When in the Navy I met a lot of sailors who could speak certain phrases and words and service agreements in many languages. I thought that was cool. These were all Glugalots. We know of people that speak several complete languages, sometimes more than a dozen. Impressive. Then we have the Polyglots. Harold Williams (de New Zealand) met with delegates at the League of Nations (predecessor to United Nations) and is said to have conversed easily with each delegate in the delegate's native tongue. I can't do that in my own language. American Kenneth Hale could speak 50 languages fluently. He learned Finnish on the flight from US to Helsinki! And Japanese after a single viewing from the Shogun TV Series. What the...!!
This info was sampled (ha ha) or ripped if you prefer. from the book Babel No More, by Michael Erard.
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