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<p>I have encountered a similar problem, when trying to talk about
"non-LOL" (or "non-WISPy") languages, where I have sometimes used
the label "small languages".</p>
<p>This does not sound very good, but "minor(ity) languages" is much
worse, I think, because many minority languages are not small at
all (e.g. Catalan in Spain, or Tatar in Russia, or Spanish in the
US). Moreover, there seems to have been a general shift to
"minoritized languages", which has additional overtones.</p>
<p>For languages, "traditional" does not work at all, because all
languages have a tradition. For societies, it may work, but it has
an association with "non-industrialized", "marginalized" and
"poor".</p>
<p>However, I really didn't understand what Juegen was getting at –
because in Asia and Africa, there are big industrialized societies
which are not of European descent.</p>
<p>But if we are looking for a term for <span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">"small-scale
[indigenous] communities practicing predominantly non-industrial
(or pre-industrial) modes of production in non-urban settings",
why not simply say "small-scale societies"? It seems that
industrialized and urban societies would never be considered
small-scale, and Western countries hardly include such
societies, so maybe we can simply talk about "small-scale
societies"? (Most of these speak "small languages", but there
are some "small languages" spoken in urban/industrial settings.)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Best,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Martin<br>
</span></p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 30.05.25 03:40, Juergen Bohnemeyer
via Lingtyp wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;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.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Let
me briefly try to explicate the concepts that I have been
using these labels for:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;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.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;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.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;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.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;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.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;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.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif"">Anyway,
many thanks in advance for your help! – Juergen<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"CMU Serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black;mso-ligatures:none">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;mso-ligatures:none"><a
href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu"
title="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" moz-do-not-send="true"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:#0078D4">jb77@buffalo.edu</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black;mso-ligatures:none"><br>
Web: </span><span
style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"><a
href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/"
title="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:#0563C1">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black;mso-ligatures:none"> <br>
<br>
</span><span
style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none">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:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black;mso-ligatures:none"><br>
<br>
There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light
Gets In <br>
(Leonard Cohen) </span><span
style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ligatures:none">-- <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
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</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/">https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/</a></pre>
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