Can we has anuvver classicul langwij plz

When I got to maybe the lower-sixth form (that's Junior year to colonials) I wondered - hey, we're learning Greek and Latin as Classical languages, the Oxbridge nerds know several other Classical-era languages, how come we're not learning these others. Aramaic sprang to mind. Also maybe Hebrew and Coptic. Or Persian or Irish or AngloSaxon or . . .

I think the issue here is to define what "Classical" means as against, "stuff we see on inscriptions here and there". I mean, if you're interested in Gaulish history, you could and should get into Celtic philology. But all you're ever going to read is "Panoramix wuz here and he grieved over Dogmatix". Same goes triple for "Safaitic" Arabic. We get into Classics in the first place to understand the human condition, to read their literature, to learn from their sages. You don't get that from Oscan graffiti at Pompeii.

Post-Safaitic, we do get Arabic sages. And Hebrew sages, and Middle Persian sages, and certainly some AngloSaxon and Irish sages. But these aren't Classical-era anymore. We're into Late Antiquity. Which, it turns out, is not Antiquity. Everyone is Christian now, or (for Zoroastrians, Jews, and Manichees - and, soon enough, Muslims) postChristian. That is best-case scenario; there exist several Coptic libraries but no Coptic humanism.

Further afield we can absolutely talk of a Nahuatl-language humanism and a near-miraculous library in Chinese and the various Indic languages. But to paraphrase Barack Obama, even granting these magnificent achievements they're just not mine. As a west-Eurasian.

Greek and Latin, although they very much had a Late Antique presence, were humanist before Christ and they're, like, right here. Unlike antique Persians (or Elamites &c) they didn't just erect monuments and keep accounts. They sang love songs and recorded histories and asked about the justice of a world under uncaring gods. If any of this exists for - say - Carian, none of it has reached us.

The Semites come so very close with the Hebrew canon and with Aramaic works such as "Ahiqar", and maybe that Aramaic papyrus in demotic script. And if you know Hebrew and Aramaic, you are well over 75% of your way to Ugaritic.

The Bronze Age is much, much better for humanist prose and poetry, between Akkadian, Sumerian, Hittite, Ugaritic aforementioned and of course Egyptian. Even Hurrian looks good as against Urartian and Old Persian.

One day, if Thoth wills, we may get our real Egyptian Demotic library, containing more than just Hermes Trismegistus. Or our Aramaic and/or Punic library.