We are pleased to launch this online library exhibition that celebrates the magnificent diversity of languages that advance research, teaching, and learning at the University of California, Berkeley. It is the point of embarkation for an exciting sequential exhibit that will build on one post per week, showcasing an array of digitized works in the original language chosen by those who work with these languages on a daily basis — librarians, professors, lecturers, staff, and students. Many of these early-published works are now in the public domain and are open to the world to read and share without restriction.
Since its founding in 1868, students and faculty at UC Berkeley have concerned themselves with a breathtaking range of languages. In support of teaching and research, the University Library, which collects and preserves materials in all languages, now boasts a collection of more than thirteen million volumes. It is among the largest academic libraries in the U.S. with more than one third of its print resources in more than 500 non-English languages.
The Languages of Berkeley as defined by this exhibition are the fifty nine modern and ancient languages that are currently taught across fourteen departments on campus plus a few more languages that contributors wished to include. Linking the languages and works, the online exhibit will reach completion in the Spring of 2020 and then be archived with other online library exhibits. From September 2019 to August 2020, a physical companion exhibition will be installed in Moffitt Library’s Free Speech Movement Café, providing a prominent physical interstice with the online instance. It is our hope that it nourishes and inspires intellectual curiosity and creativity and an appreciation for learning a foreign language.
This exhibition is made possible with the contributions of all listed below and through the support of the UC Berkeley Library. It is co-sponsored by the Berkeley Language Center (BLC). We hope you enjoy!
Claude Potts
Librarian for Romance Language Collections
Aisha Hamilton
Exhibitions Designer
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Universitas Linguarum by Rick Kern
The Promise of Multilingualism by Judith Butler
A Short History of Languages in the UC Berkeley Library by Claude Potts
Featured Languages
Akkadian * American Sign Language * Amharic * Ancient Egyptian * Ancient Greek * Ancient Korean * Arabic * Aramaic * Armenian * Azerbaijani (Azeri) * Bengali * Biblical Hebrew * Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian * Breton * Burmese * Catalan * Chichewa * Chinese * Classical Chinese * Classical Japanese * Coptic * Czech * Danish * Dutch * Filipino (Tagalog) * Finnish * French * German * Hindi * Hittite * Hungarian * Icelandic * Indo-Persian * Irish * Italian * Japanese * Judeo-Persian * Khmer * Korean * Kurdish * Latin * Malay/Indonesian * Medieval Hebrew * Medieval Welsh * Middle Persian * Modern Greek * Modern Hebrew * Mongolian * Mongolian Cyrillic * Music * Nahuatl * Norwegian * Occitan * Old Church Slavonic * Old/Middle Irish * Old Norse * Persian (Farsi) * Polish * Portuguese (Brazil) * Portuguese (Europe) * Prakrit * Panjabi * Romanian * Russian * Sanskrit * Spanish (Europe) * Spanish (Latin America) * Sumerian * Syriac * Swahili * Swedish * Tamil * Telegu * Thai * Tibetan * Turkish * Ugaritic * Urdu * Vietnamese * Welsh * Wolof * Yiddish * Yoruba
Contributors
Robert Alter, Emeritus Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature, Department of Near Eastern Studies; Stephan Astourian, Associate Adjunct Professor, Department of History; Emilie Bergmann, Professor, Department of Spanish & Portuguese; Achille Bocus, Undergraduate, Department of History & Department of Music; Jaeyong Chang, Librarian for the Korean Collections, C.V. Starr East Asian Library; Yael Chaver, Lecturer in Yiddish, Department of German; Adam Clemons, African & African American Studies Librarian; Emily Cole, Postdoctoral Scholar, The Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, The Bancroft Library; Yusmarni Djalius, PhD Student, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies; Myrna Douzjian, Lecturer, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures; Natalia Estrada, Reference & Collections Assistant, Social Sciences Division; Frank Ferko, Music Metadata Librarian, Jean Hargrove Music Library; Taylor Follett, Undergraduate, Department of English; Fedora Gertzman, Arts & Humanities Division; Neil Gali, Administrative Associate, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Ruth Haber, Judaica Specialist; Mohamed Hamed, Middle Eastern & Near Eastern Studies Librarian; John L. Hayes; Lecturer, Department of Near Eastern Studies; Jianye He, Librarian for Chinese Collections, C.V. Starr East Asian Library; Arthit Jiamrattanyoo, PhD Student, Department of History, University of Washington; Rick Kern, Director, Berkeley Language Center; Jesse Loesberg, Web Designer, Library Communications; Carlos Macías Prieto, Graduate Student, Department of Spanish & Portuguese; Adnan Malik, Curator and Cataloger for the South Asia Collection, South/Southeast Asia Library; Toshie Marra, Librarian for the Japanese Collection, C.V. Starr East Asian Library; Raphael Magarik, PhD Student, Department of English; Nasser Meerkhan, Assistant Professor, Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Spanish & Portuguese; Steve Mendoza, Selector for Dutch, Curatorial Assistant & Reference Specialist; Ida Moen Johnson, PhD Student in the Department of Scandinavian; Eric Naiman, Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures; Candace Lukasik, PhD, Department of Anthropology; Jennifer Nelson, Reference Librarian, The Robbins Collection, UC Berkeley School of Law; Jeremy Ott, Classics & Germanic Studies Librarian; Gabrielle Pascua, Undergraduate, Department of History; Liladhar Pendse, Librarian for East European and Eurasian Studies & Librarian for Latin American Studies; Stacy Reardon, Literatures and Digital Humanities Librarian; Ana-Belén Redondo-Campillos, Lecturer, Department of Spanish & Portuguese; Elyse Ritchey, Department of French; Brenda Rosado, PhD Student, Department of Italian Studies; Deborah Rudolph, Curator, C.V. Starr East Asian Library; Virginia Shih, Curator for the Southeast Asia Collection, South/Southeast Asia Library; Shahrzad Shirvani, PhD Student, Architecture, College of Environmental Design; Frank Smith, Lecturer, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies; Troy Smith, PhD Student, Department of Scandinavian; Hanh Tran, Lecturer, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies; Susan Xue, Head, Information and Public Services & Electronic Resources Librarian, C.V. Starr East Asian Library; Alexander Warren Marcus, PhD Student, Department of Religious Studies (Stanford University); Lisa Weber, Project Manager, Library IT; Lotta Weckström, Lecturer, Department of Scandinavian; Kenneth Wong, Lecturer, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies; Jonathan Zwicker, Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures.