Zdrastvuyte! Konnichiwa! Learn the meaning at Iowa

The Language Media Center in Phillips Hall offers computerized and audiovisual help to students learning new languages. Photo by Helen Spielbauer.

Some knowledgeable faculty and staff members might be able to add Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Sanskrit, and Korean, the languages taught by Asian Languages and Literature, and the Department of Classics’ languages, Latin and Greek. Fewer would know that undergraduate students may use American Sign Language, Swahili, or Zulu to fulfill their General Education Program foreign language requirements.

But instruction in Middle High German? Old Norse? Middle English? Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian? Who knew?

Yet there they are, listed in the General Catalog index under Foreign Languages Offered Irregularly.

Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian will be offered by the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREEES) this summer in the Baltic Studies Summer Institute, funded by a consortium of American universities including Iowa. The institute will be at The University of Iowa this summer and the University of Illinois next summer. Details are available at www.uiowa.edu/~creees/projects/balssi.html.

"It is an opportunity for interested students and scholars to increase their knowledge and understanding of the languages, culture, and history of the Baltic states," says William Reisinger, professor of political science and head of CREEES.

Catherine Ringen, professor of linguistics and supervisor of African language instruction, says Swahili is the second language of most citizens of countries in East Africa whose first language is a tribal dialect. Studying Swahili is important for graduate and undergraduate students who study abroad or persons who want to do business or live in East African countries, she says.

"I think Swahili and Zulu are a well-kept secret for Iowa undergraduates," she adds. "Students can study a different language with a native speaker of that language, in a much smaller class than they’d have if they chose a language such as Spanish."

Students enroll in Asian language courses for a variety of reasons, says Philip Lutgendorf, associate professor and chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Literature.

"If I were making an argument for a student to choose an Asian language, I’d point out two things," he says. "First, the number of speakers of that language in the world and the sheer range of access to their culture that learning the language would give the student. I’d stress the importance of Asia economically and culturally.

"Second, we have excellent programs of instruction, and students shouldn’t be put off by the perceived difficulty of learning a different alphabet and script system. The courses are carefully designed to give instruction that will bring students along, informed by the latest language acquisition research. If students apply themselves, they can do well, and they will find it satisfying and rewarding to do," he says.

A list of languages with the most native speakers in the world, compiled by Encyclopedia Britannica, lists Chinese first and Hindi third, he says. Japanese is in tenth place. At Iowa, in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature, Japanese enrolls the most students, followed by Chinese, Hindi, Sanskrit and Korean.

Old Norse, Old English, and Middle English languages are taught in the Department of English by Professor Jonathan Wilcox and other instructors.

"I most certainly do teach Old English with some regularity," Wilcox says. "I am teaching it at the moment, while I teach Old Norse on an occasional basis and four or five of us teach courses in Middle English. I love to talk about the delights of Old English."

The less commonly taught languages are particularly interesting in light of a movement toward heavy enrollments in Spanish and declining enrollments in other languages, which has been occurring for several years. Because of budget problems, many Iowa high schools have decided to offer only one language, and in most cases it is Spanish. So students tend to choose to continue in college the language they learned in high school.

Noting this trend, some have suggested that all foreign languages form one department and cut back on languages offered, or that they retain the current structure but cut any language in which enrollment is low. So far, review committees have not seen fit to recommend this.

The professors interviewed unanimously believe that students should think carefully about the language they select, and academic advisers should challenge students to make different choices.

"Learning an Asian language is really helpful in business, travel, and in forming close friendships with people in our increasingly diverse society," Lutgendorf says.

Article by Anne Tanner