Where does the name “Omniglot” come from?
I coined the term in 1998 intending to use it as the name of a website design and translation agency I was planning to establish. The agency never really took off and I decided to use the name for this website instead. The word is a combination of the Latin omnis (all) and the Greek γλωσσα (glossa – tongue/language) and means ‘all languages’. It is similar to polyglot, ‘someone who speaks many languages’, and monoglot, ‘someone who speaks only one language’, and could also mean ‘someone who speaks all languages’. If it was made entirely from Greek roots it would be ‘panglot’, but I prefer the sound of omniglot.
