There are many who claim to know dozens of languages, but really few who manage to have a real command of those languages.
Although there is evidence of several people who have proven to know up to more than ten languages, one of the few known cases of polyglots of up to half a hundred languages is that of the German Emil Krebs. It has been said that he mastered 68 languages, and even took the trouble to learn up to 120 dialect varieties of these.
His life is not boring at all, being held as a great example for those who wish to free themselves from the barriers of monolingualism to the point that he is considered a savant. Let’s get to know his interesting life and what he did to speak so many languages, through this summary biography of Emil Krebs
If mastering German, your mother tongue, is considered by many to be a true milestone given the difficulty of this Germanic language, having extensive knowledge of up to fifty languages of all kinds is already something that takes your breath away.
His life began like that of any other German child of the 19th century but little by little, having contact with many languages, it became the story of an excellent sinologist, that is, one who knows about Chinese culture.
Early life and first contact with multilingualism
Emil Krebs was born in Freiburg, Silesia, present-day Świebodzice, Poland, on November 15, 1867, when this city was still in German territory. His family was not upper class, his father being a carpenter and his mother being a housewife.
In 1870 he moved with his parents to Esdorf, where he went to primary school. Between the years 1878 and 1880 he attended the Freiburger Realschule, a secondary school, and in the period from 1880 to 1887 he attended the Schweidnitz high school.
The education he received in these centers was quite complete, having in his educational curriculum the learning of multiple languages apart from German, including classical Latin and Greek, French and Hebrew.
However, the desire to learn more languages led Krebs to study modern languages on your own which included modern Greek, English, Italian and, a little later in life, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Polish and Arabic.
When he finished his high school studies, he enrolled at the University of Wrocław to study a semester-long theology course in the summer. At that time he already had an advanced command of twelve languages.
Subsequently He moved to the University of Berlin, where he studied Law It was in that city where the newly founded Oriental Seminary caught his attention, where courses in Asian languages were offered.
The first Asian language he studied was Mandarin Chinese. The choice of this language was not accidental, since he was struck by the fact that it was known to be the most difficult language to learn, taking it as a challenge to master it.
Having begun to study Chinese in 1887, in 1890 he managed to pass the exam n to graduate as an interpreter of this language, with very good qualifications.
Over the next two years, Emil Krebs was able to acquire a level of Mandarin Chinese comparable to that of a native with a careful education in his native language.
However, Although the study of foreign languages was his greatest hobby, it did not keep him from his studies in law passing the university exams also with good grades.
Once he had completed his university studies, he was accepted as a student lawyer at the court in Gottesberg and, later, in Berlin.
In 1893 he was accepted as an interpreter to travel to Beijing China, thus beginning an important period of his life as a student of oriental cultures and training as a sinologist.
Trip to china
In 1893 Emil Krebs set foot in China for the first time, working for Germany in the eastern country until German-Chinese relations ended when the First World War began.
During that time, Krebs worked as a diplomatic translator for German interests in Beijing and Qingdao Due to his great fluency in Mandarin, the polyglot gained greater fame among both German colleagues and native Chinese.
In 1897, two German missionaries were murdered in Qingdao, causing the German Reich to interpret this as a perfect excuse to invade the region. Thus, Krebs, for a year and the next, joined the occupation forces of Kiau Chiau.
Later, after the occupation, the polyglot became the main interpreter in the region, becoming a very close confidant of Empress Zishí, because the aristocrat was impressed by the way Krebs wrote Chinese. In fact, Emil Krebs was invited to the palace on several occasions to have tea with the empress.
However, and although his passion for Mandarin was very great, he also He took advantage of his stay in Asia to learn other oriental languages, including Mongolian, Manchu and Tibetan and even took charge of teaching Chinese officers themselves languages from other parts of their own Empire.
In 1913, while in Shanghai, Emil Krebs took as his wife another fellow German citizen in China, Mande Heyne.
Years later and after having obtained a great knowledge of the Chinese language and culture, Krebs had to leave the country due to the end of relations between China and Germany, which began in 1917. the first World War
In conflict, China sided with the Triple Entente (France, the United Kingdom and Russia), while Germany was part of the opposing side, the Central Powers. It is for this reason that the Germans began to be harassed by the Chinese.
Return to Berlin
In 1917 Emil Krebs was forced to return to his native Germany. He was accepted as part of German intelligence in Asian affairs taking charge of encoding the enemies’ language while the war lasted.
After the end of the First World War, the polyglot continued working in jobs related to languages, translating and interpreting several of them for the German authorities.
In his free time he continued studying languages, and also inquired about their dialect varieties.
After a life in which he focused on mastering dozens of languages, speaking no more and no less than 68 languages and, if dialect varieties are taken into account, about 111, Emil Krebs died on March 31, 1930 in Berlin, aged 62.
Study of your brain
After the death of this polyglot, scientists did not want to miss the opportunity to study the brain of the man who had mastered more than a hundred different forms of language. His brain was sent to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in Berlin, an institution that several years later, at the end of World War II, would be renamed the Max Planck Society.
Already in more recent times, specifically in 2004, three scientists, Katrin Amunts, Karl Zilles and Axel Schleiche published a study on the brain of Emil Krebs, in which certain differences were revealed in his Broca’s area which could be behind their great ability to learn to speak new languages.
Today, Krebs’ brain can be found at the University of Düsseldorf.
Curiosities
The life of Emil Krebs is full of curiosities that, although they have not been confirmed, if true, they are a clear example of his abilities and personality when he was alive.
The first notable anecdote from the life of this polyglot was when he was still young. At that time he received a form to be able to attend the Oriental Languages Seminar in Berlin. In this he had to put what specific language he wanted to study, however, he, Instead of specifying one, he only answered with “all the ones there are.”
The form was not accepted at first, since the Seminar understood that Emil Krebs had not understood the instructions. It was necessary to send him up to ten times before the Seminary finally accepted him and he was invited to come to Berlin.
Years later, when he was traveling in China, he received a letter from the Mongols, which he was able to translate without problems. Subsequently, A Mongol tribe asked him to translate documents that had been written in the ancient Mongolian language and Krebs knew how to carry out the task immediately.
Also while in Asia, Krebs made contact with people who spoke Chinese dialect varieties that until now had barely been known to Europeans. Despite not having much information, Krebs managed to understand some of these unknown dialects.
Another curiosity was that Emil Krebs once received one of the issues of the magazine Argia, a Basque publication. In that issue it was stated that an American professor who had mastered 53 languages had just died.
After that, Krebs He learned the four main dialects of the Basque language in just a few weeks, and sent a reply to Argia. Based on this, the magazine itself decided to publish an article in honor of the polyglot, called “Young Basques! Take an example from Emil Krebs.”
Finally, and as a curious curiosity, There is a language learning method called the Krebs method, which honors the polyglot protagonist of this article. This method was not actually invented by Emil Krebs, but is rather a reinterpretation of how he studied and acquired mastery of foreign languages.
It has been said that using this method it is possible to master a language in just ten days, which has not really been demonstrated with sufficient empirical evidence.
