I ran into a polyglot the other day who asked me how many languages I knew. I flashed back to a moment circa 1977 when I was a young kid in a summer program to learn about computers. We were sitting at terminals and someone asked a hacker (in the good sense of that word) how many languages he knew.

The hacker was about 19, with long hair in a pony tail, wearing jeans, hiking boots, round-rimmed John Lennon glasses, and a T-shirt with some kind of rock band logo on it. He was the epitome of the cool nerdy hacker, leaning over our shoulders as we typed out BASIC programs and giving us tips, excited to share his craft.

“Well, if you mean human languages, only one fluently,” he said. “But if you mean computer languages, well, let’s see…” He started counting them off on his fingers. The only ones I remember now are BASIC (because I was learning it) and SNOBOL because the name was funny.

So I answered my polyglot acquaintance “Well, if you mean human languages, only one fluently. But if you mean computer languages…”

Then later when I got home, I made a list, and it was surprisingly long.