- Cleopatra. The last queen of Egypt studied at least 10 languages. When Ethiopians, Jews, Arabs, Syrians, or Parthians visited her, an amazing woman did not need an interpreter.
- Giuseppe Gasparo Mezzofanti. The Cardinal, who lived in the XVII th century, astonished the poet George Byron so much that he called him a linguistic miracle. There were English, German, French, Chinese, Hungarian, Albanian, Turkish, Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian, Persian languages in the arsenal of Mezzofanti. Knowledge of Russian allowed him to communicate with Commander Alexander Suvorov and writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. He knew about 40 languages in all.
- John Paul II. The Pope spoke 10 foreign languages. He respected Russian as the foundation of the nation’s culture. Except Russian, he could hold a conversation and correspond in Slovak, Belarusian, Ukrainian, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and French. Undoubtedly, he knew Latin as well.
- William James Sidis. At the age of 8 this unique child knew 8 languages perfectly, and by the age of 30 mastered 40 languages!
- Richard Francis Burton. The British diplomat learned 29 languages. He gained recognition as a writer, poet, translator, linguist and ethnographer. He traveled a lot around the world, he fenced well and even became a hypnotist.
- Osip Borisovich Rumer. Giftedness and diligence enabled him to master 26 languages. He did not need a substring for the work. He was known for his impassive translation, where he did not leave his litter and emotions.
- Johann Martin Schleyer. The Catholic priest learned 41 languages. It was this man who invented the language of international communication (volapuk, prototype of Esperanto).
- Vyacheslav Ivanov. The language baggage of the Russian philologist - no fewer than 100 languages!
- Istvan Dhabi. At the age of 18, the future correspondent, guide, writer, translator and editor knew 18 languages. He corresponded with a lot of respondents from 50 countries.
- Dmitry Yurievich Petrov. A talented teacher mastered 30 languages and developed a unique method for studying a foreign language.
- Vitaly Robertovich Melnikov (Willie Melnikov). He says he knows more than 100 languages, however, this information has not been documented yet. The poet and photographer received a scientific degree in medical sciences.
- Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. He was able to communicate in any of 22 languages.
- Kato Lomb. A talented Hungarian translator managed to learn 16 languages in adulthood. She knew Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Polish, Slovak, Danish, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Latin. She described the author's method of mastering a foreign language in her book “How I study languages”.
- Nikola Tesla. Few people know that the world-famous physicist, engineer and inventor was also a polyglot. Even not on such a grand scale, but he managed to find time to learn 8 languages.
- Jean-Francois Champollion. At the age of 20 he could communicate in 20 languages. He is considered the founder of Egyptology, what did not prevent him from gaining recognition as a linguist.
- Anthony Burgess. The author of the satirical dystopia "Clockwork Orange" spoke 7 languages without difficulty and knew another 5 in theory. As they say, a talented person is talented in everything: the English writer was an excellent interpreter, an outstanding literary critic, he earned fame in journalism and composed music.
- Vasily Ivanovich Vodovozov. The Russian interpreter and author of books for children has learned 10 languages. He gave an opportunity to Russian reader to learn the magnificent works of Anacreon, Sophocles, Horace, Catullus, George Byron, Johann Goethe, Heinrich Heine.
- Julian Konstantinovich Shchutskiy. The Doctor of Philology, Soviet orientalist mastered 18 languages. In his youth he was fond of music, he was considered gifted in this respect and even wrote several musical works.
- Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai. Famous as a feminist, publicist, diplomat. She used Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and other languages to promote socialist ideas. In addition, she knew the popular European - English, German, French. She was Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the USSR to the Kingdom of Sweden, and knowledge of foreign languages was certainly an excellent tool in international communication.
- Grigory Porfiryevich Kochur. Ukrainian linguist with a difficult life, who lived through the Soviet camp, lived 86 years. He translated from 28 languages. He gave people the opportunity to read works of writers from 30 countries.
- Nikolay Lukash. The interpreter from Ukraine, learned 20 languages, at that he prepared an literary translation from 14 languages.
- Sergey Anatolyevich Starostin. An outstanding linguist has mastered 40 languages successfully. His father was also a polyglot, a brother was known as a philosopher.
- Boris Lvovich Brainin. His active reserve was 15 languages; the last book included translations from 26 languages.
- Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. The most famous Russian writer knew English, Italian, Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, Tatar, Turkish, Bulgarian - about 15 languages in all.
- Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky. The Russian philosopher had Persian, Arabic, Tatar languages in his linguistic arsenal; he knew French, German and English well. Like other educated people of the XIX-th century, he learned Latin and Ancient Greek. He also mastered a rare Hebrew.
- Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov. He studied 9 languages, including Persian, Arabic and Turkish. This is another example of a versatile person who succeeded in several areas. And all this fit in the short 34 years of life, allotted to the talented Russian playwright, musician and diplomat.
- Yusuf-Haji Safarov. The engineer-architect who built fortresses for Imam Shamil, a lawyer, a theologian considered it necessary to master 12 languages.
- Agafangel the Crimean. Thanks to hard work he could communicate in 16 languages (although there is information that this Soviet writer, translator and orientalist studied more than 50 languages).
- Alexander Markovich Ostrovsky. The professor of mathematics, who lived in Europe, had linguistic interests: he mastered 5 languages.
- Paul Robeson. The singer and actor needed knowing more than 20 languages.
