@fzzfzzfzzz Mostly the same way as everyone else - if you don't already know it, you take courses. Different area specialties have different language expectations. You'll generally be expected to master the core languages in your specialty before entering a PhD program...
@fzzfzzfzzz ...so say, Russian if you are a Russianist, or Latin/Greek for an ancient Med. specialist.
You may also have 'research' or 'reading' languages - languages where you just need to be able to make sense of scholarship.
You may also have 'research' or 'reading' languages - languages where you just need to be able to make sense of scholarship.
@fzzfzzfzzz Universities that train graduate students will generally have single semester crash courses designed to get you to the point where you can read the most common of these (German and French, typically) in a single semester.
It's not great, but necessary.
It's not great, but necessary.
@fzzfzzfzzz For my field (Roman History) those research languages are still necessary, but less and less as time goes on and more European scholars publish in English in order to get the widest possible audience, though the requirements will stick around a long time to read key older works.
@fzzfzzfzzz In terms of core languages, the level of expertise expected can vary. For modern languages, fluency is functionally always expected for specialists in that field.
Ancient historians are, in my experience, generally expected to take more Latin than medievalists.
Ancient historians are, in my experience, generally expected to take more Latin than medievalists.
@fzzfzzfzzz But then medievalists often have to also master the medieval variants of their modern languages (medieval French, Italian, etc).
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