Hi folks,
My son is obsessed with learning languages. He is always teaching himself one language or another. He wants to go to an LAC and probably major in Linguistics and then pick up as many languages as possible. He is particularly interested in Asian languages (Korean, Chinese, and Japanese) and Slavic languages. He is not as interested in the traditional Romance languages.
He wants to study abroad in Asia.
Is there a standout LAC for this?
Best,
DHD
Off the top of my head, look at Middlebury.
@dfbdfb I believe is a professor of linguistics and may have suggestions.
For languages themselves, the sites linked below suggest LACs such as Macalester, Middlebury, Hamilton, Holy Cross, Grinnell and Dickinson.
I’ll second all the above suggestions + Kenyon and Oberlin have strong Russian programs and, it seems, good Asian programs as well.
I’ve heard good things about the Russian program at Swarthmore as well. For additional Slavic languages, one needs to look into large research universities (LACs tend to only offer Russian).
It is not a liberal arts college, but UMass Amherst has a very strong linguistics department, and they’re good on languages, too. Also, they have Amherst college right next door, and students can take classes there, too, as part of the 5 college consortium. It is the best of both worlds, since the linguistics dept has an intimate feel to it, but one still has the benefits of a large flagship state school. Nice honors campus, too, with good new dorms, and the food takes first in the nation, year after year. They give honors and 16K/yr merit money for high stats OOS students going into linguistics.
Not at all what you’re asking, but I have a family member who is obsessed (and gifted) with learning languages. He attended Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and then joined the State Department. I think he’s fluent in something like 22 languages.
Just a thought!
For traditional LACs, Middlebury comes to mind first.
Middlebury, Dickinson, Tufts (not a LAC but relatively small and very good for languages).
He can also look at Critical Language flagships since these students reach a very high level of proficiency.
Note that linguistics is ways in which language works but isn’t a “world language” major. It’s very useful when paired with CS, AI, Cultural Anthropology.
Middlebury seems the most obvious recommendation.
Georgetown has a fantastic Russian Department, along with the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and Eastern European Studies. But, not at all a LAC, if that is the main criterion.
This is important, although linguistics and language study can go hand in hand and you can specialize in the linguistics of a certain language or language family - although this involves more than simply learning the modern language. It involves things like historical grammar, descriptive grammar, phonology, syntax, and such. This kind of study is probably more common at the graduate level than the undergraduate level.
But beyond that linguistics is its own field with many, many subfields (sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, language acquisition, semantics, pragmatics, computational linguistics, etc) and your particular subfield may affect where you want to apply.
You may be interested in the Flagship program. Most are state flagship schools but there are some LACs mixed in.
Domestic Program | Flagship
“The Language Flagship currently sponsors 31 programs at 21 universities in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish.
Undergraduate Flagship Programs are generally designed as four-year programs that offer students from all majors an opportunity to achieve professional-level (ACTFL Superior/ILR Level 3) language proficiency. Some programs offer a 5th year option. Still others offer “pre-Flagship” classes to jump start students on the Flagship path.…After completing the Domestic Flagship Program and achieving an ILR Level 2 (Advanced proficiency), students apply to the Flagship Overseas Capstone program for direct enrollment and overseas internships.”
My kid is similar! Middlebury is great but FYI it does not have Korean. Korean is kinda hard to find at LACs-- generally you would find it at larger schools. Macalester also has plenty of kids interested in language and linguistics…but again no Korean (though it might be possible to do through U Minnesota, which is pretty close by). Wellesley has Korean but does not enroll male students. If he’s flexible about Korean, and okay focusing on just Russian for the Slavic languages, there are plenty of options. Otherwise he may want to explore larger universities (Georgetown, GW, WashU, U Mass Amherst, etc.)
What year is your son? Has he looked at NSLI-Y? My kid is on a gap year in Asia with the program doing nothing but studying language. NSLI-Y is always interested in male applicants; you generally apply in the fall for the following summer/academic year travel programs, but they run virtual ones as well. These programs are FREE and sponsored by the State Dept. They have Korean, Mandarin and Russian programs. Apps are open for the virtual class in the fall. If he wants to do it later, there is also a college version – the Critical Language Scholarship. My kid is hoping to do the college one in the future…
Interestingly, Middlebury only has a dedicated Minor, not a Major, in Linguistics, even though it is very well-regarded for language studies. However, they say you can put together one through their Independent Scholar Program:
As others have pointed out, Macalester has a popular (for an LAC) Linguistics major, and they offer quite a few languages (again for an LAC):
Finally, I’d also suggest checking out Swarthmore and Haverford. Along with Bryn Mawr they make up what is known as the TriCo, and Linguistics is an area in which they actually have a TriCo Department. They also do a Linguistics and Language major which sounds like it might be attractive:
If he truly wants those three languages, I’d go with the Korean base.
It’s likely not an LAC but a school like Binghamton or Kansas.
You’ll find many more without Korean.
My daughter is an Intl Studies major at College of Charleston - basically a large, safer LAC and they have an International Scholars program. She was studying Chinese but a DC semester got in the way of the 3rd year and will do Spanish for her required third year. They have Japanese and others but like many, no Korean. It does not appear, for example, Kenyon has Korean. I mention Charleston - just because all the others being mentioned are reach type schools and it’s a bit safer.
She will be going to Korea to study though, this summer, with U of Nebraska (who I looked, doesn’t have Korean).
Korean is tough at smaller colleges, but maybe WUSTL? Arts & Sciences, the home of both Linguistics and their East Asian Languages and Cultures department (in which Korean, Chinese, and Japanese are all possible language concentrations), is only about 4000 students, and they like to say they offer an LAC-type environment (they definitely have a low student to faculty ratio and such). They are also big on combining different things, and integrated study abroad. I note Russian is only a minor:
https://linguistics.wustl.edu/
https://ealc.wustl.edu/
https://artsci.wustl.edu/russian-language-and-literature-minor
You can also do EALC as a minor with a concentration in any of the three languages. So you could probably do Linguistics as a major, with minors in EALC (Korean concentration) and Russian, for example.
The Claremont Colleges deserve a look.
Claremont Mckenna offers Arabic, French, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish
Pomona College offers Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish
Students cross-register freely, and additional Chinese coursework is available at through Harvey Mudd, Spanish through Pitzer, and French, German, Italian, and Spanish through Scripps.
Pomona and Pitzer both have linguistics majors, which can also be declared as off-campus majors by students at the other colleges.
Pomona’s Oldenborg Center offers both residential language houses, and a dining hall with facilitated language tables.
There are many options for studying abroad in Asia.
My older child is at Pomona College and is majoring in two languages and minoring in Linguistics. She’s also lived in the language dorm (Oldenborg) and regularly participates in language tables. She studied abroad (grades and courses are listed on her Pomona transcript–not always the case with study abroad courses) and this summer she is traveling abroad again to do thesis research, completely funded by grants from Pomona. HIGHLY recommend looking into Pomona!
I just worry most every school put out to the OP is a high reach type school - of course we don’t know what type of student this is.
I mean, they did ask for the best/standout LAC.
But I have been thinking of mentioning forum-favorite St Olaf. They only do Linguistics as what they call a concentration:
https://wp.stolaf.edu/linguistics/
But then they have so many different people doing various languages (again particularly for an LAC). Including Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. No Korean, but you can do Norwegian! That’s pretty cool:
I will plug Bates for its Japanese program which is excellent. My D started from scratch with Japanese and minored in it. She did so well that she was offered a scholarship with an outside org to study it further. The college also offers Chinese, Russian and Greek. While it isn’t the most practical consortium, students can cross register at Bowdoin and Colby to take other languages.
Unfortunately, the future of the Russian program at Bates is uncertain, from what I’ve heard.