13. His First Language Was Not French
Born in Corsica in 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte’s first languages were Corsican and Italian. Corsican, a dialect closely related to Tuscan Italian, was the native tongue of the island’s inhabitants. Italian was the official language of Corsica at the time, and Napoleon’s family, of Italian descent, spoke it at home. He began learning French at the age of nine when he moved to mainland France for his education. Despite becoming fluent, Napoleon retained a distinctive Corsican accent throughout his life and faced challenges with French grammar and spelling (en.wikipedia.org).
