BYU is major U.S. center for language study

PROVO — Nicole Kidman's character in the new movie "The Interpreter" is a translator at the United Nations whose fluency in an obscure foreign language uncovers an assassination plot.

The thriller, which opened Friday, could have added an element of credibility if Kidman's character were portrayed as a Brigham Young University graduate.

BYU is establishing itself as a major American center for language study, a goal set for the university 30 years ago by a leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns the school.

Consider: More than 25 percent of BYU's student body take language courses each semester. The national average is 8 percent.

"To go to one place and see so many people with that much language skill is unusual," said Mike Turner, a special-agent recruiter for the Drug Enforcement Agency. "It's a huge place for us to be. Students at other universities just don't seem to have the same interest in the position of special agent or the fluency in another language or languages."

It helps that many of BYU's students are former LDS missionaries who served overseas, but the level of proficiency necessary to be a U.N. translator or CIA analyst is beyond the capabilities of returned missionaries.

"Missionaries come home claiming fluency," said Van C. Gessel, dean of BYU's College of Humanities. "But it's fluency on a very limited range of topics, like religion and 'Where's the bathroom?' They really do need advanced training to refine their skills."

BYU already offers more classes in more languages than most schools. For example, BYU has more student enrollments than any other school in the country in Russian, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Icelandic, Welsh and Cebuano. Only one other school has more student enrollments in Spanish.

But additional advanced courses will soon be available because of a $5 million donation from Arizona homebuilder Ira Fulton and his wife, Mary Lou. Gessel said the Mary Lou Fulton Chair of World Languages will help BYU "maximize the incredible potential and comparative advantage we have here with the students who come to us from worldwide church service."

In 1975, LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball said BYU should become the acknowledged language capital of the world. Gessel believes BYU has been the language-training hot spot for several years but said the Fulton donation would help BYU gain notoriety as such.

One way will be through the continued efforts of the Summer Language Institute, which allows students from around the country to take advanced language courses on BYU's campus.