Re: College Preparation

[Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu>]

Quoting Steven Mahon <floridamahon@yahoo.com>:

> Thank you for help! Also, I have a choice of only two
> languages at either of the schools I could go to (they
> dont offer German:-( ). French & Spanish. Which would
> be preferable? I know its my choice, but I dont want
> to learn a language that isnt commomly used in the
> paleontological community.

Depends where you want to work.  French is used in large parts of Africa, and
Spanish in most of Latin America.  Both are producing very exciting new finds
of Mesozoic vertebrates.

Both are also used in producing scientific literature, so it would be good to
know how to read both.  Actually, French and Spanish are quite closely related
(both being Western Romance languages), so knowledge of one gets you a decent
amount of the way towards being able to read scientific papers in the other.

Nick Pharris
Department of Linguistics
University of Michigan