# How many languages can the average human speak? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 16, 2002, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993 "2002-11-16T06:17:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/41 "2016-01-14T02:27:10Z")
jtur88 writes: \> If something is written in “Chinese”, there is no way to know if the writer speaks \> Mandarin or Cantonese. This is not quite true. The Chinese that you usually see written is actually a written form of Mandarin. There are differences between the various Chinese languages that make it impossible to have a set of characters so that you could just have each character matched to one word in each of the languages. Also, there are differences in the grammars of the languages that mean that the characters wouldn’t all be in the same order if you just wrote the characters in the order of the words in each of the languages. Because of this, there are actually characters that are specific to just one of the languages. There are Cantonese characters that are used for words that don’t exist in Mandarin. The same is true in Hokkien to a lesser degree. More informally, there are characters (which aren’t quite standardized) for the other Chinese languages. If a speaker of one of the non-Mandarin Chinese languages doesn’t try to make his writing look like Mandarin, it can often be told which language he speaks. The reason that most of the time you can’t tell which language they speak is that as non-Mandarin speakers learn to read and write, they gradually learn to change their writing style to make the writing closer in characters and grammar to Mandarin. This is explained to some extent here: > **[Written Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese)** > > Written Chinese (Chinese: 中文; pinyin: zhōngwén) comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; that is, a character generally represents one syllable of spoken Chinese and may be a word on its own or a part of a polysyllabic word. The characters themselves are often composed of parts that may represent physical objects, abstract notions, or pronunci Va... Incidentally, English and American Sign Language and British Sign Language are three completely different languages. They have different vocabularies and different grammars. When someone translates from one of them to another of them, they are not doing word-for-word translation. Translation is as difficult as translating from, say, English to French. People who normally communicate in American Sign Language or British Sign Language but who read and write in English are “speaking” (well, signing actually, of course) in one language and writing in another. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/42 "2016-01-14T03:27:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **MrDibble** : > > I think the curve is skewed by the UK (only 38% multilingual) and Ireland (less than half of the Irish speak Irish ) which is ironic, given that one other second language for a lot of Europeans (51%) is English. That’s the opposite of ironic: It’s exactly what one would expect. Everywhere in the world, across history, educated people speak their own native language, the language of their most powerful neighbor, and the language of the most powerful nation in the world as they know it. For a modern Frenchman, say, this probably means French, German, and English, in that order. For a German, it probably means German, French, and English. For an Englishman, it means English, either French or German, and English. And for an American, it means English, English, and English. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/43 "2016-01-14T03:58:25Z")
Actually, in Europe and through much of history, educated people spoke a language which didn’t belong to any specific existing nation: Latin. You speak your local language(s) plus the language of the nearest or more powerful neighbor (someone from Huelva would be a lot more likely to have some Portuguese than someone from Irún, who is pretty much expected to at least be able to do the shopping in French; people from Strasbourg assume their neighbors will be fluent in German, whereas those from Biarritz may not be able to spell _salchichón_ but sure know how to ask for it or that they should give you some _saucisson_); if you’re educated, you also speak whatever language is currently most used for international comunication. Additional languages, as personal interest or professional need require. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/44 "2016-01-14T04:28:14Z")
One might argue that, for much of European history, the Roman empire was the most powerful nation in the known world. Even after it ceased to exist, it was a long time before any other nation emerged as more powerful than it was. But yeah, if we rephrase the criterion the way you did, it’s a lot less debatable. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/45 "2016-01-14T04:33:02Z")
I know Russian and English. And many computer languages. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/46 "2016-01-14T04:37:06Z")
Average human? It would be quite generous to say ‘2’. A better question would be to ask, if a person says they speak X number of languages, are they bullshitting me? I’d say, for any X greater than 6, they’re bullshitting you. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/47 "2016-01-14T07:21:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > For an Englishman, it means English, either French or German, and English. Except for most Englishmen, it’s English, English and English… ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/48 "2016-01-14T07:35:36Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Average american: one If thats a cheap shot, its not a very fair one, and one directed mostly at white and black people who live here. The United States is a 3000 mile long, 1000 mile wide country where you can easily function if you happen to know English. Unlike Europe, for instance which is 1/2 or 1/3 the size, with 20 countries all with different languages on top of one another, and where being bi- if not mult-lingual is all but a necessity to success. I actually had this pointed out to me, ironically enough, by a French Canadian, who told me unlike Canada, where its necessary to communicate in 2 languages because of Quebec, America is a not polyglot society so its extremely difficult for most Anglophone Americans to pick up a second language they are almost never forced to speak on a daily basis. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/49 "2016-01-14T08:02:08Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Average human? It would be quite generous to say ‘2’. A better question would be to ask, if a person says they speak X number of languages, are they bullshitting me? I’d say, for any X greater than 6, they’re bullshitting you. Are you monolingual? Monolingual people tend to overestimate the difficulty of learning an Nth language; also, many people have a foreign language at a level native speakers would view as “perfectly fine for a foreigner” but are too ashamed or perfectionist to actually use it. I’m already on 4 written correctly and spoken fluently (so the French tell me, I still feel like I should apologize to the Académie every time I open my mouth) and I’m not even in an industry in which multiple languages are that much of a need once you have English; for people who work in Sales or Tourism, six is like “now I start to feel professional”. Now, many people speak a language much better when the subject is something linked to their field than for anything else - but that applies to our native languages too, not only to those we learned as adults! ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/50 "2016-01-14T13:05:03Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > jtur88 writes: > > \> If something is written in “Chinese”, there is no way to know if the writer speaks > \> Mandarin or Cantonese. > > This is not quite true. The Chinese that you usually see written is actually a written form of Mandarin. . That is true, some Chinese characters have a phonetic component. I oversimplified for the purposes of making an illustration relevant to the scope of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/51 "2016-01-14T14:53:33Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Japanese too…I’m not sure if a chinese person could read a japanese newspaper, say, but I’ve only studied Hanzi, and simplified Hanzi at that, and could read simple Japanese adverts. > It was a really pleasant surprise…I didn’t know Hanzi and Kanji were (so) similar. It’s a bit easier for Japanese to read Chinese than the other way 'round, since Japanese script has two different Kana in it in addition to Kanji. They might be able to get the gist of a newspaper article but the difference are significant enough that one wouldn’t expect a Japanese person to be able to read a Chinese book unless he had studies Chinese. But it’s a pleasant surprise to see who much you CAN read the first time you are in the different country. I spent a lot of time in Japan before first going to Taiwan, and it was strange to see so many familiar characters without any idea what the spoken words would sound like. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/52 "2016-01-14T15:03:03Z")
I expect that it really is true that the more languages you know, the easier it is to learn additional ones. Certainly that’s true of computer languages. So why should a claim of six or more languages be regarded as bullshit? ---
**Author:** ![OffByOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/45deac/32.png) [@OffByOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OffByOne)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993/53 "2016-01-15T16:44:18Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Average american: one > > Guess you should define average and maybe define language (dialects versus language for example Mandarin versus Cantonese) Having seen what gets posted on Facebook, I’d say your estimate is a tad high. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-the-average-human-speak/136993.md?page=2)