[Lingtyp] Traditional view of language and grammar in indigenous societies

[randylapolla]

Thanks, Christian,
I think in the Sino-Tibetan area you have something like this, but less overt. Generally the names of languages are either the place name (e.g. Hokkien ‘Fújiàn’, as pronounced in Hokkien, for the variety spoken in the south of Fújiàn Province of China) or the name of the people (e.g. Chinese 汉语 Hàn language, the language spoken by the Hàn people). These could be understood as ‘how people in Fujian speak’ and ‘how Chinese people speak’. The tightness of association is shown in cases where members of ethnic groups have been recategorised into another group, and so no longer want to call their language by the name of their original ethnic categorisation, e.g. in Hēishuǐ county in Sichuan, all of the Qiang speakers there were reclassified as “Zàng” (often translated as “Tibetan”, but not the traditional Tibetan view of or word for Tibetans, but created by the government by grouping thirteen groups speaking different languages together), and they are now trying hard to be Zàng, and so don’t want their language to be called “Qiāng”; they have opted to use their autonym, Rme, instead, for their language, as it is not the name of an officially recognised ethnic group. That is, they feel they can be Zàng even if they speak Rme, but not if they speak Qiāng.

Randy

Whorf 1956: 78: '... linguistics is fundamental to the theory of thinking and in the last analysis to ALL HUMAN SCIENCES.' (emphasis in orig.) p. 79: 'The very essence of linguistics is the quest for meaning, and, as the science refines its procedure, it inevitably becomes, as a matter of this quest, more psychological and cultural, while retaining that almost mathematical precision of statement which it gets from the highly systematic nature of the linguistic realm of fact."

> On 4 Jul 2025, at 3:07 PM, Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>
> Dear Jürgen,
>
> just one reminder concerning your question about proper names for languages and your idea "that every such act involves an implicit objectification of the languages involved." Here is a quote from Eugenio Coseriu: "Die Sprache ist dem Sprechen adverbial." (Not sure whether this is deliberately arcane or is the skillful use of a second language by a linguist.) With this, he refers to expressions like Latin Graece loqui 'to speak Greek', where Graece is the adverb of the adjective Graecus, thus 'the Greek way'. This contrasts with the German and English expressions, which make it appear that the language functions as an object of one's speaking. No, says Coseriu, a language is a way of speaking, for instance, speaking like the Greeks do.
>
> Upshot: Maybe the ability of distinguishing ways of speaking does not presuppose the reification of the language.
>
> Best, Christian
>
> --
>
> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
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> Deutschland
>
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