Polyglot Politicians: How Many World Leaders Speak English?
<p>At a joint press conference in 2019, US President Donald Trump declared, as he often does on such occasions, that his Indian counterpart was a very smart man and his very close friend. He also commented that Narendra Modi “speaks very good English, he just doesn’t want to talk.” The line won big laughs from the audience, but Modi himself remained silent.</p>
<p>The joke landed because Mr. Modi does not, by all appearances, speak very good English. To his credit, he is more linguistically adept than Mr. Trump, being bilingual in Hindi and Gujarati, closely-related languages of northern India. But his limited skills can be a liability <a href="https://medium.com/@sjquillen/who-speaks-indian-part-i-6131362dd09b" rel="noopener">in a country where language is a deeply-rooted national issue.</a> On a recent visit to the south, he even made an attempt to speak Tamil, but his party continues to punch well below its weight outside the Hindi-speaking heartland.</p>
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