<p>So I'm seriously considering a major in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization with a focus on Cuneiform Studies, and I'm wondering what languages other than Akkadian and Sumerian I will need to learn if I am planning on going to grad school in this area. I'm aware that I need reading proficiency in both German and French, so I'll be self-studying German (ha, easier said than done) and brushing up on my French. However, I'm curious as to whether or not I'll need to learn Arabic and to what skill I need to learn it. Reading and speaking proficiency, perhaps? Both Classical and Modern Arabic? Do I need to learn Hebrew? Aramaic? How about Attic Greek (as I've heard that I'll need it to read classical sources)? I have no idea where to start, so any info. would be appreciated.</p>
<p>And just for kicks, hypothetically, if I were to major in Classics with an intention of going to grad school also, that would require adequate knowledge of Attic/Classical Greek and Latin and . . . anything else?</p>
Hittite would make you an appealing applicant. Chicago is currently one of only three universities to offer instruction in Hittite (the others being Michigan and UCLA), so chances are that your graduate program would not offer it.</p>
<p>Unlike the others, it’s an Indo-European language and thus exposes you to a different language system.</p>
<p>Italian may also be of some limited use to you.</p>
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Arabic would not be particularly useful. For one thing, the geographic areas covered by Assyriology include many modern languages (Turkish, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian). For another, relatively little scholarly work has been produced in Arabic. I would recommend picking it up if you planned to go into Egyptology, but otherwise you would be better off putting more effort into the other languages.</p>
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Greek is not particularly useful unless you plan to specialize in the later periods, but I certainly would not recommend against it if it’s interesting to you. Greek was both the most difficult and most rewarding of the languages I studied.</p>
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3-4 years of one language, 2-3 of the other, German, French.</p>
<p>Ouch. So is there any one modern language amongst the bunch there that you think would serve me best, or are you suggesting that I should just focus on Akkadian, Hittite, and Sumerian (and German and French)? (Sorry, your wording was a little vague around “other languages”.)</p>
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<p>In that case, I may just minor in Classics, as I don’t have enough space to take all the languages I want (unless I want to triple up at some point, which from what I’ve heard is a horrible idea). I’ve been recently bitten by the Classics bug and just want to read Aeschylus in the original Greek, and . . . have very little interest in Latin, admittedly.</p>
<p>If you graduate with at least two years of Akkadian, one of Sumerian, and reading knowledge of French and German (particularly the latter), you will be more than set for graduate school. Any other languages would simply be icing on the cake.</p>
<p>I just took a look at the course catalog here, and it appears that I will not be able to take a full year of Sumerian if I want to graduate in four years due to the way the course is set up. I will be able to take two quarters of it (almost a full year), but I’m assuming this will not harm me too much? </p>
<p>As it stands, if I want to take the full three-quarter sequence, I’ll either have to stay for an extra quarter (not appealing due to finances, but possible) or take Sumerian and Akkadian concurrently (along with Russian, which I’m also currently studying), which I’ve been informed will be academic suicide. Or I could drop Russian, which is about as appealing as staying an extra quarter, and go for Akkadian/Sumerian all-out, all the while hoping I won’t mix up the writing systems.</p>
<p>Also, I just realized that I didn’t specify “grad school” as PhD program. I have no idea if that will make any difference.</p>