Polyglot Popes: What languages does the Pope speak? 

Pope John Paul II also was fluent in Esperanto having learned it as a child in Poland and had given some masses in it.

Pope John Paul II gave a full sermon in the indigenous tongue Quechua while visiting Perú. He spoke Creole in the Caribbean islands. He studied it before visiting. In the Philippines, he spoke Tagalog very clearly. He had the gift of tongues.

Pope John Paul II inspired me as a American teenager. Having learned Latin, I also speak Italian, French, Portuguese and Spanish, but also studied German and New Testament Greek. The Catholic Church brings peoples together from all languages!

John Paul II was very popular in the Netherlands because he would always thank the Dutch for their flowers at Easter. (Bedankt voor de bloemen)

So glad i found your channel

Greetings from Poland. Very interesting channel. I like it very much.

From the start, I know that it would be John Paul II who would top this list. Everytime JPII spoke Tagalog, it gives us chills. For many Catholic Filipinos, it was like God was speaking to us through him in our language . I am now actually crying while writing this. This man is very dear to the hears of the Filipinos. Of course, Francis is also beloved by Filipinos. So much that the largest attendance in a Catholic mass happened in our islands.

That short English in Seoul is so hilarious lol

I don't blame the pope. I'm Irish and when I'm playing online games the Germans and french that speak English as a second language never understand me ;(

do polyglot presidents or something like that.

I am not totally catholic (But still Christian, and Arabic speaker) .. And I love all of those who appeared in this video.. Specially the current pope Francis.

Hi! Nice video! I'm from Argentina and the Pope is very famous here. He doesn't speak Portuguese, he said literally "I don't speak Brazilian" when he went to Brazil, and went on speaking just Spanish

1:48 Pope: "Arrrrrree yourrr rrrredyrrr" LOL

You should do a vid on Christian Liturgical languages. That'd be so cool I mean, many of them are dead language, and are kept alive by their liturgical traditions to the point where clergy from different countries use their respective liturgical language as a lingua franca (Syriac for example). Or how Egyptian is still breathing thanks to the Coptic Christians, and so on.

I met JP2 a couple of times, once in Az where he said mass with Native people's of the west. He had an uncanny facility with languages.

John Paul II also knew a lot of Polish dialects, like Mountianeer Polish, Silesian and Kashub which a lot of even Polish people have a hard time understanding...

Respect to John Paul II. for knowing so many languages, but to be far, I do not think it would be very hard to learn Slovak for a Polish native speaker :)

St. John Paul II spoke Indonesian 🇮🇩 when he visited my country and East Timor 😇🙏

Great report, but my understanding is that Pope Francis also speaks Piedmontese, which is an Italian dialect of north-western Italy, considered by linguists to be a separate language from Italian. This was the original language of his grandparents and is still spoken by some people in the Piedmont region of Italy.

I read an article about Pope John Paul II that he used to wake up and had to make up his mind what language he would be speaking primarily for the day.

I am not a Catholic, but Pope John II seems to be one of most kind of all popes.

Are you rrrrrready? Pope francois is such a cute man :)

I've heard John Paul II was also Esperantist. Is that true?

Do a video about the Greek language

so John Paul II wasn't just a wonderful person and a great leader? he was also a genious? no doubt why he's respected even between non-catholics

John Paul II he was a man with principles, values, courage, a fighter for justice, he was a saint ... and he was also a genious who could really speak many languages

Gained some new respect for Popes.

Omg I am very proud of your channel! wish me luck with my polyglot journey : I speak portuguese spanish and english(not so fluent) but I am learning italian so wish me luck and god bless you and happy new year :3

Hi, Paul. I really enjoy your channel. So much great information you made available to the RU-vid community. Thank you for that. Regarding your video about Popes, I'd like you to notice one more language Pope John Paul II was able to speak: Romanian! I don't know if he could actually speak it conversationally, but back in 1999 he was able to give a long speech in my language, speech that everybody in Romania was able to understand word for word. Pretty accurate pronunciation too, with little (if any) foreign accent. Impressive feat, especially for a 79 years old person! It was a truly inspirational experience for me and many of my fellow Romanians.

John Paul II was brilliant, when visited my country, Guatemala, he talked in Quiché which is a Mayan descendant language. Very impressive guy!

I watched a historical video of Pope John Paul II giving his homily fluently in Indonesian during his visit to Indonesia in 1989

Bless you brother. I found your channel accidentally. As a polyglot myself I really appreciate your efforts.

Man I have to say it again YOU ARE NATURALLY HILARIOUS

I've know a good number of catholic priests who spoke several languages. There are a number of reasons for that being the case. And, hey Latin is a very useful language to know, especially if you ever meet a 2,000 year old Italian!

Great topic, Paul! I always admired the popes for that, especially by Latin. I hope one day I can study hard the Latin. I'm a native Portuguese speaker. It should not too complicated to learn it. Besides, It can still help me to improve my Italian and my French.

As far as I know Pope John Paul II graduated in Polish language and literature before entering seminary. So languages were his profession in a sense.

pe Jean Paul II was the coolest pope ever!

Wow that is impressive! All he'll need to know would be Latin and Italian, and his native tongue, to know all those languages is simply impressive and an inspiration! Thanks for informing me on this Paul

actually, pope Francis learned piemonteis from his parents which is an italian dialect, not italian. but i think he learned italian later when at the seminar.

Paul, hats off to your channel. Keep up the good work.

Pope John Paul's mother tongue is verrrry difficult to learn for a non-Slavic like me. I am Austronesian/ Malayo-Polynesian language speaker from The Philippines and I love Pope John Paul.

correction: ex-Pope Benedict XVI is fluent in portuguese too. When he came to brazil he spoke portuguese with few acent and people found it amazing

The way he said "ready" reminded me of that Monty Python scene with the bad dictionary.

It's kinda written into the job description. The Cardinals (who make the decision on who the next pope will be) come from all over the world, and of course they tend to favor a man who speaks a language they understand. So the most polyglot candidate automatically has a leg up on the others. It's just one consideration, of course, but it's pretty important.

0:18 "the leader of a huge organization" Who else thought he was gonna say Illuminati

I absolutely loved this episode and thank you for sharing this unique information. Love the popes too.

pope john paul studied japanese.. for his waifus

I don't know why, but I love the way you speak! Keep on doing wonderful videos!

Well, I am Greek and I would say that Koine Greek is mostly intelligible by speakers of modern Greek. It is the liturgical language of the Greek Orthodox Church and I suppose the vast majority of people can quite easily understand what is being said. Of course it is helpful to have some education is classical Greek, especially regarding some obsolete inflections or grammatical structures, but Koine Greek and modern Greek is basically the same language. I find this very remarkable for a span of more than 2000 years. As far as classical Greek is concerned, I would say that in order for a modern Greek speaker to understand it, serious effort is needed. The word roots are more or less the same, even for Homeric poems written around 800 BCE, and you can easily get the general meaning without any special education. But of course a translation is needed in order to understand the details, especially for texts before 400-500 BCE. It is though more complicated because ancient Greek had many dialects and different kinds of literary works were written in different dialects. For example, ancient Greek tragedies used the Attic dialect (on which Koine and modern Greek are based) for the spoken parts and the Dorian one for the vocals. From what I understand based on my experience with ancient Greek texts from school, most texts after around 300 BCE when Koine Greek started to emerge, are quite easily understandable by speakers of modern Greek with some minor effort. But earlier texts, especially in dialects other than Attic and its closely related Ionic, are becoming more and more difficult to understand without a translation. For example Plato's works (ca. 400 BCE) are not easily understood without major effort and a translation would be needed in order to understand the details. The more education one has in the modern Greek language, the easier it gets to understand ancient texts. As I mentioned previously though, it is quite easy to understand the context and get the general idea even for works 2500 years old! Congratulations for your channel and please consider doing a video about the Greek language and its continuous history of more than 3500 years (first written records in linear B script around 1400 BCE). Maybe you could also mention its use as a lingua franca during the hellenistic period and after that as an official language of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire). It has also heavily influenced other European languages, while some of the most important literary works of Western culture have been written in Greek!

This was such a good, thorough in-depth answer to my idle question...thank you! So unexpected!!

If you speak and write latin, its easy to learn english, spanish, italian, potuguese, etc. They evolved from latin. The conjugations of verbs and tenses are familiar to one who studied latin.

You didn't list German as one of Pope John Paul II"s languages at the beginning, but you did at the end.

Whoa, sometimes I wonder how these popes acquired so many languages even before the later additional ones. I live in Malaysia, a multilingual country, and I'm sometimes amazed by priests who can speak like three of four languages, also a usefulness to compensate for the shortage of priests, I guess. But yeah, popes definitely have a heavier duty and to be a polyglot at the same time as theologian, teacher, pastor, that's really a feat.

Cool video. I'm glad you've appreciated our polish Pope. Unfortunately he's being persecuted in our native parts of the Internet by the young generation. Nice to hear something nice about him, finally lol

When celebrating Mass at the Gelora Senayan (now Gelora Bung Karno) Main Stadium in Jakarta during his state and pastoral visit back in 1989, Pope John Paul II spoke the opening greetings in Indonesian (with an accent, of course). "Dalam nama Bapa dan Putera dan Roh Kudus." "Rahmat Tuhan besertamu."

I'm Muslim but I must admit that they're really inspired me 💜 !!

I was just wondering this yesterday! Thanks for making the video so quick for me! Lol.

Noting that every pope seems to be multilingual, I have wondered whether the College of Cardinals takes that ability into account when selecting the next pope.

Don't forget it, his family was not only used to speak Italian but also Piedmontese, cause they migrated to Argentina from Piedmont region in Northern Italy.

Thank you Leonardo Dicaprio.

You should do a video about Polyglot Royals. Many Royals are polyglots. For example, Queen Silvia of Sweden speaks German, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Swedish, Queen Margrethe of Denmark speaks Danish, Faroese, Swedish, English, French and German and the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Luxembourg speaks French, Dutch, German, English, Russian and Luxembourgish.

I feel like a special snowflake now because I'm from Poland, hahaha.

John Paul II best pope in living memory. I was 5 when he died and I remember it

I wish I had the brain of Dr. Jose Rizal who in his 30's could already speak fluently in 20+ languages that include Spanish, Portuguese, English, Latin, French, German, Italian, Mandarine, Japanese, Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, etcetera.

Hello! I'm native spanish speaker and I can understand much better your speaking. Where are u from? USA? Sometimes I can't understand english speakers from Australia or others American States such as Texas.. I like this channel. Saludos desde San Salvador, El Salvador. Muy buen canal 👊🇸🇻🇸🇻

I'm Polish to 😊

Excellent video. I had not considered that knowing many languages would be important for a Pope. I would assume it's important for almost any good leader. Thank you!

Personally, I think that the Coptic language would make for an interesting video.

Ah! We can all dream, right? Love the video and love your channel. More please!

3:00 Hebrew is spoken in Israel.

It is extremely touching though to hear accounts, not only as his part-countryman, of how deeply JP2 speaking to the faithful in their mother tongues while he traveled impacted them, and how they cherish these memories to this day and how much this pope meant to them because of it. I've heard such stories from friends from a few different countries and you can find similar accounts in this comments section.

The current pope was soooooo cute as he spoke in English! xD

Learning new languages keeps your mind young

Paul, Im just wondering, where are you from exactly? Because it seems like you might come from the states but your pronunciation/accent makes me think otherwise.

Really a nice video!

Benedict XVI has been learning Polish. He can speak at least at basic level

Fantastic! Man, you are a super start! keep it up Bro!! please go forward, in fact, backward, I'd love to see your analysis on Paul VI,, Pious XII and so on. What a great researcher you are. Thanks!!!!!!!

@langfocus is there any episode for italian? i did search but seems there is no italian or it's just me who cant find it???

I think Johannes Paulus II was quite fluent in Russian, since he didn't need an interpreter to speak with URSS president M. Gorbaciov when he visited Vatican City.

Well, yeah, English phonology is a bitch, being different from every other language (especially the vowels).

Pope Francis's parents didn't speak Italian, but Piedmontese language from Piedmont region. That means Pope Francis learnt Italian out of his family. When he met Piedmontese bishops he has publicly spoken in Piedmontese with them.

Pope Frances' English is adorable!

The pope also speaks piedmontese, the dialect of his grandpas who came from that area.

no aramaic (Syriac)?

Pope Francis is also a native speaker of Piedmonteis (Piemontese)

make a similar video about Orthodox patriarchs :D

Always wanted to know this! (BTW, amazing tunage in the background)

Learning English in Ireland is like going to China to learn French.

Pope John Paul II also understood and could speak Croatian, my native language, being Slav himself.

Poland of relevant!

Benedict XVI would also speak Polish during his visits in Poland :)

Wow i though that actually pope knew more languages hahaha

Wow, he was a very studious man, linguistically.

John Paul the second travelled to my city, Chihuahua, Mexico. We even have a statute of him, we keep the chair where he sat at and also one of our biggest avenues is named after him in spanish; "Juan Pablo Segundo". He is a huge deal even though some people here like me aren't even Catholic.

May i point something out? Use the correct apostrophy... ' not `

5 years latter for this information, but Francis also speaks Piamontes, a "dialect" of Italy, because his grandmother used to speak it at home.

I hate when people put the Brazillian flag when talking about Portuguese. have you guys heard about a country called Portugal? can you guess the language they speak? PORTUGUESE!!!

Pope Francis is an Italian who was born in Argentina, and spoke Italian at home with his Italian parents.

Portuguese with a Brazilian Flag?! C´mon!!!! John Paul II wasnt fluent in Portuguese at all. He could read it in public, but what he said was clearly forced an non-natural at all. He speaked veeeerrrry slooowwwly . Whhen someone is fluent in a language, to me it means that you can have a conversation with a native speaker without too many problems. From what i recall, from his visits to Portugal, i highly doubt that he could do it.

keep working like this, i liked this video :D greetings!