How Many Languages Does Vladimir Putin Speak?

Vladimir Putin has just been re-elected as President of the Russian Federation for the fifth time, first coming to power in 2000. In this video, I'll look at the languages he speaks. Does he have an accent in Russian? Does Putin speak English? Ukrainian?
00:00-00:07 - Intro
00:07-01:49 - Russian
01:49-03:51 - German
03:51-05:31 - English
05:31-06:40 - How Many Languages Did Other Russian Leaders Speak?
06:40-7:07 - How Much of a Polyglot is Putin?
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[@Jobe-13]

Come to think of it I’ve never heard him speak anything but Russian

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

Me too, so I always assumed that was the only language he spoke.

[@yarnickgoovaerts]

I heard him speak English in a request to host the UN top. I knew he used his translators to buy more time before having to answer

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

@@yarnickgoovaerts It seems like, even if he can speak English, he doesn't like to.

[@Oppetsismiimsitsitc]

@@MatthewTheWanderer It's policy. He speaks Russian when speaking in official capacity.

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

@@Oppetsismiimsitsitc So, always, then?

[@vladddik79_62]

In soviet union, kids mostly studied German. Only after 80s English started getting popular in schools

[@vincentdeoilvreis636]

That stat on the number of speakers of the top languages always irks me, the billion(?) non native speakers of English don't count for whatever reason? I find it immeasurably easier to talk to foreigners using English than my iwn native language. Way more than 602 mil people can understand Putin, really.

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

I completely agree. Counting only "native speakers" doesn't make sense when he includes non-native languages of the person in question.

[@BlueGamingRage]

English is easily the most common, and almost certainly most useful, second language in the modern era. It has become the lingua franca of the modern era

[@rogink]

I'm surprised Korean comes before French. Outside the Korean peninsula who speaks Korean? French is spoken in Quebec as well as many former - and current - French possessions, as well as France, Belgium and Switzerland.

[@29Manuu]

Eat your 3th place in silence. No one cares about your pidgin language LMAO

[@iamasalad9080]

​@@roginkIt's probably more as a second language.

[@kremepye3613]

Putins english isn't bad imo, he just has a very strong accent. His english is what my norwegian would sound like to natives 😂

[@SyBo27]

Friendly hint: The audio levels in this video are pretty terrible.

[@OlgasBritishFells]

It's not. I can clearly hear everything.

[@SyBo27]

@@OlgasBritishFells I didn't say the where low. They are just very inconsistent throughout.

[@gts1300]

At first, because of the thumbnail's gradient colors, I thought this was a TLDR News video

[@natashatercera8536]

Their promoted ads are so annoying

[@GamerFrisco]

Never knew American was a language

[@ActualHumanPerson]

I speak three languages. English, bad English and American.

[@tom_demarco]

It is. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[@tr3ki295]

it's a language flag, not a national one

[@PaladinusSP]

He learned English fairly recently, actually. You can even see some progress throughout the years. At the start of his presidency, when he visited the UK, he spoke basically no English, though. The first time he tried speaking English with a foreign leader was with George Bush Jr., and it was basically just a 'how are you' and some courtesy phrases. Then, in later years, he could actually have a full conversation in English (not to mention singing some Beatles).

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

He didn't he speak English with Tucker Carlson, then?

[@vorynrosethorn903]

No, they used a translator. He probably would have had trouble giving a history lecture in English as a lot of the language was reasonably complicated. It also effects the power dynamics.

[@user-rn2zb6be1u]

​@@vorynrosethorn903Absolute chad move talking about pedantic shit from viking times and busting out ancient scrolls for tucker while giving him absolutely nothing politically useful to work with.

[@morenauer]

@@user-rn2zb6be1u Putin is full of shit. Par for the course for politicians, so it checks.

[@yarnickgoovaerts]

He actually speaks English quite well, but he always uses a translator as a way to get more time to come up with a better answer

[@ctlspl]

Nothing beats Mannerheim in being a polyglot leader.

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

How many languages could he speak?

[@ctlspl]

@@MatthewTheWanderer The quote I found on that topic is „He Spoke all mayor European languages fluently.“ If you’re interested in hearing him, you can hear him talk to Hitler if you search for the secret Mannerheim recording.

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

@@ctlspl That's extremely vague, lol.

[@ctlspl]

@@MatthewTheWanderer Found a List: Swedish, Finnish, English, Russian, Polish, German and French

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

@@ctlspl Awesome, thank you! That is nowhere near "all major European languages", though.

[@prestondobber]

The Dutch overtones at the end were just too much 😂

[@darthdingus7439]

Dutch much

[@morenauer]

Your videos always have the volume set TOO LOW. Crank it up, normalize it.

[@chelouha]

Not just that, but the balancing is way off. The Dutch National Anthem was suddenly too loud in the middle of too-quiet monologue, for example.

[@bethmarriott9292]

4:16 sitting here in Wellington New Zealand going I KNEW HE SPOKE ENGLISH

[@darthdingus7439]

I'd heard he could speak Swedish, but this was probably just a rumour. Fascinating that he apparently spent time in New Zealand

[@AlexMiedemaFRL]

Neeeeee geen Wilhelmus 😢

[@micahistory]

Interesting video, pretty much what I expected

[@user-cd4bx6uq1y]

Here when 12k and 123 comments. I don't know how it's so low, the topic is just amazing

[@matthewcarter2500]

Wonderful, as always, Hilbert :) I always enjoy your work, and it's nice to see you covering a Russia-related topic. I'm a linguistics PhD candidate and I work on Russia (now especially Native Siberian languages), so I wanted to chime in briefly. I really liked that you introduced the concept of Old Russia, and the fact that other parts of Russia are places that were conquered by Russia, which most people outside the former Soviet sphere don't know about, but is really important for understanding Russia. I also really liked that you talked about the historical regional dialects in western Russia, whose position is indeed very sad, from what I know. I mjght add though, and native speakers from Russia can correct me or chime in, but in my experience there is still a good amount of at least phonological variation which still survives among the oldest generation, thankfully. Closer to my work, you also hear distinct contact-influenced varieties of Russian in some places, influenced by other languages of Russia or among diaspora communities. There's a distinct North Caucasian sociolect, which is spoken natively by some people, especially in Daghestan, and some distinct features you hear among parts of the Central Asian and South Caucasian diasporas (though certainly not everyone). In my experience also (I lived in Ufa and Kazan), mostly out in the country and in smaller cities, but a lot of Tatar and Bashkort people from the older generation speak Russian with a little bit of an accent, and a lot of people code-switch as an identity marker, kind of like a lot of Spanish-English bilinguals in the US, if youre familiar. All of this to say, Russian is indeed very unicentric, especially in Russia, in terms of what's considered standard and socially-prestigious, but thankfully the language in Russia can still be quite diverse. Also, you're completely right about Petersburg and Putin speaking standard Russian, but just as a interesting fact, maybe, to add, there is some vocabulary that's distinct to Petersburg, although I've never noticed Putin use any of it. I'll let someone else comment, but the Russian Wikipedia has an article, with a good translation on the Spanish Wiki: ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%B2_%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B8_%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B9_%D0%B8_%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B6%D1%86%D0%B5%D0%B2 Wonderful job as always, and thanks again :)

[@faithlesshound5621]

While Putin's official biography puts his origins in Leningrad, there's a variant story which has him originally brought up as an ethnic Russian in the Caucasus, before he was sent (adopted out?) to Russia. It's difficult to investigate this story, since journalists who look into it tend to end up dead. Of course by his age any Caucasian influence on his speech will have been ruthlessly suppressed. Even vodka might not bring it out. Such origins might explain the savagery of his response to the Chechen insurgency, unless he was just aping his mentor Slobodan Milosevic.

[@ferrjuan]

I just need to learn Mandarin Chinese and I got the top 3 most spoken native languages!

[@ActualHumanPerson]

I'd like to see his kd ratio compared to other world leaders.

[@muylae]

That deserves a Wilhelmus. That made me laugh. :D

[@StevenHanover]

Once a rat always a rat

[@darkyada71]

You probably angered so many F1 fans with the Wilhelmus / Dutch anthem at the end, a litteral meme at this point 😂

[@hglundahl]

2:26 We also know he was taught German in school, because his German teacher was a woman, she was teased by the rest of the class, he defended her. Back in those days he was a decent fellow.

[@poprey300]

He’s never been decent.

[@hglundahl]

@@poprey300 I think he was back in school, though.

[@Lusssiinn]

Can you please talk about modern languages and how they're related to English Sometimes I feel like can I watch your videos I feel alien

[@kleinweichkleinweich]

the Wilhelmus caught me by surprise but thanx anyway and polite greetings to the king of spain and the tsar of muskovy

[@battragon]

That proves you don't have to experienced a second of autonomous thought - ever -, to know many languages.

[@BozheTsaryaKhrani]

by agent you mean layer

[@caseclosed9342]

In 2005 Bush attended the Victory Day Parade in Moscow along with many world leaders (something unthinkable now) and he sat next to Putin and you can see them talking to each other. It’s notable it’s one of the few times I’ve seen him speaking English.

[@NecSchel]

Imagine Putin and Bush just acted as if they were talking to each other, and in reality it was just "gibbee gibbee yabba yabba look tank tank wak-wak"

[@alansmithee8831]

Hello Hilbert. Interesting to see , since few in the west would learn Russian. I learned French and German in school. I explained to my Greek friend at university, when she was surprised I could read Greek and Russian letters, as science graduates we used the Greek symbols and I had ancient Greek and Russian Napoleonic wargames figures that I painted flags for. Sometimes the words in Russian are like English, but from previous eras there are French and German words mixed in too.

[@user-cn7ls4hm9Alnajih]

German is in 12th with the number of speakers, isn't

[@vorynrosethorn903]

More than me.

[@ACDrone]

Great video, but every time I hear "nukelus/nukelar" (0:37) instead of NUCLEUS/NUCLEAR my ears bleed

[@warbler1984]

Any chance of a video on Irish history or Vikings in Ireland ?

[@jgr7487]

As the story goes, Putin & Merkel would also start speaking German, but they'd turn to Russian as soon as things started to heat up.

[@esmailbasha5209]

Feels illegal to be this early

[@faithlesshound5621]

About Khrushchev's understanding of Ukrainian, it's important to remember that the Ukrainian language was banned for about a century before the revolution, so an ethnic Russian from the Donbass might have picked up some of the colloquial language but would not have been exposed to it in written form. After the language was set free by the revolution, subsequent rulers of Russia differed in the degree to which they would tolerate the traditional Ukrainian alphabet. Khrushchev's higher education as an adult was concerned with coal mining, so he is unlikely to have engaged in literary studies. He was not only party leader but also Prime Minister of the Ukraine before the war, so he must have come across documents in Ukrainian at work.

[@patelfalak]

Do for Indian PM Modi too

[@tadzionl]

You forgot one language: The language of the mass murderer.

[@Looter92]

if you put Putin in the same room as Trump and Biden he would take them both

[@ThomasBoyd-ex5vr]

Awesome. Brilliant content. Best Historian on you tube. Brilliant content. Support Holland Netherlands and England London Britain. Grazie Italy 🇮🇹🇮🇹🇬🇧🇬🇧

[@Non-Serviam300]

He speaks English and that’s already one more language than Biden😁

[@televisedpork7993]

Wasn’t expecting to get Wilhelmus-rolled in this video but I’m glad I did lol 😂

[@belstar1128]

Russia is almost as bad at learning languages as America

[@stevestuff9607]

Who cares even slightly!?

[@Bruh-cg2fk]

how many languages does Biden speak lol

[@devinjones6670]

0

[@Baukereg]

You forgot about the the Black Speech of Mordor.

[@publicminx]

the most spoken language in the world is English (it had already 2018 about 2.5 billion btw. (all lower data are wrong and often just copy-pastes from idiots. the most profound analysis was made by David Crystal and his team who also published that). Using the 'official native population data' is not just wrong but also more a thing of the 20. century (has nothing to do with the reality. it is LITERALY wrong!). I guess English has now something +3 Billion. China is btw. shrinking and if one has a bit feeling for numbers then one knows that a huge amount of people means also a huge amount of shrinking (but both, China and especially India, now the country with the highest population, add to English anyway).

[@dlugi4198]

Amateur. One would say as an agent, he would speak more languages.

[@34Becci]

Putisim

[@Mut4ntG4m3r]

One.... War

[@Sharp_Stone]

By the of his career none...

[@AchyutChaudhary]

6:50 just one error - it is ‘Telugu’ *(తెలుగు)* 🇮🇳

[@poprey300]

Why are you showing the U.S. flag in the thumbnail?! They speak English! First you had gay vikings and now this!

[@historywithhilbert146]

Look at the picture again - it isn't the American flag.

[@Losangelesharvey]

He speaks the language of aggression

[@hagron5702]

Who cares...

[@Sarge714]

He speaks one language, Death and Destruction

[@martinpankhurst2683]

Who cares,he certainly doesn't speak sense ...

[@OsamasStory]

First 🤡

[@Alejandro-te2nt]

More like Chadimir Putin.

[@makaveli6363]

Bden can not speak😄

[@karlkarlos3545]

Putting your fingers in your ears while screaming 'la la la,' I can't hear you, doesn't count, mate.

[@BlueGamingRage]

@@karlkarlos3545 they'd have better luck having him lip sync

[@Omni_Shambles]

Nice wee UA shirt you are wearing. When was the last time you raised the flag of someone we invaded? 🤡

[@pataki2666]

Go back to listening to your 90s fairy asmr wtf 😂

[@_braileanul]

Oh my god you're crying so hard 😂😂😂😂 keep it flowing 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦