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IN SEPTEMBER 1999 the Modern Language Association finished compiling the figures from its fall 1998 survey of foreign language registration in United States institutions of higher education. The latest survey is the nineteenth in a series conducted since 1958 with the support of grants from the United States Department of Education (or from its predecessor, the United States Office of Education). This document presents fall 1998 registration for individual languages and examines trends through time.

Using procedures developed for previous surveys, the MLA sent a questionnaire to the registrars of 2,836 two- and four-year institutions, soliciting information on credit-bearing registrations for fall 1998 in all language courses other than English. Although instructions on the questionnaire made clear that the survey was seeking information on all courses offered by the language departments and programs on the campuses of these institutions, the MLA has no way of knowing whether the registrars in all cases provided complete information. In the current investigation, the questionnaire was not distributed until mid-October 1998, to insure that the figures provided were final (or nearly so) rather than preliminary. After the first mailing in mid-October, a second mailing was sent in late November, a third in mid-February 1999, and a series of follow-up telephone calls were begun in April.

All but 73 of the institutions receiving the initial survey mailing, or 97.43%, eventually responded. Among the respondents, 2,467, or 87%, reported having fall 1998 registrations in at least one language other than English. Of the responses, 924, or 37%, are from two-year colleges, and 1,543 are from four-year institutions. A small percentage of both categories report that no language courses were offered at their institutions during the fall 1998 term: 8.4% of the responding four-year institutions and 14.4% of the two-year colleges.

Fall 1998 Registrations

Table 1 summarizes the results of the fall 1998 survey and compares the fall 1998 registrations in the fifteen most commonly taught languages with those in 1995, the year of the previous survey. The languages are listed in order of size of enrollments with the largest first. The table also shows an aggregate count for the 138 other languages for which enrollment data were reported. Total registrations for those other languages appear in table 6. As table 1 shows, the total of foreign language registrations for 1998 exceeded that for 1995 by 4.8%. It is also the highest total ever recorded since the beginning of the MLA surveys.

The list of the fifteen languages shows clear groupings: Spanish is in a class by itself, followed by French and German; Italian and Japanese; Chinese, Latin, and Russian; ancient Greek, American Sign Language (ASL), and biblical Hebrew; Portuguese, Modern Hebrew, Arabic, and Korean.

When the list is arranged by percentage growth, the following groupings can be identified: ASL and biblical Hebrew, each above 60%; Korean (34%) and Arabic (23.9%); Spanish, Chinese, and Italian (above 7%), plus Portuguese (6%); Latin and ancient Greek (each 1% or less). French, Japanese, and Russian each decreased by more than 3%; German by 7.5%; and Modern Hebrew by 10%. Five languages experienced a less than 4% variation from the previous survey--ancient Greek, French, Japanese, Latin, and Russian--and thus can be said, whether registrations went up or down, to have had reasonably stable enrollments from 1995 to 1998.

Foreign Language Registrations by Undergraduates in Two- and Four-Year Colleges and Graduate Programs

Tables 2a and 2b show foreign language registrations of undergraduates and graduate students; the undergraduate population is further defined by two-year and four-year institutions. Undergraduate registrations, which had declined 6.2% from 1990 to 1995, rose 4.6% but are still 1.8% below the high of 1990. Graduate registrations declined 15.2% from 1995 to 1998. Enrollments in graduate schools have fluctuated within a range of 5,000 students since 1983 and have never again equaled the high of 1974 (see table 2c).

Foreign language registrations in two-year colleges, which underwent a growth spurt of 40.2% between 1986 and 1990, have continued to rise, 3.6% from 1990 to 1995 and 8.8% from 1995 to 1998, reaching a new high. In comparison, overall enrollments in two-year colleges increased 12% from 1986 to 1990 and 17.5% from 1986 to 1996, the latest year for which enrollment data is available (Digest 197, table 173). The 924 two-year colleges listed in the survey, which are 37% of all the institutions reporting language registrations in 1998, account for 38% of the total growth. From 1995 to 1998 Spanish increased 10%, slightly more than the overall total, and French and German declined very slightly. Spanish now represents 69.7% of all two-year college language registrations; it is perhaps worth noting that 10% of responding two-year colleges are in California, where there is a large Spanish-speaking population. Two-year college enrollments in ASL, which accounted for 79% of the ASL total in 1995 and 61% of its total in 1998, more than doubled between 1995 and 1998 and represented nearly half of the overall increase in those enrollments. A similar story can be told for Arabic, where the number of four-year undergraduates increased by only 95 registrations, and the bulk of the increase, 962, or 90%, occurred at the two-year level.

Trends in Language Registrations

Figure 1 shows trends through time in total foreign language registrations, which grew steeply in the 1960s, decreased in the 1970s, and rose again in the 1990s. The three surveys of the 1990s show higher enrollments than at any other time since the MLA began collecting this data. However, total college enrollments have grown at a greater rate than foreign language enrollments; the difference in the two growth rates is shown in table 3. Since 1977, as the increase in the number of college students has leveled off and enrollments in foreign language registrations have expanded, registrations in modern foreign languages have been stable, ranging from 7.3 per hundred students to 8.2. For this year's survey, the proportion is slightly better than that of 1977, but not quite as high as that of 1990.

Table 4 presents trends in registrations in the twelve most commonly taught modern foreign languages (that is, excluding Latin and ancient Greek) between 1960 and 1998, and the percentage of change between selected periods: 1960-70, 1970-80, 1980-90, 1990-95, and 1995-98. Spanish is and has been the most widely taught of all languages in colleges and universities since 1970 (see table 4) and now accounts for more than half of all registrations (see table 5). The next largest grouping, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Latin, and Russian represent 38.5% of all students studying languages. Since their high points in 1970 (see table 4), French has lost 44.6% and German 56.1%, but they now seem to have stabilized with much smaller decreases than in the previous survey.

The languages with the smaller enrollments, which in some cases show very dramatic increases, still account for a very small percentage of the number of students studying languages. ASL, Portuguese, Arabic, and Korean, which grew significantly in terms of percentages, account for only 2.5% of total registrations. Between 1970 and 1995 Japanese increased more than six and one-half times; Chinese increased four times during those twenty-five years. The greatest period of growth for both languages occurred during the 1980s; however, they now are experiencing more modest variation and still represent 6% of all student enrollments.

Figure 2 contrasts the registrations in Spanish, from 1960 through the 1998 study, with those in all other foreign languages taught at the college level. While slightly higher in 1998, languages other than Spanish are lower than they were in 1968 in spite of the increase overall in the 1980s. Spanish registrations, however, have increased consistently since 1960 and have progressively accounted for a greater percentage of all registrations. For this survey the number of students studying Spanish went up 50,304, while students studying all other languages increased 4,376; including Latin and Greek, the increase was 4,754.

Figure 3 shows trends through time in the number of registrations in the seven next most commonly taught languages in 1998. The trends in French and German are similar: strong growth during the 1960s and a drop by the 1980s. While French recovered somewhat in the 1980s, it has declined again through the 1990s. German made a modest recovery from 1986 to 1990 but has declined since. Russian shows great variability, declining steeply in the 1970s and 1990s but growing during the 1960s and 1980s. Latin, whose high point was in 1968, had maintained consistent levels despite modest fluctuations. Registrations in Italian, Chinese, and Japanese grew consistently from 1960 to 1990, but during the 1990s slightly different patterns have emerged: Chinese continues to grow, Japanese has declined slightly, and Italian has nearly recovered the decline that it experienced from 1990 to the 1995 survey.

Less Commonly Taught Languages

During the 1960s, languages we now call "less commonly taught" were designated "critical" or "strategic" by government entities and the MLA. Until the 1986 survey, the seven most commonly taught languages in United States colleges and universities were Spanish, French, German, Italian, Latin, Russian, and ancient Greek. By the 1986 survey, however, Japanese became the seventh most commonly taught language, replacing ancient Greek; by 1995 it moved up to fourth place, and it now stands in the fifth position in spite of small declines. Chinese has retained its position since 1995 as the sixth most commonly taught language. For this report, both ASL and Korean have been included in the list of most commonly taught languages for the first time even though their percentage of registrations is very small (see table 1). Biblical and Modern Hebrew have been separated for this table; this division, with the addition of ASL and Korean, accounts for the increase from twelve to sixteen categories including "other languages."

Table 6 provides information about enrollment data by level and type of institution for the 138 other languages not listed elsewhere, that is, in tables 1, 2a-c, and 5. Students enrolled in 14, or 11.2%, more languages than were reported for 1995. Of these 138 languages, 32 are indigenous to Europe, 39 to the Middle East or Africa, 30 to Asia or the Pacific, and 37 to North or South America (see table 7). In 1995, when ASL and Korean were included in the less commonly taught list, enrollments reached 24,918 and had grown 84% since 1968 registrations of 13,618. When ASL and Korean are added to the total 17,771 for other languages in this report, the new total of 33,670 registrations represents a rise of 351% for all the less commonly taught languages.

One group in the less commonly taught category, Native American languages, has experienced considerable expansion since 1974 as shown in the 1998 registrations for the leading fourteen of these languages (see table 8). Following national trends, enrollments dipped in 1980 and began to climb slowly through the rest of the decade: 9.8% from 1980 to 1986, 41% from 1986 to 1990, and much more steeply, 111.5%, from 1990 to 1995. In spite of a slight decline of 6.5% from 1995 to 1998, enrollments in these languages have more than doubled since 1974, experiencing a growth of 136.4%.

In conclusion, the statistics on registrations in foreign languages in United States institutions of higher education show that Spanish is clearly the language of choice for students who study languages, and it occupies a significant place in the undergraduate curriculum. The figures also show that the number of students who are studying other languages is decreasing, but that these students are pursuing a greater variety of languages. While some of the more commonly taught languages do not enjoy the enrollments they once did, several of those once considered less commonly taught can now be counted among those more typically studied in graduate and undergraduate programs.

The authors are, respectively, Director of Special Projects (now retired) and Director of Foreign Language Programs and ADFL at the Modern Language Association.

	Undergraduate Registrations in Four-Year Institutions				Graduate Registrations				Totals
	1990	1995	1998		1990	1995	1998		1990	1995	1998
Spanish	391,431	432,133	468,040	8,690	10,936	9,046	400,121	443,069	477,086
French	220,980	168,027	164,407	7,126	6,809	4,850	228,106	174,836	169,257
German	109,961	80,393	74,437	4,305	4,181	2,938	114,266	84,574	77,375
Italian	40,599	36,287	41,216	815	1,043	925	41,414	37,330	42,141
Japanese	34,522	33,888	32,588	887	1,406	1,334	35,409	35,294	33,922
Latin	26,311	24,030	24,411	958	1,040	894	27,269	25,070	25,305
Chinese	15,148	20,966	22,472	836	1,042	1,220	15,984	22,008	23,692
Russian	39,468	21,305	20,541	1,686	1,424	964	41,154	22,729	21,505
Ancient  Greek	11,367	11,666	11,738	4,751	4,385	4,471	16,118	16,051	16,209
Hebrewa	8,596	8,860	11,740	3,613	3,448	3,560	12,209	12,308	15,300
Portuguese	5,516	5,359	5,958	330	710	488	5,846	6,069	6,446
American  Sign  Language	439	852	4,254	23	58	163	462	910	4,417
Arabic	2,687	3,807	3,902	365	441	445	3,052	4,248	4,347
Korean	2,099	2,943	3,546	46	231	309	2,145	3,174	3,855
Other  languages	10,968	12,877	14,254	1,197	1,523	1,196	12,165	14,400	15,450
Total	920,092	863,393	903,504	35,628	38,677	32,803	955,720	902,070	936,307
Percentage     change	NA	-6.2	4.6	NA	8.6	-15.2	NA	-5.6	3.8

Fig. 1 Modern Foreign Language Registrations by Year

Note: The above numbers include all registrations except those in Latin and ancient Greek.

Fig. 2 Registrations in Spanish and All Other Modern Foreign Languages by Year

aIncludes all registrations except those in Latin and ancient Greek.

Fig. 3 Registrations in Seven Commonly Taught Foreign Languages in Selected Years

a1960 figure for Latin is not available.

Note

Data were compiled and verified by the project's research assistant, Robert Blondeau, with the assistance of Neil Balavram, of the MLA Computer Center, and Natalia Lusin, Assistant Director of Information Services.

Work Cited

Digest of Education Statistics 1998, National Center for Education Statistics, p. 197, table 173.

© 2000 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.