Who speaks the most languages in the world?

We often see that some people can speak one or even several foreign languages fluently, but they find it difficult to recite a few new words. Now, the authoritative scientific magazine New Scientist reports that some people can speak 76 languages, and some even know hundreds of languages.

Is there really a so-called language genius?

The story begins with an email.

This email begins like this: "Sir, first of all, please forgive me for bothering you, but I have to write to you after reading your article."

Then, the author of this letter tells the story of his grandfather, sicilian, who has never been to school, but he obviously has a gift for learning languages. Although he has no chance to receive education, he can speak 70 languages and read and write 56 of them. In order to protect the privacy of the email author, let's call him n.

This Yi Meier was sent to Dick Hudson, a retired professor of linguistics at University College London, from June 5th to 10, 2003.

1996, Hudson posted on the most popular "linguist" online forum among linguists, asking who has the most kinds of languages. In the following posts, some famous people who are familiar with many languages are listed. For example, Italian Cardinal Giuseppe Usep in18th century can speak 72 languages, and can speak 39 of them fluently. Vernon walters, an American intelligence officer who died in 2002, spoke eight languages.

According to N, his grandfather moved to new york in 19 10, where he got a job as a railway baggage porter, which gave him the opportunity to meet passengers who spoke different languages. N said that he once witnessed his grandfather translate a newspaper into three languages.

1950, when N 10 was old, he accompanied his grandfather on a six-month trip around the world. N said that no matter which port they docked at, his grandfather would speak the local language. They passed Venezuela, Argentina, Norway, Britain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Japan. Assuming that what N said is true, then this grandfather can speak at least 15 languages.

Even more surprising, N claimed that this ability can be passed down in his family. He wrote in the letter: "Every three or four generations, a child in our family has the talent to learn many languages. His grandfather once told him that his great-grandfather and his great-grandfather could speak almost 100 languages. "