A person who speaks several languages is called a polyglot.
The following individuals are some of the world’s famous polyglots who claimed to speak 10 or more languages:
Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was the 12th Prime Minister of the Republic of India. He led one of the most important administrations in India’s modern history, overseeing a major economic transformation and several incidents affecting national security. Narasimha Rao was popularly known as PV. PV studied at Fergusson College and at the Universities of Mumbai and Nagpur where he obtained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in law. He was a polyglot and could speak 13 languages including Urdu, Marathi, Kannada, Hindi, Telugu and English with a fluency akin to a native speaker. His mother tongue was Telugu. In addition to seven Indian languages, he spoke English, French, Arabic, Spanish and Persian. Along with his cousin Pamulaparthi Sadasiva Rao, PV edited a Telugu weekly magazine called Kakatiya Patrika from 1948 to 1955.
Sir John Bowring, (17 October 1792 – 23 November 1872) was an English political economist, traveller, miscellaneous writer and polyglot, and the 4th Governor of Hong Kong.
