#German-Turkish music

[hexenmond]

gushing about Friday's Engin concert

So I was on the fence about going to this concert for weeks, but long story short, I'm SO GLAD I WENT! 😍

Engin are a German-Turkish band hailing from Mannheim, which isn't very far from where I live, and on Friday they were playing in Reutlingen, which REALLY isn't far. And they were freakin' fantastic! This video snippet is the solo part of "Stillgelegte Tränen" (roughly translatable as "discontinued tears"), and I hope it shows at least a little just what a wonderful live act they are.

So yeah, I came home from that experience with the clear intention to really go out to concerts more (and maybe the theatre) from now on. I hadn't been in ages, and that's a mistake! It was so lovely to spend some two hours dancing and swaying, watching and listening to three fabulous musicians really rock it, and also I was super proud whenever I caught a Turkish word I understood.

Something that struck me at the beginning when the drums started playing – I don't think I've ever heard a drumset sound so, hm, musical. I mean drums usually file as percussion, and their sound to me is closer in range to "noise" than to "melody". But the sound of these drums sure had a sort of full-bodied, richly tonal quality that I found amazing.

In contrast, the bass started out more hard and metallic (the bassist was playing with a pick most of the time) – however, both sounds changed during the concert and during later songs the bass was much more mellow (also played without a pick for a bit). I'm not sure how much of that was influenced by the sound technician, but I believe it entirely possible that these three fabulous musicians just have that range of tone.

Oh and the lyrics! Much of Engin's original songs are in German, but they did play a lot of Turkish songs as well, and I don't know how many of those were traditional or covers and how many were their own. I did love all of them and the singer gave a little context for many of the songs which was lovely, and like I said, I was so proud of myself whenever I understood a word. And I should add that I didn't understand half of the lyrics in German either! (too fast, too much music going on, lyrics too out of context to catch it all) Their song lyrics generally lean towards poetry, which I personally love but isn't always easy to understand when you hear it for the first time.

There was one song that was about growing up in between between languages, between cultures, between homes, something I can relate to a bit because of my half English heritage (I had a few teenage years where I was totally out of sorts and wishing I'd grown up on the British isles instead of Germany). It's not entirely the same of course. My ear caught four words – "blond genug für Sympathie" ("blond enough for sympathy"), and I thought, oh wow. White passing privilege and on the flip side, never being fully at home and welcome anywhere, in four simple words.

Anyway! You know, I woke up on Saturday morning at around half past four, my mind racing with the whole experience and I lay awake thinking about what I was going to write until about six, when I fell asleep again 😄 and now it's Sunday evening and my brain has shut up a little. But I'm still writing this because a) I want the world to know about this wonderful band, and b) I want to get back into the practice of writing regularly. I have this five part, long form fanfiction that I WILL finish!

So here's some links for all of you who are interested in super danceable tunes, multicultural music and lyrics, and/or absolutely rocking sound:

Engin's website (in German only, sorry, but you can just click on the videos)

my absolute favourite song in German: Echt ("genuine")

my absolute favourite song in Turkish: Gurbet ("foreign place", very melancholic)

[faaun]

the way that diff languages sound r so fascinating they're all different and all so vivid

[salvadorbonaparte]

My song recommendation for language lovers of the day is this German-Turkish song by Herbert Grönemeyer and BRKN

[scarefox]

FAUN feat. Fatma Turgut - Umay (Official Video)

[turnip-o-lantern]

Everyone please keep in mind a wedding is only as good as its dj

[princesssarisa]

Live action Snow Whites of past years (not a complete list, but almost)

*Hélène Du Montel, 1910 French silent film

*Marguerite Clark, 1916 Famous Players silent film

*Aimee Ehrlich, 1916 Educational Films silent film

*Elke Arendt, 1955 German film

*Inge Kanzler, 1959 German film

*Carol Heiss, Snow White and the Three Stooges, 1961

*Doris Weikow, 1961 German film

*Zeynep Değirmencioğlu, 1971 Turkish film

*Maresa Hörbiger, 1971 German short

*Mary Jo Salerno, Snow White Live at Radio City Music Hall, 1980

*Elizabeth McGovern, Faerie Tale Theatre, 1984

*Sarah Patterson, Cannon Movie Tales, 1987

*Natalie Minko, Schneewittchen und das Geheimnis der Zwerge, 1992

*Monica Keena, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, 1997

*Camryn Manheim, The 10th Kingdom, 2000

*Kristin Kreuk, Snow White: The Fairest of Them All, 2001

*Laura Berlin, Sechs auf einen Streich, 2009

*Ginnifer Goodwin, Once Upon a Time, 2011

*Lily Collins, Mirror, Mirror, 2012

*Kirsten Stewart, Snow White and the Huntsman, 2012

*Tijan Marei, Märchenperlen, 2019

@ariel-seagull-wings, @thealmightyemprex, @themousefromfantasyland, @the-blue-fairie, @the-dark-storybook-prince

[canthelpit0]

-Everything you need to know-

-masterlist -taglist Rules/AboutMe/Writing

ABOUT ME

Please call me Fae, it's Nickname for my actual name. Im bi, and I'm a minor. I just choose not to say my age on here. I love Music and often listen to many different Genres. I've always loved writing, but I've never really published anything in any fandom. don't judge my writing; I'm getting better I promise. I feel like I have a very active imagination. but most of the series fanfics that I write will probably not be planned out that much. I haven't been a fan for too long, I'd say, like early-mid 2023.

My page is made to be looked at in dark mode.

music taste: LanaDelRey, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Chase Atlantic, Drake, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, Melanie Martinez, mitski... (I usually just listen to whatever I think sounds good, not because a certain artist made it.)

favorite song: it changes all the time (depending on the month, season, my mood, trends, etc.)

fav youtubers: the triplets, larry, Ben of the week, Shanspear... (I don’t watch a lot of yt)

fav food: mashed potatoes 🛐, Schnitzel 😍, ice cream, chicken, cherrys..

WRITING

allthough i feel like my english is pretty good, it is not my first languge. I'm actually German (well, tukisch really..) so, if there is something weird about the way I explain something inherently American, that’s why 🤷‍♀️

what I will be writing: fluff, angst, smut, hcs. I'll write almost anything (for Chris/Matt), I don't mind. go wild with requests I don't judge. the reader will mostly be poc!friendly, but not outright POC. I’ll write hcs for nick x m!reader, just not full stories

what I won't be writing: I might not write some requests. because I feel uncomfortable writing about something I don't know about/have experienced. For example: black!Reader, Latina!Reader, etc. (Heavy emphasis on race, because if yall have a specific fic in mind where the race has something to do with the story, go ask a writer who is black or Latina to write it, they’ll probably have better depiction than I could ever have.) unless it’s German/turkish reader.

also: R4pe, incest, threesomes, wired kinks (piss, shit, feet, etc)

My requests and Asks are open. feel free to send suggestions or questions. I'm fairly new on Tumblr, so I'm def looking for mutuals. Don't be scared to text me, i love meeting new people 🤭

RULES

Don't steal fics

if you don't like the concept of a fic, just scroll

Don't leave hate.

Criticism and feedback are always welcome in my inbox, just don't be rude about it.

[pjsk-headcanons]

i had a dream that akito was speaking spanish at me and made me cry so 90% of this is based on that

ena:

wants to learn spanish

it’s too hard

she gave up

she picked up french

she likes french

she’s at conversation level in french but she still really wants to speak spanish

any time she tries to learn spanish she’s distraught and gives up

akito:

speaks mexican spanish

learned it out of spite of ena

toya is teaching him english

he teaches an spanish curse words

an:

knows how to swear fluently in 4+ languages

speaks B2 turkish

mizuki taught her a little arabic

toya:

Speaks (excluding canon) french, javanese, hebrew, mandarin, latin, korean, and german

his dad forced him to study langauges

despite this he still likes learning languages

he wishes he didn’t speak french because his father made him learn to impress his friends

people like hearing him speak french because his voice is nice so he keeps practicing

his dad made him learn german as a “backup plan” in case toya sucked that bad at classical music (germany has really good education)

he could tell you about all the countries where they speak all those languages (idk how to explain it. if you’re polylingual and/or are learning languages you’d understand)

kohane:

toya is teaching her german

duolingo gave her ptsd

she’s also learning polish

I’m 99.99% sure she doesn’t speak english canonically so now she speaks conversation level

she’s dabbled in western culture (from her gangster era or whatever it’s called because she started listening to rap)

she goes by a lot of neopronouns now btw

you’re welcome

-language anon

.

[lahilden]

Peles Castle

Peleș Castle is located at the foot of the Bucegi Mountains in the town of Sinaia in Prohova County, Romania. King Carol I of Romania built the Neo-Renaissance castle from 1873 to 1883; it was under his reign that the country gained its independence. Along with the castle, the king commissioned a royal summer retreat, a hunting lodge, royal stables, guards’ chambers, an Economat building, and a power plant on the estate. Peleș Castle was the world’s first to be fully powered by locally produced energy. The castle went through later additions throughout its history and was once seized by the Communist regime. The castle was closed from 1975 to 1990, but after the December 1989 Revolution the castle was re-established as a heritage site and reopened to the public. The castle boasts 160 ornate rooms carrying themes from cultures around the world. The rooms are lavishly decorated with wall and ceiling frescoes by Gustav Klimt and Franz von Matsch, Murano crystal chandeliers, German stained-glass windows, Cordoba leather covered walls, carved teak furniture in the Music room, and a 4,000 piece collection of arms and armor are displayed in the Armory. The castle also has a movie theater and a Turkish salon. The property has seven Italian neo-Renaissance terrace gardens made mostly of Carrara marble, while the gardens have statues, fountains, stairways, and marble paths. Peleș Creek runs through the courtyard, while a towering statue of King Carol I overlooks the main entrance. Peleș Castle is open to the public for guided tours and serves as the Peleș National Museum.

[leaskisses444]

lea ੭ৎ | she/her | 4teen | april aries | infj-t | croatian | pinterest new acc | spotify | @starzyyy1 & @exyuontop | my taglist: click me! | my backup acc: @oceanbby555 | hopeless romantic (im just a girl) |

randoms ੭ৎ my band. music. writing. painting. reading. plants. cats. language learning (russian, latin, english, turkish, german & french). playing the only 3 songs i know how to play on my piano. journaling. making moodboards. pinterest-ing. winter. spring. working out. tea. candles. the seaside. star shaped things. fashion magazines (theyre so pretty, ok). nighttime. ribbons. anna sui bags and purses. perfume. italian food. spotify playlists. money. photo albums. good hair days. shopping !!!

music ੭ৎ the weeknd. arctic monkeys. isabel la rosa. artemas. montel fish. lana del rey. mazzy star. taylor swift. sabrina carpenter. guns n roses. nirvana. ramones. pink pantheress. beabadoobee. radiohead. deftones. tv girl. mitski. cigarettes after sex. childish gambino. steve lacy. tyler the creator. chase atlantic. the neighbourhood. beach house. marina. faye webster. fleetwood mac. suki waterhouse childish gambino. måneskin. eminem. ten tonnes. delights. clairo. bôa. boy pablo. joker out. buc kesidi. zabranjeno pusenje. prljavo kazaliste. crvena jabuka. bajaga & instruktori. <3

movies & shows ੭ৎ fight club. american pyscho. black swan. whiplash. fallen angels. pulp fiction. donnie darko. the sixth sense. grease. dirty dancing. pride and prejudice. 500 days of summer. jennifers body. amelie. perks of being a wallflower. diary of a whimpy kid rodrick rules. the edge of love. 10 things i hate about you. clueless. almost famous. the dreamers. a rainy day in ny. leon the proffesional. peaky blinders. dead poets society. atonement. pretty woman. friends. gilmore girls. criminal minds. seinfeld. wild child. marie antoinette. the love witch. red eye.

[koifly]

German crp headcanons

Nina:

Nina the Killer would listen to SXTN. She'd blast 'Von Party zu Party' in her pink, leopard print, maximalist room every day. She knows all of their songs by heart and introduces everyone who doesn't know them (very few) to SXTN.

Had a fat crush on the Kaulitz brothers (Tokio Hotel), Peter Shaw (Die ???), Julien Bam and Taddl (TJ_beastboy) when she was younger.

Watched Rebekah Wing's horror yt vids religiously. Tbh, she watched every German youtuber's horror vlogs.

Was a victim of the "Scheiss Grufti" and "Zieh dich mal vernünftig an" comments in her school.

Since she's Turkish in my AU, she had an accent when she spoke German, especially when she was younger. It's still there but not as noticeable.

Early and uncontrolled internet access kid.

CRO hater in public, secretly loved his songs.

Didn't go outside often when she was younger, she rather played at home or in her backyard.

Was that kid that went to primary school with a princess crown.

Wanted to go to the Longboard tour SO badly but wasn't allowed to.

Listens to Hobbylos. (Nett hier, aber haben Sie schon Hobbylos mit 5 Sternen bewertet?)

Toby:

Probably grew up in a small village on the countryside.

Was an outside kid, he hated being at home. Not only because of the abuse but also because he got bored too quickly.

Parents somehow convinced him to be an altar boy, he quit when he was 14 or something.

LOVED Die Ärzte and Pisse, his dad listened to Rammstein so he didn't listen to them as some form of protest. (I don't support the actions of Till Lindemann in any way btw)

Went everywhere with his bicycle until 13, then he just walked everywhere or took public transport.

Says 'Digga' in every sentence, doesn't even know how he picked it up but he did. (Digga is a German slang word, comparable to bro, dude etc...)

Toggo kid who actively hated on KiKa kids. Mainly because he once fell asleep while watching KiKa in the evening and woke up while Berndt das Brot was on. He got jumpscared basically. (Please google Berndt das Brot, that thing was every German kid's nightmare and biggest fear istg.)

Always got candy too when he went to the bakery. Loved Esspapier and Schlümpfe.

Absolutely despises AfD voters. (Which is good, don't vote right wing parties kids, be like Toby)

When the first Bibi und Tina movie came out, his sister forced him to go to the cinema with him.

Regularly falls into a bush of nettles. (Not that he cares or feels it)

Ate every god damn berry he found in the wild when he was a kid. An absolute miracle that he's still alive.

Has always been a Marvel boy.

Met Nat in primary school. They even lived close to one another. Thought Nat was weird at first but somehow ended up crushing really hard on her in 8th grade or something. Is still crushing.

Natalie:

Was a victim of the "Oui, oui baguette" comments at her school.

Was the weird girl at her school, no one really talked to her, was always drawing something and only wore black.

Absolutely loved Stutenkerle and St. Martins Brezeln.

Always had the prettiest lantern at St. Martin.

LOVED Bibi und Tina. Had everything from them, dvds, cds, posters, friendship bracelets, everything.

Had a big fat crush on Toby in 7th grade. (Nothing really changed about that lol)

Lived on a farm, had her own little pony and named her Sabrina as a reference to Bibi und Tina.

Lived in a small village on the countryside. (Same that Toby lived in obviously)

Ruhrpott dialect despite her French roots. I'm not gonna explain why, she just has it.

Had a crush on Beni from Woozlegoozle when she was a kid.

Even though her parents are french, they loved Schlager music. Nat has a love-hate relationship with it.

Was at EVERY Schützenfest in her village and those around it. Had no particular reason for it, she always went alone anyways. She just found it amusing to see people get drunk and do stupid shit.

Was a Die Ärzte girl.

[cowdeath]

Storm hawks headcanons

i wanted to share some miscellaneous personal hc's I have for some characters, these are all unserious and if you have some, id love to hear them!! i really love this show and characters lol

storm hawks

• aerrow

aerrow is transfem, and uses he/she

she is a lesbian

aerrow has naturally wavy hair but she likes to straighten it

he likes pistachio ice cream..idky but he just looks like he would

radarr is aerrows emotional support

wasian (Chinese/french)

• finn

finn is a trans dude and he uses he/they

they're closeted bi but have a pref for girls

finn has adhd

he's either german or norweigan i can't make up my mind lol

finn is a huge fan of industrial music but doesn't really talk about it

• piper

piper is a cis girl (she/her) and she's bi

piper had a crush on starling (not a ship! btw) , I'd like to think her and cyclonis started dating lol

piper is blasian (Haitian/Indian)

she wears mostly blue and orange but her favorite color is violet

she would totally own parrots

• junko

junko is cis (he/him) and unlabeled

he is a huge fan of grilled cheese

junko and finn have listening parties in their quarters (they would be huge Tyler the creator fans imo)

human junko would be afro-latino

he uses a plushie to help him sleep

• stork

stork is bigender and he uses any pronouns

he is omnisexual with a pref for guys

stork is autistic and a pretty picky eater

he likes to play puzzles and read

stork tries to write but they're not the best at it lol

human stork would jamacian/greek

stork has scoliosis

cyclonians

• master cyclonis

cyclonis is nonbinary and uses any pronouns

they are a lesbian (dating piper!!)

cyclonis prefers goth fashion, but listens to emo music

she has AFRID and her primary safe foods are blueberries and plain pasta

cyclonis likes to draw in her free time

• dark ace

ace is a trans man (he/him) and he is *ace* heh

he has naturally curly hair but he kinda messed it up with all the straightening and hairspray he uses

he is turkish

(in a perfect world) ace thinks of cyclonis like a daughter

• snipe

snipe is cis but uses he/it, he is gay

he has a septum piercing, and a few tats on his legs

he is super #metal

snipe has a soft spot for the maine coon cats

he fights with his sister (ravess) mostly over dumb stuff

• ravess

ravess is a trans woman (she/her) and she is bi

ravess uses prosthetics on both legs

as kids ravess and snipe ate slime together

she plays her violin as a coping mechanism when she's frustrated

[mommypieck]

Hii, since you're multilingual I was hoping you could give me some advice on learning a new language and I also wanted to ask what language you speak <3

hii, the most important thing is to start thinking in that language as soon as you pick it. doesn't matter if you don't have the vocabulary, because you will start using the words you know and the more you learn, the more you will see how you're getting better. have conversations with you in your own head and if you don't know something, just translate it and do the convo again. i think this is the most important thing. also finding music in the language helps because it's gonna motivate you to translate it and find new vocabulary. i don't really wanna share my first language, but i can speak english and i can surely communicate in german and french. maybe if i tried hard enough, i would be able to hold convos in turkish and greek.

[salvadorbonaparte]

Language Playlists

Disclaimer: These playlists predominantly reflect my taste in and knowledge of music. I apologise in advance. Some playlists include songs in other languages including English if deemed appropriate for the playlist. All playlists are works in progress. Playlists in bold are really long.

Multilingual and Continental Playlists

African Music (this used to be a South African playlist and then just mutated)

Foreign Covers

Germanic Music (excluding German and Low German)

Middle Eastern and North African Music

Multilingual Mixtape (contains most of the playlists in this post and a lot more)

North American Music (classic and contemporary indigenous artists)

South Asian Music (mostly but not exclusively Hindi film soundtracks ngl)

Single Language Playlists

Cambodian

Catalan

Chinese

Czech

Finnish

French

Galician

German

Greek

Hawaiian

Hebrew

Hungarian

Irish (Gaeilge)

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Low German and Northern German

te reo Māori

Portuguese

Scottish (Gaelic)

Spanish

Thai

Turkish

Vietnamese

Welsh

Yiddish

Hidden Agenda: Please recommend me music in Romanian and Croatian 🥺 (I also accept other recommendations)

[scarefox]

Faun - Hellfest 2023 - ARTE Concert

[saintsenara]

I really want to hear your thoughts on the wizarding world. So I have a question about British wizards' language skills. Canon tells us very little about British wizards and their relationship to languages. We know that Fleur, Victor and Madame Maxime can speak more than one language. (They are not British). However, we do know that there is at least one British wizard who speaks several languages. Percy and Ludo say that Barty senior speaks over a hundred languages. So, do you think British wizarding society has a general opinion about learning languages or is it more about what class a wizard is born into or what their future career plans are? After all, Hogwarts doesn't teach languages to students. I'd also like to hear your thoughts on these characters and their language skills. Do you think they can speak more than one language? Voldemort (parseltongue doesn't count), Dumbledore, Barty jr and Bill Weasley.

thank you very much for the ask, anon! and what an interesting question!

in harry potter, language-learning is one of those things which - since it's not a key aspect of the story - ends up not having any specific worldbuilding. and so it's one of those parts of the books in which the wizarding attitude towards foreign languages just seems to be exactly the same as the real-world british one.

which is - like everything in britain - enormously rooted in social class, and in things [like race and ethnicity] which intersect with this.

you will often hear, for example, that the working-classes don't bother learning foreign languages - but what is meant by this is that working-class people don't choose in large numbers to become proficient in the specific western european languages [french, german, italian, and spanish] which signify that someone is well-educated, culturally-sophisticated, and mentally non-parochial to the british cultural and intellectual elite. working-class people may very well speak one of these four languages - especially african and caribbean dialects of french - as native or heritage languages, and they may very well speak urdu, yoruba, albanian, polish, turkish, and so on for the same reasons... it's just that this isn't recognised as something impressive.

but it is certainly true that language-learning for reasons other than heritage generally isn't considered to be particularly important in class-brackets below a certain threshold in the middle-middle- to upper middle-classes.

partially this is for boorish, parochial reasons which align with certain strains of political and social conservatism. uncle vernon, for example, would regard language-learning as woke nonsense and be horrified if dudley came home from school and asked to be given loads of italian novels for his birthday... he would have a similar reaction if his son announced his intention to start playing the violin, take ballet, write poetry, become interested in impressionist painting, or eat the local food while on holiday.

[the grangers, in contrast, appear to come from the europhile wing of the upper-middle-classes - and would, therefore, regard it as horribly parochial to only speak english. we know they go on holiday to france in prisoner of azkaban - and i think we can imagine that this isn't the first time they do so, and that hermione and her parents can all speak conversational french. indeed, if hermione was privately educated prior to starting hogwarts - and all signs point to yes - she would have studied french at prep school.]

but british monolingualism is also partially because the global hegemony of english means that being able to speak anything else isn't crucial for travel, employment, or - indeed - emigration, since brits who aspire to move abroad often want to go to places like australia and new zealand.

and so language-learning has become - like music - an academic subject which seems to be thought of by many brits as "not a key skill" - unlike, for example, something like maths. nice to have if you've got a grip on everything else, but not a necessity... and so, for british children who are educated in state schools [public schools in the us], foreign languages are only compulsory for three school years [years 7-9, the equivalents of years 1-3 at hogwarts]. some schools insist on a language being taken at gcse [exams taken at the end of year 11 - hogwarts year 5, what owls are a pastiche of], but this is not mandatory.

[although it was at my school. slay.]

so it makes sense within this cultural context that there are no languages on the compulsory hogwarts curriculum - the intended audience isn't expecting there to be.

[although it's worth saying that ancient runes - while i know it has a whole fanon surrounding it which makes it a sort of spellcasting system - is a pastiche of latin/classical greek as school subjects, so there is at least one elective language students can study].

of course, it makes less sense that this is the case when we remember that jkr did french at university... and it also makes less sense that this is the case because hogwarts is based on real-world institutions - britain's elite boarding schools - which do prioritise language-learning, since the students come from class-backgrounds which value multilingualism as a signal of cultural status.

[seriously - while i accept that this is anecdotal - it was so striking to me when i was at university that all but three of the thirty-or-so people i ever met doing a degree in a foreign language, whether a european language or not, was privately educated. add in classical languages and that ratio gets worse.]

but i think we can get around this by noting that hogwarts is set up in a way which presumes that its entire student body has had a wizarding primary education - and not only that, but an elite one [since hogwarts does, even if this isn't the doylist text's intention, seem to apply some sort of selection process which means that students who aren't from well-heeled backgrounds stand out enormously]. and then by presuming that the primary curriculum which someone like draco malfoy would have studied [at home, probably with a governess] would have included some sort of language tuition.

i imagine that this tuition would be in a muggle language - non-human languages [like mermish or gobbledegook] seem to be regarded as sufficiently "niche" in the eyes of the population that they wouldn't be taught as a general skill, but either learned in one's own time or as part of the training for specific careers, such as goblin liaison; the fact that barty crouch sr. speaks so many just for fun is a way canon hints at him being a bit... weird - and i imagine that this muggle language would be french.

this is not, however, because i go in for the fanon that all purebloods are of recent french heritage and retain close family connections in france [names like malfoy and lestrange are anglo-norman - which means they arrived in britain a thousand years ago with william the conqueror, and are as meaningfully english as the word "beef" or "monarchy...], but because french is generally considered the most "useful" language to learn in britain because france is literally next door.

[irish is sobbing.]

when it comes to the characters you specifically asked about...

lord voldemort's pre-hogwarts education is a bit of a mystery - in that the fact that the text isn't concerned about fleshing it out means that he ends up being far better educated than would normally have been the case for a child of his background [simply by virtue of not being functionally illiterate...].

even if he went to a moderately well-resourced school by random chance, though, he's extremely unlikely to have formally learned any foreign languages. but the fact that the most common fanon locations for the orphanage are parts of east london which had historically large jewish communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries means that he'd have had a fair chance of picking up snippets of yiddish while he was wheeling and dealing around each day. east london also had a large irish community, and if the orphanage is a catholic one [which doesn't really work canonically but which is a headcanon i'm nonetheless wedded to], then he'd probably also have a bit of latin.

once he's at hogwarts, i presume he must take runes [since he's heavily implied, like all male characters the series considers to be intellectually brilliant, to have taken twelve owls]. nonetheless, while he's clearly a nerd - and while he loves a language puzzle, since he spends his teenage years coming up with an anagram of his own name [...] - he has a slightly harry-ish preference in canon for only enjoying lots of flicking-through-books research if it's for a tangible goal [i.e. opening the chamber of secrets]. i can't see him scouring textbooks in an effort to teach himself the european languages his posh friends would have learned at home unless he thought doing so would be unequivocally beneficial to him.

indeed, we canonically know that voldemort can't speak german, since when he's on his hunt for gregorovitch in deathly hallows a woman speaks to him in that language and he just defaults to the british standard of speaking louder in english... and i think we can reasonably assume on these grounds that he can't speak french either.

but he must be able to speak albanian fluently - simply out of necessity, since he spends so much time in the country.

and it's also interesting to me that during his ten years in europe after murdering hepzibah smith [so c.1955-1965], he is implied to spend a lot of time in communist europe, even if not in countries which were fully behind the iron curtain [he must, for example, meet karkaroff - and potentially dolohov - in some part of the eastern bloc, and the bulgarian delegation at the quidditch world cup know who he is]. i think it's entirely reasonable to suppose, then, that he must also be able to speak some level of russian.

dumbledore - on the other hand - can probably speak french, german, and italian, which would have been expected of the sort of late victorian young man who was preparing to embark on a grand tour, and which he undoubtedly taught himself in order to keep up his correspondence with the "most noted magical names of the day" [including grindelwald, to whom he probably spoke german].

i also quite like the idea of him as the sort of late victorian orientalist who crops up again and again in british history, who speaks a language like hindi, arabic, or ottoman turkish with a cut-glass english accent.

the various non-human language he speaks in canon - such as mermish - are presumably also self-taught, and the question which preoccupies me the most in relation to these is whether dumbledore can speak parseltongue?

after all, we know it's a language which can be learned by non-parselmouths - since ron manages to speak it in deathly hallows - and so it must have an actual structure rather than just be vibes. and if dumbledore can't understand it, then what the hell did he think was going on in the memory of the gaunts he shows harry?

barty crouch jr. was definitely forced to have endless lessons with tutors hired by his father, who wanted him to match his two hundred languages, but then forgot everything he knew about mermish the second he started school.

i am sure that - even if he doesn't seem to be able to during the canon timeline - bill weasley learns how to speak french fluently the second the war's out of the way. since this is a basic courtesy if your partner and her family is from france.

i am also sure that the three delacour-weasley children are raised to be bilingual, and that they take great pleasure in bitching about the three potter-weasley children to their faces.

the more interesting question, though, is whether bill can speak any gobbledegook.

it's implied that he might through his job - and he's asked in order of the phoenix about whether there's any pro-voldemort talk among the goblins at gringotts, which suggests that he's known to be able to understand any gobbledegook chit-chat he overhears. but it still always strikes me in deathly hallows that the imperialism really jumps out when bill's speaking to harry about griphook:

“I know goblins,” said Bill. “I’ve worked for Gringotts ever since I left Hogwarts. As far as there can be friendship between wizards and goblins, I have goblin friends - or, at least, goblins I know well, and like.”

this really doesn't sound like a man who takes the time to speak to his "friends" in their own language...

the fact that even the good guys treat non-human magical communities with - at best - paternalistic contempt is a really noticeable theme in the series [and, crucially, something which the series doesn't seem to think is a particularly bad thing]. and so i quite like the idea that someone like bill would have a lack of ability to communicate in gobbledegook, and that this would never be something he interrogated.