By Janine Dumaguin
The prestigious Harvard University in the United States is set to offer a Tagalog language course for the upcoming academic year, the first time it will offer a course on the language.
The Harvard Crimson, the university’s publication, said on March 4 that the Department of South Asian Studies will hire preceptors to teach Tagalog, the “fourth most spoken language in the United States.”
The East Asian Languages and Civilizations professor and Asia Center director James Robson said the administration was able to get one million dollars from the Asia Center’s budget to fund the Tagalog preceptor position.
“What I’m hoping is that if we can demonstrate that there’s demand for these languages and students show up and are excited about it, then hopefully we can also use this to convince the administration to further support Southeast Asian studies generally and language instruction in particular,” Robson added.
However, Robson noted that funding the position after three years is “probably not entirely sustainable.”
Meanwhile, according to the report, Harvard does not have a Southeast Asian Studies department but has one course on the Philippines, which is a survey course on the history of the region.
The co-president of the Harvard Philippine Forum, Eleanor Wikstrom, said that they have petitioned Harvard administrators to offer courses in Tagalog, as it is one of their goals.
“We’re working against a historical memory that is actively erasing the understanding of the importance of the Filipino-American relationship,” Wikstrom added.
Along with Tagalog, the university will also offer Bahasa Indonesian and Thai languages courses. -ag
