Source Language

Teaching Group

Source Language Courses

Online and Onsite / Low Fees

Taught by Established Academic Experts

Have you been longing for a course in Arabic, Persian or Syriac?

Wondered what it would be like to speak Modern Hebrew and
Yiddish or finally sink your teeth into Latin or Greek? Do you need
to learn Turkish, or any of the languages of Central, Eastern or
Southeast Europe?
Offered languages in A/Y 2022-2023

Now you can, here, online and onsite @ CEU.

• Ancient Greek

Since 2009 the Source Language Teaching Group has been striving • Latin

to meet the needs of the student body for less commonly taught • Persian

source languages. Our goal is to contribute to the already interna- • Ottoman Turkish

tional outlook of the universities, facilitate the students' research • Classical Syriac

and educational experience, and better prepare them for working • Arabic

and living in an increasingly globalized academic and professional • Modern Turkish

world. • Hebrew

• Yiddish
The courses are now open for All External Students
• Serbian/Bosnian/ Croatian
Fee per semester: (100Euro/course).
• Russian
Registration Period: September 5-October 5 Special focus on:
*Free of charge for CEU students, staff and faculty, Vienna and ELTE University Reading your sources swiftly
students
Analysis of the core elements of the languages
M0re information: https://www.ceu.edu/sltg/courses (grammar, syntax)

First-hand experience with the sources

sltg@ceu.edu (Office Manager: Anastasia Theologou )
 LATIN

Baukje van den Berg is Cristian Nicolae Gaspar is

an Associate Professor of
Byzantine Studies at the
Department of Medieval
Studies, Central European
University (CEU) and teach-
es Latin at CEU's Source
Language Teaching Group
and the Department of
Medieval Studies.
The seminars provide an introduction to Classical a Lecturer at the Depart-
(and Postclassical) Latin as a source language by ment of Medieval Studies,
means of a detailed overview of the grammatical Central European Universi-
ty (CEU)
structure of Latin (morphology and elements of syn-
and Instructor of ancient
tax) and practical translation exercises of short texts languages (Latin and
illustrating various registers of the language. Greek) at the Department
of Medieval Studies and
the Source Language
Teaching Group, (CEU).

CLASSICAL SYRIAC

Syriac, which was the Aramaic dialect of Edessa since

Ephrem Aboud Ishac
was recently appointed as a research scholar fellow at the
Institute of Sacred Music / Yale University, for the next aca-
demic year. Since 2013 he has been a researcher at the Univer-
sity of Graz – Vestigia Manuscript Research Center (currently
he is the Deputy Director), working mainly on Syriac liturgical
editions and cataloguing Syriac manuscripts and fragments.
Since 2015 he has been teaching Syriac Language and Liturgy
in Austria, at the University of Salzburg and the Central Euro-
pean University. He is a contributor to the Sedra lexicograph-
ical Syriac database, an area editor to the SIMTHO Syriac digi-
tal Thesaurus, and an advisor for the Syriac digital humanities
summer school at Beth Mardutho – The Syriac Institute, New
Jersey.
2
the 4th Century and served as the lingua franca in Orien-
tal Christianity, especially in its golden age until the 9th
century, was gradually substituted by Arabic; however,
it continues as a living language until today in the Syriac
Churches especially in the Middle East, in addition to
India (where a large community is following the Syriac
liturgical tradition) and in the Western diaspora. The
aim of this course is to introduce students to the Syriac
heritage and literature (especially in poetry and histori-
ography), while learning the language through the com-
municative methodology and
reading some basic texts in
Syriac. Moreover, students will
learn basic grammar, in order
to be able to understand and
write some short texts at the
end of the course.

Dr. Daher Rashed has been part of the CEU Source
Language Teaching Group since 2010. Currently, he is
a full-time assistant professor at the Department of
Arabic Studies at Eötvös Loránd University in Buda-
pest, Faculty of Humanities. He is also the director of
the Contemporary Arab World Center.
His main field of interest concerns environment-
related issues (migration, population dynamics, soci-
al and economic conflicts, environmental degra-
dation, water security, climate change) in the Middle
East, especially in Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, from
historical and contemporary perspectives.
ARABIC
Arabic is an official language of the United
Nations and is widely used in many parts of
the world. Learning Arabic is essential to all
those interested in getting an overall vision
of Islamic history and understanding the
particular link between Islamic and Christian
cultures, political and economic developments, as well as linguistic fea-
tures throughout the middle ages up till now. Reading Arabic texts in
the source language opens a vast and new horizon for the student in
learning Medieval history and following the developments of the Ara-
bic language throughout 15 centuries of continuous usage. The course
provides practical linguistic and cultural backgrounds for research pur-
poses. Alongside teaching the language, the course offers students
essential details on the culture and traditions of the Arab world.

ANCIENT GREEK
The Ancient Greek language had a long evolution, from the Mycenaean civiliza-
tion to the Byzantine Empire. Different periods (Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic,
Byzantine), genres (epic, prose, drama, lyric poetry), and authors used very
different writing styles and vocabulary. Thus, the study of each source text and
each piece of literature requires specific skills and practice from its readers and
interpreters. The courses offered at SLTG begin with a study of the language
and style of Classical Athens (Beginner I-II) to provide an overview of the basic
grammar and continue (Intermediate I-II) with analysis and discussion of texts
belonging to different genres and periods (epigrams, early Christian literature,
classical drama and comedy, philosophy, chronicles, and historical works), in
order to accustom the students to the variety of Greek source texts.

Sámuel Gábor earned his PhD in Esthetics (Doctoral School of Philosophy, ELTE
Budapest, 2016). Since then, he has been a researcher of ancient Greek literature
(tragedy and satyr drama), art (Athenian vase-painting and iconography), religion
(cult of Dionysus and the figure of the satyr), and philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, ear-
ly Jewish and Christian theology). He has been Ancient Greek instructor at the
Source Language Teaching Group since 2018. In 2022 he delivered public courses
for the ’Socrates Project’ at CEU Budapest.

3

Szonja Rahel Komoroczy (DPhil Oxon)
is a Yiddishist and Hebraist, focusing on
Hungarian Jewish cultural history. She
has been teaching Modern Hebrew and
Yiddish since 2001 at the University of
Oxford, at ELTE Universiy, Budapest
and at CEU. She is currently associate
professor at the Budapest University of
Jewish Studies.
Ágnes Németh is a Lecturer
at the Department of Iranian
Studies, at ELTE, in Budapest.
She has prior and exemplary
teaching experience in lan-
guages and source material.
4 the Islamic World.
MODERN HEBREW
Modern (or Israeli) Hebrew is the standard form of
Hebrew spoken today, mainly in Israel. This course
aims to provide students with the basic tools and
knowledge needed to understand Hebrew texts and to communicate
verbally using basic Hebrew vocabulary, grammar and sentence struc-
ture. Classes will focus on communication and reading skills. Students will
be introduced to Israeli culture, and will be exposed to modern Hebrew in
various contexts, including basic dialogues, edited newspaper articles,
songs, radio and film. These foundations are useful to anyone involved in
Jewish Studies, for the analysis of Hebrew texts and documents, and for
understanding Israel and the Middle East.
YIDDISH
Yiddish was the language spoken by most Ashkenazi Jews until the Holo-
caust. It is valuable for those who want to understand the rich cultural histo-
ry of Ashkenazi Jews. Also, Yiddish is a language with a plethora of yet un-
used source material, archival and literary alike. It can be important in the
fields of history, cultural heritage studies, nationalism and minority studies,
folklore, anthropology, sociology, women's studies, musicology and many
more fields. This course is for students who are new to Yiddish or would like
a review. The course will cover reading and writing, basics of conversation -
including syntax and vocabulary. It will also be an introduction to Yiddish
studies in general, with folksongs, folktales, klezmer, newspaper articles,
excerpts of literature. By the end of the two terms, students will be familiar
with writings of major Yiddish writers such as Sholem Aleichem, Y. L Peretz
and Isaac Bashevis Singer, and will be able to understand and translate texts
with the help of a dictionary.
PERSIAN
The aim of the two-term course is to introduce students with no, or minimal prior
knowledge of the language - to the basic grammar and language of modern and
classical Persian. Through an emphasis given to the essentials of grammar (modern
standard, modern colloquial, classical), writing and reading, the goal will be to ena-
ble students to understand simple modern and classical Persian texts with the help
of a dictionary. With three sessions per week, 50 minutes each, the course will con-
sist of two parts. The first part will focus on grammar; in the second part, students
will start reading short sections from simple mod-
ern texts. By the end of the academic year, stu-
dents are expected to be familiar with the basics
of the Persian language, acquiring a broad
knowledge of both the modern and the classical
Persian lexicon. This will enable them to go
through reading and translating some classical
sources as well, necessary for those dealing with

Csaba Göncöl is completing his PhD in
History at the University of Szeged, is a
member of the Ottoman Era Research
Group of the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences and an instructor for Ottoman
Turkish at CEU.
Adil Alibas has academic experience
in teaching Turkish in English. He is
completing his Ph.D in Philosophy
of language at the University of Vi-
enna. He is currently working on
Philosophy of language Project,
which investigates the mechanisms
of linguistic interactions that utilize
indexical, de se and relativistic con-
tent.
OTTOMAN TURKISH
Ottoman Turkish was the language of
literature and administration of the Ottoman
Empire used from circa the 15th century until
the Turkish writing and language reforms of
the 20th century. It was based on Anatolian
Turkish and its dialects, and at the same time it
has been heavily influenced by Classical
Persian and Arabic grammar and lexicon. The
aim of Ottoman Turkish courses is to introduce students to the
structure, grammar, and lexicon of the Ottoman Turkish and to
provide them with basic knowledge for work with historical sources
in Ottoman Turkish.
MODERN TURKISH
Turkish is the native language of 80 million people who live predominantly
Turkey but also in Middle East, Balkans and Europe.
Learning Turkish would help you to expand your horizons in many ways.
First of all, you would gain access to a connection to currently Turkish
speaking population who are culturally and historically intriguing, socially
and politically fascinating and economically pertinent.
Turkish is the perfect specimen of the Turkic language family which exhibits
high degree of agglutination and vowel harmony, that could lead you to the
other Turkic languages like Azerbaijani (very high mutual intelligibility with
Turkish), Turkmen, Ozbek among others.
CEU Modern Turkish courses are conducted by a native speaker with teach-
ing experience, and organized according to American Association of Teach-
ers of Turkic Languages Provisional Proficiency Guidelines, and focuses on
practical proficiency from the day one.
The levels of the courses that are offered starts from the beginner level and
includes intermediate and upper-intermediate level courses as well.
5
 Why should you learn Modern Languages with us?
Instructors with academic teaching experience
with special focus on:
Reading your sources swiftly
Analysis of the core elements of the language (grammar, syntax)
First hand experience with sources

RUSSIAN

Why one should improve his Russian knowledge and use it

Irina Toth obtained her MA in
Hungarology, and Russian-
Hungarian translation and in-
terpreting from Eötvös Univer-
sity Budapest (ELTE), in 2013.
She has focused on methods
of teaching Russian as a For-
eign Language in Lomonosov
at Moscow State University,
2011 and she is teaching for
SLTG since 2018.
as а source language? Because a good knowledge of Rus-
sian opens the door not only to the world's largest coun-
try, full of economic, educational and cultural opportuni-
ties, but also to the Orthodox culture and to the post-
Soviet countries, such as Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Latvia as well as Moldova and Armenia or Isra-
el and Germany, where there is a large Russian-speaking
diaspora. A good level of Russian will open you the doors
to the other Slavic languages, such as Belarusian and Serbi- Angela Palágyi is teaching in
an (which use the Cyrillic alphabet) as well as Polish, Slo- Eötvös Loránd University of
vak or Bulgarian (which use the Latin alphabet). At our Budapest, CEU and in the
courses we will also make a stress on the similarity be- Doctoral School of Linguistics of
tween the Slavic languages and cultures and recognize the ELTE. She made her doctoral
common words and roots. Russian became the internet’s research in the field of Russian
second most popular language in 2013, and has remained
linguistics and her scientific
in that position since, providing access to a vast number of
publications concern different
written and audio sources available on the web, which we
will discover and analyze during our lessons. parts of Russian linguistics.

SERBIAN/BOSNIAN/CROATIAN

Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian are three standard

Dunja Milenkovic
is completing her Ph.D in Byzantine Studies at
CEU. She has prior and exemplary teaching
experience in languages and source material.
She has been teaching at SLTG since 2021.
languages spoken by the majority of population of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Monte-
negro. They are mutually intelligible languages be-
longing to the South Slavic branch of languages. Part-
ly for that reason and partly because of their shared
historical development, they are often considered to
be the three standard versions of one Serbo-Croatian,
or Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language. The Bosnian,
Croatian and Serbian languages share a common
core, which enables all their speakers to communicate
freely with one another. Students might choose to
concentrate on Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian, but fo-
cusing on any of these languages will allow them to
comprehend the core elements of these languages
and read effectively their sources.
 DIRECTOR

György László Geréby

Associate Professor
Medieval Studies Department
CEU

György is associate professor at CEU since August 2007 and a former

head of the Medieval Studies Department (2007-10).

He has been the Director of the Source Language Teaching Group since
2016.

Contact details: gerebygy@ceu.edu

CO-ORDINATOR /OFFICE MANAGER

Anastasia Theologou
Anastasia is working as coordinator and office manager for the
Source Language Teaching Group since 2020.
She is also Project Manager of the European Project CIVICA and
research member of the “Between Athens and Alexandria” Project.
She is completing her Ph.D studies in Late Antique Philosophy at
CEU (Medieval Studies) and has obtained bachelor and MA degrees
in philosophy.

Contact details: theologoua@ceu.edu