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To become a neophilologist | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| JamesX Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5579 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian, German, Latin | Message 1 of 1 12 August 2009 at 6:14am | IP Logged |
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Dr. Aguelles,
My name is James Evans, and I am a student at the College of William and Mary, where I had been studying biology, though I have now changed my major to linguistics, despite the fact that linguistics has little to do with studying languages. I have a few questions I'd like to ask you, but first I'll tell you a little relevant information about myself, so that you will be better able to answer my questions. My language-learning mission began two years ago when I decided to learn French on my own during the summer. I also began taking Russian at my university the following autumn. At some point during that school year I also began learning a very little bit of German. The following summer I also started learning Turkish and a bit of Persian. At the start of the fall semester I planned to continue studying all the previously mentioned languages, and to add Old English and Hungarian, and to start studying German more seriously. But unfortunately, I found that I had gravely misjudged the amount of utilizable open time that I would have in my daily schedule: I had to give up on Turkish, Persian, Old English, and Hungarian within weeks of semester's beginning. I plan on returning to these languages, but I currently have no substantial abilities in any of them. I started studying my latest additional language, Latin, a few weeks ago. I am also making progress with German, and French, and will continue to take Russian this coming academic year. Additionally, because I lived in both Spain and Paraguay as a child, I have been somewhat proficient in Spanish for many years, but I am more proficient now that I have recently studied the language more in-depth in roughly one and a half semesters' worth of grammar study. I was overjoyed to find you and your website via You Tube. You seemed to share my goals, and furthermore, you had, to a large degree, already achieved them: advanced proficiency in a great many languages, substantial knowledge of scores more, and the having read of much of the Western canon in the original tongue. It reconfirmed my belief that I could accomplish such a feat with enough diligence and motivation. I also found that, like me, you have grievances against the forcing of students and scholars to, as you put it, "hyper-specialize." Indeed, I found the St. John's College program, which you have mentioned for its excellence, to be the only really intriguing one of all the colleges and universities that I investigated, though I ultimately chose a more affordable university. Because, like you, I mourn the disappearance of philology, I naturally find your institute of "polyglottery" or "neophilology" a fantastic attraction. But since your institute is not yet in existence, I must make the best of the options I have at my university, and find another way to become a neophilologist. My main question is the following: what would you recommend as a career, assuming that my language- and literature-related intellectual goals are identical to yours, and possibly as important to me as yours are to you? It sounds like your time as a professor in Korea was wonderful, teaching several languages and left with lots of time to study languages. But I imagine positions like that are uncommon. Also, I'd like to ask if there is an ideal area of graduate study for people with philological goals. Is the comparative history of religions the best option you know of? Are there perhaps some tenacious comparative philology departments that still exist that you found after your graduate studies? Thank you so much for your time. James 1 person has voted this message useful |
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