The cult of the hyperpolyglot (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Vanessa Barford
BBC News Magazine

Many people want to speak a second language, but for some people two can never be enough. Welcome to the world of the hyperpolyglot.

Ray Gillon speaks 18 languages. To be precise, he only speaks eight fluently. His grasp on the other 10 is merely conversational.

Throw anything at him in Portuguese, Thai, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Bulgarian or Mandarin and he will banter back.

In the UK, where there has been a growing anxiety over the failure to learn additional languages, Gillon might seem to be a bit of an anomaly. More and more children have been giving up languages since the last government made learning foreign languages optional in England from the age of 14.

Publisher HarperCollins has been searching for the UK's most multilingual student, and has discovered a 20-year-old Oxford University undergraduate who can speak 11 languages. And a new book, Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners, by Michael Erard, suggests Gillon is among a set of people who are learning languages for fun.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17101370

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Farber (yeah, he's a ConRep ... )

[yurbud]

1. Americans seem to be immune to this disease

[Speck Tater]

2. I belong to a polyglot forum and there are actually a lot of Americans in the group.

A lot of us know and/or are working to master one or more additional languages.
http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/default.asp

[Igel]

3. Hardly.

Many Americans are worshippers at the altar of unnecessary language acquisition.

In most cultures, you learn languages that get you something. Prestige. A better job. The ability to deal with coworkers or with customers. A better relationship with some deity. That's how it's been for thousands of years.

In the US, the idea seems to be that you learn languages for the sake of being able to say you know them. Sort of the European 19th-century ideal of liberal education: Learn stuff for the sake of saying you know if because it improves you. That's nice. Unnecessary. But nice.

Or, in some circles, to prove that you're sufficiently sympathetic to those who immigrate. The idea is apparently that the long-established have to learn the language of immigrants while immigrants are superior and have no need to learn the language of the established population. This is idiocy.

[Blue_Tires]

4. I've taken up learning what i can...

slow going so far