<div dir="ltr"><div>Within the last few years, some alternatives to WEIRD have cropped up that drop "western" and "democratic":</div><div><a href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/fileadmin/content_files/linguistics/conferences/2015-diversity-linguistics/Dahl_slides.pdf"><br></a></div><div>LOL (Literate, Official, and with Lots of Users) - <a href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/fileadmin/content_files/linguistics/conferences/2015-diversity-linguistics/Dahl_slides.pdf">Dahl 2015</a></div><div><br></div><div>WISPy (Written, Institutionally supported, Standardized, Prestige) - <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lnc3.12377">Sedarous & Namboodiripad 2020</a></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, May 29, 2025 at 7:45 PM Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div class="msg-980282282030936153">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Dear all – I really need your help with this! I’ve been struggling for quite some time now with the terms ‘traditional culture/society’ and ‘(non-)Western culture/society’. Both concepts
play significant roles in my work, but both labels seem problematic. I’m looking for better alternatives. (If you want to call this query an exercise in political correctness, I would plead guilty to the charge. I do try to avoid offending people unintentionally.)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Let me briefly try to explicate the concepts that I have been using these labels for:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">‘Traditional cultures/societies’: Small-scale indigenous communities practicing predominantly non-industrial (or pre-industrial) modes of production in non-urban settings. By ‘small-scale’,
I mean that stratification is predominantly in terms of age and gender, division of labor is low, and offices of power are largely non-hereditary. By ‘indigenous’, I mean pragmatically that the presence of the community in the area they inhabit is not an immediate
result of European colonization. And the concept needs to be flexible enough to allow for the fact that the overwhelming majority of such communities are part of larger majority societies, are in more or less intensive contact with them, are under pressure
by them, etc.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">I suspect that objections to the label ‘traditional’ may be the result of associating that label with Social Darwinism. At the same time, I find the label acceptable to the extent that
one accepts that modes of production, while not following a strict developmental sequence, are not distributed randomly throughout human history either, particularly in the sense that industrialization did not take place prior to the Industrial Revolution.
So what I’m looking for is a label that occupies the sweet spot between Social Darwinism and completely ahistoric and non-evolutionary perspectives of social organization.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">The sexiest currently available alternative to ‘traditional’ is ‘non-WEIRD’, in the Heinrich-et-al.-(2010) sense of ‘WEIRD’ (Western educated industrialized rich democratic). I don’t
personally mind using that term, but it is awfully vague. There are many developing nations that I would not consider WEIRD (they may check neither of the five definitional properties), but that do not globally fit the ‘traditional’ concept either.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">‘(Non-)Western cultures/societies’: By this I mean any cultures/societies of (non-)European origin/descent. The problem with the label ‘Western’ is the very misleading geographic association
with the Western hemisphere: the vast majority of Europe isn’t even part of the Western hemisphere, and there are ‘Western’ societies (societies of European descent) outside Europe *<b>and</b>* outside the Western hemisphere, *<b>and</b>* of course there are
many ‘non-Western’ cultures in the Western hemisphere. I’m well aware that the etymology of this use of ‘Western’ has little to do with the model of the geographic hemispheres, but my sense is that people make the association whether it belongs there or not
– I know I do.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">I suspect the best solution to the second problem is to just talk about ‘cultures/societies of (non-)European origin/descent’. That’s a mouthful, but sooner or later somebody will coin
a handy acronym. But I wanted to make sure I’m not missing anything.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Anyway, many thanks in advance for your help! – Juergen<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black">Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>
Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>
University at Buffalo <br>
<br>
Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus<br>
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 <br>
Phone: (716) 645 0127 <br>
Fax: (716) 645 3825<br>
Email: </span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><a href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" title="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:rgb(0,120,212)">jb77@buffalo.edu</span></a></span><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"><br>
Web: </span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/" title="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:rgb(5,99,193)">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</span></a></span><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"> <br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh) </span><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"><br>
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There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In <br>
(Leonard Cohen) </span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">-- <u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
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