The United States Office of Education today made known that modern Hebrew has been designated among 18 languages selected as deserving special attention by a national conference of Near and Middle East language experts conducted by the Modern Language Association of America. Announcement was made that approximately $1, 400, 000 of current appropriations are being expended for support of Near and Middle East language and area studies under National Defense Education Act programs.
For 1960-61, two centers are designated to teach modern Hebrew. They are the universities of Utah and California. A center for modern Hebrew supported by the program exists at Harvard University. Reference grammars of both spoken and modern literary Hebrew will be prepared, one by Professor Haim Blane of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem working under supervision of the Center for Applied Linguistics of the Modern Language Association of America, the other by Professor Gene Schramm of the University of California at Berkeley.
Modern Hebrew was placed on a par in importance with such languages as modern Greek, Turkish, and Pashto, the Afghan national tongue, A total of 38 language fellow-ship awards in Arabic were made for the 1960-61 academic year. Nine similar awards were made for study of Hebrew, eight for Persian, and six for Turkish.
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