Which Nine Languages Did Cleopatra Speak?

By Staff WriterLast Updated Mar 28, 2020 5:54:44 PM ET

Depending on the historical source, Cleopatra spoke anywhere between five to nine languages, which included her native Greek, classic Egyptian and multiple other native languages within Egypt. Most historical accounts, including those of Al-Masudi and Plutarch, do not agree on which languages she spoke or whether she actually spoke Egyptian.

Most historians agree that Cleopatra did not speak Latin and that she spoke Greek, which was her native language. The historian Plutarch was not convinced that she actually did speak Egyptian, and many modern scholars agree with him. Some languages that she may have spoken were Persian, Syrian and Arabic. However, there is no true historical proof that she spoke anything other than Greek.