Why Become a Hyperpolyglot — A Non-Obvious Answer

Some time ago, I reached “hyperpolyglot” level, which loosely means being conversant to fluent in eight or more languages.

It’s a loose definition, which suits me well, as my fluency depends a lot on how recently I’ve used a language. But I’m definitely “conversant” in at least eight, in that I can function in those language environments in eight or more languages, and speak a number of them fluently.

But discussing this definition is the opposite of the points I want to make here. People often wonder what would push me to learn so many languages and to want to learn more. Because the last thing on my mind is to achieve some kind of status or recognition for it, or even bragging rights, as fun as those are.

There’s no point to the status of hyperpolyglotism or polyglotism, as status gains me nothing other than the opportunity for it to be contested. And the bragging rights go against my general ethos of humility and respect for others. After all, I have deep respect for people who just go deep into one language, exploring all its nooks and crannies, let alone those who choose to explore some other metier of interest like an art or science, and by no means would claim that what I’ve done is directly comparable in any way, other than reflecting our mutual interest in learning things.

So, why learn many languages, to various levels of fluency? I want to explain why, because while some of the reasons are superficial, some are non-obvious, and the list has evolved over time.

Catching Up With Polyglot Countries and Cultures

The first reason I started exploring other languages was simply to catch up with other people around the world. Most people in the world speak two or more languages, but most people who grow up in English-speaking Western environments (Australia, the UK, New Zealand, the US, and Canada) grow up speaking just one fluently.

Even people in some of these English-speaking places have an advantage over me. Americans learn at least beginner Spanish in school — even the most monolingual Americans know “hola” and “uno, dos, tres”. Similarly, Canadians learn defensible beginner French. Heck, even most Kiwis learn a bit of Maori in school.

Not Australians. For Australians, there’s no singular second language that the majority of us should learn. We don’t border other countries — even though Indonesia is nearby and massively populous, it’s not a hugely important country on the global political scale. Aboriginal languages are highly fragmented and infrequently taught. There are many Chinese in Australia, but they speak English far better than most Australians will ever speak Chinese.

Australians learn second languages in school sometimes in a fragmented way in primary school, and only for personal reasons in high school. Some may want to learn Japanese or Chinese because it’s interesting. Some may see the benefit of studying a language for their university entrance scores. But in Australia, there’s no pressure to know a language because of a neighbour that warrants it.

Then there are all the Western countries like most of those in Western Europe where people (at least young people) will usually speak English, if not one or two other languages that they learned either in school because of their immediate neighbours, or because they live in an area where multiple languages are spoken.

Swiss people speak at least three languages almost by default, though their French or German would be dominant, based on where or how they grew up. In the northeast of Italy, many people speak German — some as their primary language, even though they’re Italian. Dutch people often understand German just because of the similarity in languages and the availability of German TV. People of the Basque region speak Euskeda as well as Spanish.

These are just a few examples I’ve casually encountered — there are countless more, including regional dialects (Sicilian, Catalan, etc.), migrant families speaking Arabic, Senegalese, or Cantonese (or Persian! Shout out to my homies), etc.

For all those people, the idea that someone would grow up learning just one language is alien.

Finally, people in many other parts of the world are polyglots by default. Indians often speak multiple languages, including a local dialect, Hindi, and English. Malaysians may speak three to five languages, especially if they’re from a migrant background (e.g. South Asian or Chinese families). Africans across the whole continent are polyglots — North Africans like to code-switch and mix up French and an Arabic dialect, people of the Swahili coast speak a blend of local languages, Swahili, and sometimes English, and so on. It’s all fascinating.

Then there are us poor monoglots. Even though I grew up in a migrant household, my Persian was weak because my family emphasised learning English — a common story. So by the age of 18, I realised I spoke about 1.25 languages. I had to catch up to the rest of the world.

Understanding Other Cultures

There’s an old saying in Chinese, which is “Know your enemy; know yourself: A hundred battles won.”

《知彼知己，百战不殆》
zhībǐzhījǐ, bǎizhànbùdài
– Sun Tzu (孫子), The Art of War

There’s great depth in this, as even “understand yourself” may take a lifetime on its own. But to “understand your enemy” (or just “other”, for most of us) brings them closer to you and helps you realise just how much we all have in common.

Most people living in developed countries have probably noticed a few patterns of migration. For decades, Chinese and Indian folk (who I mention just because of sheer numbers, but not to exclude others) have migrated from Mainland China and India to Western countries, primarily English-speaking ones. Their influence on other cultures has been hard to miss. In central Melbourne and in Sydney’s centres, there are places where you’ll see Chinese written abundantly and hear more Mandarin than English.

And yet while migrants from those cultures learn English fluently to the point of being able to participate in the professional workforce, most Australians and Americans never even get to “ni hao”.

This is a mistake. There’s so much xenophobia in American and Australian society against migrants that it barely needs mentioning. I’m not saying the majority are xenophobic, but just that there’s enough that it’s worrying. People make broad accusations — particularly about Chinese or Arab/Middle Eastern people — conflating the government with the people, making fear-based assumptions about religion or politics, and blaming their woes on the people they don’t understand, rather than their own government or even themselves.

It’s hard to uproot xenophobia, but nothing goes further, in my opinion, than trying to understand another culture. The deeper I’ve gone into other cultures, the more I’ve realised just how little I need to learn to build empathy. We all want the same bloody things: health, security, and happiness for ourselves, family, and other loved ones. It takes almost no digging to reach that point. To assume otherwise is to dismiss members of another culture as inhuman animals, a rhetoric often used as a precursor to ethnic cleansing (yes, this is a Netanyahu reference).

Trying to understand another culture requires empathy. So does language learning. It takes empathy to try to do things like learn another culture’s idioms, tone of voice, and accent. But I think that trying to learn a language also builds your empathy muscle. You have to really listen to another language to learn to imitate it; both the listening and the imitation are acts of empathy.

The best part is that you don’t even have to learn a ton about another language to build this empathy. To build empathy through language learning I’d probably focus on learning a dozen or two key phrases and some fun idioms that capture the essence of the other culture. There are myriad lists about for this.

Find a culture that you don’t understand or about which you read broad, xenophobic statements. Chinese, Arabs, Russians, or what have you. Learn a bit about the language. Try on some phrases with people, and see how they react. Soon, you’ll magically start to feel like you have more in common.

Travelling Without Moving

Finally, one of my favourite reasons to pursue polyglotism is the ability to transport myself anywhere around the world without spending money — or worse, without having to go to airports. (I often say that while I love being in other places, I absolutely hate travelling.)

Yes, you can go to some part of the city where Chinese or Arabic is spoken in abundance and transport yourself. But when you speak some of that language, you can immerse yourself from your living room.

For years, I’ve been using online language tutors (I use italki, but there are many platforms). It’s amazing. I pay something like $5-15 (it depends on the language) and have a 30-60 minute conversation with a stranger with no obligation to even speak to them again.

Talking to an online language tutor isn’t just about language practice. I connect with the other person. When I speak to my Persian teacher in Iran, I learn about Iran and her life there, living in a castle she inherited and which she is rebuilding into a cafe and Airbnb. It’s amazing!

Ditto when I speak to my Chinese teacher, currently an older lady living near Shanghai. The way she speaks about her life and about China tells me more about the culture than even the words she uses (e.g. telling me about the tallest mountain China, Mt. Everest — never mind that the rest of the world thinks of it as being in Tibet — or about how China has changed “a little” in the last ten years, showcasing the Chinese tendency for modesty in language, as it has changed a lot.)

For the 30-60 minutes I’m having these conversations, I’m completely transported into another place. I see video of them and life around them. Using their language completes the illusion. And then, when it’s done, I magically transport myself back to my home office.

Travelling without moving helps in obvious ways with understanding. It’s really cool speaking with someone who’s living in another country about their daily life and their reflections on globalisation.

Often, the kind of person who is an online language tutor has interesting things to say. They’re usually verbose, firstly, as they work in language. They’re also often entrepreneurial, being the kind of person to start working online. And they’re also even frequently open-minded about other cultures — they spend all day talking to people from around the world, after all.

So speaking with people in Iran, Tanzania, Egypt, Korea, and other places has given me a direct window into those cultures and ways of thinking without even leaving my office. In fact, it would have taken me a long time to build connections where I could have had those conversations in those countries. Language study accelerates it.