I often listen with great admiration and awe when an individual switches deftly from one language to another. Wow what a trick! These polyglots! How do they do it?
I think the ability to navigate one's way through two or more tongues is one of the most profound expressions of human skill and talent. When an individual can switch back and forth through multiple languages, that is indeed a skill worthy of note.
I would love to speak multiple languages. Well, currently I speak English and one of the native languages of the people of the Niger-Delta in Nigeria. Plus, I'm currently learning Hausa but I know that doesn't qualify me as a polyglot and I have never considered myself as one.
The linguists who have a grasp of multiple languages are often influential and important people (I mean why wouldn't they be?). It isn't everyday you come across a person whom you can converse with in one language only for them to sight another acquaintance, swing their intelligent heads towards the new person, and begin a new conversation in an entirely new language. Understandably you'll be a little unsettled and uneasy but when the dust of your uneasiness settles, you won't help being impressed!
Did you know that Melania Trump is a multi-linguists? Yeah, the United States' First Lady speaks English, French, Italian, German, Serbo-Croatian and her native Slovene.
Did you also know that proficiency in certain languages can give a Papal candidate an edge over other candidates? Yeah, that is perhaps why we've had Popes who could speak multiple languages. Pope John Paul II, for example could speak eight languages and the current Pope is fluent in Spanish and Italian. He also speaks French, English, Portuguese and German with varying degrees of proficiency. He is conversant in Latin and understands the Piedmontese language and Genoese.
I really hope I would be able to master at least three international languages in addition to English. I really hope to be a linguists someday. Yeah, I'd love to.
