Czech (with Slovak) and Persian

Czech with Slovak and Persian is one of the most distinctive language combinations in British higher education, available only at Oxford through the European and Middle Eastern Languages programme. The programme enables students to combine papers in one of the languages taught in the Faculty of Modern Languages with papers in Arabic, Persian, or Turkish, taking advantage of the cultural links that exist between European and Middle Eastern language traditions. Czech and Slovak are closely related Slavic languages of Central Europe, giving access to the literary, philosophical, and political cultures of Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, including the rich twentieth-century traditions shaped by the Habsburg era, the interwar republics, communism, and the post-1989 transitions.

Persian, one of the world's oldest continuously written languages, opens access to a literary tradition of extraordinary richness, spanning poetry, philosophy, history, and mysticism, with influence across the Iranian world, Central Asia, and South Asia.

At the University of Oxford, this three-year full-time programme is taught within one of the world's great research universities for languages and literature, with expert staff in both the European and Middle Eastern traditions. You will develop genuine linguistic proficiency in Czech, Slovak, and Persian, engaging with literary and cultural texts in each language alongside the historical and intellectual contexts that give them meaning. The combination creates unusual opportunities to explore the cultural and historical linkages between Central European and Iranian civilisations, a genuinely distinctive intellectual territory.

With a typical entry tariff of 168 UCAS points, this is a highly competitive programme. Graduates pursue careers in diplomacy and the foreign office, international organisations, journalism and broadcasting, translation and interpreting, academic research, cultural heritage, intelligence and government, and international business across the regions these languages serve.