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Polyglot American Presidents | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6705 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 1 of 8 29 January 2007 at 8:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I was googling something the other day, and found a question on Ask Yahoo (or whatever that part of Yahoo is called) where someone asked if any presidents had ever spoken a foreign language. No one could come up with an answer, so i did a little research. My results are below.
I couldn't find results for everyone, though, and I'm not sure of the accuracy of what I did find. The online biographies skimp on language abilities, even when they're impressive. Could anyone else add to the list below? 1. George Washington: none 2. John Adams: Greek and Latin 2. Thomas Jefferson: Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian (German, Welsh, Gaelic) 4. James Madison: Latin, Greek 5. James Monroe 6. John Quincy Adams: French (‘mastery’), German (‘familiarity’), Greek, Latin 7. Andrew Jackson 8. Martin van Buren: Dutch (native language) 9. William Henry Harrison 10. John Tyler 11. James Polk 12. Zachary Taylor 13. Millard Fillmore: could NOT read Latin 14. Franklin Pierce 15. James Buchanan 16. Abraham Lincoln 17. Andrew Johnson 18. Ulysses S. Grant 19. Rutherford B. Hayes 20. James Garfield: Latin, Greek (could translate into both simultaneously, using his right hand for Latin and left hand for Greek; Classics professor) 21. Chester Arthur 22. Grover Cleveland 23. Benjamin Harrison 24. Grover Cleveland 25. William McKinley 26. Theodore Roosevelt: Latin and Greek, some French and German 27. William Taft 28. Woodrow Wilson: Latin, Greek, French 29. Warren Harding 30. Calvin Coolidge 31. Herbert Hoover: Latin (translator), some Chinese (Mandarin) 32. Franklin D. Roosevelt: conversational German and French 33. Harry Truman 34. Dwight Eisenhower 35. John F. Kennedy 36. Lyndon Johnson 37. Richard Nixon 38. Gerald Ford 39. Jimmy Carter: some Spanish 40. Ronald Reagan 41. George H. W. Bush 42. William Clinton 43. George W. Bush: some Spanish note: in the case of "some," it may be as little as understanding the language when hearing it, but unable to speak it, a la George W's Spanish or (it seems) Hoover's Chinese. Edited by Raincrowlee on 01 February 2007 at 7:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7166 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 2 of 8 29 January 2007 at 10:44am | IP Logged | ||
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A further bit of googling suggests President Hoover's Mandarin wasn't as good as Mrs Hoovers!
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| Topsiderunner Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6921 days ago 215 posts - 218 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 8 29 January 2007 at 11:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Here's for George Washington:
"He excelled in mathematics and learned the rudiments of surveying. But he was not taught Latin or Greek like many gentlemen's sons, and he never learned a foreign language. Nor did he attend college. His formal education ended around the age of 15." http://www.mountvernon.org/learn/meet_george/index.cfm/ss/21 / 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6705 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 4 of 8 29 January 2007 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | ||
That's interesting. There are a number of online bios that like to point out that Mr. and Mrs. Hoover used to talk to each other in Mandarin in the White House. This is an interesting clarification. It makes me wonder who actually translated Res Metallica, then, since it's listed as a collaborative effort. Mrs. Hoover did seem to have a knack for languages. One site said that she learned 8 of them in her travels. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patlajan Triglot Groupie United States Joined 7152 days ago 59 posts - 65 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Turkish Studies: German, Mandarin, French | Message 5 of 8 31 January 2007 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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I read somewhere that Jefferson taught himself Spanish on the boat across the Atlantic. (about 5 weeks)
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| Piekarski Diglot Newbie United States allthingsancient.com Joined 6533 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Greek | Message 6 of 8 31 January 2007 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is my first post here, so I hope you'll bare with me. I have just finnished reading the book Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons. The book is a history of Latin and Greek education and contains several pages devoted to the Presidents of the United States who learned the classical languages.
Missing from the list posted by Raincrowlee John Adams - Latin and Greek Theodore Roosevelt - Latin and Greek I also remember reading in a biography of Jefferson, American Sphinx if memory serves, that he learn Spanish on his voyage to read Cervantes in the original. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6705 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 7 of 8 01 February 2007 at 7:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, Piekarski, and welcome to the forum.
That looks like an interesting title you mentioned there. Would you recommend it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Piekarski Diglot Newbie United States allthingsancient.com Joined 6533 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Greek | Message 8 of 8 01 February 2007 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the warn welcome Raincrowlee.
I enjoyed Climbing Parnassus but I know some of the books I read won't be read with interest by too many others. Paranssus was a well written and very detailed look at the place Latin and Greek have held in learnig for the last 2000 years. If that sounds like something you would enjoy reading about, I suggest taking a look at its reviews on Amazon.com; I would say they accurately describe the book. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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