I plan to strive to acquire possibly only one but probably two languages in addition to my native language, English. I plan to choose which language or languages to strive to acquire as a function of the amount of 'scholarly'/'academic' material/activity which exists within the language. So, although it is probably clear at this point, this is my question: Which languages contain the most 'scholarly'/'academic' material/activity?
I. Ryan: I plan to strive to acquire possibly only one but probably two languages in addition to my native language, English. I plan to choose which language or languages to strive to acquire as a function of the amount of 'scholarly'/'academic' material/activity which exists within the language. So, although it is probably clear at this point, this is my question: Which languages contain the most 'scholarly'/'academic' material/activity?
Depends on what you want to study. Perhaps French for the scholastics like Turgot, or maybe German to understand the Historical school. Russian to read primary sources from the Bolsheviki, maybe Italian to learn the Merchant law. Perhaps Spanish for the Franciscan scholars. This question reminds me of the lecture by Murray Rothbard called Ideology and Theory in History where he stated that Mises once told him that European historians should know seven languages to which people began to grumble about, but like Mises said 'No one is forcing you to be a historian'
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If I learn another language, it will be Mandarin.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
Perhaps not exactly what you're looking for, but as a second language, Mandarin is second to none, in terms of potential applications in life.
However, if you're coming from an English background, it will quite literally take you 3-5x as long to learn Mandarin as it would a language like Spanish, German or French.
I certainly do not regret choosing to study it.
liberty student: If I learn another language, it will be Mandarin.
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I would go with Mandarin. Perhaps there were libertarian Chinese 1000 years ago.
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I know Spanish and English fluently (both as native languages). I'm a bit older (22), so my real chance to learn a third language was really wasted, but if I had an opportunity to learn another language it would be French.
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Bevin Chu has an interesting commentary on laissez faire and/or libertarian thinkers from China: http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2007/09/chinese-liberalism-vs-western.html
For libertarian and classical liberal works, I would go for French and Spanish. French, for the writings of the great thinkers and revolutionaries of the time who played a major role in both the Enlightmenment and the development of classical liberal philosophy, and Spanish, for deciphering the Scholastics and others who helped contribute to early classical liberal conceptions of economy, political and otherwise.
Praetyre: Bevin Chu has an interesting commentary on laissez faire and/or libertarian thinkers from China: http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2007/09/chinese-liberalism-vs-western.html For libertarian and classical liberal works, I would go for French and Spanish. French, for the writings of the great thinkers and revolutionaries of the time who played a major role in both the Enlightmenment and the development of classical liberal philosophy, and Spanish, for deciphering the Scholastics and others who helped contribute to early classical liberal conceptions of economy, political and otherwise.
I think most of the work done by the Spanish Scholastics was in Latin and not Spanish.
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Solid_Choke:I think most of the work done by the Spanish Scholastics was in Latin and not Spanish.
MMm depends. Latin was dying out during the medieval days, breaking up into French, Spanish, German, Italian and English. Vernacular was becoming more common.
Nitroadict: liberty student: If I learn another language, it will be Mandarin. I'm hoping Korean & Japanese will be somewhat consolation languages, as I've already occasionally studied both (on & off, of course); the thought of trying to learn 3 languages at a time makes my head hurt :\ I suppose I could at least pick up the mini- Berlitz travel book for Mandarin if I ever come across it, though lol.
Try http://chinesepod.com/
French, German, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin and for academic purposes Latin. Any of these is good.
To darkness I condemn you...
I'm pretty sure you meant Latin was being replaced in scholarly works by the native tongues of the scholars, Laughing Man, but the way you word it makes it sound like you're claiming Latin was in common use and somehow gave birth to English and German(although I wouldn't reject the idea that modern English is a romance language, considering how much of it does trace back to Latin).
Keynes must've been a fan of Brave New World; why else would he write a book about its economics?
German is good for logic. It's the only other language I know. I learned much from learning it.
"...The post-totalitarian system contrives to force life into its most probable states...This system serves people only to the extent necessary to ensure that people will serve it
Vaclav Havel
Scholarly work aside. Learning spanish will give you language access to an extremely large percentage of the planet earth. Covering almost the entire latin america region and parts of europe. From spanish you can branch off to Italian, filipino, and various other languages across the world. Between knowing English and Spanish you can practically be capable of speaking almost across half the known globe. So if you like the idea of travel, your options would be further expanded to you.
Thats my imo and I am generalizing for the most part on the geography.
Statism is a religion.
As for the present day - you are a very lucky man! English is the language of the science.
If you must... I would probably choose Russian, but thinking of the future - Spanish has remarkable potential.
Portuguese.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
GilesStratton: Portuguese.
Brazilian Portuguese or Portuguese Portuguese?
Why?
BioTube:I'm pretty sure you meant Latin was being replaced in scholarly works by the native tongues of the scholars, Laughing Man, but the way you word it makes it sound like you're claiming Latin was in common use and somehow gave birth to English and German(although I wouldn't reject the idea that modern English is a romance language, considering how much of it does trace back to Latin).
I've studied linguistics a bit as a hobby, and let me say that English barely resembles a Romance language. It takes a lot more than shared vocabulary. I think this is a good thing, though, because I'm personally more inclined to Germanic languages than Romance languages. :-P
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