Countries Ruled by Polyglots

On October 21^st Canadians headed to the polls to vote in the federal elections. One of the things we tend to evaluate in our candidates is their ability to communicate in English and French, our two official languages. In many other countries, where politicians’ language skills are not that important, this kind of test seems unlikely during the race; but there are other countries, where it is normal to see speakers of more languages ruling the country.   

From time to time, we have some statesmen who can speak multiple languages, such as Fernando Henrique Cardoso in Brazil, who can speak Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French, or Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Philippines, who can speak Tagalog, English, Spanish, French, and several local languages. But their respective countries are not among those where you would expect to see a polyglot leading the government. 

I made a list of countries where you would expect to see a polyglot ruling. I do not mean that those governments are better than the rest of the governments, but they might create an interesting case study.

Here is my list:

Belgium

The first time I visited this country, the tour guide told us that according to the constitution, the head of state of the country has to be able to speak in the official languages of the country, French, Dutch, and German. The king is the head of state.

I could not confirm this information, but on a website that writes about the languages spoken by the European royalty they mention that the current king, Philippe, can speak French, Dutch, German, English, and Spanish, and has a good command of Italian. His father, Albert II, can speak French, Dutch, English, and German, having a good level of Italian as well. According to a site published by L'Université Laval although the language of the royal family is French, all the kings since Albert I could speak in the 3 official languages of their kingdom. Princess Elisabeth, the heiress apparent to the Belgian throne, speaks French, Dutch, German and English.

Estonia:

This young democratic country that restored its independence, separating from the Soviet Union in 1991 has been already ruled by polyglots.

Lennart Meri, who was the second president of this country (1992 – 2001), spoke Estonian, Finnish, French, Russian, English and German.  The fourth president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves (2006 – 2016) speaks Estonian, English, German, Latvian and Spanish. The 5^th and current president, Kersti Kaljulaid speaks Estonian, English, Finnish, French, and Russian. Only one more president remains in this list, Arnold Rüütel, but I could not confirm his linguistic education. Anyway, with 3 out of 4 presidents being polyglots, without counting the Prime ministers (Current Prime Minister Jüri Ratas and his predecessor Taavi Rõivas, both are polyglots), this country seems to prefer polyglots to hold the highest positions in the government.    

Georgia:

This ex-soviet republic, where the official language is an old Kartvelian language, with very few relatives, mostly spoken in the same area and one of the most difficult languages for a foreigner to learn and pronounce (There was a time where linguistics were studying whether this language is related to Basque), needs to have in office people who can be understood abroad.

The 5^th and current president, Salome Zourabichvili can speak Georgian, French, English and has a good level in Italian.  Her predecessor, Giorgi Margvelashvili (2013 – 2018) speaks Georgian, English, and Russian (This is now a normal language combination for educated people of this country). His predecessor and 3^rd president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili (2008 – 2013) speaks Georgian, Russian, English, French, and Ukrainian (now he serves as a politician in Ukraine. It seems that knowing languages can help to pursue a career in other countries).

Regarding the Prime Ministers, I do not have the information of the languages they speak, but when we read about their studies and employment history, the conclusion is that most of them speak Georgian, Russian and English, and we have a couple of French speakers.

India:

India is a country where knowing one language is never enough. With a population that speaks in many different languages, India does not have a national language, since none is spoken widely enough to have such status. 2 languages have official status at the national level and 22 languages have official recognition in at least one state. Polyglotism is common in this country, and no matter how many languages you speak, there will always be an important group of citizens who won’t be able to have a conversation with the Prime minister if they ever have the opportunity.

In such an environment, it is not strange to see polyglots in high positions of the government. Most of Prime Ministers have spoken their mother tongues, Hindi, English, and have had knowledge in other regional languages. Narendra Modi, for example, speaks Gujarati, Hindi and has a good level of English, but he also knows some Marathi. I read that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was a native speaker of Punjabi, could also speak English and Hindi, but he could not read Hindi. However, he knows Urdu that is very similar and his written speeches were actually in Urdu. But the champion of Indian Polyglots in politics was Narasimha Rao, who could speak more than 10 languages (I read in some sites that he could speak 17 languages).

But not many people know that the independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, considered as the father of the nation in India, had good language skills. He was native speaker of Gujarati, but he knew Hindi, Urdu, English, and knew also Marathi and Sanskrit.

Israel:

Since the declaration of independence of the state of Israel in 1948, this country has been lead by 12 prime ministers and 10 presidents. Among them, 8 prime ministers and 8 presidents have been able to speak 3 or more languages. Some of them have been real polyglots like David Ben-Gurion and Shimon Peres. The rest have been bilingual (Hebrew – English). You can read more in an article I wrote in this same blog in 2016 about Polyglotismin in the Israeli Government.

In my opinion, one of the key points here has to do with immigration. Among the leaders, 7 presidents and 7 prime ministers were born outside and they were immigrants themselves. Israel has received many immigrants who came with their own linguistic background. Most of them did not know Hebrew when they made their “Aliyah”. Learning Hebrew means that they gain an additional language in their curriculum. If they have the chance to get into politics, we can see politicians who know different cultures, have different points of view and of course, with better language skills.

Luxembourg:    

In a microstate where 3 languages (Luxembourgish, French and German) are used for all purposes and where its citizens use all 3 languages in school, the rulers must set an example. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a constitutional monarchy and the Grand Duke is the head of state.

According to the site about languages spoken by the European royalty the Grand Duke Henri speaks 5 languages: Luxembourgish, French, German, English, and Spanish. Guillaume, the Hereditary Grand Duke has a similar combination of languages that he uses regularly. The previous Grand Duke Jean was able to speak Luxembourgish, French, German and English.

The Prime Ministers of this country are not really behind. We can mention the case of the Prime Minister from 1995 till 2013, Jean-Claude Juncker, who is the President of the European Commission till December 1^st, he can speak Luxembourgish, German, French, English and Latin.

Switzerland:

This multilingual country (4 official languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh), it’s a very curious federal democracy, where the Federal council serves as the collective head of state. This federal council has 7 members. Another curious fact is that each member of the council addresses the rest of the members in their own language. Does it mean that members of this council can speak in all the official languages of the country? Not really. It is true that the membership reflects the linguistic composition of the country, especially when we talk about German and French speakers (unfortunately the council did not always have an Italian speaker; the current council has one).  But among the 7 members, there is someone who is a polyglot. One or two polyglots for each team of the council…. Not bad! Still, there is a polyglot leading the country!         

South Africa

South Africa is a multicultural and multilingual society, with 11 official languages. If all 11 languages have equal status, we might expect that the president should know as many languages as possible. At least, the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is a polyglot and he tries to use them in his speeches. The previous president, Jacob Zuma, knows 6 languages, including French and Russian. His mother tongue is Zulu. Not many people know that Nelson Mandela was native speaker of Xhosa, and he could speak Afrikaans and English.     

The Vatican City

This microstate is ruled by the Pope, who is also the head of the Catholic Church. We still have memories about the times of Pope John Paul II, a real polyglot. There are 2 things I can say about him: He knew how to use languages as a tool to improve the work of his church, and that I read different articles about the languages that he could speak, and there is no agreement about which languages he mastered. Later came Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, both well known for their ability to speak multiple languages, although not as many as John Paul II. Anyway, after speak with many catholic friends, I've come to the conclusion that it is generally assumed that a Pope most be a polyglot.