The Study of Modern Foreign Languages in the Italy of the Past and Present

Abstract

T HE inclusion of the study of modern foreign languages in the curricula of high schools, colleges and universities is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Yet language problems and their solution must have existed in ancient civilizations just as they do today. There is evidence that Greek was studied in schools in Rome and in the Latin provinces of the Roman Empire. We do not know, however, how, in those days, one went about learning a language that was not his own. It is reasonable to presume that some of the present-day methods employed in the study of foreign languages also existed in one way or another in ancient times. In other words, such obvious devices as residence in a foreign country and the use of native speakers must have been employed then as they are now. We know, for example, that Cato the Elder learned Greek from teacher-slaves. St. Augustine who lived about 400 A.D. describes, in his Confessions, a method for learning the Greek language which is very similar to the direct method in use today. During the period of Christianization and conversions, the missionary work that was conducted among non-Latin, non-Greek speaking peoples must have been based upon some conversational knowledge of the languages of the groups concerned. Phrase-books similar to the Glosses of Kassel, designed to enable Germanic students to speak vulgar Latin remind us very much of the present-day phrase books used by travellers to foreign countries and by our GI's during the last war. But in ancient times there was no such thing as formal academic instruction in foreign languages of any sort. Even when great universities were founded as schools in which all the ordinary forms of learning were taught, foreign languages were not included among the subjects of study. And indeed there was no need for them in the universities, since Latin was the international language used by all scholars. During the twelfth century Bologna had a famous school of law which was of great importance not only because it attracted students from all over Europe, but also because, as some believe, the study of Roman law must have aroused an interest in the study of the Latin classics, a fact which marks the beginning of modern education. Later, during the thirteenth century, Bologna established faculties for the teaching of all the known branches of knowledge, e.g., faculty of arts which included rhetoric,