Duolingo Polyglot: How many languages can I learn?

I have to be honest and state that I have been studying Spanish my whole life.  My grandfather encouraged my love of languages and he used to let me listen to his "Learn Spanish" records on the gramophone (yes - I am that old).  Although I lived in largely a white neighborhood when I was very small I was aware of the many people around us who spoke Spanish.  As a child I was overawed by all adults and was too afraid to try my language skills on them but I loved to listen. Spanish is a beautiful language and over the years I have heard many different versions and have aspired to copying a number of regional accents.  It is a language that has been with us since at least the 7th century and is the second most spoken language in the entire world (after Chinese).  With its rich history and the many cultures that have influenced it speaking Spanish is like touching small parts of our human past.  There are times when I can hear the soft sounds of Moorish fountai...

 Draig dw i Y draig goch or the red dragon is the image of the Welsh people.  I love that one of the first phrases you learn to say in the Duolingo course is "Draig dw I" or "I am dragon".  This beginning for the study plan sets  the tone for welsh as a very ancient, magical language and as I stumble over the pronunciation and work to say each word correctly I also feel like every sentence said right is somehow a magical spell. The red dragon is on the Welsh flag and has been used in heraldry and symbolic placements throughout the region.  Ancient Celtic stories talk a lot about dragons in the region and some of these are even tied to stories of Arthur, Merlin and the roundtable.   Dragons have always been a source of fascination for humans.  They appear in many cultures throughout the world and the images of them are very similar.  One wonders if there might once have been some kind of creature that inspired these legends.  And some would sa...

 September 8, 2020 In the beginning .. or at least in Genesis 11- all people spoke a common language.  And because they understood each other so well they were able to achieve great things.  And then it all fell apart, many languages were born and people could no longer understand each other. My version of the story is a little different.  In my version there were already many languages but the one language that everyone had in common was respect.  Every way of speaking was considered equal and most people could communicate in several tongues.  The civilization fell apart when each group stopped speaking to the other - when they stopped trying to understand each other and replaced communication with separatism. Over the centuries we have become even more divided, languages and entire peoples have disappeared. Losing a language is like losing a gradient of color - with each language lost we become duller and our differences become more pronounced.  We b...