While it may be easy to recognize the words hola and bonjour as "hello" in Spanish and French, the words jambo and bonjou, salutations in Swahili and Haitian Creole, respectively, aren't nearly as accessible. While most college students stick to the basic romance languages that characterized their middle and high school educations, Swahili and Haitian Creole are just a couple of examples of the other foreign languages that a select few Tufts students are eagerly exploring.
At Tufts, interest in these less mainstream languages is small. As of now, Swahili offers only three classes, one in each level, reason being that typically by level four, there are not enough students signed up to constitute a class. Unless a minimum of six students enroll in the course, it automatically becomes an independent study.
The Experimental College is offering a Haitian Creole introductory course this semester with an enrollment of about seven or eight students, but that is currently the only level offered.
While the prospect of studying an interesting and unique language may seem appealing at first, many students are deterred because of the need to fulfill the foreign language requirement. In addition to the number of other distribution and major requirements that need to be filled, many feel that they do not have time to take a class like Haitian Creole, which will not count for anything other than an elective credit.
Stuart Henige, a sophomore currently enrolled in the Haitian Creole course, explained this dilemma. "It doesn't count towards the language requirement," he said. "If I petitioned for it, maybe it would. But I'm not counting it."
He added that since it is not counted as a language credit, students generally must have some other motivation for taking the class.
"I feel like you have to be interested before you start because it won't fill your requirements," Henige said. "It doesn't count for anything. But if you are interested, it's nice to learn."
American Sign Language (ASL) is another unconventional language students can study at Tufts. But like Haitian Creole, it also does not count toward the language requirement.
"Sign Language is not really considered a language here," said freshman Sophie Schwartz, a first-semester ASL student. "It's not allowed to be used to fulfill the first section of the language requirement. You can only use it to fulfill the culture option."
There has been a great deal controversy surrounding this policy recently. A narrow vote among the faculty, held over winter break, decided against allowing ASL to count towards the first part of students' foreign language requirement -- the reason being that ASL is not technically a foreign language. Schwartz disagreed with this decision, citing the fact that there is a large group of people who use ASL as their primary language, and though they may be American, they are still communicate differently than people who speak English.
"I thought [the outcome of the vote] was really unfortunate," she said. "[ASL] is definitely as much of a language as others. ... There is a whole culture that relies on it to communicate."
Additionally, some students find that it's just more convenient to pursue the same widely-used languages that they learned prior to college. Many students begin studying a foreign language in middle or high school. The choices offered at that point are often extremely limited, and French and Spanish emerge as the most popular languages to take. Upon entering college, those who have already spent three or more years learning that language tend to lean towards continuing with it, rather than starting from the beginning with something else.
"I took Spanish all through high school," said freshman Marissa Fruchter, a Spanish 4 student. "I plan to continue it at least through next semester. When I came into college, I thought it'd be interesting to take a different language and learn a little bit of it, but really I'd much rather become fluent in Spanish."
Credit issues aside, these uncommon languages still do not appeal to the general student population as a course of study, largely because of their lack of practicality.
"I took Spanish mainly because it's useful," Fruchter said. "I think it'd be really cool to take a different language, but I don't know if I'd have as much of a chance to use it."
The small number of students in non-mainstream language courses and their reasons for taking them seem to support Fruchter's point. Many of those currently studying these unconventional languages are doing so with a specific purpose in mind.
Henige's interest in Haitian Creole came from his study of French in previous years, but he is also aware of the large Haitian population in Boston, and as a community health major, he thinks the language could be useful to know in the future.
Schwartz is studying ASL because of her interest in working with children and adults with special needs, especially with those who cannot use spoken language. Many in her class have similarly distinct reasons for taking the course.
"A lot of [people in the class] are child development majors who are interested in being able to work with students who are deaf," she said. "And then there are some who know someone who is deaf."
Madeleine Lavender, a freshman Swahili student, agreed. "I want to work in Africa," she said. "And most of the other people in my class want to too. There's also someone whose family speaks it, so that's why he wants to learn."
But while these languages may be uncommon to study now, this does not necessarily mean they will remain that way. Languages such as Chinese and Arabic used to be unpopular among the student crowd in the United States. Those studying them usually had specific individual reasons for doing so. Today, however, both are quite popular courses and are considered to be useful languages to know.
But for some, the uniqueness of the language just adds to its appeal.
"I've never been that into the languages everyone else takes," Lavender said. "I think it's really cool when people take something different. I'm really glad I am."
