Languages

Modern Languages

Most "foreign languages" people are exposed to these days are "modern languages". Many non-European standard languages are fairly recent creations (around the late 19th to mid 20th centuries). These languages are "alive and well", being written and spoken by millions of people.

The Sinosphere

Languages of Chinese-influenced lands,

• Chinese—not my mother tongue
• Japanese—second language of Internet users everywhere
• Korean—crop circles and garlic
• Vietnamese—a Sinosphere language gone Latinate!

I studied these languages because of my own ethnic background—I'm a Chinese-American of the third generation.

Europe

Roughly organized by the priority I'm giving them in study now,

• Russian—the language I'm focusing on the most now
• French—the language 19th century Russian authors quote at length
• German—goes hand in hand with French
• Italian—relevant to Western music, Latin theology, and more
• Spanish—cause I live in California

Mainly, I'm interested in reading/understanding these languages rather than speaking them (except for Russian, which I want to be able to do everything in). The "practical" benefits of these languages mainly come from being able to access writings/books, art, music, etc. that doesn't readily translate in its forceful poetic form to English.

Others

• Arabic—one name that includes lots of linguistic diversity
• Indonesian—an experiment in nation building and language construction
• Esperanto—see my essay on artificial languages.

Non-Modern Languages

These languages are not frequently spoken in everyday face-to-face interactions.

• Latin—OG Standard Language
• Greek—important for Christian learning
• Slavonic—relevant for Christian and Russian learning; see Church Slavonic Resources and GORAZD: The Old Church Slavonic Digital Hub (external links)
• Syriac—a Semitic language, important in the Christian liturgical tradition

Note that learning about a non-modern culture will involve learning many new concepts. Thus it is necessary to learn many new terms when studying something like Ancient Greece. It isn't so difficult to learn a new alphabet—might as well get started learning an "extinct" language if you're learning about civilizations of the past anyways.