Do physicists need French?

If you have academically elite universities, it’s only predictable – indeed it's right and proper – that people debate exactly what qualifications students should have to get into them.

A hundred years ago, the headlines were all about whether ancient Greek should be a  necessary qualification to get  into Cambridge. Technically speaking it wasn’t actually a qualification you needed to be admitted in the first  place. But, if you wanted an honours degree, you had to do a preliminary exam in Greek soon after you arrived – which was pretty much the same thing in practice.

The arguments went as you might expect. The abolitionists claimed that the Greek requirement was preventing highly intelligent boys (sic) from coming to Cambridge, if they weren’t already at a select group of socially elite schools (the access argument). They also suggested that it was pretty ante-diluvian requiring a dead language when you could be getting the boys to learn a modern language, French or German (the utility argument).

On the other side, the retentionists argued that Greek was an essential part of a liberal education, and that it would disappear from schools unless Cambridge continued to require it. To this the abolitionists retorted that it wasn’t Cambridge’s job to take responsibility for the school curriculum.

The arguments went on from 1870 to 1919, when in the brave new post-war world the Greek requirement was abolished (and, true to the retentionists fears, the decline of Greek in schools had begun).

A hundred years on and the radical choice of the early twentieth century – namely French and German – are now in their turn to be toppled. Cambridge is planning no longer to require a modern language from all students across the board.

The arguments are strikingly reminiscent of those on “the Greek Question”, and both sides have a point.

On the one hand is the access argument. If only 17% of state schools now require pupils to study a foreign language after the age of 14, then you’re de facto excluding a lot of potential students if you make it a necessary condition for Cambridge entrance. (Or, to put it another way, you’ll find it hard to make your government access targets...)

This is backed up by the utility argument. Why should we care if physicists know French, since the language of science is universal English?

On the other side, is the argument that an elite university cannot be a monoglot university, and it is to challenge the very excellence of Cambridge as an institution to suggest that it should be producing graduates who know no language but their own. (That has been part of UCL’s argument for introducing the requirement that Cambridge now plans to abolish.) And you can add to that the likely prediction that Cambridge’s decision on this will further weaken the precarious position of modern languages in schools.

In my position, the safest place to be is on the fence. But deep down, as you’ve probably guessed, I am sure that this proposal cannot be right. It is the duty of a university such as Cambridge to stand up for the highest academic standards (that’s a responsibility that being a world class institution brings). If it believes that modern languages are an essential part of excellence, then it should be doing everything it can to ensure that all children have access to them (access in the real sense) – not acceding to short term quick fixes to meet some cynical government target.

As for the argument that physicists don’t need French. . .  It may be that the international  language of science is English, but do we really think that we are properly equipping our best scientists to work in the international world of Europe, China, India, etc, if they don’t even know what it is like to learn a language to a decent level of competence? Isn’t ‘networking’ something we are now supposed to train them to do?  I bet that doesn’t all happen in English.

Maybe the idea is that we are going to teach them all a foreign language when they get here. But I doubt it somehow.

Comments

[A.C. Norman]

Professor Beard,

I am an undergraduate at Cambridge.

I totally agree with your paragraphs 10 and 11 - but if, deep down, you have reservations about the changes to Cambridge's matriculation requirements, why didn't you say so at the discussion on 18th March?

I did (see http://tinyurl.com/6fg6ky), as one of the only two speaking against the report.

As the other speaker said, "What kind of a message is this sending to schools?"

Cambridge ought to stand up for academic standards, and the intellectual rigour that learning a language teaches school students, even if the government won't. UCL is showing the courage which Cambridge is failing to show; I am ashamed.

In 1905, the university was still run by the Senate house: Cambridge MAs would never let these changes through today. As a member of the Regent House, you will be responsible for these changes, if they are passed.

I also agree with Tim Hames' article, which you linked to, that the dropping of the GCSE language requirement is cementing a divide between elite and masses. But this is what the changes in matriculation requirements supposedly fights against. Surely there is a contradiction somewhere here.

Our chief duty as a University is to uphold academic standards, and our social duties must come secondary to, and not interfere with, that.

And by the way, I'm a physicist.

[Lux Aeterna]

At the risk of coming late to this party and not having had time to read all the comments . . .

Physicists need French if modern language students need physics. As a physics graduate I detect some implication that some subjects are deemed more important to a background education than others. Yes, modern languages are an important life skill, but so are lots of other subjects. Without some objective justification (eg fluency in the English language for a place in an English university) then there should be no prior requirements which do not directly relate to the subject of study.

[Student of Hebrew]

I went up to Cambridge from an unskilled working class background and learnt classical Hebrew in my spare time. 20 years later, it gives me tremendous pleasure.

[Kerry]

"After all, isn't education supposed to help career progression? ... let's teach them useful subjects such as economics ..."

Education for career progression?! Whatever happened to self-development? It's one way to breed drones, I suppose. As for the usefulness of economics, I have a Masters in it and can honestly say that its worth in terms of my career has been pretty miniscule - the bits I have found useful can be summed up as "Incentives Matter". Even in my first career as a forecaster, I found economic theory to be largely worthless. The quality of data on the economy is so poor that the figures are really a set of enormous fudges and the people in the know pay more attention to the stories that supposedly back them up.

That, and I can honestly say that the economics taught at undergraduate level is more like indoctrination in outdated dogma - its at graduate level that you learn the current state of learning and how incredibly far it the undergraduate stuff is from reality.

[Nick Biskinis]

Mary makes the point that perhaps Cambridge will teach people languages once they arrive at the university.

A pity that Cambridge has neglected its language teaching over the past few years, scrapping minority languages for short-term econony measure (eg Polish, just before the influx of Polish immigrants to England. Language learning does give you a personal insight that cannot be 'audited' in market terms buts adds an extra dimension. Language learning helps you to understand what on the surface is 'foerign'.

Cambridge has always dug its head in the sand about introducing joint-degrees that are available at every other major university (eg History and German). This discourages many from applying, and forces those at the univerisity to forgo language learning to pursue other disciplines. Tradition is one thing - stagnation another

[Doodoo]

I am so sorry that Alice bitterly regrets taking a degree in Literature and Philospophy. It is sad she feels so utilitarian an approach to education.
Only this morning at work a colleague was describing how her 8-year-old is suffering from boredom and school refusal (manifesting itself in violent sickness and diarrhoea) because the curriculum is so lacking in creativity and so bent on Gradgrind tests and robotic checksheets.
You can't have a world full of economists.
I took an Arts degree and then did an ACA (Accountancy) qualification a few years later. I doubt that I would have finished the accountancy if I'd gone to do it first. (It can truly be boring, as Monty Python said). I meet accountants and business studies students who have no wider knowledge of anything, and it impairs judgement, I can tell you. There is also the fact that many can't spell or write a decent report.
We do need people who can think widely and deeply, even in day-to-day business decisions. As for our leaders, they need these skills even more.

[Alice]

I"m fluent in five European languages, but since I've moved back to the UK I've hardly used them at all. Most employers simply do not require them or value them in this country either. I say we should scrap European languages from the curriculum altogether and replace them with subjects that will aid progression within the business world. The focus on academia is becoming irrelevant - I bitterly regret having wasted my time taking a degree in Literature and Philosophy. If only I had been told that subjects such as Economics, Business Studies and Marketing were desirable with employers in this day and age. After all, isn't education supposed to help career progression? If that's so, let's not bother teaching kids languages that they'll have no use for, let's teach them useful subjects such as economics that will better prepare them for their futures.

[UK Midlands reader]

Doing a course in Islamic studies has presented interesting discussions on terminology. For those who know some Latin as well as Arabic it is a shorter route to understanding.

A supposedly flip comment such as 'they had dinner together' takes on a whole new meaning when one talks about companions for example.

One of our tutors is a native Arabic speaker and is acutely aware of the hit and miss nature of these terms in translation. He however freely admits the lack of his depth of knowledge in English in this area, which is otherwise excellent, leaving him unsure of some English translations and prefers to use original Arabic terminology. He makes the mistake in my mind (I am a native speaker of English) in sometimes reading English language passages too literally and missing some of the figurative nuance, between the lines meaning. This is compounded when this work itself has been translated from German (a language I also have knowledge of) sixty years ago.

Another tutor who is not an Arabic speaker is clearly less able to convey to us information as to root meanings of original terminology in Arabic. Nor are they aware of basic Latin. However they do have a reasonable grasp of Urdu where many Arabic words seem to end up fairly close in meaning to the original.

Through this process where there is on the part of students and teaching staff collectively a knowledge of Arabic, Urdu and English enough of a foundation to come to a basic understanding of the terminology. However I am left with the feeling that where I am the only one present with a knowledge of German, where a great deal of the work historically has been done in 'Orientalism', and Latin, which is a cornerstone of modern English there is a lot left to be desired in terms of clearing up further misunderstanding.

[Lucy]

... Anneke A Campo (below) makes a similar point with rather more grace than me!

[Lucy]

Michelle - are you trying to say that, if it's the minority who speak 'foreign', then it doesn't matter about learning it? The point is that not ALL top scientists are first-language English speakers. As to Brit industry - no, not all science/ engineering grads go to work in the City. If you'd read my post, you'd see I cited an example of a field I'm familiar with. E.ON (German company) works with scientists in many countries, including America. By accounts, it's the monoglot Americans who stand awkwardly to one side at meetings, thinking 'why didn't we get that contract? Oh yeah, they sorted it out during the coffee break, while we were ignoring the French/German/Italian jabber...'

Since when did everyone accepted into Cambridge need to know a modern language? No one I know who goes there studied modern languages.

[Tony Francis]

The economy of Beowulf was based on a "gifts economy", apparently without a "negotiable contract":
http://www.peterlevine.ws/mt/archives/2005/05/seamus-heaneys-1.html
Of course, the negotiable contract entered English Common Law though Roman Law, via the medieval Ecclesiastic Courts. It is still called "Court of Equity" in the US.
Tolkein, C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot delved into the Anglo-Saxon past, trying to reconcile that legacy with Christianity using various methods and with differing results:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/ID24Aa01.html

[Anneke a Campo]

My husband is a New Zealand physicist soon embarking on a sabbatical tour of half a dozen countries, having been invited to speak at universities in England, Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Canada. The seminars and lectures will take place in English, the language of Physics. However, the networking, the all-important talking to colleagues, will be conducted in a mix of languages. Isn't it fortunate that my husband took both French and German at school (in the days when this was still common!) and has learned quite a bit of Italian during his post-doc year in Italy?

In a global world, sticking to English is perfectly possible, but shows a deplorable lack of interest in other peoples' cultures. Reading some of the comments I am appalled at the arrogance of some.

I have recently given a talk about my experience with learning foreign languages at the European Schools of Brussels and Bergen to a local (New Zealand) primary school.The children of this officially bi-lingual (English/Maori), but in practice mono-lingual country, were amazed that we learned 3 foreign languages as a matter of course and that we became competent in at least one foreign language so as to study high school history and geography in it. When I went on to say that I studied Classics at a university in the Netherlands, but that a large number of our textbooks were in English, French and German, and that I got my PhD at Cambridge, their admiration knew no bounds...All to the good, as this school is employing me to introduce not only French, but (for so-called gifted and talented kids) a smattering of proto-Indo-European, Greek and Latin into this mono-lingual and cultural environment, as well as to tutor International students (from a variety of countries) in English.
New Zealand has finally started to re-think its "English is good enough" attitude. It is to be hoped that others will follow suit.

[Cec Hogarth]

They don't quote Beowulf, but their writings are full of "thorn"y problems.

[Tony Francis]

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_economy

http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/anglo-saxon-economy/

[anthony alcock]

How do you recognize anglo-saxon economists ? Do they keep on quoting Beowulf ?

[Cec Hogarth]

Gabriel F,
Aramaic would certainly meet the "good enough for JC" criterion, as would Hebrew, a little Koine and perhaps even a touch of local Latin. The utility of Aramaic in your field you are vastly better qualified to judge than I.

[Michelle]

Lucy, I took your challenge, and found that Nobel prize winners in Physics since 2000 were half Americans (and I only counted those born in the US) and half born in the rest of the world combined, including only one to the UK. The majority worked in the US regardless of birthplace. What exactly point were you making? We hopeless monoglots actually seem to be doing fairly well, and our education system seems to be producing high quality high-science not to mention the leading engineering in the world. (Where are the microchip companies? Where are the medical device companies? Digital storage? Does the UK even have any sort of technical economy? Oh that's right, they don't. The Oxbridge-educated "engineers" all go to work in the City in finance!)

[Gabriel Finkelstein]

As a science historian from Colorado, I was wondering whether Mr. Hogarth thinks I should be learning Aramaic.

[Michael Bulley]

They used to come with Latin, French and Greek,
So knew, at least, a lingua, langue and glossa.
But now not even knowing French is chic:
The time of wordlessness is getting closer.

[Kerry]

What I find interesting is that everyone seems to expect schools to do everything. Surely you could retain the language requirement at Uni and have it met by non-credit courses for those that don't have it? Many universities already do this to lift the numeracy skills of students where they aren't sufficient - notice how many Commerce qualifications require a basic maths course. For elite universities the answer should be to open up access at the Masters/PhD level to graduates of other universities who have put the effort in.

Personally, I majored in Economics for my Masters and finished thinking that all of the major work in that field was anglo-saxon. It was only later that I discovered that the acknowledged centre of economics research at the end of the 19C was Germany and that most of the leading anglo-saxon economists up until WWII were quite familiar with and often participating in the debates in German economics, and many completed their studies in Germany. A desire to find out more has led me to start learning German - first trying out various CD programmes (Pimsleur and Michel Thomas) then making use of the distance courses available through the Goethe Institut. As has been said so many times before, learning another language's grammar teaches you so much more about your own. (Having been a secondary school teacher in the recent past, I think the experience of learning another langauge as an adult is valuable as a way of understanding what your students are going through - a requirement to do such learning would make for better teachers, provided that additional time and funding was provided for that learning - so, fat chance.) In two years of intensive learning I have reached a point where I can read, with the help of a dictionary, the work of those economists. However, the recent experience of attending a face-to-face course in German has revealed a serious deficiency in my listening skills (and not all because I'm a man ;-)

A few years back I took a university distance course in Latin for beginners, which I enjoyed and intend to follow up on my own soon through personal study using purchased textbooks and workbooks. I am in two minds on whether the onus on such learning should be left to the individual or made compulsory.
On one hand, it is easier to learn when you're young and don't have the commitments of adult life (being single and without children helps me find time for learning - I suspect the whole "it is easier when you're young" argument is really another case of spurious correlation and that the argument should be "it is easier when you have lots of free time), provided you want to learn.
On the other hand, as highlighted by that last rider, it is easy to learn by yourself, if you want to and have the time, using the resources available through books and language institutes like the Goethe Institut. Having a purpose for learning other than curiosity, helps but is not absolutely necessary - a lot of my learning has been driven by curiosity, eg. Latin (and hopefully Ancient Greek in the future). The problem with compulsory language learning (and most other compulsory learning outside of that necessary to function in society) is that not everybody wants to learn a language or is curious about how language works. As a former maths teacher, I think that there is a strong case for reducing the breadth of coverage that the NZ curriculum requires for mathematics - students would constantly ask "when will I ever use this?", and when your average shop checkout in NZ has a barcode scanner and computer where they just enter the amount given and it tells them the exact change to give back, an argument could be given for stopping compulsory maths after very basic numeracy (remember, most people don't require any knowledge of even basic algebra of the "simplify 5xy + 4xy" kind. For those that do want to learn more, the point made in a previous post about narrow and deep being preferable to shallow and wide strikes a chord.

[Tony Francis]

Many of the state schools in the US are driven by the needs of local industry. Wichita State has a huge engineering department, mainly because of the airplane factories. Kansas State (traditionally a land grant agricultural oriented school) offers degrees in "Milling Science" and "Commercial Baking". Who'd figure someone would want a degree in those areas? But people do, and industry demands it. They also have engineering and architectural schools there. But one gets the feeling that the more esoteric subjects are put on the back of the shelf.

[Jane]

Re Elitism, snobs, and public schools. Obviously no-one thinks that only snobs from public schools should hog the best educational facilities.
Public schools do include a lot of snobs, and also a lot of over-coached rich thick kids whose parents want to buy them into a good job. OK. Leaving that aside for a moment.
This isn't about snobs. It isn't about public schools. It's about access for everyone.
If places like Cambridge cease to demand languages as an entry requirement,any school anywhere is entitled to think it acceptable to let languages wither away.
How is this good for learning, and for opportunities for all?
The answer is to maintain rigorous entry requirements, but to simultaneously encourage Gifted and Talented programmes in state schools so that those who want to study Latin, Japanese, Urdu, Russian (examples from my local Comprehensive) can do so.
There will always be a lot of wastage both in the rich thick kids department and in the less advantaged schools.
But at least it gives people a chance.

[Maxine]

As you allude in your post, it's Chinese, not French, they should be learning. Over in the science world, it is China everyone is watching and waiting for. It is increasingly common to be offered Mandarin and other Asian languages at schools now. (standard state schools, that is, not the "elite" by which I assume is meant to imply top public schools). The French government in the recent past has tried to insist that all conferences, etc, in France are conducted in French, and that all French scientists should submit their papers in French. It has not got terribly far with that.

[Tony Francis]

In the post about Prince Harry, there was a link to the Wiki article on Arminius. There it was claimed that the name "Herrman" was not popularized until the time of Martin Luther. This, it would appear, is another mis-leading error on the part of Wiki. The names Oliver, Herbert, Herman, Walter, and Harold, among many others, all come from the same root: herre, or harjaz: the old German root for war. Herrere was to "Attack with dogs", as in harrassment. These words are found throughout all northern Europe and are endemic. So there is one more connection between Prince Harry and Arminius (and OPN). (This is the higly edited version of the brainy post I wrote for the Prince Harry article.)

[Lucy]

No, Michelle, you *think* the US educates the leading scientists. Take a look at a list of Nobel winners and revise your ideas. And, btw, I think that those who are considered 'leading scientists' are usually connected to some form of ivory tower-type institution. If you really wanted to get down to grassroots practical level (eg. metallurgists working on steel alloys for power stations, which happens to be the area I know about), you'd find people suffer if they really are totally monoglot. It's not ivory tower romanticism, it's the very basic need to be able to communicate with other people in other countries.

[SW Foska]

Tim: aux etudiantes seulement, ou aussi aux etudiants?

[Tony Francis]

OPN: I took three semesters of Spanish in college as part of the undergraduate requirement for a chemistry degree. I had reached the point that I could read a newspaper, if I had a pile of dictionaries with me. If one doesn't use a language, it departs quickly. I took German in high school, and actually remember more of this than Spanish. My mother's Austrian grandfather wanted to teach her German as a child, but her German father proclaimed this a verbotten activity. I suppose it was because of the severe anti-German feelings in the US at the time. My mother said this was yet one more reason to consider the Germans blockheads. It would have been a good thing for me to know sign language. I spent just short of a year at the Children's Hospital in Denver as part of my residency. At least half these kids were deaf, and some were severely retarded. They all could sign, though. Sign language would have served me better than Spanish. I think Minnesotan is a foreign language, as is M'sippian and Luzianan (Mississippi and Louisiana).
Michelle: Prior to the 19th century, science and philosophy (in particular, physics and philosophy) were the same thing. It was the introduction of empiricism that led to a divergence of the two. I would say that many scientists of all stripes try to answer inherently philosophical questions with empiricism. It is usually a big mistake for them to do this. This is just an observation on your comment about "ivory towers". It is not a criticism.
Jane: The infusion of large amounts of tax dollars into the state universities has led to a peculiar situation. In order to maintain political support for this, the universities have to provide access to large numbers of students. Only the University of Kansas Jayhawks (referring to themselves as the Ivy League of the Midwest) can get away with an elitist, snobby attitude. All the other Kansas universities have to be available to anyone with a high school diploma or a GED. It has the appearance of affecting the quality of the degree. In actuality, it doesn't, since access does not automatically end in the granting of a degree. Anyway, it is arguably a product of socialist thought in the US. Whether this is a good or bad thing is difficult.

[Tim Sluckin]

Pour qu'elles comprennent mieux la culture contemporaine, il faudrait plutot apprendre aux etudiantes de francais les elements de la physique.....

[anthony alcock]

I've just read the last sentence of your piece. That is exactly what I do here in Kassel: teach students a foreign language (English) when they get here. In the case of Germans students, I help to extend their knowledge. In the case of the non-German students, it is often a matter of starting from scratch.
Language Centres, which is what we call them here, might not be such a bad idea at British universities. We have nothing to do with the English or any other language Faculty, which does the "academic" aspects of a language. Our job is to provide practical assistance in the use of a language.
Mr Hogarth: I once overheard two women in the library of Cairo University speculating about how non-Arabic speakers were able to talk to God.

[Michelle]

The US educates the leading scientists in the world and they are almost entirely monoglots. Stop trying to waste time with an ivory tower vision of science as philosophy and the science and engineering economy of Britain might actually stop being so embarrassing. Scientists and engineers do have to become 'fluent' in math and this more than meets the requirements of broadening the mind while actually being useful in the world economy.

[RichardH]

"They all speak English anyway" is, of course an absurd and erroneous statement, as has already been said: it is also an excellent way to lose much of the pleasure of travelling outside the Anglo-Saxon countries.
The thing I have found most interesting about learning languages is that when, in retirement, I set about improving my French I was also learning Old English (Anglo-Saxon) for my own pleasure. Against my expectations, given their very different roots, I found that learning the two together enhanced my abilities.
I too am horrified that the learning of at least one other language is no longer to be a requirement for Cambridge, and this at a time when I read that there are pupils in comprehensive schools in London asking to be taught Latin, and enjoying it!

[Oliver NIcholson]

XJY is a bit hard on Tories. Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona - we are not all disciples of Lady T, let alone Enoch P. Has she ever tried Lord Hailsham's few but brilliant versions of Catullus ? Especially 101.
For what it is worth the University of Minnesota requires two years of a foreign language culminating in a C or better for all Liberal Arts undergraduates. More than 100 a year start Latin - my theory is that Minnesotans (as G. Keillor assures us) are shy persons and do not want to make an exhibition of themselves actually speaking a foreign language. American Sign Language is also a permitted option (it is I gather a language in its own right and not just English-in-signs). The important thing is that making the effort makes them realise that language is no more an automatic accomplishment than is mathematics. And they like Catullus.

[Tom Gray]

Does passing the secondary school examination in a language mean that the student can speak the language? In Canada, the answer to that question is no. The student is taught to conjugate irregular verbs and to translate English grammar sentences into the other language. One standard of success in the learning of a language is to be able to read a newspaper, ask directions on the street and to order a meal in a restaurant. In Canada, after four years of secondary study and a successful result on the final examination, students are incapable of meeting this standard. They are in no way close to meeting this standard.

One can well wonder why languages are taught the way they are in Canada. One instructor at my secondary school stated that learning French this was to teach us how to learn. Since we learned nothing then the course failed by this standard as well.

[Xjy]

PL asks why I need a translation for Tolstoy when I can read Pushkin in the original. I thought I covered this by writing "works by authors I need but only have (had) access to in translation". When I read Tolstoy I couldn't read Russian. Now I'm acquiring a reading knowledge of Russian and can tackle Bulgakov and Pushkin and Lenin in the original (I won't bore you with the details of how I'm doing it). So then I only had access to Tolstoy in translation, but now I have access to Pushkin in Russian. I think the phrase is manthanon gerasko:n...

[Jane]

Reply to Tony Francis: when I say "here", I mean the UK, which I regard as a pluralist democracy. Under the present leadership, it is losing some of these charms.
I regard a Socialist state as a fearful anathama. I do not wish to see a system which represses excellence in knowledge in the interests of "improving" league tables.
The point is, that if all are offered the opportunity to study an esoteric subject, a few will take it to the nth degree. If none are offered the opportunity, this can never happen.

[Tony Francis]

From the 1953 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica: [Prior to the 11th Century] "The scope of learning comprised within the seven liberal arts and philosophy, on the secular side, together with some dogmatic instruction in the doctrines of the church, the early fathers and the Scriptures. The seven liberal arts were (Trivium - grammar, dialectic, rhetoric; and the more advanced Quadrivium - geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy) - a legacy of the Roman education..."
"The Scholastic revival [after the 11th century] .... a new translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics appeared in 1167 .... at the beginning of the 13th century [all Aristotle] was available in editions from the original Greek, superseding translations from the Arabic and other Semitic translations." The medieval university began to be organized into four faculties: Arts (Baccalaurus and Magister) considered preliminary to the study of theology, law and medicine. There was no age restriction, and quite young boys were frequently admitted. By 1458, Cambridge, Oxford and even the conservative University of Paris had admitted studies in Greek.
"Humanism and Protestantism, which had so far diverged that Erasmus (1467-1536) had declared that where Lutheranism flourished learning decayed..." Phillipp Melanchthon (1497-1560) brought about a revival of the German University under Protestantism.
"England under the reign of Elizabeth saw the creation of a certain number of new foundations. But this restoration of the means of education was only partial, and the doctrine of the worthlessness of 'carnal knowledge', which led the Barebones parliament to propose the suppresion of the English universities, was held by many fervent Protestants both in England and in Germany all through the 17th century."
"Richard Mulcaster (1530-1611) pointed out that Latin was not of value to the majority of boys. For them he urged an elemetary education in the vernacular, but neither in this nor in his advocacy of the training of teachers was his advice followed. In the 17th century the dislocation between the Latin schools and the needs of life began to be accentuated as Latin gradually ceased to be the language of learning; and as a consequence, the numbers attending the schools decreased, and the mass of the people sank into continually lower ignorance."

[PL]

Why does XJY need a translation for Tolstoy when he or she can read Pushkin in the original?

[Tony Francis]

Duke University has dropped the requirement for a language from its PhD programs, leaving it to the various departments to decide:
http://www.gradschool.duke.edu/policies_and_forms/requirements_for_phd.html

Indiana University requires a foreign language for a History PhD:
http://www.indiana.edu/~histweb/grad/requirements.shtml

UCLA leaves it up to the department:
http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/Catalog/catalog07-08-29.html
It is amusing: they all require English proficiency. One can still get and Honors Degree in Latin at UCLA.
Columbia (an Ivy League school) requires a "C" level proficiency in a foreign language for an undergraduate degree. Can you imagine landing in Paris or Berlin: "What's the matter with you people - you act like you can't understand me. I got a 'C' in your language at Columbia!"

[Lucy]

'its a terribly boring drag especially for British /Americans who know the whole world speaks- or is trying to speak English'

Well, no, they're not. But they've probably seen you coming and put their prices up.

Learning a language to fluency is hard, and to some extent a talent. Dabbling in lots of languages is quite easy, and hugely useful when you find that cutting-edge research is only published in German, or that (in my case) the poetry you are studying has never been translated out of Latin. Ever.

There's a point while you are studying a language, when you realise that the fact it has (for example) hundreds of precise ways of saying 'yeah, um , and the other one...' (excuse my translation; I'm thinking of Greek) isn't just an annoying quirk, it's a fundamental feature of the structure that was avilable to people to think with. That's amazing. If you read a modern translation of Plato, you lose that.

Languages are brilliant at making you think about which things are equivalent, synonymous, roughly alike, or superficially similar but really quite different. People who can't make those judgements are heading for a fall. I know an undergraduate Biologist, applying for her own PhD, who had never realised you could do something called 'research' in English literature. It simply hadn't occured to her what those English PhD students did with their time. Not a coincidence that the same person is a happy member of the 'they all speak English anyway' group.

(And was the cartoon meant to be ironic, maybe?)

[Xjy]

Let me declare an interest here.

In my field (humanity, its emancipation and universal enlightenment) I would be completely screwed without direct access to certain source authors, like Rousseau, Marx, Hegel, Lucretius, Tacitus, Hobbes, Chomsky, Dante, Pushkin, and others. Now the direct access to their languages and hence works, together with a university-trained knowledge of linguistics and translation, allows me to have a reasonably good idea of the reliability of the English in works by authors I need but only have (had) access to in translation, such as Trotsky, Tolstoy, Aristotle (the Greeks, full stop!!), Wang Fan-hsi, etc.

I would be screwed because I would be at the mercy of poor or slippery half-translations, or editors' butchery, in discussions of core passages of important authors. The naive belief in the fidelity of translations emanating from the anti-language lobby is mindboggling.

I'd add that personal contact with "ordinary" people in other cultures, including access to songs, papers, radio and TV, etc, adds new dimensions to our understanding of humanity as a species being - like the discovery of a new spice or vegetable or a new kind of fish for the table. In my own case, good Finnish and Danish, and a working knowledge of Serbo-Croat, Portuguese and Spanish have allowed me to lift the sheet a little as far as the broader bed of humanity is concerned. And this in turn makes it easier to deploy English as a lingua franca in the vast virgin (ho:s epos epein ;-) ) terrain still remaining.

And since humanity should be every human being's main study and delight, anything less than a full-bore campaign for us all to master at least one other language/culture, and preferably as many as we can digest, amounts to tightening the mind-forged manacles on us. We're in a brain-screw as it is, and the pressure's becoming intolerable!

[SW Foska]

Cec: as you post, I am writing a programme specification for a new degree in History and Italian. So everyone come to the European Capital of Culture & sign up please...
But trying to learn about language by studying just one or two is like trying to learn chemistry by studying just iron. In which light a course on the general theory of language such as his Lordship suggests would be most welcome.

[Cec Hogarth]

Isn't it strange that historians, including science-historians, aren't apparently concerned about the demise of language studies? Whole generations are now acquiring first degrees without the ability to read original source material in any language but English. I've already read one book which listed translations as "primary sources". Nor is the outlook good for philosophers. Leaving aside classical philosophy, from Thales to Boethius, almost all the important secular and ecclesiastical thinkers up to the second half of the seventeenth century wrote in Latin, French, or German. Are scholars not dismayed that their disciplines are being cut off from serious understanding of Descartes, Spinoza, Liebnitz, Newton and an embarassingly extensive list of others. A diet restricted to Hume, Smith, Russell, Ayers, Moore etc is rather thin and unbalanced.

Three sidelights on the utility of having more than one language, and on the dire consequences of not:

When I was an undergraduate in the mid-fifties, a botanist friend sought me out to translate for him some Soviet papers on Amazonian flora. The authors had published bilingually, in Russian for domestic consumption and in Latin for everyone else, assuming, justifiably in those days, that researchers at any university worth its salt would either be able to read the Latin themselves, or have ample access to colleagues who could.

Fifteen years later, while excavating a seventh century cemetery in Kent, I spent a fruitful few days collaborating with a professor from Budapest whom Christopher Hawkes brought to visit the site. Lacking a shared modern language (his Hungarian and German; my English and French), we were at a loss how to talk to each other until Professor Hawkes exclaimed, in a moment of dazzling inspiration, "But you're both classicists!". So we spoke Latin, well enough at first and with increasing fluency, throughout his visit.

Last, about a decade ago the State of Colorado proposed that its only official language should be English. During the run-up to the vote on this issue, I heard a caller on a phone-in radio programme announce (absit omen) "I've only got one thing to say. If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me.".
"Tantum religio potuit ..."?
Rather "O tempora!".

[Lord Truth]

In the 1880s the army was called out to quell rioting Etonians who were wrecking the school and Windsor in protest at the introduction of Maths(a subject for tradesmen) into the curriculum
Its true that classics does give a kind of ancient golden glow to those noble spires but does everyone actually have to learn them?
When digital watches came out it was said that although millions were being made only six people in the world knew how to design the things.Did that matter? Does it matter if Prof Beard and a mere few thousand others continue to plough this specialised field leaving us to read their books or not as we please?
There is no doubt that ability in languages is largely genetic.In such cases learning is the same fun as doing crossword puzzles.For the rest its a terribly boring drag.For English speakers particularly so when it appears the whole world speaks or is trying to speak English.Is there a way out of this problem?
I think there is.
Teaching produces different effects in different subjects In the case of science and I think language, the trick is to produce a sense of 'empowerment'.The fantasy about 'the mad scientist wanting to rule the world 'is I think partly true-it is that desire of feeling superior to others that does drive an interest in science and this empowerment can be cleverly created in children at an early age.
Similarly with languages.No languages should be taught in schools.Instead courses should first explain the meaning of the types of grammatical words and expressions and basic language structure.Then the whole range of world languages should be examined to see how they differ and are the same.A certain amount of Latin would obviously be brought in here.
This would open up the entire world of languages and make it all a quite exciting and fascinating study.Just as even young children can find the names of the elements exciting so there should be an awareness of the names and structure of the thirty or more languages of the world
This would remove the basic fear of languages and give a sense of
empowerment instead of the 'learning French is a waste of time'attitude
How interesting to know the structure of Japanese or Arabic sentences.It would open up fascinating ways of seeing into other peoples minds-Is it true that German has no passive form thereby emphasising the action and not the -sometimes painful result? And why are there no plurals in Arabic except 1 and 2 and 'many'?
As all this is done a certain amount of vacabulary will be absorbed on the way and the stage set for specialised learning for those who wish to continue.
(Is there a PhD in this I wonder?)

[Tony Francis]

Dear Jane and KLIMT: when you speak of "university here", just where is "here"? US, UK or somewhere else?

[FG]

Foska: brilliant! It seems to be a rather antediluvian cartoon.

[An American Observer]

One of the greatest rewards of competency in a foreign language is being able to go to a foreign country and communicate with everyone, not only with the elites or the front line personnel in the tourist industry. Some of the most rewarding and interesting conversations I've had during my travels have been with elderly people who grew up before English was widely taught in their country or with children who are too young to have studied English.

[PL]

Prof. Vincent Brannigan (first post below) has the right idea: the big gain from studying a language is not the ability to use it so much as the ability to get some understanding of what language, as such, is, and what its connections are with the rest of reality.

I would add that the great gain that comes from studying any subject in depth is getting to understand what it's like (and what it's not like) to know something in depth. This is why, in setting up a curriculum, the trade-off between broad but shallow and narrow but deep isn't an even exchange at all. Narrow but deep is always to be preferred. For the pupil who has really gone deeply into a subject, however specialized it is and however remote from his present or future daily concerns, has learned to recognize real knowledge when he sees it; he will be able to seek it out, learn from it, spot its limitations, and -- what the graduate of a broad but shallow curriculum will have difficulty doing-- recognize the difference between it and specious vapidity masquerading as knowledge.

[Rebecca]

As a sixth form student at a "satisfactory" state school, I can say that no Latin or Greek was offered, nor were we taught any Classics at all.

I chose to continue with German at A level. There were four people in my class at first, now there are two. It is the same siutation with French.

Languages aren't encouraged, there is no guidance given on what are considered "good" GCSE's (I picked Food Technology over History, which I still regret).

But then again, no-one from my year has applied to either Oxford or Cambridge, so it's probably irrelevant.

[Lord Truth]

In the 1880s the army had to be called in to quell rioting Etonians who were wrecking the school and Windsor in protest at the introduction of maths (a subject for tradesmen) into the curriculum.Hopefully Beard will not burn down Newham-but you never know..
Its true that classics does give a kind of golden glow to those ancient spires but does everyone have to be taught them? When digital watches first came out it was said that although hundreds of millions were being produced only six people knew how to design them.Did it matter?
There is no doubt that real ability in languages is like music, largely genetic and can for some be fun, like doing crossword puzzles.For the rest its a terribly boring drag especially for British /Americans who know the whole world speaks- or is trying to speak English
Is there a way out of this problem?
I think there is.
Teaching produces different effects in different subjects.In the case of science-and I think languages,the trick is to produce a sense of empowerment.The fantasy about the mad scientist wanting to rule the world is I think partly true-it is that desire to feel superior to others that does drive an interest in science and this empowerment can be created in children at an early age.
Similarly with languages.No language should be taught in schools.Instead courses that explain the meaning of universal grammatical words and terms and the structure of sentences etc.Then the whole range of world languages should be bought in to examine them with what we have learned and to see the similarities and differences,A certain amount of Latin would obviously be involved in all this
This would open up the entire world of languages and make it all a quite exciting study.
It would give a sense of empowerment of control and superiority instead of 'its a waste of time studying French'etc.
How interesting to know the structure of Japanese or Arabic sentences.It would open up fascinating ways of seeing into peoples minds-Is it true that German has no passive form thereby producing an emphasis on the action rather than the passive- and sometimes painful result-and are there no plurals in Arabic after 1and 2- Why not?etcetc As all this is done quite a lot of vocab will be picked up on the way and the stage set for more specialised learning for those who enjoy it.

A last word -I wonder if the entire interest in classical studies could collapse virtually overnight if a suggestion I made earlier was adopted.
I suggest the interest in these ancient areas is created not by the literature or ruins but by the strange powerful emotional effect of pure white marble and stone sculpture.
Such creations are real yet unreal they are metaphysical and beautiful but above all they represent the essence of human purity innocence and spirituality uncontaminated by human vice and corruption..
I suggest therefore that historical and computer experts etc colour these sculptures in the most lifelike ways possible even making computer animations to bring them further alive
If they could be observed as real people the the reality of the daily horror of their slave owning lives would become manifest.They would no longer be pure and innocent. They would be seen as even more terrifyingly creepy and repulsive than all the worst monsters and psychopaths in British and American prisons.After a year or so someone would say 'Cant we clear out all that rubbish in the British Museum -its like a Chamber of Horrors-and lets turn over the study of these monsters to specialists at Broadmoor'
Put on your white coat Mary! (Sorry!)
(Isnt there a Phd somewhere in all this?)

[Jane]

Wow! Some people have felt a touch on a raw nerve.
I would SO much rather live and be educated here than in Cuba or any other Socialist country.
The joy of elitist learning is that those who really love it can flex their intellectual muscles to the full. They can also learn the lessons of history.
Had the lessons of Mark Antony's war on the Parthians, The Retreat from Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, and Vietnam been moderately well-known to the Bush-Blair administrations, we might well have avoided going into Iraq.

[klimt]

At school in the 70s, I ticked the box to learn latin or greek every year, only to be told every year that 'not enough girls wanted to learn either' and so the course never happened. Every now and then I check the local adult learning institutions to see if a course might be offered as I'd love to be able to read the classics in the original. No such luck. Aside from my own disappointment in this, I do believe that a better future can be made by study and understanding of the past and that we are all deprived of the benefits of 'the long thought' by limited access to such learning.

[Tony Francis]

Latin education went out of vogue in the US years ago. I think there was a basic prejudice that it smacked too much of "Popery". As for Greek- forget it! Both are considered archaic wastes of time in the modern US university. The math department at Wichita State is huge. There were several Russians who moved in and became big shots there after the fall of the USSR. They were wanting to research things like boundary conditions in non-linear Hilbert spaces - stuff like that. About 90% of the classes ended up being "Remedial Algebra", "Calculus for Business Majors" - subjects they hated teaching. It is the democratization movement of the US university: anyone who wants a college education should be able to get one. This means hordes of people who can't even do high school algebra end up on the university's door. Many can't even pass remedial algebra, and end up going to local community colleges to fulfill the math requirement for their degree.
The chemistry department was full of people employed by local chemical companies. They would work full-time, then take a class on "Mass Spectrometry" or "Long Carbon Chains", at night, because their company paid the bill. Of course, there were lots Chinese grad students. They were expected to be teaching assistants. Many couldn't speak English in any intelligible manner. They ended up taking "Speaking English" classes. I saw one in an empty classroom writing on the chalk board. He had made two long lists: "Words of English Origin" and "English Words of French Origin". I asked him if he spoke French. He said "No", but this seemed a logical way to approach his communication problem. Whatever!
Is this "dumbing down", or simply making higher education available to the masses? You decide. I'm enough of an egalitarian to think that of all the things the government wastes money on, this is the least of it. Is it better to take a class on "Polymerization of Amino Acids" or watch American Idol? The answer should be obvious.

[Xjy]

Jane's idiotic ideologizing about "socialist" policies dumbing things down needs a firm lash on its Tory backside. The worst thing to happen to British higher education since the Restoration was Thatcher. Her vandalism was so monumental that her own university disowned her - Oxford refused to grant her an honorary doctorate.

And the record of socialist states of various persuasions is far better on education (resource for resource) than anything Tory-esque. Just compare Cuba with any other Latin American country (especially small, poor, central American ones).

The Tories (en masse) never taught anyone anything except greed, selfishness, contempt, racism, deceit, hypocrisy, brutality and ignorance.

Even the rare cultured Tory individual is useless as a model for anyone taking education seriously. Enoch Powell (for instance) may have edited Thucydides, but he never turned anyone on to Greek culture - all he spread was bigotry and hatred.

[SW Foska]

Forget 'antediluvian', what's going on with the salutations in the cartoon? 'Vie gehts' must be some sort of relative of Bill Gehts. The capital of 'Ohoya' is Columbus. And 'Coma sta?' answers its own question. In the affirmative.

[anthony alcock]

I teach English at my local university (Kassel), mostly to engineers of all persuasions (mechanical, civil etc). English is no longer regarded here as a "foreign language", but more as a "key competence" (Schlüsselkompetenz), not only in universities, but also (and more importantly) in schools. In that sense, it is not unlike the outmoded idea that you won't get very far if you don't know Greek. English is even beginning to become a compulsory subject in primary schools and some pre-schools. I see no reason why languages should be compulsory at school. They may be turn out to be useful later on, but that's another matter.

[Jane]

Another consequence of the Socialist policy of unpicking the excellence of the education system in search of votes. Government assumes voters will reward perceived equality of outcome.
Excellent universities should resist.
Dumbing down creates a vast underclass of disadvantaged people.

[judith weingarten]

Not French. Physicists need Greek. Then they could read the poster I put up on 14th March for 'Talk Like a Physicist Day' at Empress of the East.

[anna]

And the same girl - her best friend said last weekend that she much preferred London but since she converted to the Catholic faith on marrying she is not great here so she'd better stick to the international part. Vive le Hopkins to her anyway. So much for Hopkins and the voice of his shadow.

[anna]

my friend who is 31 and younger than me was told she had to write her very brilliant social political science thesis in French...tis a shame when you are ten times more able than anyone else. fortunately for her she also speaks welsh, spanish and german. tis a shame to be a blond bomb like that. hoorah for the peer group.

[Michael Bulley]

Greek was dropped as an entrance requirement, then Latin, now any foreign language. The next logical step is not to require any competence in English. After that, no need to know anything.

[b. sharp]

I may not be an expert on the sciences, but from my experience in reading the references of some very good science books, many scientists and science writers still read and reference works in French and German, due to, I expect, the fact that there is still so much good work still being done in countries like France and Germany. While I might never become fluent in either Greek or Latin or Egyptian language, most of the best work about the ancient Mediterranean or Gaul has yet to be published in English. Not enough people understand how many doors can open up for you when you learn another modern language, and it's one of the main reasons I really regret not taking French in highschool.

[Xjy]

This is a symptom, not a cause, thing. British education is obviously being driven to the dogs by a bunch of political thugs backed by a bigger bunch of spineless political hacks. Until society changes, and the education system with it, we're going to see more and more of this rot spreading deeper and deeper.

The universal, comprehensive, polytechnical approach will have to win through. More Scottish and Continental than English. AND including at least one compulsory language and a compulsory science in addition to maths.

From now on language and classics etc teaching at English universities will just be a matter of making do and leveraging every bit of luck you can get.

The Open University and MIT have useful outreach methods that might come in handy. Make high quality courses in your subject available free on the Net. MIT has an incredible range of language and arts courses available this way.

Guerrilla education over the internet (including sites like Textkit and the Finnish Radio YLE weekly Latin newscast). Probably the best we can do till the revolution. That and work our arses off to improve access and acquisition for as many youngsters as possible in the meantime.

And I think your visibility-raising stints on radio, TV and here, etc, are helping no end!

Viva Comandante Maria! :-)

[Anna Bowden]

Language is freedom. The more words you have the better you can express yourself, communicate, live. If you don't have a word for something it is often impossible to understand the concept. We shouldn't learn other cultures' languages because we feel we should make a token gesture towards inter-continental communication - but because it gives us another angle from which to see and experience life.

[kath Bell]

I had to do translation papers from Latin and French for Oxford entrance in the 1970s. Had I gone to my local comprehensive, I wouldn't have been able to study English at Oxford because ancient languages weren't on the syllabus.

When I arrived at Oxford, my knowledge of Latin, Greek and French was helpful but not vital. Other subjects - including some that are despised - might have helped. A Drama qualification would have given me a sense of how Shakespeare's plays were staged. Media studies might have helped my sense of audience/readers. And my continuing lack of scientific knowledge and understanding is shameful.

Because my children are at a local comprehensive which allows pupils to drop languages at 14, I'm aware of a number of bright children who aren't taking languages at GCSE. There are lots of reasons for this: teenage disaffection/rebelliousness, the wish to study a competing subject (pupils may be asked to choose between French and Music, for instance, and for some children Music is their first choice), inability to get on with a teacher, lack of confidence in language skills, low self-confidence. Few 14-year-olds at comprehensive schools think of Oxbridge as a possibility, especially if their parents haven't attended university, so they are unlikely to pick Oxbridge-approved subjects when they make their GCSE choices at 13 or 14.

Oxford and Cambridge can say this is all a matter of government policy and none of their business but, if they really want the most able students - as opposed to the best trained applicants (public school, upper/upper-middle-class) - they have to make it their business. And, like all universities, they have to compensate for government-ordained deficiencies in the state system.

And I suspect I agree with most posters here that the decline of language teaching and learning in Britain is a disgrace.

[JIW]

Cambridge does still, I think, require some qualification in 'an approved mathematical or scientific subject' (http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/requirements/index.html).
My question is, then: does an Engineer need French less than a Classicist needs Physics? I'm inclined to say Yes, but I am also inclined to think that Engineers, say, still ought to learn another language.

[Lucy]

How does Cambridge's decision square with their blacklisted subjects approach? There is a list of Mickey-mouse type subjects, of which (I think I'm right here) you are recommended to take no more than one at A-level. Fine if you're excluding those who cynically choose media studies because they can't pass English, or who just don't have the requisite scientific knowledge to take a Physics degree (for example) - but surely a bit unfair on the large numbers of (mostly state-educated) people who didn't KNOW when they were sixteen and choosing A-levels that certain respectable-sounding options were going to bar them from Cambridge.
I've A-Levels in Latin and Greek, and believe me, it doesn't get much easier than Greek A-level. I enjoyed it, but, as CYPSELOS observes, not the toughest academic test ...

[Mary]

Kirsty is of course absoutely correct. She wins the prize for spotting the deliberate mistake (!?) and stands as a total vindication of the point of engineers learning Latin (as she says).

To protect the innocent, it's now changed!
(And MB should stick to her resolve to post first thing in the morning not last thing at night)

[Cypselos]

A redundant comment perhaps, but it goes without saying that my command and understanding of English is vastly improved by having Latin pounded into me at school, and Greek at university.

Utterly hopeless at both of course, though it turns out you can get a good A level in Latin by learning the set translations by heart and then being able to do a decent lit crit essay in English about passages of Virgil and Tacitus you can barely read, let alone translate. Not in the spirit of the exercise, but need must when it comes to getting A level grades...

The struggle through Thrasymachus at 23 years old was an object lesson in the fact that such things are far more easily picked up at GCSE level and earlier. 5 years on I remember little more than the alphabet. Useful for holidays to Greece and business trips to Moscow where Cyrillic is close enough to Greek in letter form for me to at least be able to pronounce the roadsigns.

I'm in Dubai now. Hindi would've been by far the most useful thing to know at present!

[Kirsty Mills]

As an engineer, I hesitate to correct a classicist - but the word is "ante-diluvian", no? As in
"before" the flood.

Which illustrates nicely why I'm glad I learn Latin back in my grammar school thirty or more years ago, and that I learn to speak French fluently as I went on.

Now I work in America, sadly, where one can't even communicate in English.

Kirsty

[Vincent Brannigan]

I was the worst student in my Jesuit Prep School who actually passed German, and my Latin was worse.

However as I labored up the academic ladder, giving lectures in Germany in my awful German, I came to respect the teachers who insisted that language was away to understanding the world. I never mastered the language, but I have mastered the concept of language, and that words are only an approximation of ideas and concepts.

Prof. Vincent Brannigan