ARAMAIC WATCH: Good news for Aramaic, slightly bad news for biblical Hebrew.

Against the backdrop of increasing government support for language programs post-September 11, the MLA, which has conducted its survey periodically (every four years, of late) since 1958, found gains in all of the 15 most widely taught languages save Biblical Hebrew, down 0.3 percent from 2002 to 2006. Enrollments in the less commonly taught languages also increased by 31.2 percent from 2002, fueled largely by a 55.9 percent growth in Middle Eastern and African languages (the most popular being Aramaic, Swahili and Persian). In all, 204 of the less commonly taught languages were in fact taught in 2006, an increase of 42 languages over 2002.

Modern Hebrew, ancient Greek, and Latin are doing well too, and Arabic is doing very well indeed.