We live in a very multi-lingual world - there are approximately 7,000 spoken languages, according to Ethnologue. 

And we live in a very multi-lingual country - more than 47 million people in the U.S. speak languages other than English at home, and more than 300 languages are spoken in U.S. households, according to the FAQ pages on the Language Map of the Modern Language Association.

Penn State, like other colleges and universities, offers instruction in a selected range of languages.  The offerings available in any semester or summer session, at any Penn State campus, can be found through the Schedule of Classes website, and course descriptions are provided in the Baccalaureate Degree Bulletin. 

The Less Commonly Taught Languages Initiative (LCTL Initiative), a strategic planning project of Penn State's Department of Comparative Literature, aims to expand language awareness and language study by highlighting languages that students may not have had the opportunity to study in high school.  The project has several goals:

1.  To provide information about studying a Less Commonly Taught Language at Penn State, and to provide links to information about further languages.

2.  To help students and advisors locate ways to use additional languages within Penn State's degree programs, by bringing together information about options such as Credit by Examination, Non-Credit Proficiency Evaluation, opportunities to learn languages through Education Abroad, Distance Education, the Penn State Language Placement Policy, etc.

3.  As funding and other practical considerations permit, to expand the number of languages, or levels within particular languages, taught at Penn State.

Please visit the pages on this site to find out more, and, if you have questions, contact us.