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How many unrecognized polyglots are there

  Tags: Polyglot
 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots Post Reply
28 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4  Next >>
aarontp
Groupie
United States
Joined 5077 days ago
94 posts - 139 votes 

 
 Message 9 of 28
15 July 2010 at 6:46pm | IP Logged 
zerothinking wrote:
There's no doubt going to be people who learn foreign languages
for a long time yet.
English is only spoken by a fraction of the world and if you want to go to a foreign
country and really talk to the locals human-to-human Google translate doesn't help
there
at all. There's probably several thousands of polyglots or more in the world and
millions
upon millions who speak three or four languages. The majority of the planet speaks two
languages. Monolinguals are still the odd ones out.


Are you certain of this? I would think most people in the world have a grasp of only
one language; while the educated people in most countries--with the exclusion of
America--would be more likely to speak several languages. Do most people in China,
Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, ect.--including farmers, construction workers,
janitors, hairdressers, store clerks, ect.--speak multiple languages? I'm not sure.
1 person has voted this message useful



johntm93
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5137 days ago
587 posts - 746 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 10 of 28
15 July 2010 at 7:05pm | IP Logged 
aarontp wrote:
zerothinking wrote:
There's no doubt going to be people who learn foreign languages
for a long time yet.
English is only spoken by a fraction of the world and if you want to go to a foreign
country and really talk to the locals human-to-human Google translate doesn't help
there
at all. There's probably several thousands of polyglots or more in the world and
millions
upon millions who speak three or four languages. The majority of the planet speaks two
languages. Monolinguals are still the odd ones out.


Are you certain of this? I would think most people in the world have a grasp of only
one language; while the educated people in most countries--with the exclusion of
America--would be more likely to speak several languages. Do most people in China,
Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, ect.--including farmers, construction workers,
janitors, hairdressers, store clerks, ect.--speak multiple languages? I'm not sure.
They might. Not because of studying languages, but because of growing up multilingual.

Wikipedia says us monolinguals are outnumbered
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Sennin
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5844 days ago
1457 posts - 1759 votes 
5 sounds

 
 Message 11 of 28
15 July 2010 at 7:35pm | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
I agree that the necessity of being a polyglot is dying out in these days where English
and Google Translate are rapidly conquering the world. But there will always be some
collectors out there, and because it has become so much easier to get study materials and
international contacts through the internet I guess that the number of 'silent' polyglots
may be a lot higher than expected.


Google translate has a long way to go, and besides it's no good in real life - you can only use it online.
1 person has voted this message useful





jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6719 days ago
4250 posts - 5710 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
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 Message 12 of 28
15 July 2010 at 7:37pm | IP Logged 
"Many countries, such as Belgium, which are officially multilingual, may have many monolinguals in their population. Officially monolingual countries, on the other hand, such as France, can have sizable multilingual populations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multilingual_countries_ and_regions
3 persons have voted this message useful



cordelia0507
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5648 days ago
1473 posts - 2176 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*
Studies: German, Russian

 
 Message 13 of 28
15 July 2010 at 8:31pm | IP Logged 
People from these types of backgrounds often get one or two languages "for free" or with relatively little effort:

People from very small countries
People who live in border areas
People who emigrate or whose parents are immigrants.

The larger the country, the less likely the person is to be good at languages obviously subject to some other factors, but in principle, from a European perspective;

Compare: Brits, French, Russians, Turks, Germans WITH Danes, Latvians, Luxembourgish, Dutch....


1 person has voted this message useful



Po-ru
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
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173 posts - 235 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Spanish, Norwegian, Mandarin, French

 
 Message 14 of 28
15 July 2010 at 10:38pm | IP Logged 
I would actually say that bi-linguals do outnumber mono-linguals. At least to some
degree, especially the younger generation. In North and South America there aren't many
bi-lingual countries per say, but in the rest of the world, I would say that most
countries do have some sort of bi-lingualism. India and China, two of the worlds most
populous countries are both bi-lingual countries. The bi-lingualism in India is
fantastic, and in China every area has at least their own dialect of Chinese which in
many cases is not so interchangable, let alone the amount of people who know English,
Cantonese, Korean, and other languages of Central Asia. In Central Asia, in places like
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, etc. I believe there is also a high level of bi-
lingualism as well, especially since all of those countries were once forced to speak
Russian.
1 person has voted this message useful



aarontp
Groupie
United States
Joined 5077 days ago
94 posts - 139 votes 

 
 Message 15 of 28
16 July 2010 at 1:48am | IP Logged 
Well, there you have it then. Here in the U.S., I surmise that very few people speak a
second language at a high level who aren't immigrants or who don't have immigrant
parents. Maybe that will change because of the influx of Spanish speakers; but public
schools are slashing budgets all over the country right now, so I wouldn't count on this
generation of U.S. teenagers being much more bilingual than the generation before. It
seems that most people need to learn a foreign language at an early age to ever become
proficient in it; not because they lose the ability; but because they will never acquire
the motivation to learn otherwise.       
1 person has voted this message useful



Declan1991
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 6249 days ago
233 posts - 359 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French

 
 Message 16 of 28
16 July 2010 at 1:40pm | IP Logged 
Po-ru wrote:
I would actually say that bi-linguals do outnumber mono-linguals. At least to some
degree, especially the younger generation.
I'd agree. When you consider India at 1.1 ish billion, a huge number of them are bilingual, as well as a substantial proportion of Europe's half a billion. If you add the diglossia in China (and some surrounding areas) and the spread of English in Asia in general, you fast approach half the world.

Edited by Declan1991 on 16 July 2010 at 1:41pm


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