Fall 2009

IU Treasure:
No Matter How You Say It, We Are IU

How do you say that in Pashto? IU knows.

Indiana University has a strong tradition of language study, and an equally strong present. In all, the College of Arts and Sciences offers an impressive 77 languages. Of those, 46 are taught throughout the year, while 31 are offered periodically during the two summer sessions.

These include languages you’d expect, like French, Spanish, and Japanese. But IU also teaches such languages as Tajik, Wolof, Uyghur, Tibetan, American Sign, Yiddish, and Navajo.

So how did IU become a home for languages? As with many of IU’s outstanding qualities, this one can be traced to beloved chancellor and president, Herman B Wells.

“Despite being from a very small town in rural Indiana, Dr. Wells was globally minded,” says Professor David Ransel, who served as director of IU’s Russian and East European Institute for 14 years.

Dr. Wells worked in international affairs for the U.S. State Department and the United Nations. Ransel notes that the history of Russian at IU is a success story inspired by Wells’ vision. But there was also a security issue after World War II—namely, the Soviet Union.

“To know a country, you need to know its people,” says Ransel. “To know its people, you need to know what they are saying.” To meet that need, IU began to bring in Eastern European and Russian area study professors. Ransel says the institute was formed as a way of attracting grants and special funding.

“But I should emphasize that IU has made language study a priority,” Ransel adds. “The university has been the driving force.”

Today, that investment makes even more sense. Globalism requires students from all areas to be adept at languages, whether their interest is cultural, commercial, or technological. “Any student’s degree program can be enhanced by language and culture studies,” says IU Bloomington Provost Karen Hanson. “Education in these areas enables our students to understand better the world and their place in it. We also encourage taking advantage of our study abroad opportunities. These not only sharpen language skills, they also provide experiences that are often among the most cherished and informative in a student’s educational career.”

IU has truly become a hub for language study. For example, IU’s Summer Workshop in Slavic, East European, and Central Asian languages is the only program in the U.S. offering classes in Turkmen. It also offers other languages—such as Azerbaijani, Macedonian, Mongolian, and Slovene—taught at only one or two other universities.

It’s a rare expertise, and one that serves the nation well. The Cold War has given way to new security issues. IU recently began working with the Indiana National Guard, which is charged with training U.S. military personnel and foreign aid workers in Central Asian culture and languages.

"The challenges that America faces across the globe oblige us to form extraordinary relationships, to draw on each other's expertise and strengths," said Major General R. Martin Umbarger, Indiana's Adjutant General. "The relationship we are building with Indiana University is absolutely the best kind of model for addressing the needs of our nation."

IU’s Language Study Offerings

Afrikaans • Akan • Albanian • American Sign Language • Amharic • Arabic • Azeri • Bamana • Bengali • Bosnian • Bulgarian • Cantonese • Catalan • Chinese–Mandarin • Croatian • Czech • Dutch • Danish • Estonian • Finnish • French • Georgian • German • Greek • Haitian Creole • Hausa • Hebrew • Hindi • Hungarian • Italian • Japanese • Kazakh • Korean • Kurdish • Lakota Sioux • Latin • Latvian • Lithuanian • Luganda • Macedonian • Middle High German • Mongolian • Nahuatl • Navajo • North African Arabic • Norwegian • Old Church Slavonic • Old High German • Pashto • Persian • Polish • Portuguese • Quechua • Romanian • Russian • Sanskrit • Serbian • Setswana • Slovak • Slovene • Spanish • Swahili • Tajik • Tatar • Tibetan • Turkish • Turkmen • Ukrainian • Urdu • Uyghur • Uzbek • Wolof • Xhosa • Yoruba • Yucatec Maya • Yiddish • Zulu


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