Hindi?

College Search & Selection
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<p>My D is a rising HS junior and a language freak, gifted in and passionate about language acquisition. She has the opportunity to begin studying Hindi-Urdu at the University of Minnesota in the fall as part of a state program that allows qualified HS juniors and seniors to take college classes at the state's expense. She's keenly interested. But two years' study would only take her through the intermediate level. I'm wondering what colleges offer Hindi-Urdu in the event she should want to continue her studies with the aim of mastering the language as an undergrad. This will likely not be her undergrad major, just a "sideline" interest; right now she's leaning toward Classics as a major but is open to other options.</p>

<p>So far I've found Hindi-Urdu (and other Indian subcontinent language courses) at Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, U Chicago, UC Berkeley, and Harvard. Does anyone know of others?</p>

1 Like
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<p>I know that Johns Hopkins offers 3 levels of classes in Hindi. Hopkins also has a significant Indian student population, as well as many active ethnically oriented student groups.</p>

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<p>Hey, cool, another PSEO parent. My son has yet to register, of course, but hopes to be taking Chinese there in the fall. The U of Minnesota has had Hindi classes for a long time. I visited one during my senior year of high school, but ended up being busy enough as a Chinese major taking other languages as electives that I never had time to take Hindi. The South Asian collection at the U of MN library is very cool.</p>

4

<p>Here's a partial answer to my own question, based on my own research.</p>

<p>Colleges offering Hindi:</p>

<p>Minnesota (also Urdu)
Michigan (also Bengali, Urdu, Tamil, Punjabi,. Sanskrit)
Berkeley (also Bengali, Urdu, Tamil, Punjabi, Sanskrit)
Chicago (also Bengali, Urdu, Marathi, Pali, Tamil, Sanskrit)
Harvard (also Urdu, Tamil, Pali, Nepali, Sanskrit)
Wisconsin (also Urdu, Telugu, Sanskrit)
Johns Hopkins (not so much)
UCLA (also Sanskrit)
Columbia (also Bengali, Urdu, Tamil, Punjabi, Sanskrit)
Brown (also Urdu, Sanskrit)
Penn (also Bengali, Urdu, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, Pali, Telugu, Punjabi, Kannada, Pashto, Malayam, Sanskrit) </p>

<p>Any others?</p>

5

<p>Hindi</a> Urdu Flagship Program</p>

<p>The Hindi Urdu Flagship is...</p>

<p>...an undergraduate program at the University of Texas at Austin designed for students who wish to achieve advanced professional proficiency in Hindi and Urdu while majoring in a wide variety of programs, including Business, Communications, Engineering, and Liberal Arts majors such as Anthropology, History, and Political Science. Flagship students achieve an advanced level of Hindi and Urdu language, culture and professional competence through:</p>

<p>a core Flagship language course taught each semester</p>

<p>personalized instruction from world renowned faculty</p>

<p>study abroad in India combining university work with internships relevant to students’ professional development</p>

<p>specialized "area content courses" incorporating study in a Hindi-Urdu medium (taken in years 1 and 2)</p>

<p>mentoring from graduate students and teaching assistants</p>

<p>access to the Hindi Urdu Resource Center featuring a wide array of print and audio-visual media developed specifically for the Flagship</p>

6

<p>India</a> Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Houston</p>

<p>Houston</p>

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<p>Contact the poster named Mini. :)</p>

8

<p>Rice offers 2 classes in Hindi plus "independent study". We also have classes in Tibetan for some reason.</p>

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<p>this website was recommended when I was looking for schools that teach Tibetan LCTL</a> Course Offerings</p>

<p>Make sure to actually look and see what levels of courses the school offers, how often the classes are taught and who teaches them (adjunct faculty, visiting professor, tenured professor).</p>

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<p>I know Vassar offer's Hindi, or atleast they claimed to when I visited.</p>

11

<p>UNC has a Hindi-Urdu program as well:</p>

<p>Department</a> of Asian Studies</p>

12

<p>SUNY at Buffalo (UB) has 1st and 2nd year courses in Hindi as well as many other critical need languages.</p>

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<p>University of Washington offers classes in Hindi. In addition, Urdu seems to offered from time to time.</p>

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<p>Northwestern offers 2 years of Hindi</p>

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<p>Cal, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, Houston, UNC, SUNY-Buffalo, Washington.</p>

<p>Notice a trend? Almost every large public will offer classes in Hindi, Urdu, Vietnamese and every other significant modern language.</p>

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<p>


</p>

<p>I had noticed. Pretty consistent with what I'd found on my own, except I'd add that a lot of the Ivies (Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Penn) and some other "high academic" institutions (U Chicago, Johns Hopkins) also offer Hindi and other South Asian languages. The second-tier privates generally don't, and LACs almost never, even the language- and culture-oriented ones like Middlebury. Hmmm . . . . I'm not sure D will even do Hindi, but she's very much into languages, which I think is a good think in this globalizing age. The comparative paucity of world language offerings at some otherwise very fine schools is worth keeping in mind as we explore this further.</p>

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<p>BK, a few reasons behind this could be the differences in demand and supply and the lower perceived value of learning Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs) in the United States.</p>

<p>Here's a distribution of the Foreign language enrollment at US colleges that dates from a few years ago:</p>

<p>
[quote]

Spanish 746,267<br>
French 201,979<br>
German 91,100<br>
Italian 63,899<br>
American Sign 60,781<br>
Japanese 52,238<br>
Chinese 34,153<br>
Latin 29,841<br>
Russian 23,921<br>
Ancient Greek 20,376<br>
Biblical Hebrew 14,183<br>
Arabic 10,584<br>
Modern Hebrew 8,619<br>
Portuguese 8,385<br>
Korean 5,211<br>
Vietnamese 2,236
Hawaiian 1,687
Aramaic 1,686
Swahili 1,593
Hindi 1,430
Persian 1,117
Polish 1,053
Other languages 14,914<br>
Total 1,397,253

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Fewer than 3000 students are enrolled in Indian language course offerings at U.S. colleges and universities. See: Elizabeth B. Welles, "Foreign Language Enrollments in the United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2002," ADFL Bulletin, Winter-Spring 2004. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Indian language enrollment at US colleges
Hindi 1,430
Sanskrit 487
Hindi-Urdu* 427
Bengali 154
Urdu 152
Tamil 114
Punjabi 99
Tibetan 78
Malayalam 20
Gujarati 20
Nepali 11
Telugu 3
Marathi 2
Kannada 2
Total 2,999
*Hindi-Urdu are offered in combination at several institutions

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Further, researchers at North Carolina State University on South Asian language instruction have identified 84 Indian languages and estimated that 75 U.S. colleges and universities offer Indian languages. Check: David Gilmartin, Dwight Stephens and John Caldwell, "Setting Priorities for South Asian Languages," National Planning for the Teaching of the Less Commonly Taught Languages, North Carolina State University, June 2005. </p>

<p>
[quote]
U.S. Colleges Teaching Indian Languages
University of Alabama
University of Arizona<br>
Brown University
Cal State, Sacramento
University of Chicago
Columbia University
Cornell University
Duke University
Emory University
Florida State University
University of Georgia
Harvard University
University of Hawaii
University of Illinois
Indiana University
University of Iowa
Johns Hopkins University
Loyola University, Chicago
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota
Monterey Institute
North Carolina Central
North Carolina State
Northern Illinois University
New York University
Ohio State University
University of Pennsylvania
Princeton University<br>
Rice University
Rutgers University
San Jose State University
Southern Methodist University
SUNY, Stonybrook
Syracuse University
University of Texas
UMASS - Amherst
U. of California - Berkeley
U. of California - Los Angeles
U. of California - Santa Barbara
U. of California - Santa Clara
U. of North Corlina - Chapel Hill
University of Virginia
U. of Washington - Seattle
Washington U. - St. Louis
William Paterson University
University of Wisconsin
Yale University

[/quote]
</p>

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<p>I can remember when Chinese was much less studied than it is now. The estimate the year I gained my undergraduate degree in Chinese was that fewer than 200 students in the whole United States completed a major course in Chinese each year. (There were three in my graduating class at my alma mater.)</p>