Words, words, functional heads

BY JOSH WRIGHT

"Linguistics? Neat!...uh, what exactly is that?" is the typical response I get when I tell people what my major is. My answer—"The scientific study of the principles underlying all human languages"—usually elicits either silence or admiration at my academic originality.

I identified linguistics as my most likely major way back inhigh school when I found a book on the subject in my public library. Language nerd that I was, I was certain this was the field for me, although I've seen a number of other language lovers here at Yale run screaming from the department after a semester of the abstrusities of Government and Binding Theory or Feature Geometry. The fact is, linguistics—at least modern generative linguistics—is more like math than English, but with words instead of numbers. Students who are willing to do this are usually there out of pure intellectual interest—it's neither a pre-professional nor a prestigious field, so it doesn't lend itself to name-dropping or other intellectual flourishing. Start talking about "functional heads" at a cocktail party, and people are likely to think you're either talking about mechanics or attempting veiled insults.

As one of only three declared majors in my class, personal attention isn't just easy to get—it's difficult to avoid, whether in the classroom or on the administrative level. There's a monthly e-mail list, weekly coffee hours, and even an annual holiday dinner. How many other Yalies can say they've met their professors's spouses and children, jitterbugged with the department administrative assistant, or sung drunken Christmas carols with the entire faculty? While that kind of intimacy is pleasant, there are drawbacks. I appreciate the camaraderie that develops in linguistics, but some days I feel a little tired of seeing the same five people in my classes, many of whom are graduate students. That's where being part of a larger university comes in handy—there are always plenty of opportunities (curricular or otherwise) to find something new, or at least slip into easy anonymity for a while. The linguistics major isn't exactly the best of both small and large school experiences, but it may be about as close as you can get here.

Josh Wright is a junior in Jonathan Edwards.

Glimpse of the rising sun

Imagine, for a moment, no naps in SSS 114 and no classes in Davies Auditorium. Imagine no mass e-mails from some secretary informing you that a registration deadline for your major is coming up. Imagine all of the professors in the department knowing your name or recognizing your face. If you major in Japanese, this is what your Yale experience is like.

On top of all this, there are only nine required courses after the prerequisites, contrary to 12 found in other majors such as economics and history. So why is only one student majoring in Japanese this year? It is a matter of background and experience. When you speak Japanese with your mother at home, placing out of the language requirement isn't too difficult. Occasionally, a native speaker pops up in a Japanese class just to scare everyone else.

But if you start from scratch and don't take intensive beginning Japanese your freshman year, it's quite an obstacle to major in this subject without studying it in the summer. To this end, there are fellowships galore, and the professors advocate going abroad much more than Undergraduate Career Services does. Envision going to Japan for a summer or even for an entire year absolutely free. It's called the Light Fellowship, a Japanese major's best friend.

I came to Yale wanting to major in Japanese, and it's been the perfect choice for me. The TA I had last semester was quite possibly the best one I've ever had at Yale. Yes, a good TA! And there are no lecture classes at all. Professors know you well enough to know your weak points, too; the personal attention is incredible. You can't ask for much more.

Keiko Snell is a senior in Pierson.

Et tu? Anyone? Anyone?

It's hard for me to figure out exactly how I ended up as a Latin major.

Sometimes it seems as though I just fell into it. I certainly wasn't intending to concentrate in Classics when I came to Yale—I was going to be a biology major. But then I took Directed Studies and a course on religion in the polis offered by the Greek department, and I suppose it revived my interest in ancient times and stirred up my love of Greek and Latin literature. Before I knew it, I was a Classics major. I could have concentrated in Greek, but Latin is my stronger language, and anyway the Greek department is just too large. (By "large," I mean it has three or four seniors, as opposed to the two in Latin.) I like being in a small department. The professors are all friendly,accessible (by now I've had classes with most of them), and entertainingly quirky, as professors ought to be. I've also had classes with many of the grad students, not to mention my fellow Classics majors. The Classics library is a fine place to study, and everyone knows Carla, the charming Classics librarian, who has been around longer than anyone.

Learning Latin is not like learning most other languages. I've seen many freshman take intro Latin as an easy way to satisfy their language requirement and get into trouble when they realize that a dead language is harder, not easier, to master. It has less "wiggle room": every word and phrase has amazing depth and breadth, and anyone who attempts composition will discover how infuriatingly subtle Latin style can be. To learn Latin is to learn a new way of thinking about language.

Over the centuries, every word ever written by the Romans has accrued a patina of scholarship, so that the Latin major encompasses not just the Latin language, but Classical philology, philosophy, and the history of Classical art, culture, and politics. Thus the Classics major has more room for exploration than just about any other department—and can rightfully be called the real humanities major.

Isaac Meyers is a senior in Branford.

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