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

Fri May 30 21:12:05 UTC 2025

Dear everyone,

Somehow, it seems to me that the issue is to try to subsume societies 
with different situations and histories into one category, an endeavor 
that can only lead to either misrepresent many societies, or not really 
tell anything interesting. So I don't see any "one solution for every 
situation", as many terms mentioned previously in this discussion can be 
relevant depending on the specific interrogation/research question at hand.

But perhaps the question should be more about the context associated 
with this inquiry? Is there a research question, or at least some more 
context, associated with this terminological issue? Maybe then can we 
suggest terms that could represent and distinguish properly the 
societies/communities in this given context.

Best,
Jocelyn

Le 30/05/2025 à 18:54, Martin Haspelmath via Lingtyp a écrit :
> 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".
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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".
> 
> 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.
> 
> But if we are looking for a term for "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.)
> 
> Best,
> 
> Martin
> 
> On 30.05.25 03:40, Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp 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 <mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
>> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/ <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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