Emil Krebs: biography of this prodigious polyglot

There are many who claim to know dozens of languages, but really few who manage to have a real mastery of those languages.

Although there is evidence of several people who have shown that they know up to more than ten languages, one 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 dialectal varieties of them.

His life is not boring at all, being held as a great example for those who want to break free from the barriers of monolingualism to the point that he is considered a savant. Let's learn about his interesting life and what he did to get to speak so many languages, through this summary biography of Emil Krebs.

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Brief biography of Emil Krebs

If the fact of mastering German, his mother tongue, is already considered by many as a real milestone given the difficulty of this Germanic language, possessing 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 19th century German boy., but little by little, having contact with many languages, he 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 in 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 a housewife.

In 1870 he and his parents moved to Esdorf, where he attended primary school. Between the years 1878 and 1880 he went to the Freiburger Realschule, a secondary school and, in the period from 1880 to 1887 he attended the Schweidnitz lycee.

The education that he received in those centers was quite complete, having in his educational curriculum the learning multiple languages ​​other than 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, including modern Greek, English, Italian and, a little later in his age, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Polish and Arabic.

When he finished his studies at the lyceum he enrolled at the University of Wrocław to study a semester course in theology in the summer. At that time he already had an advanced command of twelve languages.

Subsequently he transferred to the University of Berlin, where he studied Law. It was in that city where he was struck by the recently founded Oriental Seminary, 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 started studying Chinese in 1887, in 1890 he succeeded in passing the exam.n to graduate as an interpreter of this language, with very good grades.

Over the next two years, Emil Krebs was able to acquire native-level Mandarin Chinese with careful education in his native language.

However, although the study of foreign languages ​​was his greatest hobby, it did not deter him from his studies in law, passing the university exams also with good grades.

Once he had finished his university studies, he was accepted as a student lawyer at the Gottesberg court and, later, in Berlin.

In 1893 he was accepted as an interpreter to travel to Beijing., China, thus beginning an important period in his life as a student of oriental cultures and training as a sinologist.

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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 at the start of the First World War.

During that time, Krebs he worked as a diplomatic translator for German interests in Beijing and Qingdao. Due to his great fluency in Mandarin, the polyglot became more famous among both German colleagues and Chinese natives.

In 1897, two German missionaries were assassinated in Qingdao, causing the German Reich to see this as a perfect excuse to invade the region. So Krebs, for a year and the next, joined the occupying forces at Kiau Chiau.

Later, after the occupation, the polyglot became the main interpreter of 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 great, he also he took advantage of his stay in Asia to learn other oriental languages, including Mongolian, Manchu and Tibetan, and even took it upon himself to teach the Chinese officers themselves languages ​​from other parts of his own Empire.

In 1913, while in Shanghai, Emil Krebs married another German fellow 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, when it began in 1917 the first World War.

In the conflict, China sided with the Triple Entente (France, the United Kingdom and Russia), while Germany was part of the opposite 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 on Asian affairs, being in charge of the codification of the language of the enemies while the war lasted.

After the end of World War I, the polyglot continued to work in language-related jobs, translating and interpreting several of them for the German authorities.

In his free time he continued to study languages, and also inquired about their dialectal varieties.

After a life in which he focused on mastering dozens of languages, coming to speak neither more nor less than 68 languages and, if dialectal varieties are taken into account, about 111, Emil Krebs died on March 31, 1930 in Berlin, at the age of 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 one who had come to master 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 in his Broca's area were revealed, which could be behind his great ability to learn to speak new languages.

Today, Krebs's brain can be found at the University of Düsseldorf.

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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 lived.

The first notable anecdote in the life of this polyglot was when he was still young. At that time he received a form to be able to attend the Seminar for Oriental Languages ​​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 there are".

The form was not accepted the first time, since they understood from the Seminar that Emil Krebs had not understood the instructions. It was necessary to have to forward it up to ten times so that 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 with no problem. Subsequently, a Mongolian 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 hardly been known to Europeans. Despite not having much information, Krebs knew how to manage 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 claimed that an American professor who had mastered 53 languages ​​had just died.

After that, Krebs 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 the example of 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 really invented by Emil Krebs, but rather a reinterpretation of how he studied and mastered foreign languages.

It has been said that through this method it is possible to master a language in just ten days, which has not really been demonstrated with sufficient empirical evidence.

Bibliographic references:

• Amunts, K., Schleicher, A., and Zilles, K. (2004). Outstanding language competence and cytoarchitecture in Broca's speech region. Brain and Language, 89(2). 346-353.