Which person can speak the most languages?

[diggleblop]

Who is the person known to speak the most languages and how many does he/she speak?

[Shagnasty]

Before you can answer the question, there needs to be criteria for how well each language needs to be spoken before it counts.

[Doctor Who]

I agree with Shagnasty. Here, however, is Wiki's list of polyglots. That should get us started.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Shagnasty

Before you can answer the question, there needs to be criteria for how well each language needs to be spoken before it counts.

...and what constitutes a "language".

[Exapno Mapcase]

We also need clarification whether the person needs to be currently alive. The OP was in the present tense, but that might not have been meant to be restrictive.

[diggleblop]

Yeah, I mean which person (currently alive and on record) can speak the most languages. Language meaning, a way different people communicate verbally with each other.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by diggleblop

Language meaning, a way different people communicate verbally with each other.

That's a terrible definition of "language", but it's your OP so if that's the question you're asking, good luck with it. I doubt there is a factual answer, though.

[silenus]

I'll start the bidding with Sir Richard F. Burton (1821–1890) - 29 European, African and Asian languages.

[Doctor Who]

Originally Posted by silenus

I'll start the bidding with Sir Richard F. Burton (1821–1890) - 29 European, African and Asian languages.

...

Look back at the OP's clarification. Richard Burton (as per your post) is most definitely dead.

[Bryan Ekers]

I speak fluent Rigellian.

I'm speaking it now.

[silenus]

Originally Posted by Doctor Who

...

Look back at the OP's clarification. Richard Burton (as per your post) is most definitely dead.

"I got better!" - RFB

[Scylla]

Originally Posted by silenus

I'll start the bidding with Sir Richard F. Burton (1821–1890) - 29 European, African and Asian languages.

Damn you! I know that! Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to use that fact in a discussion.


Shit.

[diggleblop]

Originally Posted by John Mace

That's a terrible definition of "language", but it's your OP so if that's the question you're asking, good luck with it. I doubt there is a factual answer, though.

Are you serious? I mean, number two of Websters says exactly what I stated:

2 a : form or manner of verbal expression;


Please explain how you think it's "terrible" definition. Also, please explain how you don't know what I mean? Speak to me in a language I can understand.

[Dr. Drake]

I nominate myself, but I am 100% certain a large number of dopers can do better.

I speak one language natively, three more fairly fluently, a fifth conversationally, and #s 6 & 7 haltingly. I can communicate at a fairly elementary level (say, a year or two of college language X) in about three more, for a total of:

one
four
five
seven
(or)
ten

depending on how you count. I assume you're going for speaking ability rather than reading, which is a different ballgame. (I know people who can read over a hundred different languages, though I am not one of them!)

But all of these languages are Indo-European (and thus have similar grammars and a large overlap in vocabulary). It really is true that the more languages you learn, the easier they are to pick up. #2 was hard. #3 was sort of hard. #4 was pretty easy. Oh, and I have an obvious American accent in all of them.

[Exapno Mapcase]

It's polite to read links before you post. Doctor Who's Wiki link lists:

Ziad Fazah born June 10, 1954, claimed to speak 63 languages.

Rolf Theil Endresen, Norwegian linguistics professor (over 50 languages)

Carlos do Amaral Freire has mastered more than a hundred languages, published translations from 60 languages, but is a fluent speaker of 30. He still studies one or two new languages every two years.

István Dabi, Hungarian translator, translated from 103 languages

Ferenc Kemény (Francis Kemeni), Hungarian translator, understands 40 languages, writes in 24 languages out of them, speaks 12 languages out of them

All of them are listed above Sir Richard Burton.

[ThisSpaceForRent]

My ex siter-in-law can converse fluetently in english, croatian, bosnian, russian, sapanish, french, italian and japanees...and she is a REAL NASA rocket scientist.

does she win?

tsfr

[Ruken]

Originally Posted by diggleblop

Are you serious? I mean, number two of Websters says exactly what I stated:

2 a : form or manner of verbal expression;


Please explain how you think it's "terrible" definition. Also, please explain how you don't know what I mean? Speak to me in a language I can understand.

The problem here is how do you define one language from another? Are Serbian and Croation different languages? How about the "dialects" of Chinese? Standard American English (if there is such a thing) and Black Vernacular English? That definition is just fine for defining language in general, but it doesn't do us much good in trying to figure out how many languages someone speaks, because we don't know what counts as a separate language.

[diggleblop]

A language in the sense of what I'm asking is this, if one group of people speak to each other and understand each other, that's a language. If they speak the same language to a group of people living say...30 miles away from them and that group doesn't understand them, then that must mean that group speaks a different language.

If the actual words don't make sense to another group living in the same area, then it's is considered a different language. Dialect doesn't count. What I mean by that is, British and American people both speak English and a lot of words may be altered, but it's still English.

[Dr. Drake]

Originally Posted by Exapno Mapcase

It's polite to read links before you post.

Exapno Mapcase: I did read the link, thank you. I apologize if my post was rude; that was certainly not my intent.

I was trying to respond taking into account both the OP and post #2. The Wikipedia article only lists "highest claims," and in most cases it doesn't attempt to define how the languages are counted and thus whether they meet the criterion of the OP: actually speaking the languages.

I think most professional lingusts could reasonably claim a pretty high place on that list. I was thinking of V. V. Ivanov when I mentioned someone who could read over a hundred; I would back him against István Dabi in a translation fight any day. I suspect he is also fluent in at least a dozen, but I don't know how to verify that.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by diggleblop

Are you serious? I mean, number two of Websters says exactly what I stated:

2 a : form or manner of verbal expression;


Please explain how you think it's "terrible" definition. Also, please explain how you don't know what I mean? Speak to me in a language I can understand.

Because it does not address the thorniest issue of all-- the divison between a dialect and a language. If I speak Croatian and Serbian, does that count as two languages? If I can sign ASL, that is not included in your definition.

[Hari Seldon]

I heard a guy interviewed who claimed to speak about 100. He said it got easier after the first 30.

There was a linguist named Kenneth Pike (now deceased, I believe) who put on a language-learning demo at the Modern Language Association every year. I didn't witness it, but it was described to me that he sat at a table with a native speaker of a language he didn't know and there were a few natural artifacts on the table: an apple, a stick, a stone, that sort of thing. After a half hour he was carrying on a simple conversation with him.

[CookingWithGas]

I know Fortran, PL/1, SNOBOL, ALGOL, 360 Assembly, Ada83, C, C++, and Java.

Do they count?

[tiltypig]

My coworker doesn't rank anywhere near the polyglots from wikipedia, but I'm still very impressed by him.
I work at a translation company, and he has done QA work for us (so works at a professional level) in:
French
Italian
German
Spanish
Portuguese
Dutch
Danish
Swedish
Norwegian
Finnish
Greek
Russian
Turkish

plus he is a native English speaker.
I believe he may also speak a few, like Latin and Welsh, that we don't handle so I don't know about.

[Alive At Both Ends]

Originally Posted by diggleblop

A language in the sense of what I'm asking is this, if one group of people speak to each other and understand each other, that's a language. If they speak the same language to a group of people living say...30 miles away from them and that group doesn't understand them, then that must mean that group speaks a different language.

The problem with this is that there aren't nice sharp geographical boundaries between languages. People living near the border between two countries speaking different languages often understand the people living a few miles away on the other side of the border quite well. If A and B can understand each other, and B and C can also understand each other, it does not imply that A could understand C. The differences add up and eventually you have an undeniably different language, but A would say B spoke the same language as him, and B would say the same of C.

[Nava]

Originally Posted by diggleblop

A language in the sense of what I'm asking is this, if one group of people speak to each other and understand each other, that's a language. If they speak the same language to a group of people living say...30 miles away from them and that group doesn't understand them, then that must mean that group speaks a different language.

If the actual words don't make sense to another group living in the same area, then it's is considered a different language. Dialect doesn't count. What I mean by that is, British and American people both speak English and a lot of words may be altered, but it's still English.

According to your first paragraph, Jamaican and Floridian appear to be different languages. OTOH, Spanish and Italian aren't, but I wouldn't say that where any Italians or Hispanics other than yours truly can hear it.