The Jewish Daily Forward reports that British schools will be required to offer at least one of seven foreign languages, excluding Hebrew:
LONDON — The British government reportedly is planning to exclude Hebrew from a list of recognized foreign languages in the national education system. . . .
Education Minister Elizabeth Truss announced plans last month to make it compulsory, from September 2014, to teach a foreign language to children ages seven to 11. Schools would be required to offer at least one of only seven recognized languages, which excludes Hebrew, the newspaper reported.
Many Jewish primary schools, which have to fit in Jewish studies alongside the national curriculum, currently offer Hebrew as the only foreign language. According to the Board of Deputies, the schools would find it impossible to continue teaching Hebrew if compelled to offer another foreign language as well.
Board Senior Vice-President Laura Marks told the Jewish Chronicle that the government proposal could be “extremely detrimental to our community’s identity.” Language, including modern and classical Hebrew, is “a vital ingredient to understanding our faith and culture,” she said, and urged the government “to reject the idea of stipulating just a narrow range of languages.”
Aside from the obvious problem it poses to Jewish schools, this seems a bad decision for English culture. Hebrew is not just a “vital ingredient to understanding” Jewish faith and culture, but also Christian—and especially English—faith and culture.
Hebrew’s importance to to the history of English literature is perhaps best exemplified by John Milton, who learned the language as a boy. His knowledge of rabbinic texts later informed such works as “Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,” in which he cites the opinions of “Kimchi, and the two other Rabbies” as well as that of Maimonides.
We can see this exclusion then (which perhaps will be reversed) as resulting not just from inattention to the concerns of the Jewish community but also from indifference to the religious and textual concerns that once stood at the heart of English life.
December 17th, 2012 | 11:09 am
I guess I don’t really see the problem here. I presume the purpose of the national standard is to ensure that all English children are taught a currently widely useful (for communication) language other than their own. Jewish schools are pursuing a specialty curriculum in which teaching Hebrew is part of their special focus, and certainly has value, but it does not serve the purpose of the national standard. It is no different from a school that wishes to focus on the arts having trouble fitting in a language requirement because of the additional arts classes the students are required to take.
That said, I’m no fan of national educational standards in the first place. But this just doesn’t seem to have some invidious effect on Jewish schools that is “unfair.” They choose to establish a specialized curriculum that includes a language that does not fit the national standards (nor does it serve the same purpose as the standard languages.) Other schools pursue other specialized curricula, and have a similar issue. A secular or Christian classical school that was heavy on the Latin and classical or koine Greek would have the same issue, as would a Welsh heritage school.
December 17th, 2012 | 11:16 am
We can see this exclusion then (which perhaps will be reversed) as resulting not just from inattention to the concerns of the Jewish community but also from indifference to the religious and textual concerns that once stood at the heart of English culture.
The seven languages are French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Latin and ancient Greek. The age range for the pupils, by the way, is 7 through 11.
Classical Hebrew and modern Hebrew, although they have a great deal in common, are taught as two separate languages. Should both be added to the list? Modern Hebrew is spoken by approximately 7 million people, making it one of the least-spoken languages of the world, whereas Arabic is the fourth most-spoken language on the planet (after Mandarin, Spanish, and English). Why not add it to the list? And some of the greatest literature is in Russian.
December 17th, 2012 | 11:31 am
The number one name for a child born in England today is “Mohammed” (at least when I last checked about 2-3 years ago).
Why should we have different expectations for England than we would for any Muslim nation? The only difference with England is that it is happening before our eyes and so it seems unconscionable. It must have seemed unconscionable when the Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque too.
December 17th, 2012 | 12:27 pm
I’m not sure what is the point in limiting the foreign languages to seven. Does anyone know why that’s in the law?
December 17th, 2012 | 12:44 pm
Mike — I can’t find the law, either, but they’re not limiting foreign languages to seven. They’re saying every child must be taught one of the seven.
From seeing David’s list, though, I am more puzzled than I was. Why permit a dead classical language like Ancient Greek, and not Hebrew? Clearly the purpose then cannot be to promote spoken communication and literacy among living humans, which would be a sensible rationale for not including ancient Hebrew (which is the language of scholarship and certainly the one Milton studied) in the mix.
Douglas — since Arabic is not in the mix, I’m not sure this is about that.
December 17th, 2012 | 1:01 pm
From seeing David’s list, though, I am more puzzled than I was. Why permit a dead classical language like Ancient Greek, and not Hebrew?
pentamom,
Here is the government’s rationale:
December 17th, 2012 | 1:12 pm
Douglas Johnson,
I am going to echo pentamom. “Since Arabic is not in the mix, I’m not sure this is about that.”
Muslims make up about 5% of the population of the UK. A very large proportion of Muslims name their boys Mohammed, to the point where it becomes one of the most popular, and in some years the most popular, boy’s name. Is there something wrong with that?
December 17th, 2012 | 2:04 pm
If we look at the government list as a kind of top seven languages best for helping children get ahead in later education and later life, Modern Hebrew is not in the running, and it is difficult to make a case for Classical Hebrew. I think it would be wonderful if both Classical Hebrew and Greek could be made widely available to students. But for the purposes set out by the government, I don’t think it is accurate to say that Hebrew has been “excluded.” You would have to say all but the seven chose language have been “excluded.” You would have to say that Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, French Creole, Russian, and Japanese have been “excluded.” And Sanskrit.
December 17th, 2012 | 2:27 pm
Jewish schools in the US teach a third language to meet (what I believe are) curricular requirements. I took two years of Spanish in high school in addition to English and Hebrew. And at Yeshiva College I took French in addition to the required Hebrew and English.
December 17th, 2012 | 3:05 pm
If the government’s rationale is simply to choose “languages identified by respondents to the consultation as the most popular choices for primary schools,” then what is the point of requiring them? What is the point of having a seven-language list at all?
I would also dispute the choice of Italian (85 M speakers) over, say, Portuguese (215 M) or Russian (155 M) or Hindi (490 M).
A case could certainly be made for ascribing ancient Hebrew a historical significance on par with Latin and ancient Greek.
The whole thing seem arbitrary and pointless. Undoubtedly it was the result of some committee with a newspeak-y name.
December 17th, 2012 | 4:46 pm
A case could certainly be made for ascribing ancient Hebrew a historical significance on par with Latin and ancient Greek.
Patrick,
The case for Latin and ancient Greek was not made on the basis of historical significance. The reason given was that “Latin and ancient Greek give a good grounding in grammar, syntax and vocabulary of a number of modern languages, including English.” This is not true of Classical Hebrew.
Having taken four years of Latin in high school, I am unconvinced that it is helpful for anything later in the academic or real world, but the rationale given by the education minister in the UK is certainly the conventional wisdom about studying Latin and Greek.
It’s interesting that “conservative types” are not saying, “Yes! Latin and Greek!” rather than saying, “What, no Hebrew?”
December 17th, 2012 | 4:51 pm
When I was a student, I took French. Since then I haven’t had too much use of it. In retrospect Bengali and Hebrew would have been more useful. You never know how your life will turn out.
December 17th, 2012 | 4:55 pm
And everyone forgets Bengali — other Indian languages too, but especially Bengali. There are up to 300 million speakers of this language, and a big Bengali speaking community in the UK. I bet there are more Indians in the UK than Chinese. However, this list included no Indian language.
December 17th, 2012 | 6:18 pm
Here, according to Wikipedia, are all the languages of the world that are spoken by at least 1% of the population:
Mandarin…..14.1%
Spanish………5.85%
English……….5.52%
Hindi………….4.46%
Arabic………..4.23%
Portuguese….3.08%
Bengali………3.05%
Russian………2.42%
Japanese……1.92%
Punjabi………1.44%
German……..1.39%
Javanese…….1.25%
Wu……………1.20%
Malay/Indonesian…..1.16%
Telugu………..1.15%
Vietnamese ….1.14%
Korean……….1.14%
French………..1.12%
Marathi……….1.10%
Tamil………. ..1.06%
Last on Wikipedia’s list is Konkani, spoken in Goa (State in India), with 7.4 million speakers, or approximately 0.11% of the world’s population. Modern Hebrew is spoken by about 7 million people according to another Wikipedia entry.
December 18th, 2012 | 9:43 am
“I bet there are more Indians in the UK than Chinese. However, this list included no Indian language.”
I doubt the purpose of the list had much to do with learning the native language of people in your own country, nearly all of whom speak good English, as is true of British Indians.
December 18th, 2012 | 9:52 pm
Regardless of the declared rationale the two “dead” languages are their to protect the “public schools”. I don’t mind this being a strong supporter of private schools here in the states but you have to understand where this comes from. If Old Etonians had Hebrew whipped into to them then Hebrew would have made the cut.
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