WLC faculty teach all levels of language from beginner to advanced. They also offer first-year seminars and courses taught in English about their language and culture. You can use your knowledge of all WLC languages to fulfill the language requirement for the Certificate in Intercultural Competence. To learn about all of our language courses and to meet our faculty check out the information below!
Center for Language Studies
World Languages and Cultures ~ WLC
World Language & Cultures Undergraduate Award
The Center for Language Studies and World Languages and Cultures (WLC) accepts submissions every May for these annual awards of at least $250 each to encourage and support students who are pursuing a language taught by faculty in WLC.
Announcing the 2024 Award Winners
Many congratulations to this year's winners of the WLC Award for Deeper Engagement in Languages and Cultures: Stephen Ogunbiyi (Yoruba) and Manav Musunuru (Hindi).
Languages Offered Through WLC
American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual-spatial language that utilizes “the shape, placement, and movement of the hands” along with non-manual markers (facial expressions, mouth morphemes, and body movement) to convey information and communicate complex ideas.
Hindi is the second most widely spoken language of the world. You’ll be able to have a conversation with more than 700 million friends!
Persian is a thriving modern language spoken by over 110 million people across the Middle East and Central Asia. Once a language of high cultural prestige and the language of choice for many empires, it was a dominant lingua franca from Turkey in the West to India in the East until at least the 18th century.
Swahili is important as a lingua franca in Africa and is spoken by over 140 million people. It is the national or official language of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and is spoken in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Comoro Islands, Malawi, east Zaire, southern Somalia, northern Mozambique, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Northern Zambia.
Brown University is one of the few North American institutions to benefit from a Turkish program. The Turkish Program offers courses from elementary to advanced levels.