Chapter 1
The brain's linguistic hard drive
Chapter 2
Earth's natural multilingual hotspots
Chapter 3
History's mind-boggling hyperpolyglots
Chapter 4
The toolkit of the language masters
YOUR GOAL
Master of Secrets of the world's ultimate polyglots
Ch 3 · History's mind-boggling hyperpolyglots
duolingo History's Hyperpolyglots
He spoke dozens of different languages without ever stepping outside of Italy!
duolingo A timeline tracks Ziad Fazah's 1993 record and his 1997 Chilean TV appearance.
duolingo Emil Krebs mastered over 60 languages, prompting scientists to preserve his brain for study after his death.
Fun Fact
Emil Krebs's brain: When scientists studied the hyperpolyglot's brain after his death, they found his speech center was physically unique.
Quiz
In which country did Ziad Fazah fail to answer basic questions in a famous 1997 live TV broadcast?
Quiz
Which area of diplomat Emil Krebs's brain was found to have unusual cellular structures after his death?
Quiz
Why did Ken Hale place a high priority on learning endangered Indigenous American languages?
Quiz
MIT linguist Ken Hale was famous for his ability to learn a language's basic structure in how much time?
Quiz
How did the 18th-century Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti learn dozens of languages?
Quiz
Approximately how many languages was Cardinal Mezzofanti documented to speak fluently?