As new varieties of multilingualism continue to arise, simplistic terms such as polyglot and hyperglot cannot be expected to represent the full diversity of human linguistic competence. Unfortunately, English vocabulary (unlike Eskimo vocabulary), hasn’t even made a pretense of keeping up. Each and every day a new form of super-duper-multilingualism arises, and yet English-speaking linguists have just the one term to describe it.

As a public service, we at SpecGram are pleased to offer a small sampling of terms, which may serve to describe some of the many new types of prodigiously multilingual persons. This taxonomy is based, of course, not only on our own experiences, but also on the linguistic behavior of people known personally to us. Therefore, we assure our readers that each and every one of these terms is acutely needed in English; memorize them all now, because danged if you won’t need one just about as soon as you meet a new person at the symposium tomorrow!

• Hyperglot₁: One who speaks a great many languages.

• Hyperglot₂: Multilingual with too much sugar in the bloodstream.

• Hyperglot₃: One who exaggerates the number of languages he can speak.

• Hyperglot₄: One who incessantly and familiarly greets a Scandinavian “Peter”.

• Highperglot: One who believes he can speak many languages while under the influence of drugs.

• Hire-per-glot: A highly multilingual person who charges per languages you need him or her to use.

• Hoperglot: One who is earnestly desirous to learn many languages.

• Hypnoglot: A person who can speak many languages, but only in an altered state of mind.

• Happyglot: A person who finds deep and abiding contentment in learning many languages.

• Hiberniaglot: A person who speaks many Irish languages.

• ‘Hi there!’-glot: Much like a pallyglot, a person who can say hello in many languages.

• Hoppyglot₁: A person who learns many languages at the same time, hopping from one to the other in a chaotic fashion.

• Hoppyglot₂: A person who learns many languages while hopping.

• Hoppyhoppyglot: [You know where I’m going here]

• Hypertext Transfer Protoglot: A person who learns many languages using the internet.

• Hoboglot: A travelling migrant worker who rapidly learns the languages of whatever working environment he finds himself in.

• Harpieglot: A person who speaks many mythical languages.

• Heebeejeebiesglot: A person who is afraid of learning many languages.

• ‘Hey, boy!’-glot: A person who aggressively orders juvenile males to learn many languages.

• Hypocritoglot: A monolingual person who criticizes others for not learning more languages.

• Hypochondriaglot: One who can recount all of the illnesses they think they have in many languages.

• Hiberglot: One who sleeps through language class.

• Hipperglot: Someone who knows more languages than you, and is cooler, too.

• Hepperglot: Someone who knows more languages than you, is a lot older than you, and is still cooler than you.

• Hamperglot: Someone who can talk about laundry in a ridiculous number of languages.

• Helperglot: Someone who will help you learn many, many languages.

• Heaperglot: Someone who knows a big pile of languages.

• Humperglot: Someone who can speak a large number of languages, but only on Wednesdays.

• Hiderglot: Someone who speaks many languages, but doesn’t want anyone else to know.