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Interview with

Chase Huff

Name: Chase Gibson Huff
Nationality or Ethnicity: American
Where do you live?: South Africa
Languages: English, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, French, Mauritian Creole, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish.

Member since:

2025-02-01

1. What’s your story? How did you get into all these languages?

When I was growing up entirely monolingually in rural America, I thought it was sorcery that people could speak multiple languages. Then I went on a study abroad program to the Netherlands where I realized that anyone could learn a new language so long as they immersed their mind (and better yet their body) in it and remembered that people are generally trying to make sense: both to the world and themselves. From there it just clicked. Some people learn multiple instruments because they love music, others play multiple sports because they love the games; I learned multiple languages because I loved the perspectives.


2. Which language(s) do you wish you could spend more time practising?

Mauritian Creole because of its colorful idioms and inclusive culture.


3. What are some languages you’d like to learn in the future?

|Xam, Russian, and Arabic.


4. So let’s be honest, what’s the sexiest language?

Brazilian Portuguese.


5. What’s the greatest pleasure you get from speaking so many languages?

Being a vector for inclusion rather than exclusion.


6. Some people say the world is really just going to have a few languages left in a 100 years, do you think this is really true?

People will always find new ways to communicate privately so that outsiders cannot follow along, whether it is children using slang parents can’t understand or in-groups expanding their language use with references out-groups do not have. What we should better seek to understand is whether the rate of language genesis will trend towards outpacing or falling behind the rate of language loss.


7. What is your message to young (and not so young) people out there who are interested in studying multiple languages?

Yes, you can. From the very day you decide to learn a language, you are a member of the community that speaks said language. Today is the easiest it has ever been in human history to learn a language, and tomorrow it will be even easier. If you commit to dedicating the time, your proficiency will grow faster than you think.

The International Association of Hyperpolyglots - HYPIA. (c) 2025

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