It’s a fairly commonly known fact that monolinguals are a minority in the world. Most of the world speaks two or more languages, and quite a few people across the world will think nothing of using 4-5 languages in their daily life. There are, however, the occasional exceptional people that one comes across, whose language learning prowess (and amount of free time to devote to its development) simply blow the mind. They are the “turbo language geeks” (and I say that with all due respect!). Their “king,” so to speak, is probably the great Ziad Youssef Fazah. There are many up-and-comers, like this Peruvian youth (hattip to the linguist blogger). But for my money, the man to watch is Stu Jay Raj. When I came across his clip on youtube, claiming ability in 23+ languages, I was highly skeptical. But some research into who the guy is quickly disabused me of the notion. Unlike many claimants to extreme polyglot status, he actually ranks his language ability for each language in a manner which appears to be adapted from the FSI 5-point scale. He also readily consents to backing up his claims. Click the videos to watch — particularly the second clip where he gives a demonstration by translating from a random magazine article picked by the interviewers. Amazing!

Yep, these guys really are amazing. I need to get to a FSI 2 in another language to become a polyglot and probably another five to ten years become a hyperpolyglot. My hat’s off to them. Thanks for the links to my blog.