Learning language the Hamilton way
From Ernest Blum, “The New Old Way of Learning Languages,” American Scholar 77.4 (Autumn 2008): 80-88:
[James] Hamilton is the one who popularized interlinear translations of Greek and Latin classics. The system attracted a large following, and the technique was applied to the teaching of French, Italian, and German as well. John Stuart Mill tells us in the Autobiography (1873) that he learned German through the “Hamiltonian System,” a term that had become synonymous with interlinear translations. Virtually out of print today, “interlinears” in Hamilton’s time and beyond were derogatively branded by their critics as “crutches,” “cribs,” “ponies,” and a number of unmentionable terms.
As for Hamilton, he is a figure on the edge of oblivion. Although he accurately predicted the decline of the “learned languages,” his 70-page-tract, The History, Principles, Practice, and Results of the Hamiltonian System, which enjoyed a controversial renown when published in 1829, has all but vanished. Today there appear to be only four copies left – three in libraries in Great Britain and one in the United States, at the library of Amherst College.
Hamilton (1769-1831) is important because he was one of the last major proponents of a pedagogical tradition, extending from antiquity, that made the study of texts the dominant focus of the teaching of foreign languages. In this method, teachers explicated the literal meanings of the words, phrases, and sentences of those texts. But by the 18th century, such disclosure was under frontal attack. Teachers had settled on grammar as the main subject matter, and students were expected to provide the meanings of texts by themselves, aided by a dictionary. Today there is an almost total absence of interlinear translations, since the transparency of such texts would preempt students from their main task of parsing the grammar.
The rigorous new demands on language students have not been accompanied by corresponding results. In the last half of the 20th century, an explosion of computer-based studies of large texts, called “corpora,” has demonstrated that the number of words needed to read foreign-language books exceeds by several multiples the amount of vocabulary that is acquired by most foreign-language students. This huge vocabulary gap explains why it is impossible for most students to read extensive, sophisticated materials in foreign languages. Even many who are academically involved with foreign languages must depend heavily on dictionaries, consult translations, and accept reading with blind spots because of time constraints.
In view of these endemic problems, the demise of Hamilton’s interlinear books leaves an untimely lacuna in our educational system. In essence, the Hamiltonian book was designed as a formatting scheme to maximize the amount of information available to the reader of a foreign language. Hamilton’s interlinear format offered a “royal road” to the great texts of Greece and Rome. His format could serve as a template for access to all of the world’s important texts in an era when these texts are in precipitous decline.
Unlike most bilingual books, where the translation is on one page and the original text on the opposite page, the Hamiltonian system brought both texts into close contact. For example, Hamilton adjusted the type-setting of the two texts so that a word or phrase of the original fits just above the English equivalent. Hamilton also revised the word order of the original text to conform to the order of modern languages, overcoming perhaps the greatest difficulty for modern students of classics...
This level of linguistic transparency is in contrast to the withholding of information by language teachers that was dominant already in Hamilton’s time and remains largely in force today. Although rarely commented on, the current practice constitutes an extraordinary anomaly in the contemporary educational system. In no other classrooms on campus is basic information systematically withheld as a matter of policy and principle. What is withheld is the information on the meaning of words, phrases and sentences the students are reading. Students are expected to parse for these for themselves, as a kind of perennial homework, after they have memorized grammatical rules and vocabulary lists. So students persevere, doing the translating and the explaining in the classroom, and it is the teacher who listens – a complete role reversal. Of course, teachers posing questions and students performing exercises are time-honored procedures to stimulate thought, but it is taken for granted that students will have access to a textbook with complete information on every detail of the course. In the case of the modern foreign-language curriculum, comprehensive information on the meanings of the words, phrases, and sentences the students are reading is routinely hidden in the teacher’s manual...
The walling off of great texts, with the exception of those written in English, is not a good development for the literate public, for students, or for our educational system. For millennia, the study of original classic texts constituted the core of education. The decline of these texts thus poses a challenge to the universities, to liberal education, and indeed to the future of civilization.
It is a challenge for which Hamilton, in his time, provided a feasible plan of action. In our time, the plan should be even more ambitious. For each major literary language, publishing fewer than a hundred different classic texts in interlinear and audio formats would help reverse the decline of interest in reading the world’s great texts, expand the learning of foreign languages, and enhance informed communication among peoples.
Friday, November 28, 2008