Hyderabad, March 14 -- At only 19 years, Chennai-born Tamil Nadu resident Mahmood Akram has reached a record-breaking milestone in the field of linguistics. Dubbed a child genius for languages, Akram has read, written, spoken, and even typed 400 languages and speaks 46 of them fairly fluently. His feats have garnered international acclaim and several world records.

Mahmood's venture into languages was early, having been motivated by his father, Shilbee Mozhippriyan, a linguist who spoke 16 languages. Mahmood had, at the age of four, already demonstrated an extraordinary ability to learn languages. He memorized the English alphabet within six days and learned the intricate script of Tamil within three weeks-both feats that usually take mo...