]

Article on hyperpolyglots featuring Change.org's own Patrick Chew

[horizonsicietailleurs-blog]

'The majority of the world is polyglot, and a large chunk of that majority speak five languages or more - the scale being bilingual (2), polyglot (3-5) and hyperpolyglot (5 and up).'

Soooo technically, I AM A HYPERPOLYGLOT! Put I won't stop there, 6 languages is not the limit for me. By next year, I'll be speaking 7 languages! Portuguese, here I come! LIMITLESS!! 

[praying-semantist]

Hyperpolyglots are more likely to be introverted than extroverted, which may come as a surprise to some. Hale’s son always said that, in his father’s case, languages were a cloak for a shy man. Another, Alexander Arguelles, has learned dozens of languages only to read them, saying “It’s rare that you have an interesting conversation in English. Why do I think it would be any better in another language?” Emil Krebs, an early-20th-century German diplomat who was also credited with knowing dozens of languages, was boorish in all of them. He once refused to speak to his wife for several months because she told him to put on a winter coat.

From The Gift of Tongues: What Makes People Learn Language After Language? in The Economist