Part of my fantasy story takes place in a University (of sorts). Located on a small island (the student population is larger than the native), the school is largely focused on scientific research and development, and is internationally recognized as the premiere institution for groundbreaking discoveries (the technological level is about that of 17th century Europe- different evolution of education). I was wondering if it sounded too bizarre, though, for the University to teach only in its own language (technically a 'dead' language, like Latin)? The ostensible reason is having an uncommon common language for the different nationalities represented. However it would mainly be for security reasons (while there are students and professors from various countries, it is chiefly connected with one country, which funds it in exchange for exclusive use of some of its more practical developments). Does making each student start with a memory-house-building class for learning this language sound too far-fetched to you as a reader?
I actually like that idea a lot. Especially if the university is fairly secretive, it would make sense that students have to go through several years of prep just to weed out spies or undesirables. It's basically an extended initiation. I can dig it.
Well, it's not a super intensive screening process- plenty of people simply have no idea of what that side of the university is like, and attend for different disciplines/reasons- I'm just not sure if the given reasons (common language and exclusivity) make good enough cover for the main reason (keeping it's secrets) to require every single student to start with that class (Inuliel does attract chiefly brilliant geniuses). (Of course, the infiltration problem is part of the story...)
The English Language Learner program where I live is based on the idea that it takes seven years for most students to become completely fluent in English. There are obviously exceptions, and if your students are super-intelligent to start with that would help, but if they're going to learn a language well enough to be taught fairly difficult concepts in it (which I assume will be part of the goal of your school) it'll take them quite a while to be even functional. Is the idea that they'd have learned the language before they arrived? But then I'm not sure how it would be useful for security purposes...
I'm not terribly into fantasy, but I think that this is a pretty cool idea, and one that has some historical basis. Isn't this pretty much what the monks, nuns, and other religious sorts (as well as secular scholars) did in pre-modern Europe? No one grew up speaking Latin, but it was the language of scholarship for quite some time, had to be learned somewhere. Also, in Asia, written Chinese served a similar function to Latin in the past. I read a historical fiction book (can't remember the title) where a Korean scholar met his Chinese counterpart. Neither of them could speak the other's language, but they were able to converse with a pen and paper (well, brush and paper, but you get the idea), since both of them were fluent in written Chinese. Run with it, it should work.