We are pleased to announce our new name “Department of World Languages and Literature” updating it from the former “Foreign Languages and Literature.”
This name better reflects the languages we teach at UNO, i.e., French, German, Japanese, and Spanish, which are not foreign to these lands but rather have been spoken here for centuries.
For instance, French, German and Spanish have been spoken in Nebraska since the 1800s; the first German-language press, the Nebraska Deutsche Zeitung, was founded in 1860! Currently, according to census data, there are over 98 languages spoken throughout Nebraska, and in Omaha close to 15% of the population speaks Spanish as a native language.
The change in our department name more accurately communicates the past and present role of these languages and the linguistic richness in Nebraska and the United States.