Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

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Re: Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

Postby Chupito » Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:22 pm

It's fairly well known but Audrey Hepburn was an accomplished polyglot.
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Re: Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

Postby rdearman » Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:53 pm

Le Baron wrote:In his German to English dictionary there must have been an error where 'steal' was translated as 'invent'.

He didn't steal calculus, a well proven fact. Newton did invent it before him, but Newton never published then got angry off because someone beat him to the line. Leibniz invented it independently; he didn't know anything about Newtons work, but Leibniz published immediately. So it is agreed that they both invented calculus independently and Leibniz published first. There was a massive investigation by the Royal Academy at the time.

Something similar happened between Descartes and Fermat (I think it was them), but they agreed amicably they'd both made the discovery. Newton wasn't much of a gentleman, apparently he was a bit of a knob. If he'd spent more time publishing his findings rather than laying under apple trees he would have got sole credit. :lol:

More interesting from my point of view is Leibniz documented the binary numeral system (base 2) used in computers. Leibniz simplified the binary system and articulated logical properties such as conjunction, disjunction, negation, identity, inclusion, and the empty set. He anticipated algorithmic information theory. His "calculus ratiocinator" anticipated aspects of the universal Turing machine. In 1693, Leibniz described a design of a machine which could, in theory, integrate differential equations, which he called "integraph"

Leibniz was a serious inventor, engineer, and applied scientist, and thus has been claimed as the father of applied science. He designed wind-driven propellers and water pumps, mining machines to extract ore, hydraulic presses, lamps, submarines, clocks, etc.

A really fascinating bloke.
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Re: Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

Postby einzelne » Mon Apr 12, 2021 10:11 pm

Le Baron wrote:Did you find his skill unsuspected? I'd seen him in other films and a few interviews. He has a particularly intelligent manner anyway, so I was fairly unsurprised that he would also have language skills off-hand...


Are you looking for something like the Kardashians polyglots? I'm afraid I cannot be much of help then, sorry)
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Re: Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

Postby Le Baron » Mon Apr 12, 2021 11:24 pm

einzelne wrote:Are you looking for something like the Kardashians polyglots? I'm afraid I cannot be much of help then, sorry)


Who?
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Re: Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

Postby Le Baron » Mon Apr 12, 2021 11:29 pm

rdearman wrote:He didn't steal calculus, a well proven fact.

I was just repeating the old controversy for amusement purposes. I'm a great fan of Leibniz (apart from his limp excuses for the existence of God), he was indeed a very great polymath.
Last edited by Le Baron on Tue Apr 13, 2021 8:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

Postby Ug_Caveman » Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:17 am

Le Baron wrote:Unsuspected for me that is. Others here might be more observant. I'm not big royalist (anti-royalist in fact), but I happened to see a video posted on the website of INA where the late Prince Philip was addressing a French gathering in pretty much flawless French. (https://www.ina.fr/contenus-editoriaux/ ... -francais/). Not only that, but making successful jokes in the language which is always difficult.
It piqued my interest so I popped over to youtube and found a few such videos. Plus another where he was speaking equally good German. (I'll link these below).

The ones of Prince Philip were completely unknown to me though. I've seen other members of the British royal family doing shaky attempts. It must be noted though that the Duke was raised in a multilingual household and initially went to school in Paris, so maybe it's somewhat less impressive. Though he retained a good accent. Does anyone know any others you accidentally came across?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKUHAM0Guu8&t=115s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v_Zy9pP66E


Prince Phillip's rather interesting life no doubt led to the development of such skills. He could also understand (but not speak) Greek.

Sir Christopher Lee (who played Prince Philip in a film about 40 years ago) was an incredibly accomplished polyglot who could speak fluent French, German, Italian and Spanish (and released symphonic metal music in the former three.) He could also speak Russian, Swedish and Greek to some degree (Sir Ian McKellen claimed Lee was at least conversational in a great deal more.)

Being the son of an Italian countess who grew up in Switzerland certainly has its perks when it comes to acquiring languages ;) (as does meeting exiled Russian Tsars, courting Swedish noblewomen, marrying a Danish model and working as a post-WW2 intelligence officer.)
Last edited by Ug_Caveman on Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

Postby Ug_Caveman » Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:23 am

I genuinely didn't realise Diane Kruger was a German native when I first watched National Treasure her American accent was so good. From what I've heard from native francophones, she is equally competent in French as she is in English. (See also: Michael Huisman from Game of Thrones, who despite the name, I never guessed was Dutch. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau I guessed from the name wasn't a native English speaker, not that that stopped him delivering a fantastic performance in English regardless - ditto his fellow Dane Pilou Asbeck.)

I'm not a native speaker of Danish, so I can't attest to this myself, but I'm fairly sure Alicia Vikander (a Swedish native) won plaudits for acting in a Danish movie (and her English is fantastic regardless of which non-native accent her film requires her to adopt.)

Moving to politicians with caution - Nick Clegg (regardless of how you view him politically) is also a well-accomplished polyglot. Natively bilingual in English and Dutch, he also speaks French, German and Spanish (and I've seen some reports of him being able to speak Russian?)

I believe there's some "beef" between Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel as they both (reportedly) speak the other's language fluently, so there's tension as to who gets to show off when they meet (usually sorted out by just wasting money on interpreters instead.)
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Re: Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

Postby Dragon27 » Tue Apr 13, 2021 3:49 am

Le Baron wrote:Did you find his skill unsuspected?

The problem is that something being "unsuspected" (in this case - language skills) is not a well-defined objective property. We're basically sharing here personal experiences - I found out that this famous person knows languages and I had no idea!
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Re: Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Apr 13, 2021 6:56 am

Roald Dahl spoke Norwegian and Swahili. His parents were Norwegian and he learnt Swahili as an adult.
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Re: Unsuspected celebrity polyglots

Postby smallwhite » Tue Apr 13, 2021 7:13 am

rdearman wrote:Leibniz was a serious inventor, engineer, and applied scientist, and thus has been claimed as the father of applied science. He designed wind-driven propellers and water pumps, mining machines to extract ore, hydraulic presses, lamps, submarines, clocks, etc.

All that and he just "wrote in several languages"? Did he at least write us a flashcard app or something?

rdearman wrote:Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz wrote in several languages, primarily in Latin, French and German but also in English, Italian and Dutch. (Oh and he invented Calculus) :-)
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