Polygot Language Circle

General discussion about learning languages
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rdearman
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Re: Polygot Language Circle

Postby rdearman » Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:15 am

This seems more of a math question really. Language = Participant. The series is straightforward, for every new participant you add one new language. So the limit is basically how many languages a human being can understand and learn and how many of these people you can get together. The last polyglot gathering there were 538 people and languages were broken down like this:
English = 95%
German=67%
French=64%
Spanish=62%
Russian=41%
Italian=40%
Portuguese=26%
Esperanto=24%
Slovak=23%
Polish=21%

If we assume the 21% can speak all the others that would give us a pool of 112 people (obviously not all speak all these so probably only about an quarter of this number). This means you could have a circle of 112 (or 24) people at the gathering. Or just by languages you have 10 people in your circle. If you threw in Tarvos, Mr Simcott, and a couple of others you could probably get closer to 15, although the pool of 112 (24) possible candidates drops off.

So even with what is probably the largest gathering of polyglots in the world you're still less than 20, so I figure that 20 is probably the best you'd ever be able to do. Even then finding 20 hyper-polyglots in the world would be a struggle.
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Querneus
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Re: Polygot Language Circle

Postby Querneus » Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:00 am

I think this question naturally leads us to the philosophical question of what counts as different languages or different dialects of the same language. And the answer does often tend to be rather political instead of linguistic... Leonese is not that different from Asturian, the difference often being whether your dialect is located in the territory of León as opposed to Asturias.

I do suspect that you could get past the number 20 if the group consists of weird enthusiasts of, for the sake of an example, Western Romance languages, all aiming to get into the Guinness book for Largest Polyglot Conversation, each dedicated to achieving B2 oral comprehension in the other 20+ languages but specializing only in speaking one particular language. By maximizing political distinctions, the list of 20+ "languages" could possibly consist of 1. Portuguese, 2. Mirandese, 3. Galician, 4. Leonese, 5. Asturian, 6. Spanish, 7. Ladino, 8. Aragonese, 9. Catalan, 10. Valencian, 11. Balearic, 12. Extremaduran, 13. Murcian, 14. Occitan, 15. Provençal, 16. Arpitan, 17. French, 18. Picard, 19. Walloon, 20. Lorrain, 21. Norman, and maybe 22. Uruguayan Portuñol, if not others I'm forgetting about.

Relevant comedic sketch (jump to 0:47)
"I see that you speak 5 languages."
"Yes."
"Although [I wouldn't hire you] as an engineer, I do need a salesperson. What languages do you speak? German? French? English? Chinese?"
"No, no. I speak Catalan, Valencian, Balearic, Andorran, and since a week ago, Oriental Aragonese."
Last edited by Querneus on Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Polygot Language Circle

Postby Querneus » Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:54 am

Hashimi wrote:Or the 30-40 Arabic languages (Hijazi, Najdi, San'aani, Adani, Tihami, Hadrami, Dhofari, Omani, Bahrani, Iraqi, Mardini/Maslawi, Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian, Sa'idi, Egyptian, Sudanese, Libyan, Tunisian, Moroccan, Hassaniya, Chadian, Judeo-Yemeni, Judeo-Baghdadi, Somali Arabic, etc.)

Yes, although interestingly, I think my example using Western Romance languages is better, because native Arabic speakers don't consider these varieties to be different languages. Try arguing to an Egyptian or Lebanese person that Egyptian Arabic is a "Different Language" from Lebanese Arabic, with examples comparing them to similar differences between Romance languages, and they're likely to sternly make you shut up, insisting these Arabic varieties are different "accents" and "slang", not languages. Many Chinese will insist on the same regarding most Chinese varieties as well. The political demarcation between the Western Romance languages is more clearly delineated, although not in all cases (e.g. Occitan vs. Provençal).
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Re: Polygot Language Circle

Postby Iversen » Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:56 pm

OK, we have X persons in the circle, and every one can understand at least X languages and speak at least one language fluently. But as the question is formulated they do not have all have to speak their native language, and they don't have to be able to speak all X language that will be spoken during the ceremony - it is enough to understand all of them and to find one willing speaker per language.

Some languages are liable to be the list on most of the hyperpolyglots, like English, but in some of the most 'naturally' polyglot areas people might not be able to understand the main European languages except maybe English (or French or Portuguese in some parts of Africa), so they couldn't participate in the circle. Maybe they could form their own circles just based on for instance the official languages of India or South Africa, but then most of the Youtube polyglots would be left out. I could personally participate in a circle that focused on European languages, but if somebody wanted to include Chinese then that would push me out - and unfortunately a large percentage of the really hardcore polyglots have one Asiatic language or more on their CV. So to push the number of participants up you would have to rely heavily on passive languages, and even then incompatible language combinations would be a problem.

Let's instead take it from the other side and just choose 10 language and ask whether you can find 10 persons who understand them all and who as a collective can find speakers of all 10 languages within in the group.

If you just for the sake of the argument decide on English, German, Dutch, French, Spanish and Russian and add some related languages like Portuguese, Catalan, Scots and maybe a Scandinavian language or two .. would it then be feasible to find people who in a pinch could understand simple utterances in all 10 and speak at least half of them PLUS one of the less popular ones? Probably yes, and we could probably even put some names on the list - though most potential participants would almost certainly be unknown to any us. If you add Japanese and Chinese you would probably also be able to find 10 participants, but the name list would be different from the first one.

What then about X =12? OK, maybe, but above that I become more and more sceptical. The number of languages spoken and understood by each individual will probably not be the final obstacle, but more likely it will be the differences in focus, which lead to irreconcilable differences in language profiles.
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