INSPIRING POLYGLOTS

Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti (19 September 1774 15 March 1849) was an Italian cardinal and
famed linguist andhyperpolyglot. Born and educated in Bologna, he completed
his theological studies before he had reached the minimum age forordination as a priest; he was
ordained in 1797. In the same year, he became professor of Arabic at the University of Bologna.

Mezzofanti was well known for being a hyperpolyglot who fluently spoke thirty-nine languages.
[3]

Also, the study by Russell indicates that many of the dialects are so different that they actually

should be seen as a separate language. Classifying the languages and dialects according to today's
language system, over 150 years later, would be a separate study. The list, in the conclusion of his
study:
"Languages frequently tested, and spoken with rare excellence."
1. Biblical Hebrew
2. Rabbinical Hebrew
3. Arabic
4. Aramaic
5. Coptic
6. Ancient Armenian
7. Modern Armenian
8. Persian

9. Turkish
10.Albanian
11. Maltese
12.Ancient Greek
13.Modern Greek
14.Latin
15.Italian
16.Spanish
17.Portuguese
18.French
19.German
20.Swedish
21.Danish
22.Dutch
23.English
24.Illyrian
25.Russian
26.Polish
27.Czechish, or Bohemian
28.Hungarian
29.Chinese

"Stated to have been spoken fluently, but hardly sufficiently tested."

1. Syriac
2. Ge'ez
3. Amharic
4. Hindustani
5. Gujarati
6. Basque
7. Wallachian
8. Algonquin

Emil Krebs (15 November 1867 in Freiburg in Schlesien 31 March 1930 in Berlin) was a
German polyglot and sinologist. He mastered 68 languages in speech and writing and studied 120
other languages.

Harold Whitmore Williams (6 April 1876 18 November 1928) was a New Zealand journalist,
foreign editor of The Times and polyglot who is considered to have been one of the most
accomplished polyglots in history, said to have known over 58 languages a few are English, Zulu,
Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Maori, Samoan, Tongan, Fijian,
Russian, Polish, Niue, Swahili, Dobuan, Hausa, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Old Irish, Tagalog,
Hungarian, Czech, Coptic, Egyptian, Hittite, Albanian, Basque, Chinese and other related dialects.

Powell Alexander Janulus (born 1939) is a Canadian polyglot who was entered into the Guinness
World Records in 1985 for fluency in 42 languages.[1] To qualify, he had to pass a two-hour
conversational fluency test with a native speaker of each of the 42 different languages he spoke at
that time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDgFrnrGgqc

Early life[edit]
Powell Janulus was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was exposed to
many Slavic languages as a child. His Polish mother spoke six languages while his Lithuanian father
spoke at least four. He could speak 13 languages fluently at the age of 18. He attended Asian
Studies at the University of British Columbia where he attempted to learn Mandarin. In an interview
he states that he struggled with the academic teaching style.[2] He became curious about the process
of language learning and in the way that children learn languages so easily.[3] He attempted to
learn Chinese by having conversations and talking with as many Mandarin speakers as possible. [4]
During his early twenties, he began to develop his methodology for fast language acquisition. In his
thirties, he became a court translator and got paid for each language he could translate. He worked
to learn two or three languages per year, as each language allowed him to earn more at his job. He
was authorized by the Provincial Court of British Columbia, as a court translator in 28 languages. He
states that he later became interested in language variations and could quickly learn related
languages such as Spanish and Portuguese. In his forties he expanded his repertoire to include less
common languages such as Tibetan, Romani (Gypsy),Inuit (Eskimo) and Swahili. Later in life he
opened The Geneva Language Institute, a language school in Vancouver.

World record holder for fluency[edit]

In 1985, Powell was entered into the Guinness World Records for spoken fluency in 42 languages.
To qualify, he had to pass a two-hour conversational fluency test with a native speaker of each
language he spoke at that time. This testing took place over a one-month period. Powell states that
he considers himself skilled in 64 languages and says that he has studied at least 80 languages in
total. In an interview, Powell claims that the late John Candy hired him to help him speak Punjabi for
the movie Who's Harry Crumb? He once appeared on the The Tonight Show where talk show
host Johnny Carson invited speakers of 48 different languages to test Janulus.[5]
It was reported that Powell speaks the following 42
languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, German, Dutch, Frisian, Norwegian, Da
nish,Swedish, Icelandic, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Kashubian, L
usatian, Wendish, Belarusian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Hindi, Punjabi,Urdu, Armenian, Sinhalese, Tib
etan, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Croatian, Greek, Turkish, Kurdish, Finnish, Korean and Persi

an. This list does not include English, which is his native language, or the many other languages in
which he has some proficiency.[5]

Recent years[edit]
Powell was reported to have died in 2006, however this was inaccurate. In an interview he stated
that his disappearance was due to a stroke he suffered at that time. He reported that he lost his
ability to speak English, due to brain damage. He claimed to have regained his English spoken
ability by speaking Dutch with a nurse. He is currently retired and living in White Rock, British
Columbia.[4] In August 2013, he was again the subject of a language testing event during which
spoke at least 20 languages and modeled the learning process with Korean and Tagalog.

Alexander Sabino Argelles (often spelt Arguelles[a]) is an American linguist notable for his work
on Korean. He is highly committed to the learning of foreign languages, and was profiled in Michael
Erard's Babel No More.[1] He currently teaches at the American University in the Emirates.

Born

Education

30 April 1964 (age 51)

Columbia University (B.A.)

University of Chicago (M.A., Ph.D.)

Johan Vandewalle (born February 15, 1960 in Bruges) is a Belgian philologist and civil engineer. In
1987 the Polyglot of Flanders/Babel Prize judged him as able to speak 31 living languages and in
1990 Ankara University gave him an award for research on methods of teaching the Turkish
language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_polyglots
Notable living polyglots[edit]
The 2012 book Babel No More[4] by Michael Erard highlights some polyglots around the globe,
including Alexander Argelles. Canada's Global TV also brought out a piece on hyperpolyglots on
their 16x9 show, entitled "Word Play",[5] featuring Canadian polyglots Axel Van Hout, Alexandre
Coutu, Steve Kaufmann, James Chang and Keith Swayne. Tim Doner (US) and Richard Simcott
(UK) also appear in the programme to describe their experiences speaking multiple languages.

Africa

Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, a Ghanaian cardinal of the Catholic Church is able to speak
English, Fante, French, Italian, German, and Hebrew, in addition to understanding Latin and
Greek.[6]

Dikembe Mutombo, a former NBA player, is able to speak English, French, Portuguese,
Spanish, Tshiluba, Swahili, Lingala, and two other central African languages. [7]

Hassan al-Turabi, a Sudanese Islamist leader, is fluent in Arabic, English, French, German,
and many European languages.[8]

Ziad Fazah, born in Liberia, and now living in Lebanon, is known for his claim of being able
to speak, read, and understand 59 languages.

The Americas

Alexander Argelles, an American linguist. He speaks perhaps a dozen languages and has a
reading knowledge of many more. He was profiled in Michael Erard's Babel No More.[9]

Powell Janulus (born 1939) is a notable living Polyglot, also known as "the most fluent
person on earth." In 1985, Powell Janulus was entered into the Guinness Book of World
Records for fluency in 42 languages.

Timothy Doner, then a sixteen-year-old New York student, was featured in the New York
Times for his ability to speak over twenty languages to various levels, including English, French,
Hausa, Wolof, Russian, German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Arabic, Pashto, Persian, Mandarin, Italian,
Turkish, Indonesian, Dutch, Xhosa, Swahili, Hindi and Ojibwe.[10] In June 2012, Doner published

a 15-minute video of himself speaking twenty languages on his YouTube channel "PolyglotPal".
[11]

Dr. Carlos do Amaral Freire, a Brazilian scholar, linguist, and translator has publicly stated
that he has studied over 100 languages.[12] He has translated sixty languages into Portuguese
and is engaged in a project that is more than forty years old to study two new languages every
year.[13]

Asia

Swami Rambhadracharya, a Hindu religious leader and Sanskrit scholar based

in Chitrakoot, India, can speak twenty-two languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, English,
French, Bhojpuri, Maithili, Oriya, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Magadhi, Awadhi, and Braj.
Rambhadracharya has been blind since the age of two months and received no formal
education until the age of seventeen. He has never used braille, or any other aid, to learn or
compose his works and has authored more than 100 books.[14][15][16]

George Fernandes, an Indian politician who is well-versed in ten languages: Konkani,

English, Hindi, Tulu, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Latin. As of April 2013,
Fernandes is suffering from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.[17]

Ali Manikfan is an Indian marine researcher, ecologist, shipbuilder, and a polyglot.[18]

[19]

Besides his mother tongue Divehi (Mahl), he learned English, Hindi and Malayalam, Arabic,

Latin, French, Russian, German, Sinhalese, Persian, Sanskrit, Tamil and Urdu. His other areas
of interest are marine biology, marine research, geography, astronomy, social science, traditional
shipbuilding, education, fisheries, agriculture and horticulture.

Mickey Curtis, a Japanese actor, singer, and television celebrity born to Japanese-English
parents. He speaks Japanese, English, French, German, Italian and Thai. [20]

Asin is an Indian actress who can speak Malayalam (her mother-tongue), Tamil, Telugu,
Hindi, French, English, Sanskrit, Italian, Marathi, Spanish and German.[21]

Prakash Raj is an Indian actor who can speak Tulu (his mother tongue), Kannada, Tamil,
Telugu, Marathi, Hindi and Malayalam.[22]

Kamal Haasan, an Indian actor who can speak Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam
and English.[23]

R. Sarathkumar, an Indian actor who can speak Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi,
Russian and English fluently.[24]

Priya Anand, an Indian actress who can speak Tamil, Telugu, English, Bengali, Hindi, Marathi
and Spanish languages.[25]

Shilpa Shetty, an Indian actress who fluently speaks English, Hindi, Tulu (Mother Tongue),
Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Urdu and French. [26]

Europe

Johan Vandewalle is a Belgian philologist and civil engineer. In 1987 the Polyglot of
Flanders/Babel Prize judged him as able to speak 31 living languages.

Frans Timmermans, a Dutch politician and diplomat, the First Vice-President of the European
Commission, was Minister of Foreign Affairs (from 2012 to 2014). Speaks seven
languages; Dutch, Limburgish, English, German, French, Italian and Russian.[27][28]

Zdeno Chra is a Slovakian professional ice hockey player in the NHL who speaks seven
languages. These are: Slovak, Czech, Polish, Swedish, Russian, German and English. [29]

Mio Juzmeski is a Macedonian writer who speaks nine languages: Macedonian, Bulgarian,
Serbian, English, French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish and German. [30]

Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Armenian football player.[31] As of 2013 he spoke five languages

(Armenian, Russian, English, French, Portuguese) and was learningGerman.[32]

Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Armenian politician, first president of independent Armenia. He speaks

at least seven languages (Armenian, Assyrian,[33] Russian, French, English, German, Arabic) and
has published academic papers in three (Armenian, Russian, French). [34]

Benny Lewis, an Irish traveller who speaks more than a dozen languages including Spanish,
French, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Irish, and American sign language. He has given a
number of TEDx talks and has written a book about language learning published by
HarperCollins.[35][36][37]

Connie Nielsen, a Danish actress who speaks eight languages: Danish, English, French,
German, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, and a little Spanish. [38]

Ioannis Ikonomou a translator for the European Commission in Brussels knows 32

languages including Greek, English, German, Italian, Russian, East African Swahili, Hebrew,
Arabic, Mandarin and Bengali, plus some dead languages like Old Church Slavic. [39]

Richard Simcott born in Chester in the UK and currently living in Macedonia knows and
speaks 20 languages including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Latvian,
Russian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Swedish, Chinese and ladino. [40]

Alessandro Tel : an 18-year-old polyglot living in Belgium who was featured in the French
speaking Belgian TV RTBF la une on 3 October 2015 for his ability to speak 28 languages, 6
which he speaks fluently. Moreover, a video of him practising 28 languages is available on
YouTube.

Kostyantyn Tyschenko (uk) Ukrainian linguist, author of numerous works, presented with
Order of the White Rose of Finland, as well as Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Teaches
about 20 languages to students of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, while fluently
speaking more than 40. Founder of the Linguistic Educational Museum of Kiev.

Notable deceased reputed polyglots[edit]

The following list consists of deceased individuals who are associated with claims of polyglotism, by
year of birth.

Mithridates VI of Pontus (13463 BC) could supposedly speak the languages of all 22
nations within his kingdom.[41]

Cleopatra VII (6930 BC), the last ruling Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, could, according to the
Roman biographer Plutarch, speak nine languages and was the only member of her dynasty
who could speak Egyptian as well as her native Greek. [42]

al-Farabi (872950/951), a Persian polymath who mastered over 70 languages.[43]

Thotagamuwe Sri Rahula Thera (14081491)[44] was a Buddhist monk and an eminent
scholar,[45] who lived in the 15th century in Sri Lanka.[46] He was a multi-linguist who was given the
title "Shad Bhasha Parameshwara" due to his mastery in six oriental languages which prevailed
in the Indian subcontinent.[47]

Athanasius Kircher (1601?1680), German Jesuit polymath and scholar. Claimed knowledge
of 12 languages; among them: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic,Syriac, Coptic, as well as several
modern languages. He also pioneered the study of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and Classical
Chinese characters.[citation needed]

John Milton (16081674), an English poet who is famous for the epic work Paradise Lost,
could speak English, Latin, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, Aramaic, Syriac,
and Old English. Milton coined 630 terms in the English language.[48]

Adam Frantiek Kollr (17181783), a Slovak writer, spoke Slovak, Czech, Serbian, Polish,
Rusin, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, German,
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Turkish, Chinese, Persian, Arabic, Italian, Romanian, French, Dutch, and
English.[49]

Noah Webster (17581843), a lexicographer, English spelling reformer, and author,

mastered 23 languages.[citation needed]

Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti (17741849), an Italian Cardinal, spoke the following 39

languages fluently:[50] Biblical Hebrew, Rabbinical Hebrew, Arabic, Coptic, Ancient Armenian,
Modern Armenian, Persian, Turkish, Albanian, Maltese, Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Latin,
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, English, Illyrian,
Russian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Chinese, Syriac, Ge'ez, Hindustani, Amharic, Gujarati,
Basque, Romanian, and Algonquin.

Jean-Franois Champollion (17901832), a French classical scholar, philologist,

and orientalist, was the first to decipher the inscription on the Rosetta Stone, an achievement
that facilitated the translation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphsthe titles "Father of
Egyptology"[51] and "the founder of scientific Egyptology" have since been bestowed upon
Champollion.[52] He specialized in Oriental languages while he was a student at the College de
France between 1807 and 1809, and his linguistic repertoire eventually consisted
of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Pahlavi, Arabic, Persian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Zend, and his native French.
[51][52][53]

Friedrich Engels (18201895), a German-English industrialist, social scientist, and cofounder

of Marxist theory alongside Karl Marx, mastered over 20 languages.[54]

Sir Richard Francis Burton (18211890) was a British explorer, geographer, translator, writer,
soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet,fencer, and diplomat; his
extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures amounted to having "mastered at least 25
languages or 40, if distinct dialects are counted." [55]

Heinrich Schliemann (18221890) was a German businessman and a pioneer of field

archaeology. He was an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of
Homer. Schliemann was an archaeological excavator of Hissarlik, now presumed to be the site
of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns. Mastered over 15 languages.

Georg Sauerwein (18311904) was a German publisher, polyglot, poet, and linguist.
Sauerwein was the greatest linguistic prodigy of his time and mastered about 75 languages,
including: Latin, ancient Greek, modern Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, Spanish, Basque,
Portuguese, English, Welsh, Cornish, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic, Dutch, Danish,
Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Sami, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian,
Belarusian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Sorbian, Serbian, Croatian, Hungarian,
Romanian, Albanian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Chuvash (a Turkic language), Tamil, Kashgar (spoken
in Siberia, similar to the language of Uzbekistan), Kumyk (spoken in Siberia), Persian, Armenian,
Georgian, Sanskrit, Romani, Hindustani, Ethiopian, Tigrinya (another language of Ethiopia),
Coptic or ancient Egyptian, Arabic, Malagasy (the language of Madagascar), Malay, Samoan,
Hawaiian, different dialects of Chinese, and Aneitum (a language spoken in the New Hebrides).

James Augustus Henry Murray (18371915), was a Scottish lexicographer, instrumental in

the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, and its primary editor from 1879 until his death. In
an application letter written to the British Museum Library in November 1866, he claimed abilities
in Italian, French, Catalan, Spanish, and Latin, and "in a less degree" Portuguese, Provenal,
Dutch, German, Flemish, and Danish. The letter also referred to Murray's study of Celtic,
Russian, Persian, Hebrew, and Syriac, among other languages and dialects. [56]

Yaqub Sanu (18391912), Egyptian journalist.

Arthur Rimbaud (18541891) French Symbolist poet. After retiring from writing he went on
ambitious language learning program while traveling around Europe and the Middle East;
mastering Latin, Ancient and Modern Greek, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Dutch,
Arabic, Hindi, Amharic,[57] as well as developing a working knowledge of several native African
languages while living in Ethiopia.[58]

Chiragh Ali (18441895), an Islamic scholar who, apart from his native Urdu,
mastered Persian, Arabic, English, French, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and Greek.[59]

Nikola Tesla (18561943), Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical

engineer, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating
current (AC) electricity supply system. Read and memorized many entire books, and was
capable of speaking eight languages: Serbo-Croatian, Czech, English, French, German,
Hungarian, Italian, and Latin.[60]

Ludwig Zamenhof (18591917), creator of the constructed language Esperanto, spoke 11

languages besides his own: Aramaic, English, French, German,Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Polish, his
native Russian, Volapk, and Yiddish. He also had an interest in Arabic, Italian, and Lithuanian,
though he never claimed fluency in those.[citation needed]

Jos Rizal (18611896), was a Filipino nationalist, writer and revolutionary. He was able to
speak 22 languages including Spanish, French, Latin, Greek, German, Portuguese, Italian,
English, Dutch, and Japanese. Rizal also made translations from Arabic, Swedish, Russian,
Chinese, Greek, Hebrew and Sanskrit. He translated the poetry of Schiller into his
native Tagalog. In addition he had at least some knowledge of Malay, Chavacano, Cebuano,
Ilocano, and Subanun.[61][62][63][64]

Rza Tevfik Blkba (18691949), a Turkish philosopher and politician, who "...was
proficient in eight languages, including Arabic, English, French, German,Italian, Latin, Persian,
and Spanish"[65] in addition to Hebrew, Albanian and Armenian.[66]

Sri Aurobindo (18721950), an Indian philosopher who, apart from his native Bengali and
educational English, knew ancient Greek, Latin, French, German,Italian, Spanish and
other Indian languages like Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati.[67]

Harold Williams (18761928), a New Zealand journalist and linguist, spoke more than 58
languages.[68]

Hrachia Adjarian (18761953), Armenian linguist. He spoke Armenian, Greek, Hebrew,

French, English, German, Italian, Persian, Latin, Sanskrit, and Laz.[69]

Sir Mohammed Iqbal (b. 9 November 1877) perhaps one of the greatest poets of
the Persian language. Among his work of poetry, Asrar-e-Khudi, appeared in the Persian
language in 1915, and other books of poetry include Rumuz-i-Bekhudi, Payam-iMashriq and Zabur-i-Ajam. Amongst these his best known Urdu works are Bang-i-Dara, Bal-i-

Jibril, Zarb-i Kalim and a part of Armughan-e-Hijaz. Mohammed Iqbal was fluent
in Persian, Panjabi, Arabic, Hindi, Latin, Greek andEnglish.

Martin Buber (18781965), German philosopher, who "spoke German, Hebrew, Yiddish,
Polish, English, French and Italian and read, in addition to these, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Dutch
and other languages".[70]

Ho Chi Minh (18901969), the Vietnamese Communist leader, became fluent in French,
English, Russian, Cantonese, and Mandarin, in addition to his nativeVietnamese, through study
and many years spent in exile.[71]

Harinath De (18771911) could speak 34 languages including many eastern and western
languages such as Chinese, Tibetan, Pali, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, English, Greek, Latin, out of
which he was M.A in 14.

Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan (18931963) could speak 36 languages and wrote in more
than 6.[72]

William James Sidis (18981944), an American child prodigy who knew nine languages
(Latin, Greek, German, French, Russian, Hebrew, Turkish andArmenian) when eight-years old
and claimed to speak about forty languages shortly before his death. He also created his
own artificial language, which was called Vendergood. Although Sidis was supposed to have
an IQ between 250 and 300 measured through psychological analysis, this was never
confirmed.[73]

Vladimir Nabokov (18991977) claimed to be trilingual "in the proper sense of writing, not
only speaking, three languages". He wrote in English, Russian, and French. [74]

Sukarno (19011970), the first President of Indonesia, was able to

speak Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, Indonesian, Dutch, German, English, French, Arabic,
and Japanese.[75]

John von Neumann (19031957), mathematician. While better known for his work in
mathematics, Von Neumann was a polyglot; fluent
in French, German,Latin, Greek, English and Yiddish, as well as his native Hungarian.[citation needed]

S. Srikanta Sastri (19041974), eminent Indian Historian, Indologist, and epigraphist at the
University of Mysore, was fluent in over fourteen languages, including Greek, Latin, Hittite,
Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit.[76][77]

Nathan Leopold Jr. (19041971) was born to a wealthy Jewish family. He spoke his first
words at 4 months. He reportedly had an intelligence quotient of 210, and claimed to have been
able to speak 27 languages by the time he was 19.[78] More likely he was only fluent in 9 or 10
languages.[79] He was involved in the murder of Robert "Bobby" Franks with friend Richard Loeb.
He served in prison for 33 years before receiving parole.

Joo Guimares Rosa (19081967) was a Brazilian writer, considered by many to be one of
the greatest Brazilian novelists born in the 20th century, and a self-taught polyglot. In a letter he
claimed to speak Portuguese, German, French, English, Spanish, Italian, Esperanto, and
some Russian. He also claimed to readSwedish, Dutch, Latin and Greek, but with the use of a
dictionary. He also professed some understanding of German dialects, and study of Hungarian,
Arabic, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, Polish, Tupi, Hebrew, Japanese, Czech, Finnish,
and Danish grammar. Guimares Rosa suggested that studying other languages helped him
understand the national language of Brazil more deeply, but that he studied primarily for
pleasure.[80]

Muhammad Hamidullah (19082002), an Islamic scholar, knew 22 languages and

learned Thai at 85.

Uku Masing (19091985), an Estonian linguist, theologian, ethnologist, and poet, claimed to
know approximately 65 languages and could translate 20 languages. [81]

Kat Lomb (19092003), a Hungarian interpreter, translator, and one of the

first simultaneous interpreters in the world, was able to interpret fluently in 10 languages.[82]

George Campbell (19122004), a Scottish polyglot and a linguist at the BBC, who could
speak and write fluently in at least 44 languages and had a working knowledge of perhaps 20
others.[83]

Meredith Gardner (19122002), an American linguist and codebreaker. German, Old High
German, Middle High German, Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Lithuanian, Spanish, French, Italian,
Russian, and Japanese.[84]

Enoch Powell (19121998), an English politician, classical scholar, linguist, and poet.
English, French, German, Italian, Urdu, Modern Greek, Classical Greek, Latin, Welsh, Russian,
Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew.[85]

Ahmad Hasan Dani (19202009), a Pakistani intellectual, archaeologist, historian, and

linguist, who mastered 35 languages.

Christopher Lee (19222015), English actor, singer, author, and World War II veteran who
spoke fluent English, Italian, French, Spanish and German, and was moderately proficient in
Swedish, Russian and Greek.[86]

Michael Ventris (19221956), an English linguist and architect. French, German, Swiss
German, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Italian, Spanish, some Turkish, and Modern Greek.
[87]

P. B. Sreenivas (19302013), an Indian singer and poet, spoke and wrote in eight languages,
including Kannada, English and Urdu.[88]

Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (19301989), a Kurdish political activist and economist,

mastered eight languages that included his mother tongue.[89][90][91]

Kenneth L. Hale (19342001) was an American professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology. He spoke over 50 languages, includingBasque, Dutch,
French, Hopi, Irish Gaelic, Japanese, Jemez, Lardil, Navajo, O'odham, Polish, Spanish, Warlpiri,
and Wmpanak.[92][93]

P. V. Narasimha Rao (19212004), who served as the tenth Prime Minister of India (1991
1996), was a polyglot, who could fluently speak 7 Indian
languagesTelugu, Marathi, Hindi, Urdu, Oriya, Tamil and Bengali and 6 Foreign
languages English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, and Persian.<[94]

Sergei Starostin (19532005), a Russian linguist, recognised as one of the creators of

hypothetical Sino-Caucasian language family. He claimed to have known up to 15 languages.[95]

Shahab Ahmed (1966-2015), an university professor and scholar of Islam from Pakistan who
was "master of perhaps 15 languages".[96]

http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com/2012/07/29/10-most-impressive-polyglots-in-world-history/
(Except for the first one)