State Department Language Classifications

[Benjamin Rifkin]

Dear Colleagues: 


Years ago, the State Department and Defense Department classified languages in 4 categories, with category 1 the easiest languages to learn (Romance languages, Swahili, Scandinavian languages, Dutch), Category 4 the hardest (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean). In this scheme, Russian was a category 3 language, with some African languages, such as Yoruba, some Southeast Asian languages (such as Thai). German was a category 2 language, with Hebrew, Hindi, and some other African languages. 


Apparently the State Department and Defense Department have reduced the number of categories from 4 to 3, renaming them not by number but with the phrases "easy languages," "hard languages," and "very hard languages." My understanding is that the Romance languages remain in the "easy category", and that the languages of old category 2 have been shifted into "easy" or "hard" (I'm not sure on which principle), and that now Russian is in the "hard languages" category. 


I'm writing to ask SEELANGers if any of you can help me identify a source for this change. 


With thanks, 


Ben Rifkin 




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