Yale Bulletin and Calendar

November 9, 2001

Volume 30, Number 10

Yale has long history of teaching Arabic language

Yale has been a pioneer in the study of Arabic, which has been rated by the Educational Testing Service as the most difficult category of languages taught in American colleges and universities, according to organizers of the panel discussion "Arab/Islamic Civilization Beyond the 1001 Nights and September 11." (See related story.)

The University was the first educational institution in the United States to offer courses in Arabic, according to Benjamin Foster, professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations, and was the first to appoint a teacher of the language when it named Edward Salisbury as professor of Arabic and Sanskrit in 1841.

Today, there are some 60 students at Yale taking Arabic language courses, and about six undergraduates are majoring in Near Eastern languages and civilizations.

Foster is writing a book about the history of the formal study of the Near East -- its languages and peoples -- in the United States from the colonial period until about 1970. He notes that Yale started the first American research institute in the Near East, in Jerusalem in 1900, and that the first large classical Arabic text published in America was edited by Yale Arabic Professor Charles C. Torrey.

Two of Yale's early presidents, Ezra Stiles and Timothy Dwight, had studied Arabic; Stiles' notes in the language are in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The University also boasts one of the best collections of Arabic books and manuscripts in the world, says Foster.

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