A professor who knew a lot about ancient languages in the near east told me the saying “Latin is a language of war, Greek is a language of poetry, and Hebrew is a language of prayer.” This is referring to Ancient Greek and Hebrew. What do you guys think of this?
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (February 24 1500 – September 21 1558):
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to my Horse.
1 Like
We also have a similar comparison “Language of army is Turkish, language of poetry is Persian, language of law is Italian and language of prayer is Arabian.”
Another very famous quote “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to my Horse.”
There are also some variations of this phrase in Russian where at the end it is added about Russian which may be used for everything.
Oh that is funny. If you had to add English into that saying what would you say?
I would say: I speak English if I don’t know a local language.
I had never chance to visit an English speaking country.