BA Modern Greek and Arabic
About this course
Combining Modern Greek with Arabic places two of the world's historically significant languages at the centre of your undergraduate education. Modern Greek connects you to one of Europe's oldest continuous literary and philosophical traditions, as well as to contemporary Hellenic culture, media, and society. Arabic opens the door to one of the world's great civilisations, a language spoken by hundreds of millions of people across more than twenty countries, and the vehicle for an extraordinary body of literature, philosophy, science, and theology that has shaped intellectual history from the early medieval period to the present day. Studying these two languages at Oxford over four years of full-time study is an intellectually demanding undertaking that yields unusually rich rewards. You will develop real proficiency in both languages, working with literary, historical, and contemporary texts as well as developing spoken and written competence. The programme encourages you to think comparatively about linguistic structure, literary form, and cultural exchange, and the historical connections between the Greek-speaking and Arabic-speaking worlds give this particular pairing considerable coherence. The Mediterranean basin was for centuries a zone of intense contact between these cultures, and that history informs many of the texts and questions you will encounter. You will develop sophisticated analytical and interpretive skills, learn to work with primary sources in their original languages, and engage with the scholarship produced in multiple academic traditions. Graduates who have studied two languages at this level, particularly combinations as rare as Modern Greek and Arabic, stand out in competitive fields. Careers in diplomacy, international relations, and government are natural destinations, as are roles in international journalism, translation, and interpretation. Academic research, law, finance with a regional focus, and the work of international organisations such as the United Nations also draw heavily on graduates with this kind of linguistic depth. Teaching and further study at postgraduate level in area studies, linguistics, or comparative literature are also well-established paths.
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