Mr Rogers said: “Ah, yes....in 1787, the Founders used a phrase found in the 1797 translation of Vattel, and a bad translation at that.”
What a silly thing to say. The Founders read French. All the historic correspondences show that the Founders had the French version of Vattel, NOT the English version (until later).
The Founders’ primary language was English—well, most of them—as is probably yours and mine.
Like most of the Founders, I can read and speak French quite fluently as a second language. So, I have a pretty good perspective on what English words the Founding Fathers were seeing in their mind’s eye while reading Vattel’s work in French.
You see, when you learn a second language, you automatically gravitate towards using common words with common meanings in both languages, such as the common word “brunette.”
English and French speakers each recognize the word “brunette” to mean someone with brown hair. Right? You with me so far?
Okay, now in French, “brunette” has a subtle usage rule as it is used only when talking about women, not men. But, to an English speaking person whose secondary language is French, it’s just a person with brown hair and will always be just that unless someone enlightens the reader as to the subtleties contained therein.
Still with me? Okay. A person whose primary language is English will ALWAYS tend to gravitate towards common words in both the primary and secondary languages whose meanings are close in nature.
This also applies to words which are similar in spelling or sound whose meanings are similar.
For instance, if you came across the phrase, “les membres de la société civil,” even without knowing much French, you should have no problem in breaking it down and figuring it out based upon similar English words.
You’ll probably deduce that “les membres” means “the members”; “de la” might give you pause, but since French phrases are so prevalent in English, it is inevitably deduced as meaning “of the”; and, “société civil” is easily decoded into English as meaning “society civil,” or—so that it sounds better to the English ear—”civil society.”
Gee, look at that! You’re translating French already!
Now that you are following me, let us take a look at the offending text in which so much ado has been made of:
“Les Naturels ou indigènes font ceux qui font nés dans le pays de parents citoyens”
An English speaking person whose secondary language is French will naturally gravitate towards breaking it down and translating it this way:
“Les Naturels” = “The Naturals”
“ou indigènes” = “or indigenous”
“font ceux que font” = “are those that are”
“nés dans” = “born in”
“le pays” = “the country”
“de parents citoyens” = “of parents citizens”
So, now it gets strung together in your mind’s eye and Voila!:
“The Naturals, or indigenous, are those who are born in the country of [their] parents [who are] citizens.”
Nope. No 1797 translation is required to understand where the Founding Fathers came up with the idea that Vattel was talking about “Natural Born.”
P.S. STE=Q - Thanks for thinking of me!
Cheers
““The Naturals, or indigenous, are those who are born in the country of [their] parents [who are] citizens.””
Except the Founders did NOT write that the President must be a natural citizen, a native citizen, or an indigenous citizen. They used “natural born citizen”, which had an established legal meaning and was NOT found in Vattel.
Vattel did NOT use ‘natural born citizen’, nor would it be a good translation - as you have agreed.
Don’t underestimate ms. rogers, who has been all over the world and definitely “commands” fluently in the French language, aka a FINO here!!!