Tag: language, polyglots

Why are there more male hyperpolyglots? One answer is that speaking a lot of languages is a geek macho thing (…) It seemed that a woman is less likely to say she “speaks” or “knows” a language if she studied it at some point in the past, while a man, wanting to display his giant repertoire, would include it.

One difference is that individuals living in multilingual communities seem to settle on an optimal cognitive load. The hyperpolyglot possesses a similar patchwork of linguistic proficiencies. Yet he or she exceeds this optimum with a conspicuous consumption of brain power (…) For multilinguals, learning languages is an act of joining society. There’s no motive, no separable ‘will to plasticity’ that’s distinct from what it means to be a part of that society. Being a hyperpolyglot means exactly the opposite. The hyperpolyglot’s pursuit of many languages may be a bridge to the rest of the world, but it walls him off from his immediate language community.