The

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

Department of African, Middle Eastern, South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL) is dedicated to the study of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

, and

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...

. It is the primary academic home of sixteen core faculty and seven part-time lecturers. AMESALL provides instruction in over a dozen languages from these three regions. It offers courses taught in English and regional languages such as Arabic and Hindi, and regularly hosts events such as lectures, workshops, and conferences for the student body, the faculty, and the general public. Rutgers students can enroll in an undergraduate major program of study (with separate regional and comparative options), an undergraduate minor, and a post-baccalaureate Translation Certificate program, which is also open to non-matriculated students. The AMESALL Department is located in Lucy Stone Hall on the Livingston Campus in

Piscataway, NJ Piscataway () is a township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. It is a suburb of the New York metropolitan area, in the Raritan Valley. At the 2010 United States Census, the population was 56,044, an increase of 5,562 (+11.0%) fr ...

, part of Rutgers-New Brunswick campus.

Programs of Study

AMESALL currently offers 2 Major and 4 Minor programs: Major Programs include the Regional Option and the Comparative Option. Both options require at least 6 credits in upper level language courses within the department. They also both require additional credits in literature, sociolinguistics and linguistics, with the Regional Option requiring 18 credits and the Comparative Option requiring 12 credits.

Language offerings

AMESALL regularly provides several years of instruction in about a dozen languages of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, including: *

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, including Classical Arabic,

Egyptian Arabic Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( ar, العامية المصرية, ), or simply Masri (also Masry) (), is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic dialect in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and ...

, and

Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also ref ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

is taught by the Rutgers University Jewish Studies Department, but individual sections are also offered through AMESALL. *

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

* Swahili * Turkish *

Twi Twi () is a dialect of the Akan language spoken in southern and central Ghana by several million people, mainly of the Akan people, the largest of the seventeen major ethnic groups in Ghana. Twi has about 17-18 million speakers in total, includ ...

Yoruba The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

*Other languages, including

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

, and

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

are offered at the elementary level and occasionally higher levels of instruction. Multiple levels of

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

are also available through the Rutgers Armenian Studies Program. *In 2014, AMESALL added

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Ousseina Alidou Ousseina D. Alidou (born March 29, 1963) is an Africanist scholar focusing on Muslim women, and a professor in the Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literature at Rutgers University. She received a Master of Art ...

, Associate Professor, African Languages and Literatures, Director of the

Rutgers University Center for African Studies Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was a ...

Maryam Borjian Maryam may refer to: * Maryam Castle, a castle in Kermanshah Province, Iran * Maryam (name), a feminine given name (the Aramaic and Arabic form of Miriam, Mary) * Mary in Islam * Maryam (surah), 19th sura of the Qur'an * Maryam, Iran, a village in ...

, Assistant Professor (NTT), Language Coordinator *

Charles G. Häberl Charles G. Häberl (born 1976 in New Jersey, United States) is an American religious studies scholar, linguist, and professor. He is currently Professor of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures ( AMESALL) and Religion ...

, Associate Professor, Chair of African, Middle Eastern, South Asian Languages and Literatures *

Hanan Kashou Hanan may refer to: *Hanan (given name) *Hanan (surname) * Hanan International Airport, Niue * a 2004 film directed by Makarand Deshpande See also * Hamam (disambiguation) * Haman (disambiguation) * Baal-hanan Baal-hanan (Hebrew: בַּעַל ח ...

, Assistant Professor (NTT), Arabic Language *

Yasmine Khayyat Yasmin, Yasmine, or Yasmina may refer to: People * Yasmin (given name), a feminine given name, and sometimes surname * Yasmin (musician) (born 1993), English singer, songwriter, and DJ * Yasmine (pornographic actress), Yasmine Lafitte, French actre ...

, Assistant Professor, Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures *

Benjamin Koerber Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...

, Assistant Professor, Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures * Moses Mabayoje, Full Time Lecturer, Yoruba * Preetha Mani, Assistant Professor, South Asian Languages and Literatures * Alamin Mazrui, Full Professor, African Languages and Literatures * Anjali Nerlekar, Assistant Professor, South Asian Languages and Literatures * Shaheen Parveen, Full Time Lecturer, Hindi *

Samah Selim Samah Selim is an Egyptian scholar and translator of Arabic literature. She studied English literature at Barnard College, and obtained her PhD from Columbia University in 1997. At present she is an associate professor at the Department of Africa ...

, Associate Professor, Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures * Meheli Sen, Assistant Professor, South Asian Languages and Literatures and Cinema Studies *

Paul Sprachman Paul Sprachman (born 26 May 1947) is a professor emeritus who taught at Rutgers University in the United States. He earned his PhD degree from University of Chicago in 1981. He has worked and studied in Afghanistan and Iran for a number of years. ...

, Assistant Professor (NTT), Persian * Ferhan Tunagur, Full Time Lecturer, Turkish

References

External links

The Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures

African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures on Facebook

African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures on Twitter

A Department Blossoms as it Embraces Three Distant Regions
{{Rutgers Rutgers University African studies Middle Eastern studies Indology