Interest rises in less-taught languages

Approximately 91 percent of Americans studying foreign languages at both the secondary and collegiate levels choose French, German, Italian or Spanish, according to the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages. By contrast, a mere nine percent choose to study “languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Yoruba […] and the other languages spoken by the overwhelming majority of people around the world.”

But on Penn’s campus, the gap may gradually be closing.

Penn has traditionally offered about 42 different languages on average, according to Academic Director of the Penn Language Center Christina Frei. Once at least three students have expressed an interest in learning a language, Penn begins advertising for a suitable instructor with pedagogical training.

“It’s a privilege that the Ivies have … at many other universities you just can’t afford to offer certain languages,” Frei said, adding that Penn has traditionally demonstrated a strong “commitment to language.”

One such less commonly taught language is Taiwanese. In 1993, professor Grace Wu arrived at Penn as the University’s first Taiwanese instructor. Because there were no suitable Taiwanese textbooks available when Wu first began teaching, she authored one tailored toward educating English-speaking students. To Wu’s knowledge, her book remains the only Taiwanese textbook to be published in the United States.

While at Penn, Wu has observed a modest decline in student interest in Taiwanese due to the growing popularity of Mandarin and decrease in Taiwanese immigration after the 1970s, resulting in fewer students with Taiwanese backgrounds.

There are 596 students enrolled in Mandarin Chinese courses at Penn — and about 15 enrolled in Taiwanese, she said.

In spite of the enrollment disparity, Wu expressed confidence in both the importance and practicality of learning Taiwanese.

“[Taiwan] is a bridge between the West and China, and a lot of businesses want to develop there,” Wu said.

Wharton senior Jarrad Roeder, who has taken Mandarin Chinese for the past three-and-a-half years, is currently enrolled in Wu’s “Beginning Taiwanese” course and intends to someday work in Taiwan.

According to Roeder, while his background in Mandarin proved helpful, the tonal complexities and absence of an official writing system make learning Taiwanese inherently more difficult.

“In Mandarin, there’s only one rule for tone changes,” he explained. “In Taiwanese, every single word in a sentence will change tone, so you not only have to know the tone of the word but also how it changes.”

Like Wu, professor Erlinda Juliano was the first instructor in her language to arrive at Penn after members of the Penn Philippine Association requested the addition of Tagalog courses a Filipino language — in the late 1990s.

Over half of Juliano’s Tagalog students are of Filipino heritage, though some are learning the language to pursue research or fieldwork in the Philippines.

In the past, Juliano’s courses have attracted students from Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore colleges, which do not offer Tagalog.

College of Liberal and Professional Studies senior Nova Harris first started taking Tagalog classes two semesters ago and is now enrolled in “Intermediate Tagalog.” Harris, who is half Filipino, said finding people to practice with has one of the “biggest challenges” in her Tagalog studies thus far. Inspired to learn Tagalog to communicate with family members and learn more about Filipino culture, Harris often practices with her grandmother by e-mailing and talking on the phone.

Germanic Languages and Literatures professor Kathryn Hellerstein observed that, for many of her students, learning Yiddish provided a similar opportunity for cultural rediscovery.

“From the late 1970s through the 1980s there was a very strong rise in [Yiddish interest] academically, in popular culture and in roots,” she explained, adding that the phenomenon may be ascribed to a growing acceptance of the “validity of the cultural and language origins of many groups of people who … became part of the American fabric.”

While some Yiddish students are “heritage speakers” who were consistently exposed to Yiddish in their home environments, others are interested in Germanic languages and learn Yiddish to expand their intellectual horizons.

“Many students don’t have a personal connection to the culture and the language directly, but they’re interested in linguistics or interested in other literature in Germanic languages … some of these students have purely academic interests in Jewish culture or history,” Hellerstein said.

According to American Sign Language program coordinator and lecturer Jami Fisher, student interest in ASL has likewise grown significantly both at Penn and nationwide over the years. She attributed the rise in interest to both a “greater awareness of the existence of ASL” and its personal and professional applicability to many students.

“We attract students from across all four schools, and everyone has different reasons [for learning ASL,]” Fisher said. “Some have family members or know people who are deaf, others just wanted a different way to satisfy the language requirement, a lot of them see a direct application to their future careers — a lot of Nursing students know they’ll be interacting with the deaf population.”

According to College of Liberal and Professional Studies junior Liza Fuchs, currently enrolled in “ASL 3,” the courses she has taken thus far emphasized “bringing deaf culture into the classroom.”

“It’s extremely important for [the professors] that we learn more than just how to move our fingers, hands and bodies to speak to deaf people, but that we learn about their culture,” Fuchs said. “It’s a very tight community — very bonded.”

While Fuchs initially chose to take ASL to satisfy the language requirement with a non-auditory language, she has found the experience immensely rewarding.

“I think it’s fascinating, and it opens the door for me to communicate with people I wouldn’t normally be able to communicate with,” she said.

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