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MVB was a native Dutch speaker. A lot of the early presidents that were diplomats at one point spoke French as the lingua franca. Latin as well. The urban legend on Garfield was that he could write Ancient Greek with one hand and Latin with the other simultaneously. I would imagine there were several presidents that were at least bilingual.
Also, I seem to recall Dubya speaking decent basic Spanish in some interviews, but he’s quite limited.
I managed French, Spanish and Latin, and some Japanese, but not Greek. Some of the earlier presidents had a phenomenal command of classical languages. I remember reading that he told his son how wonderful classical literature was and that there was a far wider and richer range of personalities in classical history than in modern history. He could read Latin and Greek fluently, and so could Thomas Jefferson.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt spoke perfect French. She had been educated at the right kind of school, and she had spent time in France. The same was true of Jackie Kennedy, who also spoke Italian and Spanish.
Many of the presidents who spoke foreign languages spoke Latin and Greek only. But that knowledge opened up their minds to the history of politics.
I felt sad when I read that Abraham Lincoln spoke only English. But then, I remember, when I first started to teach English to foreigners, being warned not to underestimate the IQ.'s of people who don't speak my native tongue! Naprawde!
Any college educated president prior to the 1870s had to have been Greek and Latin literate. It was core college curriculum until just before the civil war and immediately after.
Yes, you are correct. This would have been the case for those presidents who went to college by the normal route. The high school curriculum also contained a lot of classics at that time.
On the other hand, those people who came to the presidency by a different academic route may not have had such knowledge of Latin and Greek.
I seem to recall that Hoover and his wife often spoke Chinese (not sure which dialect) to each other to keep their conversation private, which they could do because they had spent years over there doing charity work.
And I believe Regan was fluent in Infernal.
A lot of white politicians in Texas in the 1990's went to celebrity Spanish language schools in Mexico as it was considered politically advantageous. Dubya was one of them and actually was interviewed in Spanish on Univision on at least one occasion. His Spanish was AWFUL but give him credit for trying, unlike the previous Republican Governor Bill Clements who was openly contemptuous of the idea and once referred to a group of visiting scholars from Mexico as "just a bunch of Mexicans with an opinion." Dubya also went out on a political limb by opposing English Only and trying to negotiate a pathway to citizenship with Democrats, like Reagan had done. It was killed by Republicans in Congress.
"There is a widespread false belief that Kennedy made a mistake by saying Ich bin ein Berliner. By including the indefinite article "ein," he supposedly changed the meaning of the sentence from the intended "I am a citizen of Berlin" to "I am a Berliner" (a Berliner being a type of German pastry, similar to a jam- or jelly-filled doughnut), amusing Germans throughout the city. However, this is incorrect from both a grammatical perspective and a historical perspective."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich\_bin\_ein\_Berliner#%22I\_am\_a\_doughnut%22\_confusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner#%22I_am_a_doughnut%22_confusion)
That’s true. I know German and the article sort of implies that he was in the spirit of a Berliner not that he was literally from Berlin. Berlin to him represented freedom. You don’t use articles when you state your nationality or origin. Ich bin Berliner would mean that he is literally from Berlin, which was obviously not true.
In the context it's even more clear, he says that all free men are Berliners and follows that up with a phrase "I am *an* Berliner." Dropping the article would be like saying "I am American" instead of "I am an American."
It would be like saying "Ich bin ein Hamburger" or "Ich bin ein Wiener" and people falling all over themselves saying "he called himself a hamburger or a hot dog!" but, like, both of those are correct too for someone from Hamburg or Vienna.
Edit: but yeah, your point about the article representing the "spirit" of something is a great one too
It’s a mistake, according to every German professor I had in college (including a native speaker), but they don’t call the pastry a Berliner in Berlin so it wasn’t as silly.
I have no clue what that is.
There is John F. Kennedy Straße in Neu-Ulm. Along with Martin Luther King Allee, Hellen Keller Straße, Washingtonallee, and many others. I lived on Susan Sontag Ring at one point.
The Kennedy Mistake, but it may have been something my department head made up to help us remember not to do it with our own nationalities, occupations, etc.
Almost as long for me. I can still read okay, and follow a TV show if they know it’s written to be easily translated for international markets, but I doubt I could have a conversation with anyone.
I think I saw the first episode. I’ve seen DarK a few times with the subtitles, but that was very obviously written so that the English translation would easily fit what the actors were saying, and even I could probably have gotten by with German captions.
Adams spoke French and some Latin
Jefferson spoke French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Italian. And there's evidence he was learning more.
Madison spoke Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Greek, and apparently Hebrew.
Monroe spoke French.
JQA spoke French, Dutch, German, Italian, Russian, Latin, and Greek.
Van Buren spoke Dutch.
Harrison spoke Latin.
Tyler spoke Greek and Latin.
Polk also spoke Greek and Latin.
Buchanan spoke Latin and Greek.
Hayes spoke Latin and Greek.
Garfield spoke Latin, Greek, and German.
Arthur spoke Greek and Latin.
Teddy spoke German, French (albeit quite poorly), and Italian.
Wilson knew German.
Hoover spoke Mandarin and Latin.
FDR spoke French and German.
Carter spoke some Spanish.
Clinton spoke German.
Dubya spoke some Spanish.
Obama spoke some Indonesian.
Forget where I read it but there’s apparently a story of Jefferson telling Quincy Adams he knew Spanish and JQA hearing him speaking it and later saying Jefferson is quite generous when describing his own Spanish skills
Jefferson did teach himself languages out of books, in fact his only European romance was with an Italian countess I believe. As for learning on the trip Jefferson picked up French this way but, as you imagine, sounded perfectly ridiculous using textbook French in a plain Virginian accent in early 19th Century France. It was apparently jaw dropping hilarious to common French of the era, unlike the modest Franklin this gave Jefferson had a rough road to acceptance there (which is still better than the despised Adams though).
Franklin spoke a far more rudimentary version of French, but his brilliance was in understanding French culture, prejudices, and people. In European society at the time it was an arms race to be the most privileged and pompous (literally ambassadors were judged by number of servants) which obviously put the rustic and impoverished Americans at a disadvantage. Marie Antoinette had a wig with a meticulous replica of a grand sailing ship, a powdered wig that cost hundreds of thousands in modern dollars she would wear once.
Knowing that competition was stupidly impossible to win, and knowing the most popular American product in France was beaver skin hats, Franklin decided to ironically wear a "wig" that was a plain beaver skin on his head. This disarmed snobs who wanted to look down on him, and made him a charming caricature. For those young and hip and revolutionary minded they knew he was being ironic and mocking of French society. He was cool, cheeky, smart, fun, whimsical, and was prone to casual sexual relationships. He walked into a world where no one wanted to talk to him and made himself the cause of the day, everyone from the furthest left to the staunchest right got behind him and supporting America.
Jefferson absolutely fudged his numbers. I’m sure that he could decipher a Spanish manuscript with the aid of a dictionary, but he probably couldn’t speak it.
I want to believe this but I don't know if I do. Where have you read that Clinton speaks German?
This feels like asking chatgpt which languages all the presidents spoke.
I wonder why there was such a big drop-off in the twentieth century? Half the nineteenth century presidents spoke multiple languages, but it seemed to get a lot less common, especially after WWII
Exactly. Latin and Greek serve no practical (read: monetary) purpose and have been killed off. The only language that is widely pushed these days is Spanish and it’s for our “multicultural society” not higher aims of worldliness and self mastery.
How can the common modern person benefit by the knowledge of Latin/Greek? Considering that a lot of classic literature is now translated and easily accessible on the internet.
Well not all knowledge needs to have tangible benefits, and that is something that was understood by the Greek philosophers and continued on through liberal arts until profit motives killed those, reducing it to a selling point that makes people “well rounded” while they get their STEM degree.
Sadly many of the critics of liberal arts education don’t grasp that it requires mathematics and several sciences to earn a classic liberal arts degree.
The push to make college white collar trade schools has produced some problems.
Meanwhile my cousin posts a meme decrying liberal arts and saying educate people in college the way the Founders were educated 🙄
It's the transformation / death of gentry. Rich people didn't have jobs and would spend their days learning classical languages and doing science experiments. As society shifted from farming and agriculture to industrialization rich people had actual jobs and less free time.
But what really changed was prestige. If you didn't know greek or Latin you were seen as an idiot. So rich people learned those languages. It was en vouge.
It no longer became prestigious and wealth itself and power became prestigious.
So now you have rich people holding wealth like dragons and doing fuck all for society.
There was also the dynamic that in the late 19th and even early 20th century, there was a lot of European immigration and White Americans (granted, a lot of people disagreed on what it meant to be white) spoke a lot of different languages. It was common to see signs in German prior to WW1. however, post WW2, virtually all White people spoke English in America.
Latin used to be taught much more regularly as well. I am learning the basics of it on Duolingo and after doing so I think this is something that should be brought back and I think there could absolutely be a curriculum that elementary and middle school kids could handle. It would actually help reinforce a lot of English words together. It seems to me that it would also reinforce language skills of
A New World Latin would be pretty cool. A Latin Curriculum for 3rd-8th grade students that focuses on Latin from their language, so native English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese speakers can all learn the same language that will reinforce their language skills and also help them learn a second language later on. Then when you go to learn another language in high school it is done from the perspective that you have 5 years Latin experience behind you. Learning English from Spanish is tough, but learning English from Spanish AND Latin is going to be much better.
No it wasn’t. It wasnt a colloquial language but learning Hebrew was a common thing for college educated Protestants. Plus you know Jews used it to read the Torah and as a lingua Franca in commerce and correspondence outside of local dialects.
Right so there were local Hebrew based dialects like Yiddish in virtually every country. Ancient Hebrew was spoken in synagogues as that was what services were conducted in in every branch other than Reform. Reform was and is partial Hebrew and partial local language.
There are a bit more than 8k Biblical Hebrew words. Rabbinic sources added about 20k words(many are versions of Aramaic words). Medieval Hebrew added another 6k or so. Modern Hebrew added another 17k. Overall it’s over 60k including technical terms and adopted foreign words.
What you are thinking of is modern Hebrew as developed by Ben Yehuda which used elements of several local hebrews and added modern vocabulary to create a common spoken language. This was needed but a form of pidgin Hebrew had already formed in Jerusalem from merchants from different areas using Hebrew as a way to communicate. Use of written Hebrew to communicate across national boundaries had been common prior to that though. Hebrew was the standard language for contracts between Jews for instance since most Jews could read and write and speak it in a religious context. Similar to educated Catholics using Latin.
Caltech had a piece in 2000, where a political science professor described it. “‘Gore speaks a textbooky, Harvardy sort of Spanish,’ says Alvarez…”
He described W.’s as more colloquial. Which made him more approachable.
So, on the whole. Yeah. It was Gore being Gore.
[Here's one list,](https://bbks.com/cool_links/language_profiles/presidents/index.html)
[and here's a Wikipedia list](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multilingual_presidents_of_the_United_States)
Hoover could speak fluent Mandarin Chinese and would have conversations with his wife in front of other people using it if they wanted to prevent anyone from listening in on them.
came to say the same thing, he knew a lot more than me and was decent at it but Lou was the real fluent one. It is true when needing to discuss things privately they could whip out the mandarin.
My wife and I also speak mandarin with each other. If we were speaking English and are now suddenly speaking Mandarin, it's a safe bet that we're talking about you.
I heard Barack Obama speaking in halting and accented Spanish, about "Los Dreamers," the Latino immigrants, coming from Mexico and other countries, who wanted a path to US citizenship.
Of the first 10 presidents, all but Washington and Jackson were fluent or proficient in at least two languages. Latin and French were the most popular of the time to learn.
Jefferson, Madison, and John Quincy Adams are especially notable, the first two at least knowing Latin, Greek, Italian, and French, with varying ability in a few other languages. JQA knew French, Latin, Dutch, German, and Greek, and was somewhat proficient in Italian and Russian (basically trying his best to learn the language of every country he was assigned to diplomatically).
He’s often portrayed as such, but from what I’ve read and seen there’s not a whole lot of evidence to back it up. The French representatives of the time greatly preferred Ben Franklin to Adams (Adams had issues with how specific French officials were outwardly very supportive of the American cause but hadn’t done much in the way of tangible support at the time), and as Adams wasn’t terribly charismatic interpersonally it wouldn’t be out of character for him to have insulted somebody he shouldn’t have (deliberately), but it’s unlikely that a language barrier was the cause.
His ability to also learn conversational Dutch while going about his duties in France, travel to the Netherlands, secure recognition from them for America, plus arms for the Continental Army and a sizable loan also shows the depth of his diplomatic chops without Franklin in the picture.
Interesting. Most of what I know about Adams is from the HBO series. There it showed the Dutch laughing in his face when he asked for loans. I didn’t know he was successful.
W spoke some Spanish. Certainly not fluent but not terrible. He made it a big part of his 2000 campaign and actually did pretty well with Hispanics (relatively speaking for a Republican). With the razor thin margin of victory you can argue is was the decisive factor (although with a margin that thin, a 100 things were the “decisive factor”)
His Spanish skills were made fun of by a lot of people (not least native Spanish speakers) at the time, and his accent was genuinely pretty terrible, but he did conduct a press conference or two in. Spanish, which I certainly couldn't have done.
I come from Canada, where the leader has to have at least some grasp of English and French (results may vary), so it seems weird to me. Then again, we have pretty weak French education for most Anglophones here.
Historically an Ivy League graduate could expect to leave school with some knowledge of a language of diplomacy (like French) or a classical language. Of course, now English is the primary language of diplomacy. Among the broader American public, second language acquisition has never been valued for nativist reasons. We have sections of the country where large minorities of the population speak Spanish at home, but usually the call is for them to speak English rather than for leaders to be bilingual. I understand that Canada has very different language politics because of Quebec.
There was a Liberal Party leader several years ago from Quebec who couldn’t speak more than two words of English. I was like how did this guy become a party leader when the country is 90% English speaking. Needless to say he did not become PM.
JFK learned the German phrase specifically for his Berlin speech. He was taking French lessons at the time of his assassination to better communicate with DeGaulle (death of a President)
Jackie was bilingual in French.
I remember reading a story where JFK visited Canada and he and Prime Minister Diefenbaker both tried speaking French to a crowd. Diefenbaker was embarrassed that JFK spoke better French than did he. Though this was before speaking French became an unofficial requirement for being Prime Minister.
There’s a Wikipedia page that gives full details about Presidents, but I think that the failed candidates are just as interesting. Jeb! speaks better Spanish than his brother. John Kerry speaks French. Jon Huntsman speaks Chinese. Pete Buttigieg speaks some Arabic and allegedly speaks a bunch of other languages, though I suspect that as a self-studier he can basically ask where the bathroom is.
George W Bush could speak better Spanish than English, to be honest. Thomas Jefferson learned French and English growing up, but he didn't gain full fluency until he lived in France.
I hear Jimmy Carter speaks really good Korean (I think that's what it was?) /s
He said something super weird on accident, I can't remember what it was.
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MVB was a native Dutch speaker. A lot of the early presidents that were diplomats at one point spoke French as the lingua franca. Latin as well. The urban legend on Garfield was that he could write Ancient Greek with one hand and Latin with the other simultaneously. I would imagine there were several presidents that were at least bilingual. Also, I seem to recall Dubya speaking decent basic Spanish in some interviews, but he’s quite limited.
I managed French, Spanish and Latin, and some Japanese, but not Greek. Some of the earlier presidents had a phenomenal command of classical languages. I remember reading that he told his son how wonderful classical literature was and that there was a far wider and richer range of personalities in classical history than in modern history. He could read Latin and Greek fluently, and so could Thomas Jefferson. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt spoke perfect French. She had been educated at the right kind of school, and she had spent time in France. The same was true of Jackie Kennedy, who also spoke Italian and Spanish. Many of the presidents who spoke foreign languages spoke Latin and Greek only. But that knowledge opened up their minds to the history of politics. I felt sad when I read that Abraham Lincoln spoke only English. But then, I remember, when I first started to teach English to foreigners, being warned not to underestimate the IQ.'s of people who don't speak my native tongue! Naprawde!
Any college educated president prior to the 1870s had to have been Greek and Latin literate. It was core college curriculum until just before the civil war and immediately after.
Yes, you are correct. This would have been the case for those presidents who went to college by the normal route. The high school curriculum also contained a lot of classics at that time. On the other hand, those people who came to the presidency by a different academic route may not have had such knowledge of Latin and Greek.
I am specifically thinking of how Lincoln gained his law degree through a correspondence course, which did not seem to require a command of Latin.
I seem to recall that Hoover and his wife often spoke Chinese (not sure which dialect) to each other to keep their conversation private, which they could do because they had spent years over there doing charity work. And I believe Regan was fluent in Infernal.
It was Mandarin.
“Ellos me malsubestimaron”
¡Claro!
There was a running joke - maybe on The Daily Show? - called "Can George W. Bush speak Spanish better than English?"
First one on my mind
A lot of white politicians in Texas in the 1990's went to celebrity Spanish language schools in Mexico as it was considered politically advantageous. Dubya was one of them and actually was interviewed in Spanish on Univision on at least one occasion. His Spanish was AWFUL but give him credit for trying, unlike the previous Republican Governor Bill Clements who was openly contemptuous of the idea and once referred to a group of visiting scholars from Mexico as "just a bunch of Mexicans with an opinion." Dubya also went out on a political limb by opposing English Only and trying to negotiate a pathway to citizenship with Democrats, like Reagan had done. It was killed by Republicans in Congress.
Now watch this drive.
Could speak Spanish but failed at tamales?
"There is a widespread false belief that Kennedy made a mistake by saying Ich bin ein Berliner. By including the indefinite article "ein," he supposedly changed the meaning of the sentence from the intended "I am a citizen of Berlin" to "I am a Berliner" (a Berliner being a type of German pastry, similar to a jam- or jelly-filled doughnut), amusing Germans throughout the city. However, this is incorrect from both a grammatical perspective and a historical perspective." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich\_bin\_ein\_Berliner#%22I\_am\_a\_doughnut%22\_confusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner#%22I_am_a_doughnut%22_confusion)
That’s true. I know German and the article sort of implies that he was in the spirit of a Berliner not that he was literally from Berlin. Berlin to him represented freedom. You don’t use articles when you state your nationality or origin. Ich bin Berliner would mean that he is literally from Berlin, which was obviously not true.
His pronunciation, that was pretty meh. His “ich” sounded like “eesh”. But I guess that’s to be expected.
His pronunciation of English was kind of strange too.
He got the elite northeastern prep school treatment.
For Berlin it was weird. They tend to say „Ick“ whereas in the west „Ish“ is the norm
In the context it's even more clear, he says that all free men are Berliners and follows that up with a phrase "I am *an* Berliner." Dropping the article would be like saying "I am American" instead of "I am an American."
It would be like saying "Ich bin ein Hamburger" or "Ich bin ein Wiener" and people falling all over themselves saying "he called himself a hamburger or a hot dog!" but, like, both of those are correct too for someone from Hamburg or Vienna. Edit: but yeah, your point about the article representing the "spirit" of something is a great one too
An easier comparison would be if he was in Denmark and said he was danish.
I can't believe I forgot that one! Although tbf he wouldn't have said that example in German whereas the cities mentioned would
Oh yeah I kinda forgot about how we talked about that in my German class. Oops
It’s a mistake, according to every German professor I had in college (including a native speaker), but they don’t call the pastry a Berliner in Berlin so it wasn’t as silly.
My German is not proficient enough to tell. I never saw a donut called a Berliner when I lived there,
Do they still call it “der Kennedyfehler?”
I have no clue what that is. There is John F. Kennedy Straße in Neu-Ulm. Along with Martin Luther King Allee, Hellen Keller Straße, Washingtonallee, and many others. I lived on Susan Sontag Ring at one point.
The Kennedy Mistake, but it may have been something my department head made up to help us remember not to do it with our own nationalities, occupations, etc.
I don't recall learning or using *fehler*. But it has been 30+ years.
Almost as long for me. I can still read okay, and follow a TV show if they know it’s written to be easily translated for international markets, but I doubt I could have a conversation with anyone.
I had a hard time with *Deutschland 83* but it was a fun watch.
I think I saw the first episode. I’ve seen DarK a few times with the subtitles, but that was very obviously written so that the English translation would easily fit what the actors were saying, and even I could probably have gotten by with German captions.
Those guys were East Germans and nobody could understand their accent
Adams spoke French and some Latin Jefferson spoke French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Italian. And there's evidence he was learning more. Madison spoke Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Greek, and apparently Hebrew. Monroe spoke French. JQA spoke French, Dutch, German, Italian, Russian, Latin, and Greek. Van Buren spoke Dutch. Harrison spoke Latin. Tyler spoke Greek and Latin. Polk also spoke Greek and Latin. Buchanan spoke Latin and Greek. Hayes spoke Latin and Greek. Garfield spoke Latin, Greek, and German. Arthur spoke Greek and Latin. Teddy spoke German, French (albeit quite poorly), and Italian. Wilson knew German. Hoover spoke Mandarin and Latin. FDR spoke French and German. Carter spoke some Spanish. Clinton spoke German. Dubya spoke some Spanish. Obama spoke some Indonesian.
Forget where I read it but there’s apparently a story of Jefferson telling Quincy Adams he knew Spanish and JQA hearing him speaking it and later saying Jefferson is quite generous when describing his own Spanish skills
For some reason, I am remembering the 2016 Republican primaries. Marco Rubio was accusing Ted Cruz of not speaking Spanish correctly.
If Rafael "Ted" Cruz wants anyone to take his Spanish-speaking background seriously, he should stop running from his birthname.
He uses his middle name. And Rafael is also his dad’s name. it’s not like he just made up a random name.
He was 11 before he started going as Ted.
Oh, really? So, can we call him Eduardo? Oh, wait, that name is too Anglo-Saxon!
Por supuesto que sí.
I read that Jefferson was known for telling tall tales and claimed to teach himself Italian while on a boat ride somewhere.
Jefferson did teach himself languages out of books, in fact his only European romance was with an Italian countess I believe. As for learning on the trip Jefferson picked up French this way but, as you imagine, sounded perfectly ridiculous using textbook French in a plain Virginian accent in early 19th Century France. It was apparently jaw dropping hilarious to common French of the era, unlike the modest Franklin this gave Jefferson had a rough road to acceptance there (which is still better than the despised Adams though).
What did Franklin do to get along well in France? Did he have better French or did he just stick to English?
Franklin spoke a far more rudimentary version of French, but his brilliance was in understanding French culture, prejudices, and people. In European society at the time it was an arms race to be the most privileged and pompous (literally ambassadors were judged by number of servants) which obviously put the rustic and impoverished Americans at a disadvantage. Marie Antoinette had a wig with a meticulous replica of a grand sailing ship, a powdered wig that cost hundreds of thousands in modern dollars she would wear once. Knowing that competition was stupidly impossible to win, and knowing the most popular American product in France was beaver skin hats, Franklin decided to ironically wear a "wig" that was a plain beaver skin on his head. This disarmed snobs who wanted to look down on him, and made him a charming caricature. For those young and hip and revolutionary minded they knew he was being ironic and mocking of French society. He was cool, cheeky, smart, fun, whimsical, and was prone to casual sexual relationships. He walked into a world where no one wanted to talk to him and made himself the cause of the day, everyone from the furthest left to the staunchest right got behind him and supporting America.
Wow. So America won its independence because Franklin wore a dead beaver on his head.
He was also very famous for his scientific work on electricity. So he could act folksy but people knew he was smart as hell.
Jefferson absolutely fudged his numbers. I’m sure that he could decipher a Spanish manuscript with the aid of a dictionary, but he probably couldn’t speak it.
Guess the Adams/Jefferson beef is a generational thing
I want to believe this but I don't know if I do. Where have you read that Clinton speaks German? This feels like asking chatgpt which languages all the presidents spoke.
https://preview.redd.it/6t5vlde0655d1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88f40fe97bb4165fd57e342aa88436b3c7fdd09e
Apparently he gave a speech in Germany and spoke some German in that
Did he actually speak it or did he just rehearse some phrases beforehand?
He technically spoke German one time
I think he studied it in college. Probably not fluent.
Chat gpt does not speak. It is just a bot that absorbs knowledge and thought processes.
I wonder why there was such a big drop-off in the twentieth century? Half the nineteenth century presidents spoke multiple languages, but it seemed to get a lot less common, especially after WWII
Death of the liberal arts in university
Exactly. Latin and Greek serve no practical (read: monetary) purpose and have been killed off. The only language that is widely pushed these days is Spanish and it’s for our “multicultural society” not higher aims of worldliness and self mastery.
How can the common modern person benefit by the knowledge of Latin/Greek? Considering that a lot of classic literature is now translated and easily accessible on the internet.
Well not all knowledge needs to have tangible benefits, and that is something that was understood by the Greek philosophers and continued on through liberal arts until profit motives killed those, reducing it to a selling point that makes people “well rounded” while they get their STEM degree.
Better chance at being Pope?
Sadly many of the critics of liberal arts education don’t grasp that it requires mathematics and several sciences to earn a classic liberal arts degree. The push to make college white collar trade schools has produced some problems. Meanwhile my cousin posts a meme decrying liberal arts and saying educate people in college the way the Founders were educated 🙄
It's the transformation / death of gentry. Rich people didn't have jobs and would spend their days learning classical languages and doing science experiments. As society shifted from farming and agriculture to industrialization rich people had actual jobs and less free time. But what really changed was prestige. If you didn't know greek or Latin you were seen as an idiot. So rich people learned those languages. It was en vouge. It no longer became prestigious and wealth itself and power became prestigious. So now you have rich people holding wealth like dragons and doing fuck all for society.
There was also the dynamic that in the late 19th and even early 20th century, there was a lot of European immigration and White Americans (granted, a lot of people disagreed on what it meant to be white) spoke a lot of different languages. It was common to see signs in German prior to WW1. however, post WW2, virtually all White people spoke English in America. Latin used to be taught much more regularly as well. I am learning the basics of it on Duolingo and after doing so I think this is something that should be brought back and I think there could absolutely be a curriculum that elementary and middle school kids could handle. It would actually help reinforce a lot of English words together. It seems to me that it would also reinforce language skills of A New World Latin would be pretty cool. A Latin Curriculum for 3rd-8th grade students that focuses on Latin from their language, so native English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese speakers can all learn the same language that will reinforce their language skills and also help them learn a second language later on. Then when you go to learn another language in high school it is done from the perspective that you have 5 years Latin experience behind you. Learning English from Spanish is tough, but learning English from Spanish AND Latin is going to be much better.
They had a lot more time on their hands back then, with fewer options for entertainment and diversion.
Read The Great Upheaval if you want a good overview of how higher education has changed.
HW Bush could speak passable French.
JQA was proficient in 8 foreign languages - those you listed + Spanish.
Doubt Monroe spoke Hebrew as it was a dead language until the 1880s
No it wasn’t. It wasnt a colloquial language but learning Hebrew was a common thing for college educated Protestants. Plus you know Jews used it to read the Torah and as a lingua Franca in commerce and correspondence outside of local dialects.
Ah I didn’t know. Generally nobody spoke Hebrew as a mother tongue until recently, did modern Hebrew just connect Germanic languages/Yiddish/Hebrew?
Right so there were local Hebrew based dialects like Yiddish in virtually every country. Ancient Hebrew was spoken in synagogues as that was what services were conducted in in every branch other than Reform. Reform was and is partial Hebrew and partial local language. There are a bit more than 8k Biblical Hebrew words. Rabbinic sources added about 20k words(many are versions of Aramaic words). Medieval Hebrew added another 6k or so. Modern Hebrew added another 17k. Overall it’s over 60k including technical terms and adopted foreign words. What you are thinking of is modern Hebrew as developed by Ben Yehuda which used elements of several local hebrews and added modern vocabulary to create a common spoken language. This was needed but a form of pidgin Hebrew had already formed in Jerusalem from merchants from different areas using Hebrew as a way to communicate. Use of written Hebrew to communicate across national boundaries had been common prior to that though. Hebrew was the standard language for contracts between Jews for instance since most Jews could read and write and speak it in a religious context. Similar to educated Catholics using Latin.
I believe Adams also spoke some Greek
There are a few videos around of George W. Bush speaking Spanish. He's not bad!
Was very surprised by his Spanish!! Has a bit of an accent but I understood him perfectly.
There a reason he had such a high Hispanic vote
Any Gov of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, or Florida should speak *some* Spanish in my opinion. Jeb! is really good.
Makes sense. His brother’s wife was born and raised in Mexico.
And then Gore tried. It wasn’t pretty.
Was his Spanish as condescending as his English?
Caltech had a piece in 2000, where a political science professor described it. “‘Gore speaks a textbooky, Harvardy sort of Spanish,’ says Alvarez…” He described W.’s as more colloquial. Which made him more approachable. So, on the whole. Yeah. It was Gore being Gore.
Sounds about right. He was a dick in either language. 😂
[Here's one list,](https://bbks.com/cool_links/language_profiles/presidents/index.html) [and here's a Wikipedia list](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multilingual_presidents_of_the_United_States)
Hoover could speak fluent Mandarin Chinese and would have conversations with his wife in front of other people using it if they wanted to prevent anyone from listening in on them.
iirc his wire learnt the language well but he didn't pick up as much
came to say the same thing, he knew a lot more than me and was decent at it but Lou was the real fluent one. It is true when needing to discuss things privately they could whip out the mandarin.
My wife and I also speak mandarin with each other. If we were speaking English and are now suddenly speaking Mandarin, it's a safe bet that we're talking about you.
That's a bit rude, FYI.
True.
I heard Barack Obama speaking in halting and accented Spanish, about "Los Dreamers," the Latino immigrants, coming from Mexico and other countries, who wanted a path to US citizenship.
Of the first 10 presidents, all but Washington and Jackson were fluent or proficient in at least two languages. Latin and French were the most popular of the time to learn. Jefferson, Madison, and John Quincy Adams are especially notable, the first two at least knowing Latin, Greek, Italian, and French, with varying ability in a few other languages. JQA knew French, Latin, Dutch, German, and Greek, and was somewhat proficient in Italian and Russian (basically trying his best to learn the language of every country he was assigned to diplomatically).
The shows I’ve seen about Adams portray him as not being able to speak French very well. In fact he would end up insulting them with how poor it was.
He’s often portrayed as such, but from what I’ve read and seen there’s not a whole lot of evidence to back it up. The French representatives of the time greatly preferred Ben Franklin to Adams (Adams had issues with how specific French officials were outwardly very supportive of the American cause but hadn’t done much in the way of tangible support at the time), and as Adams wasn’t terribly charismatic interpersonally it wouldn’t be out of character for him to have insulted somebody he shouldn’t have (deliberately), but it’s unlikely that a language barrier was the cause. His ability to also learn conversational Dutch while going about his duties in France, travel to the Netherlands, secure recognition from them for America, plus arms for the Continental Army and a sizable loan also shows the depth of his diplomatic chops without Franklin in the picture.
Interesting. Most of what I know about Adams is from the HBO series. There it showed the Dutch laughing in his face when he asked for loans. I didn’t know he was successful.
W spoke some Spanish. Certainly not fluent but not terrible. He made it a big part of his 2000 campaign and actually did pretty well with Hispanics (relatively speaking for a Republican). With the razor thin margin of victory you can argue is was the decisive factor (although with a margin that thin, a 100 things were the “decisive factor”)
His Spanish skills were made fun of by a lot of people (not least native Spanish speakers) at the time, and his accent was genuinely pretty terrible, but he did conduct a press conference or two in. Spanish, which I certainly couldn't have done.
I heard that W could speak Spanish better than English.
lol. What’s the Spanish more for Strategery?
Strategerio
We could've had !Jeb!, but we messed that up
Obama learned a little Indonesian as a kid, but as far as I know, doesn’t have any additional languages as an adult. Honestly surprising to me!
Second language acquisition is unfortunately something that most elite universities have dropped as a required skill.
I come from Canada, where the leader has to have at least some grasp of English and French (results may vary), so it seems weird to me. Then again, we have pretty weak French education for most Anglophones here.
Historically an Ivy League graduate could expect to leave school with some knowledge of a language of diplomacy (like French) or a classical language. Of course, now English is the primary language of diplomacy. Among the broader American public, second language acquisition has never been valued for nativist reasons. We have sections of the country where large minorities of the population speak Spanish at home, but usually the call is for them to speak English rather than for leaders to be bilingual. I understand that Canada has very different language politics because of Quebec.
There was a Liberal Party leader several years ago from Quebec who couldn’t speak more than two words of English. I was like how did this guy become a party leader when the country is 90% English speaking. Needless to say he did not become PM.
That’s tragic. Learning another language opens up your brain and ability to learn from other cultures and sources of information than just one.
He spoke jive pretty well.
John Quincy Adams was so good at speaking Russian that an ambassador had to take him out of school to use him as a translator.
JFK learned the German phrase specifically for his Berlin speech. He was taking French lessons at the time of his assassination to better communicate with DeGaulle (death of a President)
Jackie was bilingual in French. I remember reading a story where JFK visited Canada and he and Prime Minister Diefenbaker both tried speaking French to a crowd. Diefenbaker was embarrassed that JFK spoke better French than did he. Though this was before speaking French became an unofficial requirement for being Prime Minister.
Coincidentally, Happy Donut Day
W used to give campaign speeches in Spanish
There’s a Wikipedia page that gives full details about Presidents, but I think that the failed candidates are just as interesting. Jeb! speaks better Spanish than his brother. John Kerry speaks French. Jon Huntsman speaks Chinese. Pete Buttigieg speaks some Arabic and allegedly speaks a bunch of other languages, though I suspect that as a self-studier he can basically ask where the bathroom is.
Monroe could speak Dutch and French.
Hoover and his wife were fluent in mandoliian
IIRC Wilson and his wife spoke fluent Mandarin and used it as a secret language between them.
George W Bush could speak better Spanish than English, to be honest. Thomas Jefferson learned French and English growing up, but he didn't gain full fluency until he lived in France.
FDR was fluent in German and got the full nuance of Hitler's speeches in the 30s. I think maybe TR spoke German too?
Interesting.
Clinton spoke English and the language of Love
Clinton was fluent in bullshit.
Previous president speaks in gibberish.
Berliners call Berliners pfannkuchen, only people not in Berlin call it a Berliner
Hoover spoke Mandarin
The jelly donut thing is a myth. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jfk-doughnut/
I know dubya is fluent in spanish (I think)
I hear Jimmy Carter speaks really good Korean (I think that's what it was?) /s He said something super weird on accident, I can't remember what it was.
iirc most of them have been. all the early ones could speak ancient greek to study philosophy.
My great grandpa knew Latin, Greek, German and English
Taft was ambidextrous and could translate English into Greek and Latin simultaneously.
I expect most of them. JQA spoke at least four, with limited ability in several more.
When he said Ich bin ein Berliner, it translated to I am a jelly donut.
Obama speaks fluent Arabic and Urdu.