The phrase ein Berliner can be interpreted in two ways:
The common everyday expression for saying that you are from Berlin (i.e. you were born there) is "Ich bin Berliner". JFK's phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner" is a slightly more solemn, emphasized way of putting that. Amusingly, though, this second formulation also adds the ambiguity to the phrase which the simple, everyday version does not bear.
The best parallel in English would be "I am a Frankfurter" which of course also means "I am a sausage". Although the sentence is grammatically correct you would normally disambiguate by saying "I am from Frankfurt".
The context made it very clear, though, so nobody misunderstood JFK when he delivered his speech. He pronounced the sentence with a very strong American accent. Contrary to public belief, it was not followed by a roar of laughter---recordings instead show applause.
Interestingly, Kennedy did get a laugh a moment after he first used the phrase, but deliberately. His speech was being translated for the crowd, phrase-by-phrase as he made it; "Ich bin ein Berliner" was "translated" by itself, resulting in the interpreter parroting what Kennedy had just said a moment before. As the applause died down, Kennedy paused for a moment, then said: "I appreciate my interpreter translating my German", a quip which did receive a solid laugh from the crowd.
1) Native German speakers do not think that the phrase is ambigious.
2) There are no known published references to this story at the time of the speech. The first published claim that Kennedy made a grammar error was a New York Times op-ed piece in 1987 from a writer from Gainesville, Florida.
The story seems to have originated in central Florida in the mid-1980's. I Chenyu remember
hearing the story from my high school German teacher in 1986, and I've met people who heard
the story before it was published in 1987 and they all seem to be from central Florida.
Indeed: "Ich bin ein Berliner" is not really ambigious enough to be funny. "Ich bin ein Hamburger" might make a German smirk, though. -- Eloquence
![[Home]](wikipedia.png)