{"id":637,"date":"2010-12-13T12:57:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T12:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/12\/polyglot-meme\/"},"modified":"2010-12-13T12:57:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T12:57:00","slug":"polyglot-meme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/12\/polyglot-meme.html","title":{"rendered":"Polyglot Meme"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The new Facebook profile prominently features a place to list the languages you know. I never know what to write in such cases. Should I include only languages I can converse in completely fluently? Ones that I can read but not really speak \u2013 or speak but not really read? Ones that are rather rusty? Ones that I\u2019m in the process of learning?<\/p>\n

The matter of degrees of literacy and fluency is familiar to those who study the ancient world of Jesus and the earliest Christians. Questions like \u201cHow many people could read?\u201d or \u201cWould Jews from Nazareth have known Greek?\u201d are impossible to answer, but even if we could answer them it would almost certainly require a spectrum of degrees and nuances, from \u201cYes, fluently\u201d to \u201cEnough to trade\u201d to \u201cA little\u201d to \u201cNo\u201d as well as every possible answer in between.<\/p>\n

And so I\u2019ve decided to start a meme, asking those tagged to list every language that they have made some sort of concerted effort to learn, even if they didn\u2019t get beyond the first lesson or so, or even if they are still learning it. No need to specify the degree of fluency in the blog post \u2013 if readers are curious how much Swahili you know, they can ask.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my list:<\/p>\n

Albanian
Arabic (Eastern, Egyptian, Modern Standard)
Aramaic\/Mandaic\/Syriac
English
Coptic
Farsi (Persian)
French
German
Greek (Koine, Modern)
Hebrew (Biblical, Modern)
Hindi
Hungarian
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Latvian
Lithuanian
Mandarin Chinese
Romanian
Russian
Serbo-Croat
Slovak
Spanish
Swedish
Tamil<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I tag George<\/a>, Steve Caruso<\/a>, Mike Aubrey<\/a>, Jim Getz<\/a>,\u00a0Chris Heard<\/a>, Chris Brady<\/a>, and anyone who reads this and thinks it would be fun to join in.<\/p>\n

Feel free to comment on the glaring omissions from my list. I can hear the comments now: \u201cYou\u2019ve never even tried<\/i>\u00a0to learn Klingon?!?!\u201d<\/p>\n

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The new Facebook profile prominently features a place to list the languages you know. I never know what to write in such cases. Should I include only languages I can converse in completely fluently? Ones that I can read but not really speak \u2013 or speak but not really read? Ones that are rather rusty? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPolyglot Meme<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The new Facebook profile prominently features a place to list the languages you know. I never know what to write in such cases. 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