State Department Language Classifications

Mon Jan 4 03:10:13 UTC 2010

Dear Francoise and Other SEELANGers: 

The change from the older more complex system essentially redistributes languages from what had been category II into categories I and III. There are indeed substantial differences in the rate of acquisition for American learners between the newly named "superhard languages" (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and the other Asian languages (including Thai and Vietnamese) with regard not only to orthography, but also to grammar and syntax, sociolinguistics, and discourse practices. The alphabet for Arabic is only one concern (would that it were the only one): learners of Arabic must learn both the formal written standard (Modern Standard Arabic) and at least one spoken dialect, since both are used in a single speech community. There are other issues as well that make Arabic unique among the semitic languages to be classified as a "superhard language", again based simply on the data of the rate of acquisition. 

There is essentially no change in the classification of most of the Slavic languages, which remain in the "hard languages" group (formerly known as category III). Although I don't yet have confirmation, I suspect that Bulgarian, the Slavic language without a complex nominal morphology that had been in category II, may have been reclassified with the other Slavic languages, rather than shifted into the "easy" or "world languages" category with Romance, Swahili, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages. German, Hebrew, Hindi, and Indonesian, other languages in the former category II, are now marked as somewhat more challenging than the other languages in the "world languages" or "easy languages" category, somewhere in a position of 1.5 in the new 3 point scale. 

Best wishes to all, 

Ben Rifkin 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Francoise Rosset" <frosset at WHEATONMA.EDU> 
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu 
Sent: Sunday, January 3, 2010 9:57:14 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] State Department Language Classifications 

Are we sure this is the NEW stuff? The site that Gerry pointed us to 
(thank you, G.) has a copyright notice from 2007. Unless the State 
department is in the habit of updating its sites sloppily enough to 
forget to change the date (no comment ...), this could in fact be an 
older classification. 

There *were* two charts floating around before, the one that was 
apparently just dumped, and an already simpler one. I remember because 
2-3 years ago I asked Ben to point me to the more complex one. 

If this is a new classification, I must say I find their Category III 
puzzling: the only four languages in there seem to have been chosen 
_in part_ by reputation/old stereotypes/politics. On what basis does 
it happen to include just the three "greats" of the Asian languages, 
--conveniently also the three main political entities,-- and no other 
Asian languages? Not only are K, C and J quite different from one 
another, I wonder if they are that transcendentally harder than 
Vietnamese and especially Thai? Yes, I know that the writing system of 
V and Th is like an alphabet and not like Chinese. But then what about 
Arabic, and why is *it* transcendentally harder than some of the 
languages in II ??? 

My experience with Asian languages is minimal and confined to 
Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese. But this classification does not sit 
well with me, and I would appreciate comments from people with actual 
expertise. 
-FR 

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 20:24:16 -0500 
Benjamin Rifkin <rifkin at TCNJ.EDU> wrote: 
> Thanks, Jerry. Yes, I thought that Russian was now in group 2. It's 
>interesting that this chart shows yet another series of names for the 
>three groups. I have also seen "world languages," "hard languages" and 
>"superhard languages." So of course I wonder if the "hard languages" 
>and "superhard languages" are not actually of this world, since group 
>1 are the world languages. (I am guessing that world languages was the 
>euphemism for easy languages that was not politically acceptable.) 
> 
> I continue to search for the source, like a knight on some epic 
>quest.... 
> 
> Yours, 
> 
> Ben 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald McCausland" 
><gmmst11 at PITT.EDU> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu Sent: Sunday, January 3, 
>2010 8:16:27 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] 
>State Department Language Classifications 
> Dear Ben: 
> This isn't exactly what you are asking for, but if you go to the 
>following link: 
> http://www.govtilr.org/Publications/TESOL03ReadingFull.htm 
> and scroll down to "Figure 2," you'll find a version of a table that 
>I've located on several different websites. It does indeed reduce the 
>categories from 4 to 3, but note the position of Russian! All webpages 
>with this table cite "FSI" as their source, but I've utterly failed to 
> track this down to a specific page on the FSI website or to any print 
>publication. 
> Perhaps this will at least give your search some direction. 
> Jerry. 
> On 1/3/2010 5:41 PM, Benjamin Rifkin wrote: 
>> 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 
> 
> -- 
> Gerald McCausland, PhD Lecturer and Language Program Director Slavic 
>Languages and Literatures University of Pittsburgh gmmst11 at pitt.edu 
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Francoise Rosset, Associate Professor 
Chair, Russian and Russian Studies 
Coordinator, German and Russian 
Wheaton College 
Norton, Massachusetts 02766 
Office: (508) 285-3696 
FAX: (508) 286-3640 

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