To truly appreciate what is being offered at Birmingham Community Education World Languages one should note that the BCE offers some languages that are rarely taught in a classroom setting except on the university level. Modern Farsi (Persian) the language of Iran is being introduced this fall at the BCE. There is also Old Persian, A Journey to Cuneiform.
Modern Farsi is also taught at Ohio State and The University of Michigan.
Since April of 2012 the BCE has been teaching Hungarian. This language appeals to those of Hungarian, Slovak, and Croatian heritage of which there is an estimated 20 million worldwide. Of note is the fact that the Hungarian of today is not much different than the Hungarian of the 13th Century. That's because it is the language of a small population that stayed more or less on place. Chinese, the language of a vast population has may dialects. Spanish, Portuguese, and English hopped continents. Old English which changed with Norman invasion of 1066, is not the language of Shakespeare or anything like the English of today.
The University of Michigan does not teach Hungarian. Ohio State does but adds in parenthesis "courses taught rarely."
Years ago at the Ohio State University if you were interested in the languages of Eastern Europe you had to start with Russian. Proficiency in Russian 400 was a requirement for additional study in Polish or Serbo-Croatian. Today incoming Freshman can start by learning Czech, Slovak, Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Romanian,and on rare occassions Hungarian.
The University of Michigan also has offers courses in in many Eastern Europe languages and makes up for it's lack of Hungarian and Romanian by offering Yiddish, and if this writer is not mistaken Uzbek from Uzbekistan in of all things a German-Slavic Language Department.
Both universities offer a healthy compliment of cultural and history courses to make for a country by country minor or major area of study. There are even non-language minors available.
Russian which has taken a bit of a hit after the break up of the Soviet Union still has a prominent place at the Birmingham Community Education however. Sometimes as many as four course levels are offered. Two courses levels are available this fall and the second level says you will be writing cursive Cyrillic.
This writer not being particularly adept at languages can attest to going from zero to low intermediate after approximately a year excluding summers in BCE Hungarian, a language not known to be particularly easy.
Below are the language courses available for this fall. Quite a variety from conversational to the more intense. French and Spanish are widely spoken on the North American Continent.
Hungarian is not but American films dubbed in Hungarians have turned up on You Tube. The exploits of Miami street gangs who are fluent in Hungarian is usually the tip off.
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