The Foreign Language Executive Committee approved this list of suggested priority languages under the national Security Language Initiative on March 22, 2006. The list was compiled to meet critical needs in the intelligence community and for national competitiveness, based on skill shortage areas in key strategic areas for the U.S. The list is in alphabetic order:

"The asterisk * denotes languages taught through intensive summer programs by sister CSU institutions in southern California as part of a separate Consortium for the Strategic Language Initiative, which can be found at http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/cla/csusli/."

Note: A high degree of proficiency in a critical language can garner a signing bonus of some $35,000 by some of the intelligence agencies. Most will also pay extra for maintaining language proficiency in your career.