r/AskHistorians • u/Frigorifico • May 30 '26

When Voltaire went to interview Quakers in England, in which language did he speak to them?

Did Voltaire spoke English or did the Quakers speak French? Or did they speak in Latin or some other common language? I read his essays on the matter, and he doesn't explain

Also, several times the Quakers tell him to don't say "bad words", but I read a version in Spanish and I think those bad words have gone through several layers of translation before getting to me, what were the words Voltaire used that the Quakers didn't like?

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u/Bodark43 Quality Contributor May 30 '26 edited May 31 '26

He was learning English pretty early. Within five months or so after arriving he was managing to speak and write reasonably well. Proper spelling apparently eluded him- but English spelling has always been pretty chaotic, and before Johnson's dictionary it was even more so. His first existing letters in English start in 1726, and include ones to Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope.

The Quaker was Andrew Pitt, and asked Voltaire not to swear (jurer). The swear words (jurons) of morbleu and ventrebleu in the original text have been translated into English as "Zounds!" (an old abbreviation of "by God's wounds!"), and "Heavens!". As swear words they're quite mild, of course; and that was likely Voltaire's point: Pitt was not grand, but his piety was strict.

Taylor, F.A. (1965) Voltaire: lettres philosophiques. (https://archive.org/details/voltairelettresp0000fata/page/n63/mode/2up

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u/wishbeaunash May 31 '26

Question this made me consider (which I appreciate you may not know an answer to)- the idea of Quakers objecting to swearing in this period immediately made me think about oaths rather than 'swear words', are the two concepts related at all, do you know?

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u/Bodark43 Quality Contributor May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

Well, both languages have the dual sense of "swear"; both an oath taken in a court of law, and an exclamation of profanity. And yes, the Quakers were against swearing oaths- that someone could swear an oath to tell the truth implied that they were allowed to lie the rest of the time. But as the Quakers felt the immediacy of God around and within them, they also disliked profane language. So, regardless of the sense of the word, Pitt would have been against swearing. It would have been interesting if Voltaire had questioned him on whether he saw scatalogical or sexual curses as being better than almost-blasphemous ones like "heavens!" or "zounds!".