South Middlesex Times

Alan Levita’s passion for languages is profound. He once dreamt of possessing a pocket translator that could enable him to speak any language in the world. "I quickly learned that you can't really learn every single language and even learning a second or third one is very difficult. So, I settled on studying linguistics because linguistics, technically speaking, isn't about learning any specific language. It's about learning how a language functions at its core,” Levita explained.

This summer, Levita, a rising senior at Rutgers University’s School of Arts and Sciences, will be in Turkey to learn the language. "I thought it was a really interesting language because it has so many different influences,” he said. Both Levita and his classmate Albert Zou will spend their summer overseas—Levita in Turkey and Zou in India—immersed in the languages and cultures of their host countries.

Both students from Rutgers University-New Brunswick have been awarded the Critical Language Scholarship by the U.S. Department of State. This program aims to help undergraduate and graduate students learn languages deemed essential to American foreign relations. According to an announcement about this year’s recipients, approximately 500 students were selected out of 5,000 applicants nationwide.

During their stay abroad, Levita will attend classes at Ankara University Tömer Institute while Zou will study at the American Institute of Indian Studies in Jaipur. They will live with host families and participate in weekend excursions with other program members. To enhance their learning experience, each student will be paired with a “language partner” for casual conversations.

Despite already speaking multiple languages, neither Levita nor Zou has personal or cultural ties to their host countries. Levita speaks Russian and Spanish fluently due to his parents’ Soviet Union heritage and has also studied Hebrew and Portuguese. Zou speaks Mandarin and Spanish; his parents are Chinese.

Zou’s interest in Hindi emerged through association with his Indian friends who introduced him to Bollywood films—a genre he appreciates for its vibrancy and storytelling. "If I hear a language, I’d want to study it," said Zou, who plans to study Hindi this summer in India.

Zou's fascination with languages intensified after participating in a study-abroad program offered by Rutgers Global at the University of Valencia in Spain two years ago. “That was a transformative experience,” he noted, which led him to switch majors from applied sciences in engineering and computer science at the School of Engineering to computer science, mathematics, linguistics, and cognitive science at the School of Arts and Sciences.

Levita is captivated by the stories behind words: “Words are little vehicles of information that are carried throughout history for thousands and thousands of years,’’ said Levita, who is majoring in cognitive science and linguistics. His interest in Turkish culture began during his childhood when he listened to Europop music from artists like Turkish pop star Tarkan.

Levita describes Turkish as an intriguing language due to its diverse influences: “Turkish itself comes from the region surrounding Mongolia and it's intertwined with Persian and Arabic due to religion with hints of French and Italian.”

The two students bonded over their shared passion for languages during a Computational Linguistics class taught by Associate Professor Adam Jardine this spring semester. They discovered they had both applied for the Critical Language Scholarship just before results were announced.

Anne B. Wallen, director of the Office of Distinguished Fellowships at Rutgers University, commended Levita and Zou on receiving these prestigious scholarships: “Rutgers students are globally aware and eager for experiences like this,” she stated. “We can’t wait to hear their stories when they return this fall.”