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Political Leaders and Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6583 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes  Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili | Message 57 of 142 29 June 2007 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, all of those languages for John Paul do seem exagerated, your
probably right that he led short prayers in languages he didn't really speak. Few people anywhere master Tagalog, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic etc in one lifetime. I could imagine why he'd want to know some Tagalog but in a country with so much English understood I really doubt he learned much of the language. Plus, he was very active as a priest, cardinal and pope, I can't imagine he had the time to learn all these languages. So what we definetely know (approximately) Polish (Native), Yiddish (nearly flawless), English (very good), Spanish (very good), Italian (lived in Italy for 20+ years), French (I've heard it was good but don't know), Porteguese (I'd imagine he knew some because he was the Pope), Hungarian (I've read all over the place that he spoke flawless Hungarian but I don't know if I believe it) ability to read Latin, biblical Hebrew, Ancient Greek. Tagalog ?, Chinese?, Russian?, Farsi?, African Languages?, Arabic, Esperanto ? Romanian? Korean? Japanese? Can anyone testify to any of these languages Wikipedia credits him with that I marked with a question mark?. I agree with Marc Frisch, he was a smart man but once you get above 6 or 7 languages it seems unlikely at best and I've already got him down for 6 he definetly spoke plus three dead ones he almost certainly could read. Another leader I've thought of is Castro, he speaks good English (lived in the US for a while) and his parent's were both ethnically Galician but I don't know if he knows any. Golda Meir: Spoke Hebrew, English, Yiddish (native) and Russian. Ariel Sharon: Spoke (is this the right word for a comatose patient?) Russian (first language), Hebrew, English and supposedly some Arabic. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6874 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 58 of 142 09 July 2007 at 10:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think the issue here is the contraversial point at which a person is considered to be able to "speak" a language. I agree with an earlier poster who said that John Paul II could lead short prayers etc. in exotic languages, but his functional ability in them was probably very low.
I'd agree he definitely spoke Polish and Italian, and could read Latin. As for the rest, varying degrees of proficiency in important "Catholic" languages like Portuguese, French and Spanish, but maybe very little/none in the more exotic ones. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6281 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 59 of 142 24 September 2007 at 11:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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Stalin's native language was of course Georgian. He learned Russian in school and in a seminary, though he always spoke it with a Georgian accent. He had some interest in Esperanto, at least for a little while. Unlike many other leading Bolsheviks, he spent relatively little time in exile outside Russia before the 1917 revolution. The only West European language he knew to any extent (a smattering) was German. Apparently, he could pick his way through German texts with the help of a dictionary but that was as far as it went.
Mao's native spoken language was the dialect of Hunan province where he was born, which I believe is called Hsiang. He learned Mandarin as in effect his second language, since Hsiang is quite different from Mandarin, I understand. As far as I know, he spoke no non-Chinese language. His antagonist Chiang Kai-Shek resembled him in also having Mandarin as a second language: his native language was the Wu dialect. On an official form he completed after the revolution, Lenin was asked what languages he knew. He stated Russian was his native language, as you would expect, and the foreign languages he claimed some knowledge of were German, French, English and Italian. Of these, his Italian was the weakest by his account. He seems to have been fairly modest about his language abilities. Judging from comments in his letters while in exile in Western Europe, Lenin found that a good book knowledge of German, French and English was not the same thing as understanding what was said to him by locals in London, Paris and Munich. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| manny Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6367 days ago 248 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Tagalog Studies: French, German | Message 60 of 142 24 September 2007 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
I understand that Mao spoke Mandarin with a "rural accent" and that most Chinese found it difficult to understand his public speeches. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6281 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 61 of 142 24 September 2007 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know any Chinese so I don't know for certain (I do have some command of Russian, and Stalin's non-Russian accent while speaking Russian is obvious to me from broadcasts I have heard). Perhaps Mao imported pronunciation habits from Hsiang into his Mandarin, and it came across as "rural". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| manny Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6367 days ago 248 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Tagalog Studies: French, German | Message 62 of 142 24 September 2007 at 1:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The comments about Mao and Stalin bring up other interesting questions. What about other leaders?
Did Hitler speak German with a German or Austrian accent? EDIT: I hope NO one gets the wrong idea and is offended, since we are discussing Popes in the same thread as Mao, Stalin, and Hitler. Edited by manny on 24 September 2007 at 1:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6281 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 63 of 142 24 September 2007 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
In Hitler's case, Austrian, although he did not come across as "foreign" in Bavaria, which has a pretty similar German dialect anyway. On the subject of Popes, I am not offended. Some of them were pretty ruthless people themselves, especially in past centuries, and the behaviour of the Vatican during the war has been questioned. But that is perhaps a digression. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| FM_Moltke Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Germany Joined 6628 days ago 54 posts - 58 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, German, French Studies: Polish, Latin | Message 64 of 142 26 September 2007 at 12:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Pope Benedict mentions in an interview that he and JP II conversed in German rather than Latin when they spoke together.
Hitler only had some elementary French ability. His foreign minister von Ribbentrop spoke English French and Russian. Mussolini spoke English French and German. Churchill spoke good French. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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