Ziad Youssef Fazah (born June 10, 1954 in Monrovia, Liberia) is reputed to be the world's most accomplished hyperpolyglot. It is said that he speaks, reads and understands 58 languages, most of which were learned before the age of 20. His skills have been successfully tested on TV shows around the world by speakers of such languages as Mongolian, Czech, Korean and Hungarian. Raised in Lebanon, he has lived in Brazil since the 1970s. June 10 is the 161st day of the year (162nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Monrovia in the 1800s. ... A hyperpolyglot is one who can speak six or more languages fluently. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ...

The list of languages he speaks (from Ziad Youssef Fazah: Maior Poliglota do Mundo):

Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azeri, Bengali, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cambodian, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Dzongkha, English, Fijian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kyrgyz, Lao, Malagasy, Malay, Mandarin, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Papiamento, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Singapore Colloquial English, Sinhalese, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tajik, Thai, Tibetan, Turkish, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese and Wu. Note: This article contains special characters. ... Arabic ( or just ) is the largest living member of the Semitic language family in terms of speakers. ... The Azerbaijani language, also called Azeri, Azari, Azeri Turkish, or Azerbaijani Turkish, is the official language of the Republic of Azerbaijan. ... Bengali or Bangla (IPA: ) is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit, Pāli and Sanskrit languages. ... Standard Cantonese is a variant, and is generally considered the prestige dialect of Cantonese Chinese. ... Dzongkha is the national language of the Kingdom of Bhutan. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... “Hebrew” redirects here. ... Hindi ( , Devanagari: or , IAST: , IPA: ), an Indo-European language spoken mainly in northern and central India, is the official language of the Union along with English. ... Kyrgyz or Kirghiz (Кыргыз тили) is a Northwestern Turkic language, and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan. ... The Malay language (Malay: Bahasa Melayu; Jawi script: بهاس ملايو), is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people who reside in the Malay Peninsula, southern Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau islands, parts of the coast of Borneo and even in the Netherlands[1]. It is an official... Standard Mandarin, also known as Standard Chinese, Modern Standard Chinese or Standard spoken Chinese, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Singapore. ... Nepali (Khaskura) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Nepal, Bhutan, and some parts of India and Myanmar (Burma). ... Papiamento or Papiamentu is the primary language spoken on the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (the so-called ABC islands). ... Pashto (‎, IPA: also known as Pakhto, Pushto, Pukhto ‎, Pashtoe, Pashtu, Pushtu or Pushtoo) is an Iranian language spoken by Pashtuns living in Afghanistan and western Pakistan. ... Persian (Local names: فارسی Fârsi or پارسی Pârsi)* is an Indo-European language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan as well as by minorities in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, India, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Southern Russia, neighboring countries, and elsewhere. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Singlish is the English-based creole spoken colloquially in Singapore. ... Sinhalese or Sinhala (සිංහල, ISO 15919: , IPA: [], earlier referred to as Singhalese) is the mother tongue of the Sinhalese, the largest ethnic group of Sri Lanka. ... Swahili (also called Kiswahili; see below for derivation) is a Bantu language. ... Tajik or Tadjik (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی, tojikí) is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. ... The Tibetan language is spoken primarily by the Tibetan people who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering South Asia, as well as by large number of Tibetan refugees all over the world. ... Urdu ( , , trans. ... Wu (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is one of the major divisions of the Chinese language. ...

External links

• WorId's Greatest Living Polyglot. Spidra's Vortex. Retrieved on August 17, 2007.
• Ziad Youssef Fazah: Maior Poliglota do Mundo. Retrieved on August 17, 2007.