[lg policy] UK: Clever Clegg minds his languages - all six of them

[Anthea Fraser Gupta]

Though of course one should not assume that someone who speaks a lot of languages is necessarily  tolerant of the foreign. One of the most multilingual ever of UK politicians was Enoch Powell. He spoke 12 or so languages, which seem to have been: English, French, German, Greek, Latin, Hindi/Urdu, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, Welsh, and Russian (at the time of his death he claimed fluency in 8). In 1968 Powell famously said that non-white migration into Britain would lead to "the River Tiber foaming with much blood" (he was a classicist). He was later expelled from the Conservative Party for his racist stance.

US readers might find it especially instructive to read this famous speech -- a central message is that the UK will soon be as bad as the US. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html

Anthea
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Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)
School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
<www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg>
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