Which president were bilingual? (influence, European, Chinese, state)

[jtur88]

Is there any authoritative source that indicates which presidents were bilingual?

It is known that VanBuren was born in a Dutch-speaking househod, and English was his second languate. Neary all educated presidents no doubt studied Latin and maybe Greek, but nobody speaks Latin (nobody has a clue what it sounded like), and they certainly couldn't speak modern Greek.

WBush and Carter have been heard speaking fairly decent Spanish.
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Jefferson was said to have known 6 languages, and apparently his French was fluent, as were the Adamses and a few other early presidents.

Obama is in YouTube speaking a few greetings in Bihasa Indonesia, but his grasp of that language would be, at best, that of a grade school child. There is no evidence I know of that he can speak Swahili or Kikuyu.

A number of presidents had previously been ambassadors abroad, but only a tiny few US ambassadors abroad ever acquire any proficiency in the language of the country they are posted to.

Meanwhile, is there any head of state of any country who cannot speak English?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by jtur88

Meanwhile, is there any head of state of any country who cannot speak English?

Well, recently there was George Bush.

[M3 Mitch]

Not sure of an authoratative reference - "Bilingual" can mean within reason whatever you want to mean by that - for example "W" can speak some Spanish, apparently more Tex-Mex than not, but I am not sure how good he is.

I have been studying Russian part-time, informally, for about 15 years, but if I had occasion to address the Duma, I'd still want an interpreter (although I do understand almost everything I hear, I wouldn't trust my own speaking ability for something really important).

Most presidents/premiers/whatever of non-English speaking nations do learn English as a 2nd or more language. The one advantage of not having English as a native language is it's not hard to identify the most useful foreign language to study.

It would be a good thing if more people would expose their kids to at least one foreign language when they are pre-school, and it's natural and easy to learn a 2nd or even 3rd language, but not sure how that would be implemented.

In the 1800's, French was the language of diplomacy, so many politicians of that era did speak it, it was a necessary tool of the trade. During that same time German was the language of science and engineering, so most technical people at least learned to read German, many of these could read "fluently" but could not speak or understand spoken German. Or so I have read - I was not there.

[slowlane3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quincy Adams was multi-lingual, having lived in several European countries as a boy, where his father was a diplomat.

Herbert Hoover - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and his wife spoke fluent Chinese, as they had lived in China where he worked as an engineer.

President James Garfield could simultaneously write Latin with one hand, and Greek with the other. (this is a well-documented fact).

First lady, Jackie Kennedy was fluent in French.

[North Beach Person]

Just guessing:

Likely both Roosevelts due to their backgrounds/education.

Wilson, for the same reason.

Kennedy.

Eisenhower, a foreign language was required at West Point.

Both Addams' due to their diplomatic activities.

Jefferson, the same.

You have to remember that a "well-educated" individual historically learned at least Latin if not Classical Greek.

[Tmolus]

List of Presidents of the United States who knew a language other than English - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interestingly, Martin Van Buren is the only President who had a first language other than English -- Dutch in his case, though he then learned English as a young child.

[jtur88]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

Kennedy.

Eisenhower, a foreign language was required at West Point.

.

What evidence do we have that Kennedy ever spoke a foreign language, except "Ich bin ein Berliner"?

A foreign language was also required at the university I went to, but I still could not converse in German until I got to Germany and started trying (badly) to apply it. Passing courses in a language is not the same as speaking it. Nearly all presidents went to universities, and met the foreign language requirement, but that does not mean they could carry on a casual conversation with a fellow passenger on a train any better than I could have in German.

Nobody on this planet can speak "Latin", however, there are people who can use their knowledge of Latin to form comprehensible sentences that other people can understand, because a phonology has been arbitrarily agreed upon which governs hypopthetical pronunciations of Latin words.

I meant for the thread to address capacity to speak a foreign language with the kind of fluency with which virtually all heads of state can speak English, even the ones that we portray as loutish worldly-challenged morons like Castro and Ahmedinejad and Chavez and Qaddafi.

[DewDropInn]

Obama probably speaks Pidgin Hawaiian. Linguists like to debate whether it's a dialect or a language but I think it's pretty darn cool to have a president who knows what a plate lunch is.

[kevinm]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

Well, recently there was George Bush.

You must not be an American because I am and I understood every word he said.

[ABQConvict]

Originally Posted by jtur88

Nobody on this planet can speak "Latin", however, there are people who can use their knowledge of Latin to form comprehensible sentences that other people can understand, because a phonology has been arbitrarily agreed upon which governs hypopthetical pronunciations of Latin words.

I know it is just nitpicking, but 'reconstructed Classical pronunciation' of Latin is not arbitrary.

There is an entire discipline of reconstructing pronunciation values of 'dead' languages based on all kinds of evidence.

Anyone linguistically inclined readers might look up a book called Vox Latina: A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin by Prof. W. Sidney Allen

Now, that covers the subject of Classical Latin.

Ecclesiastical Latin, that spoken at the Vatican and in some other Catholic church circles, is essentially Latin as influenced by centuries of the development of the Italian language all around it.

In collegiate environments, Latin was spoken, aloud, until quite recently. Even in courses such as Medicine and Law, lectures and question sessions were conducted in Latin. In different countries, Latin's pronunciation varied according to the local vernacular set of phonemes.

The most interesting thing about this is that Ecclesiastic and Collegiate Latin have an uninterrupted history of usage from Classical times. It only became a dead language in terms of vulgar (common, popular, vernacular) use.