Gil

In your opinion, which foreign languages have the richest literatures? I would like to study a language that offers an amazing collection of works. The language doesn't have to be "marketable" or important in the market today. Currently I'm thinking French, German, Classical Greek, Chinese, and Latin.

tahitiKO

greek or latin obviously...maybe chinese, but that's monumentaily more difficult, learning a whole new alphabet of characters.

echoes600

russian is also really cool, as you get to access many awesome authors like dostoevsky, pasternak, bulgakov, gogol, tolstoy, chekov....

ticklemepink

Russian!!!

1234d

what about chinese? 5 thousand years of history to boot, and early works made available by the invention of paper and blockprinting
but it's really hard to start from scratch though

Fanatic517

al-arabiyya.

arbiter213

Russian is the obvious choice if you want access to the greatest works of literature of all time (less a couple of English works, perhaps).

The literary tradition in Eastern cultures is entirely different- the modern conception of the Novel is a western construct and has only been adapted in modern time. Certainly there are ancient texts, but aside from works akin to Virgil and Homer's epics, you wont find many "novels".

That said, Japanese literature is very, very rewarding, if you're willing to study the language to the point where you can read it.

I'll say it again though: Russian is the way to go.
Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, Brother's Karamazov, War and Peace, Fathers and Sons, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Notes from Underground, Gogol's short stories... the list goes on.

proletariat2

Vedic Sanskrit.

watchman5989

greek and latin are obvious choices, but japanese and chinese (japanese esp.) are good too. the tale of genji is often considered to be one of the first novels ever written.

Hanajima Arashi

According to my tastes, the order of preference would be: French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese. This is a very cool reason to learn a language, I wish more people thought of it that way.

Gil

Thanks for the replies. But I need more suggestions! Bump.

kelseyg

Russian Russian Russian, absolutely. Otherwise, French is probably the easiest with a rich literary tradition. I would avoid dead languages because you're missing out on newer literature.

mrego

Might as well add German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese.

Jakor

Personal ranking (literature-wise):
1. French
2. Russian
3. Latin
4. Greek
5. Arabic
6. Chinese (Asian lit can get pretty weird, imo...)

redwingshockey

I would also have to rank French as the top of the list.