Hi all, I've wondered for years how common it is for monolingual Anglophone historians to work on non-Anglophone histories. My history tutor at university, for instance, does not know Armenian or Turkish, yet partially specialises in the Armenian Genocide. He told me that when he went to archives in Turkey, he had a research assistant to translate. How common is this?
Some context to my question: I am hoping to embark on a PhD in history in the next few years, and am most interested in 20th century European history, but I live in Australia and only speak English. Thanks in advance!
Generally, anybody with a PhD who specializes in non-aglophone history not only should speak the language of the area which they are studying, they usually have to in order to get their PhD in the first place, or even be accepted into a PhD program.
For example, if you're studying 20th century European history, you would likely be required to learn at the very least German and/or French. This is because those are, after English, the two major languages of the continent, and the languages in which most scholarship is written in. As a historian, you must not only have a deep knowledge of your chosen subject matter, but also a knowledge of what other leading historians think as well--and this will require you to know a foreign language at some point.
So, my advice to you is: choose a particular part of 20th century European history that you like, and choose a language to learn that is pertinent to it.
Everyone here has made some great points about needing languages to study PhD level history, and they're all totally correct. However, I don't think you should get too discouraged either. I am absolutely garbage at learning languages. Truly terrible, it's kind of embarrassing. That having been said, I have a PhD in medieval history! Here are some of my pro-tips for navigating post-graduate historical research with only minimal linguistic ability. Qualifier: I'm a medievalist, so these are based on my experiences in that era, they may be less applicable to modern history.
Choose your topic wisely! If languages are not your thing, now is not the time to undertake a translation heavy project. Some areas have more translated materials/sources than others, do your background research. The less you have to translate, the less you have to struggle with your language skills! I went into an archaeology heavy subject area, which meant many of my primary sources were physical objects rather than texts. I still had to translate a bunch of museum catalog descriptions, but they tend to use simple language, and are often similar in style and structure. The object itself needs no translation, though, and can be studied without speaking the language of the culture that made it. If archaeology isn't your thing, you could try something similar with Art History.
You don't really need to speak the languages of your subject area, you more need to be able to read them. This is actually much easier, and also allows for more room for you to take your time. Conversations in other languages are a bit awkward if you have to look up every other words. If you have the patience, though, you can definitely translate this way. It is not fun (trust me), but if it's your dream to do graduate level research, you can get surprisingly far via brute force translation. Again, though, you've got to know your subject area. Brute forcing your way through catalog descriptions, court records, or government charters is much more effective than if you try and grind your way through literary sources, or someone's memoirs. Also, try to make sure you haven't picked a subject where you'll need to communicate with a bunch of archivists who don't speak English. If you do, then you probably will need to be able to speak the languages in question.
Learn to scan texts in other languages. If you find a book relevant to your research, you probably don't have to translate the entire thing into English! You often just need to understand the materials relevant to your research. Generally, if you're doing PhD level research nobody should have already written an entire book on your subject, so you'll be gathering information from sections of partially related secondary sources. Learning to find only the relevant sections in a given work, and focusing your attention on those, could save you a lot of time. It is worth reiterating for a third time here that this does not work for every subject area! My subject was pretty esoteric, with only very limited scholarly debate scattered across the past century. You do not want to jump into a subject area that has a very active and lively non-English historiographical debate if you are not prepared to learn those languages in their entirety!
Start practicing your language skills now! I wish I'd started on mine earlier (honestly, much much earlier. Who know I'd need Latin and German and not Spanish? Not me in High School that's for sure!) but you don't have to make my same mistake! Don't think you have to become fluent in the language, so don't get discouraged if you're not great at it, but the time you put in now will save you time over the course of your research! Even a basic grasp of grammar and vocabulary will greatly speed up the slog that is translating while being terrible at languages.
You can ask for help! Nobody is going to do all of your translation for you, but if you come across a particularly difficult passage you can ask someone to help you. Having a supervisor who can help you will provide the most immediate solutions, but you can also ask fellow graduate students in times of need.
Obviously learning all the languages relevant to your studies is the best way, and if you can do that you 100% should. However, you don't have to be a polyglot to be a historian. Poor linguistic ability will put limits on your research subjects, but it's something that can be overcome with proper planning and research strategies. Plus a lot of time spent with dictionaries, yelling at google translate, and reading grammar textbooks.
/u/XBebop is quite correct. Though, in Australia, how it operates at the PhD level is a little different to, say, the US. In the US and in US based systems, you would need to pass language exams to demonstrate the relevant language competencies.
In Australia, you don't necessarily need to demonstrate those competencies, but you are expected to be competent in any language relevant to your doctoral research. That means, your PhD will probably be assessed on the assumption that you know those languages and should have engaged with any primary or secondary sources in those relevant languages.
In my field (Ancient History), that meant being prepared to interact with primary sources in Greek and Latin, and secondary literature in French, German, and Italian.
So, get learning those languages now. Being a monoglot Aussie comes with no free pass.
The handful of German history professors I know all speak German at a very high level and spend a lot of time in archives, which, of course haven't been translated.
I think that's the by far the most common situation, and your ability to do scholarly work without a decent knowledge of relevant languages is going to be pretty limited.
My only experience so far with this sort of thing was as an undergraduate (since I don't finish with that and begin graduate school for a few more months). I was studying Soviet history for my junior capstone. I decided that since I can't read Russian, I would do a pure historiography paper.
I would have no business specializing in something on which I cannot read the language of primary sources. I would like to know how that tutor managed to get a Ph.D. with a specialty in the Armenian Genocide because I have never heard of any Ph.D. program which does not require both a modern language in which there is extensive scholarship on the subject matter and the language of the subject matter, with United States history being the only one where English counts for both.
For 20th Century European history, you would probably have to learn Italian, French, or German. Likely more than one of those.