The Man Who Knew 75 Languages plot
"Learning a language is like falling in love."
The film is based on the life of the German Georg Sauerwein (1831-1904), a brilliant linguist who could read, write and speak more than seventy languages. As a young man, he was invited by the court to teach Elisabeth zu Wied, a German princess. However, their friendship and Georg's growing affection for the princess was not tolerated and he was banished by the court. Through this impossible love, he transformed all his feelings into energy for another struggle: he emerged as an activist who stood up for minorities in Europe and the right to speak their own mother tongue, like Sorbian in the German Empire. Since Georg was considered a traitor by many nationalist Germans, he feared for his own safety and eventually moved to Norway.