About RLA

Named after the famed 9th c. royal poet and founder of Classical Persian poetry, Rudaki Language Academy (RLA) is thrilled to deliver the most progressive coursework, originally in just the Persian languages of Farsi and Tajiki. The very day we launched our academy, Kabul sadly had fallen. Before our very first class, we doubled our curriculum to include both Dari and Pashto as resettlement agencies across the US enrolled in our Afghan Language Immersion Program. Now in our 3rd year and several hundred Rudakians strong, we have expanded our course listings to several other critical and under-offered Eurasian languages. We offer the highest quality instruction led by expert native speakers. Each 8-week session meets online twice a week for two hours which is the lowest price per class hour available in the languages of the Silk Road!

Bolstered by our cutting-edge linguistic methodology, RLA’s curriculum aims to provide international certification while reinforcing inter and trans-cultural relations and creating a lasting social impact within a sustainable organizational platform

We stay true to our mission by providing high-quality affordable language education  to students of all levels and backgrounds, and facilitating resources to Tajiks and other Central Asian students and scholars seeking educational opportunities abroad. As a means to create a lasting social impact, 10% of the tuition funds raised will be used to fund international educational opportunities for Tajik students of merit to study in the US or UK. 

The Persian language is one of the most fascinating major languages of antiquity yet today remains widely understudied. It is spoken by almost nearly 200 million people across Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, which before the Industrial Age maintained very strong cultural and linguistic ties. In the mid-1800’s, the Persian, Turkic and Hindustani worlds were splintered as the British Raj and Tsarist Russia raced a Great Game for empire in Central Asia. Generations of geopolitical division furthered this divide with present-day competing Near Eastern, Eurasian and South Asian spheres of influence. 

Within the greater context of the languages of the Silk Road, specifically Central Eurasia, this region remains, since the days of antiquity, the most diverse linguistic landscape across the globe. Home to numerous mutually exclusive families as diverse as Chinese is to Russian, and Turkish is to Persian, it is along this Old World melting pot where this confluence of cultures today flourishes. With increasingly more students across the US, EU and beyond eager to learn these languages, Rudaki Language Academy is proud to delivery to greater academic community the means to which to achieve these communicative dreams, one person at a time, one word at a time.

We stand by the principle that “to know a language, is to know the world,” as affirmed by the Tajik proverb and hope to share some of this world with you through our program.