Courses
Current Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Sanskrit courses shown in ISIS - 039
Current Japanese courses shown in ISIS - 39J
Current Croatian, Czech, Russian courses shown in ISIS - 041
New Courses for Fall 2009:
Languages of Asia in Cultural and Historical Perspective
039:034
2:30 - 3:45 T Th in 218 PH
Brief Description:
The major languages of East and South Asia are spoken by nearly half of the earth’s people. This course will be a basic, entry level three-credit-hour offering, targeting specifically freshmen, and will be found in the 30-level listings in the University Catalogue. It will be simple and non-technical and thus will not be cross-listed with the Linguistics Department. More advanced students desiring a formal linguistic introduction to any of the languages involved will be referred to courses of this nature that are already regularly offered in the College. The class will cover Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Sanskrit, and Hindi, probably in that order. Each of the five segments of the course will be taught by a specialist or specialists in the pertinent language, history, and culture. Coverage will include the cultural and ethnic factors which have affected and are affected by each language, a simple, non-technical introduction to the structure of the language, a discussion of the script in which the language is written, and some treatment of the history of the language, including a brief outline of the political and cultural history of each pertinent linguistic area, and discussion of the ways linguistic history has been affected by these factors. Finally, there will be a brief discussion of the ways the languages are taught at Iowa and the myths as well as the facts about how difficult the languages are for English speakers to learn.
- Dept. of Asian and Slavic Languages and Literatures
- 111 Phillips Hall
- The University of Iowa
- Iowa City, IA 52242
- Contact Information:
- asian-slavic@uiowa.edu
- (Phone) 319-335-2151
- (Fax) 319-353-2207
