Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related How many languages does Clark speak?

I think in the series Clark says he can order food in 263 (or something close to that) languages. I thought it was in the pilot, but I just skimmed the script and couldn't find the line.

Does anyone recall when he said this, what exactly he said (the context), and how many languages Clark says he speaks?

Thanks!

It's in Lucky Leon Clark listens in to a conversation between Jimmy and Perry. Lois assumes he's lip reading and asks him what else he can do that she doesn't know about, and he tells her he can order dinner in 347 languages.
It's right before the whole 'charcoal suit/burgundy dress' bit.

I wonder if we can come up with a logical list of languages he knows.

1) American English and British English (of course)
2) French
3)?

3) At least one dialect of Chinese
4) Brazilian Portugese
5) At least one of the languages of Papua New Guinea (Yolngu)
6) At least one of the languages of Nigeria
7) Kryptonian (admittedly, this he learned after Lucky Leon)
8) ?

8) Aborigine (in the pilot he said he studied the dreamtime theory of the Australian Aboriginals)
9) Standard Tibetan (in the pilot he says he spent time at a Llamasary with some Sherpas in Nepal).
10)?

Don't most Brits not consider American the same language? (See Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady.)

Actually, he's speaking Spanish in Witness. He *should* have been speaking Portuguese, because he was in Brazil, but he wasn't. Naughty, Clark. This is probably why the workers didn't stop when he asked them to, because they didn't understand him.

10) Spanish (because it's one of the main languages of the world).
11) Russian
12) German
13) Italian
14) Japanese
15) Korean
16) Dutch
17) Swedish
18) Norwegian
19) Finnish
20) Arabic
21) Swahili
22) Farsi
23) Greek
24) Hindi
25) Turkish
26) Bengali
27) Danish
28) Filipino
29) Hebrew
30) Welsh
31) Gaelic
32) Hawaiian
33) Armenian
34) French Canadian
35) Haitian Creole
36) Hungarian
37) Irish
38) Kurdish
39) Lao
40) Latin
41) Latvian
42) Mongolian
43) Cantonese
44) Sign Language
45) Pashto
46) Polish
47) Thai (They mention going to Thailand for dinner)
48) Urdu
49) Vietnamese
50) Zulu
51) At least one Native American languages (At least, 11 Native American Tribes were re-located to the area of Kansas, so I'd be surprised if he hadn't picked up at least one of those languages.)
52) Romanian
53) Klingon (because it would be really fun if he did)
54) Elvin (because I picture Clark being a inner-geek)
55) Cockney (again, because that would be funny to see/hear).
56) ??

There are at least 200 languages on Wikipedia's list of Official Languages. My guess is that he would speak most of those (some of which I added to the list.) He might also speak dialects of some of those languages that he could've picked up on his travels.

I guess I really should one day get to the bunny where Clark speaks Klingon...

Michael

Thanks for the catch, Virginia. So much for relying on memory...

There is no single, universal sign language any more than there is a single, universal, spoken one. In fact, American Sign Language is much more similar to French Sign Language than it is to British Sign Language. So if one were to count sign languages, they could take up many spots.

But speaking of (wannabe) universal languages, how about Esperanto and Gestuno?

I had thought originally that we were sticking to languages for which we had canon-evidence that Clark knew. If we're going into the realm of speculations, how about Yiddish? I'd love to hear Clark speak that language. And as much I would love to hear him speak Klingon (write that story, Michael!), I think he'd be more inclined to learn Vulcan.

Joy,
Lynn

Sorry, one small point. There's no such language as Australian Aborigine. Rather, there are (currently) around 100-150 seperate languages that are classed as 'Aboriginal languages'. They're regional, but they're not all dialects, and knowing one is no guarantee that you'd understand another. Someone who can speak Tiwi probably wouldn't understand Ngaro, for instance.

I wonder if something similar holds true for Native American languages?

Absolutely. In fact, the Plains Sign Talk was developed as a pidgin to allow groups of Native Americans who didn't speak each other's language to communicate sufficiently to permit trade.

Joy,
Lynn

I was thinking in terms of canon evidence.

To clarify on Chinese, He can definitely order food from Beijing, so Mandarin is a definite. Where was his friend from in "Chi if Steel"?

Also, I think it's safe to assume he can speak the two languages of the warring countries in "Sex, Lies and Photographs," (I would consider any time he has direct contact with an official canonical) but I don't remember what they were (to be clear, I think they were both fictional).

According to the online script for LSaV, the warring countries were Latislan and Podansk.

From canon... Testing my memory here, but there's a bit in Ordinary People where he flies to France, Belgium and I think it was Japan to get stuff for Lois. So we could add French, Dutch/German/Flemish (depending where he went in Belgium) and Japanese to the list.

He brought French cheese, Belgian chocolate, Andean snow, and a Japanese pearl.

I had assumed that he found the pearl in Japanese waters rather than that he bought it. If so, then he wouldn't necessarily know Japanese. (Although I imagine he probably does speak the language.)

Joy,
Lynn

Perry White said he worked for Borneo Gazette...since Borneo/Kalimantan is an island with 3 countries (Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei),I think he could speak Melayu, Indonesian and Dayaknese (Borneo primitive tribe languange)...

Borneo is also closer to Philipphines and Singapore,I wonder if he could speak Tagalog

Pardon me for my bad English

Hello YantyChen,

Welcome to the message board and thank you for posting. You make some good points about Borneo.

Please don't apologize about your English; it is quite good. (It is certainly better than Clark's Portuguese appears to be. ;-) )

Joy,
Lynn

Welcome, YantyChen!

As Lynn said, your points about Borneo are very good. We're assembling an interesting mix of languages here.

Thanks Lynn, I could not for the life of me remember what he brought. You're right, I'd imagine he found the pearl rather than bought it.

Okay, I'm wondering if there's a difference here in the version of the pilot that's distributed in Australia, as mine shows Clark going to Shanghai rather than Beijing. Anyone able to clarify this?
If he goes to Shanghai, then the Shanghainese dialect is more common than Mandarin.

My mistake! I haven't watched the pilot in a while and mis-remembered.

I've seen Beijing being his destination mentioned heaps of times, both on the boards and in various fanfics. That's why I thought maybe there were two different versions

Where did they say they visited in AKA Superman? I remember them talking about the Metropolis restaurant compared to a place they visited. That definitely would be a canonical language he'd know.

Thank you Lynn

Thank you NostalgiaKick

He can use Standard Mandarin everywhere in China big cities, it eliminates several problems caused by dialect differences..with the exception of Hong Kong, Cantonese is a must

I tried to hear Penny ordering dinner in Mandarin,wew...that was horrible except the last 2 words whick i thought should be pronounced as "xie xie"

Thank you for the information. To be specific about which scene I'm talking about, Lois is tries to get Clark to come upstairs to the bullpen and they're talking about the restaurant they just ate at. He talks about the food, but the accent of the server being terribly inauthentic.

I think you're looking for the opening scene.

From the online script :

Sounds as though it's an Italian restaurant but not in Italy. Probably in Metropolis or somewhere else in the U.S.

His friend in Chi of Steel speaks in Cantonese which is the dialect that most immigrant Chinese speak. I did find it funny that in the pilot that he went to Shanghai to order the food that he did because the dumplings that he brought back are traditional yum cha dishes yum cha originates from Canton and not Shanghai.

Actually, according to the script he brought Swiss chocolate. I know it's Swiss chocolate in the german translation of the show. That would prove his knowledge of either German, Italian, French or Rhaeto-Romanic, which is only spoken by a minority. If he was in the German speaking part, he might have needed to understand the local dialect, which is barely understandable to someone speaking standard German.

Thanks for the correction, Bakasi. I don't know how I made that error. I actually had checked the script for the snow and pearl before I posted. I had thought I had checked for the chocolate as well, but I must not have done. Sorry about that...

Joy,
Lynn

He diverted the lava from a volcano eruption in...It's A Small Word After All. I would venture to bet that he speaks Native Hawaiian.