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Political Leaders and Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| ifihadahammer Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6474 days ago 30 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian | Message 49 of 142 11 March 2007 at 6:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Lenin was mentioned a few pages back. Apparently he knew English well enough to translate English works into Russian for publication. He translated Sidney and Beatrice Webb's 1897 "History of Trade Unionism" at one stage so that Russian Marxists could find out more about the labour movement in Britain. It's 600 or so pages.
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| Jerrod Senior Member United States Joined 6502 days ago 168 posts - 176 votes  Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 50 of 142 11 March 2007 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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About Lenin.
Lenin, in school studied Greek and Latin. His mother spoke multiple languages as well. I saw his report card and he received 'A's' in all classes. In his biography it is noted, he requested a German-Greek dictionary in 1922. So for sure he had a working knowledge at least reading. Lenin also studied German and French. He moved to Berlin and, in one letter to his mother commented that he was learning the slang. He, as mentioned, also spoke French. During his conferences he would deliver his speechs in Russian, German, and French. So for sure he was fluent in these language. Lenin and Krupskaya did translate a book in Siberia in 2 weeks in English. But when Lenin got to England he did not speak English. He wrote multiple books from the material in British library and I once saw an English letter he wrote, it had the normal mistakes most Russians would make (i.e. articles etc..). Multiple journalists commented he had excellent English it was just spoken slowly. He lived in Finland, so I am sure he had a basic knowledge (you can't live in a small town like Tampere with out it, even now days). Though everything I see written about this time, he used Swedish. Lenin also lived in Krakow a number of years and seeing how close Polish and Russian are, he had to have picked some of it up. He went to Italy once, drove there, so I am sure he had a basic knowledge. In a soviet propaganda book, it states he spoke 15 languages. The above is all I know of. Trotsky also spoke multiple languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6864 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 51 of 142 03 April 2007 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I was in the gallery at the European Parliament a few days ago and I noticed Barroso gave a speech in Portuguese then suddenly switched to French in mid-speech. He has also given interviews in English. I also saw a German woman MEP (whose name escapes me) who gave a speech in English.
De Villepin is very good at English. During the build up to the Iraq war he sat at the UN meetings without a headset for translation on as the US/UK diplomats spoke in English. I read that Stalin spoke Georgian as a youth, and didn't learn Russian until early adulthood. There is a story that as Stalin was sat in a meeting, Lavrenty Beria, his fellow Georgian and NKVD chief said something to him in Georgian to which he calmly replied in Russian "If you want to say something to me, say it in Russian". The Iraqi information minister is bi-lingual at least, speaking superb English and Arabic. I remember he once argued that he spoke better English than Bush. Pope John Paul II was a gifted linguist, as is Benedict XVI, who speaks German, Italian and English perfectly, and apparently can read Latin and Ancient Greek. Edited by FuroraCeltica on 03 April 2007 at 5:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jerrod Senior Member United States Joined 6502 days ago 168 posts - 176 votes Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 52 of 142 08 May 2007 at 12:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Trotsky, Lenin's second in command, spoke French, German, Russian, and Spanish fluently. He did live in Odessa so I am assuming he spoke Ukrainian as well. I am reading a book about him, so I figured I would add this.
Jerrod 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ferdi Tetraglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 7074 days ago 41 posts - 41 votes Speaks: Turkish, Dutch*, English, German | Message 53 of 142 20 June 2007 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
trotsky also spoke english and hebrew lenin only spoke German and russian fluently, he had a basic knowledge of french and english. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6573 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili | Message 54 of 142 28 June 2007 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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According to Wikipedia in English John Paul 2 spoke 18 languages, they
list many languages. I know for a fact that in addition to the languages mentioned he spoke fluent Yiddish, I've heard recordings (he has a very native sounding Southwestern Accent) and he lived in an area that was entirely Jewish and Yiddish speaking until the Holocaust, so Yiddish was almost certainly the second language he learned. In fact the Pope, remembered as a great football player (real football for us Americans, he was a goalkeeper), he actually started his career in the Jewish league because there weren't enough Christians to field a team in his town for kids under about 12. Among the languages credited on Wikipedia are Latin, Ukrainian, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, English, Chinese, Japanese, Croatian, Arabic, Persian, Romanian, Turkish, Korean and of course Polish. I can also attest that his Spanish and English were both flawless. The Spanish Wikipedia credits him as well with some Tagalog and Japanese, fluent Hungarian and Esperanto and some fluency with "various African languages". President Bush's Spanish skills are not perfect but they are quite passable, I heard him ask a Mexican-American "who were the two sets of father and son to be presidents?", I also saw a 2000 campaign message in good Spanish as well. Carter also spoke Spanish, how well I'm not sure. Colin Powell speaks a good amount of Yiddish and I don't think any other languages but English (only I'd know that one I guess, completly random but relevant to the topic). One president, I can't remember which one spoke some Chinese and would communicate with his wife in it when he did not want to be understood. This Indian politican was very multilingual. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Narasimha_Rao Although Paul Robeson wasn't a world leader he spoke many languages as well, around 12 by some counts including Chinese, Russian, German, Yiddish, and Spanish (those are the ones I've heard recordings of). Garfield was an absolute genius mathematician (one of his proofs of the pathogorean theorem is still standard teaching in American geography) and apparently knew several languages and could translate texts into two languages simultanously using both hands (ancient Latin and Ancient Greek were his favorite to do this with). Jackson spoke some Muscogee (Creek) but how well is a matter of debate as he used a translator while operating as a general in a war against the people (genocide is a better word but I don't want this to become political but calling the Creek war a war is a joke). If I think of anyone else whose obvious I'll post it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6573 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili | Message 55 of 142 28 June 2007 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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OK, it was Hoover who spoke some Chinese though his wife was apparently
better, they would communicate in it to keep secrets. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6664 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 56 of 142 29 June 2007 at 4:38am | IP Logged | ||
Well, don't trust Wikipedia! I'm sure he spoke Polish, Italian, Spanish, English, French, and German fluently (German with a rather heavy accent), probably Portuguese, some Russian, and read Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew. Maybe some more, but claims that he spoke Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese are ridiculous (okay, maybe he had some knowledge in one or two of them, but come on). The 'Urbi et orbi' blessing is usually given in dozens of languages (he read them off, probably in phonetically transcribed form for most of the languages), so that might explain, why some people might give him credit for languages he didn't know. EDIT: I checked Wikipedia and didn't find any reference to the languages you mentioned, probably the article has changed... Edited by Marc Frisch on 29 June 2007 at 4:43am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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