Trivia 1-28-16 qu'est que c'est?

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Greek, Latin and French were studied. Spanish was added to the curriculum in 1854 and taught beginning in 1856 continuing until 1940 with a brief break in 1919.

Edit - Although it is true that Greek and Latin were studied, the question specifically asked about modern languages. Greek and Latin were considered classical languages. Though one could argue that Greek was (and still is) a modern language, Latin definitely wasn't.

Hoosier
 
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First and Second class studied Spanish. Third and Fourth took French. Presumably the 3rd and 4th were expected to retain all the Spanish they'd learned in the first two years.

(Perhaps one should note that the Fourth class also studied English, which is a foreign language for many Americans :whistling:)

In 1865, these were the foreign language staff at West Point:

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Other subjects followed well behind math in importance. In the first two years, cadets took French, so they would be able to read, if not speak, the language of Napoleon, the world’s great military exemplar. In the second year, drawing was added, because engineers must know how to render. Ethics — a catchall for English grammar, rhetoric, geography, ancient and modern history, moral philosophy, and political science — was taught by the chaplain and made mere cameo appearances in the last year. Infantry tactics, use of the sword, and horseback riding (the one thing that Ulysses S. Grant, thought to be the finest horseman ever to pass through West Point, excelled in) eventually found their way into the curriculum. In the third year the sciences kicked in. It was then time to apply all that mathematics. And in the fourth and final year, civil and military engineering — the arts of field and permanent fortifications — and the science of war climaxed the cadets’ West Point years. It was what everything before had been leading up to, the end reason for it all
source-http://www.historynet.com/life-at-west-point-of-future-professional-american-civil-war-officers.htm
 
I'm afraid there's a hint in the title of the thread. ; )
French - as it was, well, lingua franca back then, many books were written and this language; and Spanish - if I remember well from Robert E. Lee's biography, after the war against Mexico. The next language was German, but it wasn't untile 1941 before it was introduced.
 
Arabic,Chinese, French, German, Persian, Portuguese
, Russian
, Spanish or Persian. Current choices, two semesters required

Edit - These may be the languages currently taught at West Point, but most of them were not taught during the time period when anyone involved in the Civil War would have attended the Academy.

Hoosier
 
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French from the beginning, and, starting in 1856, Spanish. "…from 1856 until 1940…, all cadets took both French and Spanish." Source: a very interesting (to me, having studied and taught Romance languages in the distant past) article, "Teaching Foreign Languages at West Point." http://www.usma.edu/dfl/SiteAssets/SitePages/Summer Faculty Workshop/Teaching FL at West Point.pdf

Interestingly, despite von Clausewitz' On War and other classic 19th century German works on military philosophy and tactics, German didn't enter the West Point curriculum until 1941.
 
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