Hyperpolyglots – The Truth About People Who Speak More Than 11 Languages

If you can read this, then you're one of 1.35 billion English speakers who make up just under 17% of the world's population. English, as Babbel explains, is the world's most widely spoken language, in no small part thanks to the legacy of colonialism. Most are second language speakers. Only 360 million people speak English as their first language, and native language speakers in Chinese and Spanish outnumber anglophones.

Elsewhere, however, the world contains more languages than most people might realize. In fact, according to ERIC Digest, an estimated 6,000 different languages are spoken around the globe — a notable disparity with there being only around 200 countries on Earth, and less than a quarter of them recognizing more than one official language. Multilingualism, the use of more than one language, is everywhere.

For most of the world's population, speaking more than one language is the norm. The Linguistic Society of America notes that most people alive today are bilingual or multilingual, and a European Commission report mentions that this includes more than half of all Europeans, no doubt as a consequence of having so many different languages and cultures in close proximity. However, a small handful of people speak many more than one or two languages, and can strike up casual conversations with people from various cultural backgrounds. As The New Yorker explains, these people are known as hyperpolyglots — and some of them prefer to avoid speaking English on principle,

For many, learning a new language can be a challenging endeavor — it takes quite a lot of brain work. As BBC Future mentions, the human brain has a few different systems to form memories, and learning a language uses all of them. But the effort pays off with a variety of benefits, improving memory and attention span, while helping to stave off dementia. What's more, there's some evidence that learning one language will improve your ability to learn another, leading to a snowball effect when picking up future languages. A study published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review looked at people who'd recently picked up a second language, finding that unusual new words were easier for bilingual people to learn. To paraphrase ESL, the more languages you know, the easier it is to learn more.

Perhaps the key to learning new languages, however, is to have a passion for it. A hyperpolyglot named Luis Miguel Rojas-Berscia is mentioned in The New Yorker, and he talks enthusiastically about his passion for speaking. As a self-described "amoureux de langues," he explains that once he falls in love with a language, he simply has to learn it. This motivation works wonders for him, as he's living proof that a hyperpolyglot can pick up a new language with remarkable speed. Reportedly, in just a week, he learned enough Maltese to sound like he'd been living in Malta for a year.

In a hyperpolyglot's brain, the smaller language centers are much more efficient, and this seems to be key to their abilities. A study in the journal Cerebral Cortex explains that a hyperpolyglot's brain can process language information more easily. Essentially, the brain of a monolingual person needs to work a lot harder to parse language than the brain of a hyperpolyglot. Neuroscientists point out, though, that it's unclear whether they were born this way, or whether their brains developed this trait over time. If it were the latter, it suggests that anyone could hypothetically learn to become proficient in multiple languages.

During any kind of learning, an important factor is known as neuroplasticity, which determines how easy it is for your brain to form new pathways, causing physical changes in your brain through growth and reorganization. All humans have the highest neuroplasticity as young children, while our brains are still developing, but it can be influenced by learning new skills later in life too, and one of the best ways to improve neuroplasticity is language learning. A paper in the journal Cortex found that learners of second languages show dramatic increases in the gray matter of their brains, even with short-term learning, and at any age. Another study, published by Frontiers in Neuroscience, focused on older individuals: They found that language learning can show a substantial improvement in overall cognition, suggesting it may be helpful in promoting healthy aging.

All languages come with attached culture, from popular sayings to mannerisms, and this is a substantial part of language learning. As The New Yorker mentions, some hyperpolyglots consider these "rules of behavior" just as important as the language itself. BBC Future notes that keeping space in your mind for the cultural experiences surrounding a language can help keep it active, and that learning a language isn't just about the amount of time spent, but the quality of that time, including the emotional and cultural aspects. Indeed, there's some evidence that people who can better empathize with the speakers of a given language are better able to learn that language. For example, one study in the Japanese journal Business Review found that people who're "better able to put themselves in other's shoes" are more fluent in their second language.

An article in The Washington Post talks about a hyperpolyglot named Vaughn Smith, whose experience reflects this idea of empathy. For him, the act of learning languages isn't an abstract notion of simply speaking different words, but a way of finding a connection with people, with each language becoming a story about that connection. In Smith's case, he likely also had an early start, thanks to his mixed ethnicity and multinational family. According to the Urban Institute, the children of immigrants are frequently multilingual, and a study in Brain and Language found that just being exposed to other languages can make learning easier.

Hyperpolyglotism is quite a rare skill, with people who speak so many languages making up just a tiny fraction of the world's population, yet they have their own dedicated community. 2016 saw the formation of HYPIA, the International Association of Hyperpolyglots, and, as of 2021, they had over 250 members from 60 countries worldwide, representing over 160 languages between them. To any hyperpolyglots eager to speak the languages they know, membership is doubtless an exciting prospect, and the success of HYPIA is reportedly thanks to the enthusiastic engagement of its members, as much as the time and effort its directors have put in.

Some hyperpolyglots have been described as "reclusive savants who bank their languages rather than using them to communicate," as per The New Yorker, but this may be a rather unfair assessment. Some, like Vaughn Smith (interviewed by The Washington Post), don't seem to feel the need to boast about their abilities. When the motivation to learn languages is for the pure joy of it, rather than for the sake of utility — such as for hyperpolyglots like Smith — it's enough to simply enjoy the act of speaking their languages, while otherwise living perfectly ordinary lives.

While the world has thousands of languages, a substantial number of them are at risk. According to The Language Conservancy, around 2,900 languages worldwide are at risk of becoming extinct, and, at the current rate, it's estimated that about 91% of all languages may be lost during the next century. In addition, many endangered languages are spoken by indigenous peoples. For example, the non-profit organization Native Languages of the Americas notes that of over 800 Native American languages spoken today, around 500 of them are endangered, and the Australian National University warns that about 1,500 indigenous Australian languages may be lost by the end of the century. Another is Hawaiian: As Mango Languages explains, UNESCO lists Hawaiian as a critically endangered language, with only around 2,000 native speakers.

Hyperpolyglots may be able to play a valuable role in the conservation of languages, helping to prevent them from being lost by ensuring that they're still being spoken. Meanwhile, revival efforts can be made to teach these languages in schools, to ensure a new generation of speakers will be able to carry on their traditions. Some hyperpolyglots are well aware of this fact, and one of the stated goals of The International Association of Hyperpolyglots (HYPIA) is a commitment to the preservation of dying languages. They even have a special membership category for people who speak fewer than the required six languages, if one of them is endangered.