jeff_lindqvist wrote:Le Baron wrote:I hadn't really heard of 'polyglot' years ago.
I knew the word (and used it) when I studied Classical Greek in high school. That was in -93/94.
I had heard of the word, but I only got familiar with using it often when I entered the language learning/polyglot community (or whatever you want to call it). I still don't use the word to describe myself, because I refuse to be associated with snake oil salesmen or ego competitions, I just do what I do when it comes to languages. But I've heard this word used often by other people to describe me, more than once, and I feel like, in language learning circles, I am known as *that polyglot* quite often. So here's what I have to say about that.
As for the identity discussion, identity is such a fluid thing (and has changed so much for me over the years), and there are so many cultural and personal components to it, that calling myself a polyglot (apart from whether I qualify based on my skill set) is such a minor part of my identity. Sure, I speak multiple languages, and sure, you can make the argument I am good at them, even excellent (my track record corroborates that), but this is only a small part of my identity as a person. You could just as well pin down my identity as being "queer" (and I am using this in the modern sense to mean part of the LGBT community, not in the archaic sense of strange or even as the slur it used to be), and you'd be partly right, but is that all there is to it?
When you reduce polyglottery or language learning to discussions as to who qualifies and who doesn't, you're engaging in some very suspicious and gatekeepy behaviour that I don't really jive with. It's like, "how bisexual do you have to be to be LGBT"? If you're a woman attracted to both men and women, but you've only ever slept with, kissed, and been in relationships with men, are you a bisexual? Yes, you are, because you're attracted to women as well. It's no different with polyglots. If I've studied Japanese, French and Hindi and am a native English speaker, then do I really have to be a full on Japanese interpreter to be a polyglot? No, I don't, and that's the end of that discussion.
I don't find this discussion very productive. It promotes extremely gatekeepy behaviour and gives off a vibe of "you don't belong to OUR tribe, OUR tribe has to do xyz." As soon as people start doing that, I'm out of there. If we want to label and shoehorn people into certain stereotypes and conform to our preconceived notions on the internet, there are plenty of trash Twitter/Facebook threads where we can do just that. It's not high school anymore, that behaviour was trash back then and led to ostracism. It isn't any less trash now.
What I'm trying to say is: you can call me a polyglot if you want. You can call Richard Simcott a polyglot if you want. But remember that it's just that: a word, a label for lack of better. It doesn't actually tell you that much about me, or about Richard, or about anyone else mentioned in this thread.
I prefer fostering an inclusive community. That's the approach I am going to take, and I think it is more productive to use the word in these circumstances, rather than argue about levels or mythical natures. No one mentioned in this thread is mythical, they are all people. And some of us have a bigger interest or a larger skill set, for whatever reason, and bigmouths will always exist. Let them prove it in real life, which is where their skills are going to count for things, and don't worry about the rest.