[Lingtyp] Two terminological quandaries for the price of one: 'traditional' and 'non-Western' cultures

[Alexander Rice]

Within the last few years, some alternatives to WEIRD have cropped up that
drop "western" and "democratic":

<https://www.eva.mpg.de/fileadmin/content_files/linguistics/conferences/2015-diversity-linguistics/Dahl_slides.pdf>
LOL (Literate, Official, and with Lots of Users) - Dahl 2015
<https://www.eva.mpg.de/fileadmin/content_files/linguistics/conferences/2015-diversity-linguistics/Dahl_slides.pdf>

WISPy (Written, Institutionally supported, Standardized, Prestige) - Sedarous
& Namboodiripad 2020
<https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lnc3.12377>

On Thu, May 29, 2025 at 7:45 PM Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> 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.)
>
>
>
> Let me briefly try to explicate the concepts that I have been using these
> labels for:
>
>
>
> ‘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.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> ‘(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 **and** outside the Western hemisphere, **and** 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.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> Anyway, many thanks in advance for your help! – Juergen
>
>
>
>
>
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo
>
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> Fax: (716) 645 3825
> Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu
> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
>
> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585
> 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)
>
> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
> (Leonard Cohen)
>
> --
>
>
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