Well, it’s not a matter of just knowing some arbitrarily chosen Asian languages… it’s a matter of knowing:
The languages of the original texts
The languages spoken by the majority of scholars
The languages spoken by the majority of actual practitioners.
Imagine a Christianity scholar who couldn’t tell you the difference between ἀγάπη, ἔρως, or φιλία. That would be pathetic. Imagine an Islam scholar who doesn’t understand the difference between Salah and Dhikr. That’s also pathetic.
I don’t think a scholar necessarily needs complete mastery over these languages… but they should be proficient enough to get information from the source material when they have questions.
Well, it’s not a matter of just knowing some arbitrarily chosen Asian languages… it’s a matter of knowing:
Imagine a Christianity scholar who couldn’t tell you the difference between ἀγάπη, ἔρως, or φιλία. That would be pathetic. Imagine an Islam scholar who doesn’t understand the difference between Salah and Dhikr. That’s also pathetic.
I don’t think a scholar necessarily needs complete mastery over these languages… but they should be proficient enough to get information from the source material when they have questions.