Definition of a Polyglot

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Cainntear
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Cainntear » Thu Apr 14, 2022 5:49 pm

zenmonkey wrote:
Cainntear wrote:How can you build an identity group around speaking lots of languages?

Imagine a statement "Polyglots don't use Anki" and the falling out that would happen over it, or how even within language learners' circles, the debate about whether to only learn "useful languages" instantly gets heated.

In both cases, the heat is because both sides have invested their own identity into the group, and both sides feel their self-identity threatened when a purported member of the same identity group expresses a significantly different part of their self-identity.

I think these debates exist and have existed outside of strong 'polyglot' identity - I hear 'xxx (duolingo, Anki, grammar, speaking) isn't useful for language learners' all the time with or without the polyglot labelling. But sure, group identity can lead to exclusionary attitudes.

There's a difference in the reaction, though, when it's a challenge to your identity than a challenge to your authority. In the latter case, "you're wrong" translates in intent to "estás equivocado", whereas in the former it's more of an "eres mal".

But the nationalist examples you bring up seem to be a red herring vis a vis more progressive identity. I don't remember where I read about collective identities that are closed and exclusive versus those that are open and inclusive. Obviously, nothing is quite that black and white clear cut.

Well I'm a pro-independence Scot, and I did say that nationalist movements are often dominated by such attitudes, not that they always are.
That said, I reject the label "nationalist" on etymological grounds. The whole idea of "nationalism" is that people are somehow born the same because of blood and culture. The idea of a "nation-state" was one of building political identities based on racial uniformity. I just don't like it.

When we look at "bad nationalism", it is almost always nationalism in the etymological sense, with racist undertones.

Even progressive "good nationalism" can go the same way, with people becoming so invested in the idea of "progressive" as an identity that they start rejecting people who's opinions differ from them.

As I say, all group identity is fragile, because you end up conflating your self-identity with the group.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Cainntear » Thu Apr 14, 2022 5:56 pm

Ogrim wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:
Cainntear wrote:
zenmonkey wrote: I do think that it rarely becomes a career unto itself or a means of sustainable income. But then I've never met someone that says "I speak a bunch of languages, give me money". More often the question that I do hear is "I speak a bunch of languages, now what? What can I do with that?". To which my usual answer is "Great, now find a vocation".

I've found that jobs where languages are a genuinely core skill are exceptionally poorly paid -- call-centre jobs at minimum wage demanding 3 languages at native-like fluency... it hardly respects the amount of work needed to achieve that.
I absolutely agree -- languages are only a career benefit when you have a specific skill to go along with them.


There's a place not too far from here that pays well for language skills but I think that is rather the exception. And rather difficult to get. :shock: I wouldn't be allowed to work there. Using languages to complement other skills is definitely something that opens more doors.


Just chipping in to say that I know of two language jobs that pay very well: conference interpreter or translator in an international organistion, like UN, EU, OECD, ICC etc. The average "hobby linguist" (not meant in a negative way) would most likely never get such jobs, you need to have near-native skills in at least two languages in addition to your native tongue, formal education to match and proven work experience.

Oh yes, definitely, but what's remarkable is how high the standards a lot of these jobs require. Obviously not as high as official sworn interpreters, but you're talking "degree in language related discipline with native fluency in 3 languages" for a minimum wage job with no guaranteed hours.
I shared a flat with someone in Edinburgh who worked with one, and I met all these extremely intelligent people with incredible skills, just trying to keep going until something better came up.

It's a vicious, exploitative cycle: they don't want to work in a supermarket as it doesn't look as good on their CV, even though it pays more, and there's always (or was, at least, before Brexit) a steady supply of cheap replacement labour keeping wages down.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Cainntear » Thu Apr 14, 2022 6:23 pm

Le Baron wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:A quick look at the Google ngram shows that it's been used and present in the general corpus at least since the 1850s.

Screenshot 2022-04-13 at 10.05.09.png

I'm still convinced we're talking at cross-purposes. Doesn't this graph show that it is the least-known/least-popular word and pretty much confirm why I encountered the word 'linguist' instead? There's no doubt it already existed as a legitimate word/concept, but I am talking about how it has come to be used right now.

Well it doesn't account for differences in meaning and usage, though, does it?

"Multilingual" is, to my mind, primarily an adjective; or at the very least both an adjective and a noun. (Curiously, I find myself accepting it as a noun in the plural "multilinguals" but the notion of "a multilingual" feels very odd to me. Similarly with "bilinguals" and "a bilingual".) Google Ngram doesn't let us filter nouns only, so the word is going to be overrepresented.

"Linguist" has two meanings -- the language learner, and the linguistics specialist. Google doesn't let us split out polysemy, so this word too will be overpresented.

But also, "linguist" (in the sense we're looking for) and "multilingual" are generally used for a much wider range of languages. Someone with 3 or 4 languages will almost universally be accepted as "a linguist" or "multilingual", whereas the qualification for being "a polyglot" is less well defined, but usually higher. There are therefore significantly fewer people described as "polyglots", so the words would be expected to be rarer.

In fact, if you look at when the big upticks occurred in the usage of the two words, there are clues to the usage.

"Linguist" rose in the decades following WW2, when the academic field of "philology" with its "philologists" gave way to modern "linguistics" with its "linguists", which has triggered a decline in the use of "linguist" to describe language learners, a decline which is invisible in the graph.

Multilingual's rise correlates with movements towards bilingual and multilingual education, and the steep rise in the last decade corresponds also with the so-called "multilingual turn" in second language acquisition research.

The raw figures in the graph are pretty meaningless without context, and zenmonkey wasn't saying anything about relative usage -- polyglot is there, has always been there, and is remarkably stable.

It's about being some machine who devises hyper-effective means for learning and stacking up loads of languages into a portfolio. This is what 'polyglot' has popularly come to mean now. Even if it is a bastardisation of the original usage.

Has it, though...?

Are these fringe figures really influential enough to change a word that is in relatively common usage anyway? There's nothing in the graph that suggests a sudden rise in popularity, so is there anything to say that this bastardisation is common enough outside of our own specific area of interest that it has usurped the established meaning as the most common meaning...?
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Le Baron » Thu Apr 14, 2022 7:33 pm

Cainntear wrote:Has it, though...?

Are these fringe figures really influential enough to change a word that is in relatively common usage anyway? There's nothing in the graph that suggests a sudden rise in popularity, so is there anything to say that this bastardisation is common enough outside of our own specific area of interest that it has usurped the established meaning as the most common meaning...?


It's not in common usage. The graph is just one representing the visibility of the word up to 2000, not since then or really any analysis about 'how' it is being used.

I'm glad that your post confirms everything I said about it. There's no clever dancing to be done around this. You said yourself further up that 'linguist' is seen as more modest, whereas 'polyglot' demands more. Yet in the word itself there is no reason for this to be the case. It is a definition laid onto it from without. If anyone here can make a purely analytical differentiation between 'multi' and 'poly' and as applied to this case, then good luck to you. I'm confident it won't happen.

It may be difficult for some to grasp or accept the fact that in 2022 the concept of 'polyglottery' has come to mean stacking up study of a lot of languages and somehow being proficient in them all, even when this is mostly not true or possible, but it has become that. The additional fact that some people are proficient in several languages and also choose the word to describe themselves is not something that counters that.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby wheresmycookie » Thu Apr 14, 2022 10:34 pm

In addition to quantity, what about skill level? How many words/structures do I need to know to be able to say I "know" a language? :D

One comment said "comfortably"..fair!

When I'm traveling, I know enough Chinese to order food or ask where the bathroom is comfortably. In Spanish I can express most of my ideas and understand others', but I get tired in a long conversation with native speakers. No right answer probably, just interesting to think about 8-)
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Cainntear » Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:04 am

Le Baron wrote:
Cainntear wrote:Has it, though...?

Are these fringe figures really influential enough to change a word that is in relatively common usage anyway? There's nothing in the graph that suggests a sudden rise in popularity, so is there anything to say that this bastardisation is common enough outside of our own specific area of interest that it has usurped the established meaning as the most common meaning...?


It's not in common usage.

I said "common enough", not "common".

The graph is just one representing the visibility of the word up to 2000, not since then

Not true. The ticks on the axis are only every 50 years and the last tick is 2000, but that tick is about 20 years from the end of the graph. I believe the graph you're looking at is for up to 2019, the latest data in the Google Ngram database.

or really any analysis about 'how' it is being used.

Exactly. That was my point in the last post -- your previous post claimed the graph proved "linguist" and "multilingual" were more common for expressing the same idea as "polyglot" than the word "polyglot". I added my analysis to show why this was not the case.

I'm glad that your post confirms everything I said about it. There's no clever dancing to be done around this. You said yourself further up that 'linguist' is seen as more modest, whereas 'polyglot' demands more.

Yes, different words, different meanings.

Yet in the word itself there is no reason for this to be the case. It is a definition laid onto it from without.

This is true of every word though, is it not...?
If anyone here can make a purely analytical differentiation between 'multi' and 'poly' and as applied to this case, then good luck to you.

That depends what variables you accept in your definition of "purely analytical", though, doesn't it.

The core difference is origin -- Latin vs Greek.

Would it be "analytical" in your book if someone was to suggest that Greek words gain more intensity through a perception of being more high-brow than Latinate vocab, and therefore superior?

My preferred analysis is slightly different, and derives from Myers-Scotton's (1983) markedness model. The markedness model suggests that language gains meaning when it expresses a deliberate choice on the part of the speaker. So saying "hello" to someone when you see them is an unmarked utterance and transmits little meaning; an alternative like "there you are" may be considered unmarked if it's a phatic expression in your local dialect, but to most people it would transmit the implication that you were previously being looked for.
Greek "poly-" is less common in English than Latinate "multi-", so multi- represents the less marked choice, poly- the more marked one; this could lead poly- to be regarded as having more intensity.

...but further research would be required to determine whether this was true or not. I was simply rising to your challenge.

It may be difficult for some to grasp or accept the fact that in 2022 the concept of 'polyglottery' has come to mean stacking up study of a lot of languages and somehow being proficient in them all, even when this is mostly not true or possible, but it has become that. The additional fact that some people are proficient in several languages and also choose the word to describe themselves is not something that counters that.


It is difficult for people to accept unproven facts, yes, because many people insist on having evidence before accepting an opinion as fact.

I have no problem accepting that the "polyglot identity group" use the term in a way that has a more specific meaning than the traditional use of the term, but I do not see any evidence that the majority of people outwith the identity group would recognise that meaning. Maybe when Ollie Richards is presented in the media as a polyglot, your average person hears that as "guy who speaks a lot of languages" and not "guy who deliberately speaks a lot of languages including many he only learned for fun because that's how he chooses to define his identity and lifestyle".

I would personally be surprised by any evidence that suggested this restricted definition was common outside "language enthusiast" circles.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Cainntear » Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:21 am

Le Baron wrote:If anyone here can make a purely analytical differentiation between 'multi' and 'poly' and as applied to this case,

Of course, the poly-/multi- thing may be entirely irrelevant, and the effect might be the result of something you previously alluded to: "polyglot" may gain its force over "multilingual" by virtue of being a pure noun rather than an adjective.

Being multilingual (adjective) is a result of a situation; if you're born in Luxembourg, you're going to be multilingual incidentally, for example.

But being a polyglot as a noun elevates the multilingual status to an independent concept and more of a marker of identity.
I don't think anyone would have a problem with the suggestion that someone described as a polyglot will have deliberately chosen to learn at least one of their languages. What I don't think the traditional definition implies, though, is that this choice was specifically not for practical reasons. I would describe any diplomat who speaks all 6 working languages of the United Nations as a polyglot, even though they speak those languages for purely practical reasons.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Iversen » Fri Apr 15, 2022 9:01 am

Or rather: 'polyglot' can be both a noun and an adjective, while' multilingual' primarily is used as an adjective - and as Cainntear rightly observes, simply by being a noun 'polyglot' "elevates the multilingual status to an independent concept and more of a marker of identity." And personally I see this as a risk - having language learning as a hobby shouldn't be your main reason to exist on this planet.

But using "multilingual" about people that got their languages by being born in a certain place and restricting "polyglot" to those who took a conscious decision to learn at least some of them seems like a good and simple distinction. For the first group even three active languages could be 'multi' enough (one, two, many ...), whereas you would need more than that to be a polyglot because you first had to substract the languages you got for free simply by being born in a certain place by certain parents (two in Denmark: Danish and English plus possibly a heritage language, but more than that in Luxembourg or certain places in Africa), and on top of that you should have learnt a few more because you decided to do it or somebody lured (or forced) you into learning them.

As for "poly-", the formula "more than most people" should be precise enough for most purposes, but I would personally only use the word "polyglot" from five or six languages and up. And "hyperpolyglot" could start at eleven or twelwe because then there are so few of them that they hardly can be seen as a community.

And by the way, speaking about jobs: when I left the university in 1981 with an exam in French and comparative literature I also had to face the situation that the good jobs at the university level were few and far between, and I decided to try my luck in sectors with less miserable future prospects. After a couple of years with unstable employments I ended up working with computers and informatics in public service for 29 years, and I have never regretted that change of direction.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Sprachprofi » Fri Apr 15, 2022 10:36 am

Iversen wrote:I have no idea how Mr. Chohan himself, the founder of Hypia, was tested, but it seems that people who apply have to submit a rather long essay about their qualifications (videos and writings on the internet may be taken into account) and they may be interviewed by existing members in their claimed languages.


Exactly, there is no such essay by Mr. Chohan nor anything else anywhere on the internet - I spent several hours searching.

it seems that the Polyglot gatherings (which were started by no less than Sprachprofi herself in Berlin) will take place in Terezin this year, unlike 2020 where corona spoiled the event and forced it to become virtual.


Awesome! I'll be there too and I'm so looking forward to meeting my tribe again. I hope a lot of you will come. Some are put off by the fact that Teresin is a village, but in fact it's like a suburb of Warsaw, 40 minutes from the city center by public transport, you can still send your significant other to Warsaw for sightseeing if they get bored. And polyglots will completely overrun Teresin! :D Unlike in big cities, where conference goers dilute a lot, this will be a unique experience, living in a place where basically everyone you meet on the street or at the supermarket is a fellow polyglot. Like settling our own town.
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Re: Definition of a Polyglot

Postby Cavesa » Fri Apr 15, 2022 1:38 pm

zenmonkey wrote:If you know what is going on, clue me in. Because frankly a discussion of some sort on the definition of polyglottery has been going on for the last twenty years (or more) and I really don't see anyone making inroads.
...

This type mealy-mouthed bickering is such a turn-off that it destroys any respect or interest I might have in those YouTubers. It's petty.


I agree. It often feels like beating a dead horse just to get more likes.

When I entered the online language learning community sometime around 2010 or 2012, the situation was still very different. Back then, we really needed tons of "learn in 3 months" and "learn plenty languages" discussions, because the norm at that time was harmful too. There was still pretty much a monopoly of one part of the industry. You want to learn a language? Sign up to a school, pay them for five years, then you might begin to use the language in the real life, but not really too much. Nope, you cannot learn faster, you canot learn on your own, you are unlikely to succeed in any case, and your teacher is the main contact with the culture and the ultimate judge of what you should do.

But then we got through this phase, and now a too big part of the industry is the opposite scheme. Pay for an app, play a game for a month, and we promise you miracles, like what this youtuber shows. Oh, sign up for twenty languages, you're a polyglot!

And after those ten years, this fight has become rather boring to me. It is still complicated and tricky for all the newbies, which is why I still participate with my two cents, just like many other normal learners.

BeaP wrote:After the internet democratised learning and gave everyone the possibility to acquire almost anything, the role of experts got questioned. The old definitions got blurred, and a lot of people became visible who don't fit in the boxes. On the one hand people become specialists to earn more, on the other the perceived social value of certain degrees is much lower than before. I think a lot about what to recommend my children, what's the most profitable and useful way of learning now, and honestly I don't have an answer. So I accept that people try all kinds of things, get passionate about all kinds of things that might prove to be dead ends. You can call me naive, but I don't really think that most 'fake polyglots' are clever criminals who make fortunes out of lies. I think a lot of people really believe that it's easy, quick and interesting, and a couple of sentences are enough. Without the context or the background how can you be objective about your knowledge? Even if they do things for economic reasons, in a world full of influencers it seems to be a rational choice.

They overused this word and consequently modified its meaning. We can stick to the old one stubbornly and say it's only for the high achievers, but I think it's also OK to accept this phenomenon.


The world has changed. These days, we actually need many more plurilingual people than before. Even the EU authorities say people should learn two foreign languages, too bad they don't also support this wish by actions (outlawing geoblocking, more support to language learning in every country, removal of some economic obstacles to learning etc).

If we want to live in this world and profit from it, we actually need to no longer treat languages as something for experts. At least in the sense of experts being the main population of speakers of foreign languages (but of course, there is still a lot of space for linguists etc). If we don't want to see our normal communication damaged, dumbed down, and blurred by relying on machine translation or on intermediary langauges etc, we need more plurilingual people. Millions in every country.

If we want to keep some of our values, such as respect, diversity, integration (not assimilation), we need even four languages to be the norm for a part of the population (the language of their country, the language of their roots, and of course two real foreign languages to not be handicapped on the job market). But well spoken 4 languages, not a few phrases.

But the fake polyglots are very harmful to this effort too right now, because they're contributing to the fake polarisation between "learn one language well" and "learn a few phrases in 20 languages". I agree that most of them may be just naive, not necessarily looking for monetary profit. They could be more objective, if they wanted, they could for example take cefr or they could show off real skills, not staged videos. Unfortunately, they are a part of a harmful loop of lowering standards.

Cainntear wrote:Oh yes, definitely, but what's remarkable is how high the standards a lot of these jobs require. Obviously not as high as official sworn interpreters, but you're talking "degree in language related discipline with native fluency in 3 languages" for a minimum wage job with no guaranteed hours.
I shared a flat with someone in Edinburgh who worked with one, and I met all these extremely intelligent people with incredible skills, just trying to keep going until something better came up.

It's a vicious, exploitative cycle: they don't want to work in a supermarket as it doesn't look as good on their CV, even though it pays more, and there's always (or was, at least, before Brexit) a steady supply of cheap replacement labour keeping wages down.


Thank you, now I regret a bit less having studied medicine and not languages. I was rather dishartened, looking at some of these career options, in hopes of getting paid for my C2 skills, just to find out that they want a specific degree that I haven't done. Just speaking and translating better than many people with the degree is not enough. Reading this makes me regret a bit less.

Iversen wrote:
zenmonkey wrote:(...)I've had the same conversations with a lot of people studying fields like mathematics, literature, and even engineering. Asking "to do what?" seems to be a surprise to many, as if the topic of study was an end to itself.


You can study all kinds of things without having a clear picture of how it can be used for earning money. Some people manage to find a job or at least a way of living that brings them into contact with people speaking a variety of languages, others don't - but it can still become an entertaining (and time-consuming!) hobby. It is sad if you thought you could earn a lot of money by learning a lot of languages, just as it is sad if you thought that you would be speaking all your languages with your neighbours and collegues, but the world is as it is. Take it or leave it..


Learning several languages as a hobby is excellent, just like studying maths, literature, or even engineering as a hobby is excellent. I find it very sad, that we ask the question "why", when it comes to intellectual hobbies, but nobody asks "why", when people do several sports, or various other not intellectual hobbies.

The main problem are the wrong expectations, I agree. Just speaking several languages can be pretty worthless careerwise, it needs to be a part of a bigger plan. We no longer live in the 90's, where just B1/B2ish skills in English and nothing else were already a gateway to a beautiful career.

The main difference between being a polyglot and being something else is that the word in itself suggests that you are something of a collector, just as some people collect Ming vases or expensive watches.

Yes, this is definitely a common perception. But no clue, why many people find collecting vases or watches more normal than collecting language skills. :-D

That being said I still think that we should keep the word polyglot, especially when it is used about people who makes an effort of learning a number of languages (with the -lingual series mainly used about people who are native speakers of their languages). And then the word "linguist" can finally be reserved for people who study languages on a scientific basis...

[/quote]

"linguist" should definitely be reserved to the scholars, true. "-lingual" as native of more than one is ok too. But we are still left with the problem of the lowest number for "polyglot". I am still ok with being a pentaglot or hexaglot, and I feel very uncomfortable with anyone labeling me "polyglot" :-D
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