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How many languages to be a polyglot? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| lancemanion Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5571 days ago 150 posts - 166 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 89 of 123 23 August 2009 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Let's see. English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Hindi,
Arabic. The answer is 12. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Duke100782 Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Philippines https://talktagalog.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4487 days ago 172 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 90 of 123 08 September 2012 at 5:02am | IP Logged | ||
I'd like to subscribe to this way of thinking, because after all, the definition of a word relies on it's usage. We are trying to define what a polyglot is, so perhaps it's a good approach is to see how it is most commonly used and understood in the contemporary English language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 91 of 123 08 September 2012 at 6:49am | IP Logged | ||
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The word "polyglot" isn't just an English word (well, actually it is Greek) so if you use the consensus principle then you will have to operate with different limits, depending on the situation in each country or 'language sphere'. In Denmark knowledge of 3 or 4 languages wouldn't be unusual enough to warrant a special name. 4 og 5 might, but in places like Luxembourg or Bruxelles even that might be too common to mention. And there are countries like India where some people speak English and a number of other languages on a daily basis. Edited by Iversen on 08 September 2012 at 6:52am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 92 of 123 08 September 2012 at 8:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I've heard in South Africa it isn't unusual to find ordinary people in the streets who can speak 5 or 6 languages. I guess we are talking language acquisition here, rather than active learning, but it's something that's unknown in many parts of the world.
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 93 of 123 08 September 2012 at 10:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm having difficulty deciding whether to vote "At least 2" or "At least 3". Fortunately none of those are alternatives,
so I don't have to choose. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 94 of 123 08 September 2012 at 10:40am | IP Logged | ||
I once met a woman in Sweden who came from Malaysia. She spoke Malay, Cantonese, Hokkien, Mandarin, Hakka, English and had then learned Swedish after having moved here. And she wasn't even particularily interested in languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5566 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 95 of 123 08 September 2012 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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If a triangle can be called a polygon, then I think a trilingual person can be called a polyglot.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 96 of 123 08 September 2012 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | ||
Fats: saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated Chemical species: monovalent, polyvalent Material science: Polymorphism, the ability of a solid material to exist in more than one form or crystal structure It seems to me "poly" sometimes means "more than one". But of course, sometimes it means "more than two" and sometimes it means "bucketloads", so we can't really analyze it through etymology. Wikipedia says "One could say "four or more", since speakers of two or three languages are commonly called bilingual and trilingual, respectively. The term multilingual is similar […] Linguist Richard Hudson uses the term "hyperpolyglot" for a person who can speak six or more languages fluently." If six languages makes you a "hyperpolyglot", then four is probably the highest we can make the threshold. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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