The Etymology of Polyglot

    Figure 1:  A tongue that I quickly sketched, and then edited in photoshop.

The Ancient-Greek 1st-and-2nd-declension adjective:

πολύς, πολλή, πολύ

, or, when transliterated:

‘polús, pollḗ, polú,’

means:

‘many,’

.  The Ancient-Greek 1^st-declension feminine noun:

ἡ γλῶσσα, τῆϛ γλώσσης,

or, when transliterated:

‘hē glȭssa, tē̃s glṓssēs’

means:

‘the tongue’

.  In the Attic dialect, the spelling of:

‘hē glȭssa,’

is:

ἡ γλῶττα, τῆϛ γλώττης

, or, when transliterated:

‘hē glȭtta, tē̃s glṓttēs’

.

We derive our English noun:

‘polyglot,’

, which is a speaker of many languages, from our combining of the Ancient-Greek adjective:

‘polús,’

which means:

‘many’

, with the Ancient-Greek noun:

‘glȭtta’

, which means:

‘tongue’

.