Marine Corps Enlisted Job Field: Linguist

The linguist occupational field in the Marine Corps has numerous jobs broken down by specific language skills. To qualify for one of these jobs, a Marine must obtain and maintain a minimum proficiency of level 2 in two modalities (listening, reading or speaking) on the Defense Language Proficiency Test.  

The DLPT is the Department of Defense standard to determine foreign language proficiency and maintain quality control.

The work of linguists in the Marines may involve direct supervision and participation in language translation/interpretation activities in support of the full range of military operations and intelligence matters encountered during contingencies, operations and exercises.

Formal schooling is provided to those Marines entering this occupational field (OccFld) as a part of the comprehensive training program for designated military occupational specialties (MOS) within the 26XX OccFld. However, required foreign language skills may be obtained through any combination of formal or informal training. These MOS will be assigned and voided by the Commandant of the Marine Corps only.

Marines in this field need a score of 105 or higher on the general technical segment of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) tests, in addition to the aforementioned qualifying scores on the DLPT.

Since they'll be involved in high-level, potentially sensitive conversations linguists in the Marines must be U.S. citizens and need to be eligible for a top-secret security clearance and for access to sensitive compartmented information (SCI), based on a Department of Defense single scope background investigation.

Below are the Marine Corps Enlisted MOS which are organized under this occupational field:

2671 Middle East Cryptologic Linguist

2673 Asia-Pacific Cryptologic Linguist

2674 European I (West) Cryptologic Linguist

2676 European II (East) Cryptologic Linguist

2691 Signals Intelligence/Electronic Warfare Chief

2711 Afghan Pashto Linguist (MGySgt-Pvt) EMOS

2712 Arabic (Mod Std) Linguist

2713 Arabic (Egyptian) Linguist

2714 Arabic (Syrian) Linguist

2715 Persian-Afghan (Dari) Linguist

2716 Amharic Linguist

2717 Bengali Linguist

2718 Hebrew Linguist

2719 Hindi Linguist

2721 Kurdish Linguist

2722 Persian-Farsi Linguist

2723 Somali Linguist

2724 Swahili Linguist

2726 Turkish Linguist

2727 Urdu Linguist

2728 Arabic (Iraqi)

2733 Burmese Linguist

2734 Cambodian Linguist

2736 Chinese (Cantonese) Linguist

2738 Indonesian Linguist

2739 Japanese Linguist

2741 Korean Linguist

2742 Laotian Linguist

2743 Malay Linguist

2744 Tagalog Linguist

2746 Thai Linguist

2754 --Dutch Linguist

2756 --Finnish Linguist

2757 --French Linguist

2758 --German Linguist

2759 --Greek Linguist

2761 --Haitian-Creole Linguist

2763 --Italian Linguist

2764 --Norwegian Linguist

2766 --Portuguese (BR) Linguist

2767 --Portuguese (EU) Linguist

2768 --Spanish Linguist

2769 --Swedish Linguist

2776 --Albanian Linguist

2777 --Armenian Linguist

2778 --Bulgarian Linguist

2779 --Czech Linguist

2781 --Estonian Linguist

2782 --Georgian Linguist

2783 --Hungarian Linguist

2784 --Latvian Linguist

2786 --Lithuanian Linguist

2787 --Macedonian Linguist

2788 --Polish Linguist

2789 --Romanian Linguist

2791 --Russian Linguist

2792 --Serb-Croat Linguist

2793 --Slovenian Linguist

2794 --Ukrainian Linguist

2799 --Military Interpreter/Translator