What is the highest number of languages that one person has ever been fluent in?
I once new a man that was fluent in a number of languages. However, if you asked him how many languages he knew, he would launch into a lecture about the difference between a language and dialect. The point of the lecture was that there is a very fuzzy line between a language and a dialect. The line is so fuzzy that you really can’t say how many languages a person knows.
In Vancouver, Canada in the early 1990’s, there was an official law courts translator who had a command of 40+ languages. I met him at his language school and listened to him explain a logical and simple method for acquiring the tools of communication in other languages. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten his name (Janis seems to remain in my gray matter but I don’t know if that was part of his first or last name…) but certainly would like to know it. I think his school was called the “Geneva Language Institute” or the “Geneva Language School” and was located near the Bayshore Inn near Stanley Park. He was listed in the Guiness Book of World Records in the early 1990’s as the world recond holder but the latest editions do not even list the topic any more. If anyone can help me get in touch with him, I’d be very grateful!
The word “fluent” just means flowing. If you can hold a conversation in a language, technically you are fluent. But there are different levels of fluent, from survival, to competent, to advanced, to native speaker. Then there are also written skills to consider. When you hear of people such as Pope John Paul II being fluent in 22 languages, it would be interesting to know how well he operated in ALL these languages. I am not doubting that he was prodigious. I heard him speak English, and he was great. I heard him in Italian and German-likewise. I know his first language was Polish, and I am certain his Russian was fluent by any standard. French and Latin would also be languages he used often and I am sure he was extremely good at them too, so that makes 7. He was a special case though. I am certain he had various degrees of fluency in other European languages as well, as he was using them in diplomacy constantly. There would be few people as competent as him in so many languages. but e
