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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"
cite="mid:SJ0PR15MB46967C1C33B1BF420246DE57DD61A@SJ0PR15MB4696.namprd15.prod.outlook.com">
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      <div class="WordSection1">
        <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>
      <pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">_______________________________________________
Lingtyp mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp">https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a>
</pre>
    </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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