36.1689, Reviews: Language, History, Ideology: Thurber (2025)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1689. Thu May 29 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1689, Reviews: Language, History, Ideology: Thurber (2025)

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Date: 28-May-2025
From: Bev Thurber [bat23 at cornell.edu]
Subject: Anthropological Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Sociolinguistics: Thurber (2025)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35-2652

Title: Language, History, Ideology
Subtitle: The Use and Misuse of Historical-Comparative Linguistics
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: Oxford University Press
           http://www.oup.com/us
Book URL:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/language-history-ideology-9780198827894?utm_source=linguistlist&utm_medium=listserv&utm_campaign=linguistics

Author(s): Camiel Hamans Hamans, Hans Henrich Hock

Reviewer: Bev Thurber

SUMMARY
This thematic collection aims at a rather broad audience that
includes, but is not limited to, historical linguists as well as
anthropologists and historians. It stated aim is to show that
historical-comparative linguistics is not “a field for harmless
drudges and antiquarians”: instead, it has far-reaching consequences
as it connects (and clashes) with nationalist ideologies. These go all
the way back to the field’s genesis in the eighteenth century, and the
ideal of a national language goes back even further.
The twelve papers collected here all address different aspects of the
relationship between nationalism and historical-comparative
linguistics. They are the result of discussions held during
presentations at the Annual Meetings of the Societas Linguistica
Europaea in 2013 and 2014. In their introduction, Camiel Hamans and
Hans Heinrich Hock set the stage for the essays by noting that they
fall into four broad categories: the relationship between
comparative-historical linguistics and ideology, bias in
comparative-historical linguistic research, ways in which people have
tried to rewrite linguistic history to support ideology, and
linguistic change in response to nationalist ideology (12).
The first contribution, Johanna Laakso’s “Misunderstanding historical
linguistics: Three Uralic examples” summarizes the work of “three
linguists gone maverick”: Angela Marcantonio (2002), Kalevi Wiik
(2002), and László Marácz (2009). She uses these examples to
demonstrate that even serious linguists can misuse historical
linguistics and its scientific background, either through honest
misunderstanding or through intentional misinterpretation.
Kristján Árnason’s contribution, “Ideologies and linguistic
development in North Germanic,” traces the Nordic languages from Old
Norse to their modern forms, focusing on political factors that have
affected the languages’ development. The strong influences discussed
in the chapter range from the role of the church during the conversion
to Christianity (with Latin versus Old Norse as the administrative
language) to current language policies.
Next come two contributions from Hans Heinrich Hock. The first of
these, “Ideology and recent attacks on historical-comparative
methodology: Historical linguistics under siege?” connects well with
Laakso’s first paper. Hock argues that the underlying principles of
historical linguistics, such as regular sound changes, are not always
understood. The circa two-hundred-year history of Indo-European
linguistics is often forgotten. However, the main focus of this paper
is on how Indian nationalists have responded to the “Aryan Invasion
Theory,” which claims that Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit was brought to India by
outsiders (52). According to Hock, their “attacks … and a
demonstration of how and why they fail” vindicate the methods of
historical-comparative linguistics.
Hock’s second contribution, “Indo-European linguistic paleontology and
ideology: Nice wheels!” connects his first contribution with the
larger scheme of Indo-European origins. He addresses various theories
that have been proposed, but argues that the Steppe Hypothesis best
fits the evidence. Alternatives, including the Beech, Salmon, and
Anatolian Hypotheses, have been proposed to support nationalistic
ideals. Among those in favor of alternatives are the same Indian
nationalists described in his previous contribution, who tend “to deny
the reliability of Indo-European linguistics … or to propose
countertheories that make it possible to locate the homeland in India”
despite being “methodologically and empirically problematic” (103).
In “Historical linguistics and the Macedonia name issue: What’s in a
name?,” Brian D. Joseph highlights one of the book’s major themes:
that historical linguistics has been “skew[ed]...in favor of a
particular interpretation deemed desirable to one side” (105). In this
case, the interpretations are part of the debate over who owns the
rightful name of Macedonia: Greeks or Slavs? He investigates the
relationship between Greek and Ancient Macedonian without coming to a
clear conclusion. In the end, Joseph argues that “...strict
application of essential tools of historical linguistic
research...yields a result that neither side could be happy with or
proud of” (107).
The next contribution, Anders Ahlqvist’s “Celtic and English language
contact and scholarly attitudes,” examines the evidence for Celtic
influences on early English from both sub- and superstrata and how
this concept gained acceptance in the historical linguistic community.
The verb “to be” and do-paraphrasis are cited as specific examples of
how English has changed in response to Celtic influences. Ahlqvist
argues that the idea of Celtic influencing English has been neglected
due to Anglo-Saxonism, which he calls the “ideology behind … a
lingering Victorian concept of condescending English nationalism”
(140), but is now becoming more generally accepted.
Johanna Laakso’s second contribution, “Borrowing and
historical-linguistic ideology,” discusses different methods of
identifying loanwords and how they are influenced by national ideals.
The main focus is on Estonian: its connections to Germanic groups at
various times and its time in contact with Russian as part of the
Soviet Union. Estonian did not borrow many words from Russian—perhaps
because “most Estonians associated the Russian language with political
oppression and with technological and cultural backwardness” (147)—but
does feature a number of loan words from various Germanic languages,
including Low German words that may have come in through Swedish or
direct contact with Low German (154), an area that is ripe for further
study.
In one of the longest contributions, “The origin of Afrikaans: Purism
or language contact?” Camiel Hamans reviews a variety of theories
about how Afrikaans developed. The social dimension of language mixing
is explored in ways that make the racial tensions in South Africa
clear. The conclusion—“the predominant feeling among the Afrikaners
was that they were a special group” (200)—helps explain why evidence
is often cherry-picked. The picking was done by scholars who “wore
ideological blinders” due to the political situation in South Africa
(200). This is a good example of how political events can create bias
in scholarship even when scholars do their best to avoid it.
John Charles Smith’s contribution, “Moldovan and Maltese: The poverty
of historicism in Romance linguistics” begins with a discussion of
Moldovan and how it differs (or doesn’t) from Romanian before shifting
to a discussion of the relationship between Maltese and Italian. The
two languages provide different perspectives on a single phenomenon:
How Romance is a local language? The differences between Moldovan and
Romanian have been exaggerated, while those between Maltese (a Semitic
language) and Italian have been minimized. These provide two different
perspectives on “how ideology may lead to a systematic distortion of
historical linguistics” (220).
“Speeding up language change: Examples from the former Yugoslavia,” by
Ranko Bugarski is about what happens when one country splits into
four. In each of the new countries, a nationalist faction tried to
turn the common language into a special one. The result was four
“officially recognized” (p. 223) languages that were virtually
identical, yet treated as if they were not mutually intelligible—by,
for example, having at least one movie comically “translated.” The
less amusing outcomes included segregated schools. In 2017, a
“declaration on the common language” (234) proposing that the four
languages be treated as one appeared online and collected numerous
signatures, including those of some prominent linguists. Official
responses to the declaration are pending, but it has gotten the
attention of those in power.
Another declaration is the subject of Camiel Hamans’ second
contribution, “The European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages: Turning the tide against linguistic nationalism.” Hamans
describes the emergence of national languages and how this charter,
accepted in 1992, separates language from the concept of a nation.
Countries were free to interpret the Charter as they saw fit, and they
did so in different ways. Hamans compares the ways the Charter was
received in the Netherlands and Hungary, where it was ratified, and in
France and Georgia, where it was not. An important but unintended
result of the Charter was that it “can also be used as a factor in
identity politics” (283).
The final chapter, “Methodological nationalism and (anti-)historicism
in the history of linguistics: Linguistic essentialism” by Ferdinand
von Mengden and Britta Schneider, is a fitting conclusion to the
volume. It focuses on “linguistic essentialism”: “the assumption that
an entity or a phenomenon [here a language] is defined by fixed,
unalterable properties” (285). That is similar to the concept of a
nation, which is defined in part by distinct geographical boundaries.
But languages are always in flux over both space (as shown by
dialects) and time (as they evolve). The authors review how language
has been studied and modeled alongside the development of nations,
focusing on ideas from the nineteenth century.
EVALUATION
Language is an important part of national identity, and all the papers
in this collection are built on the concept of “One language—one
people—one nation” (2). The first few contributions give theorists the
benefit of the doubt: people using historical-comparative linguistics
to nationalist ends may not fully understand the methods. They focus
on smaller-scale issues and specific examples of how these methods
have been misused.
Two papers in particular fit together well: Laakso’s “Misunderstanding
historical linguistics” describes “maverick” linguists creating new
theories that are seen as outrageous by the establishment, while
Ahlqvist’s contribution shows how the Celtic hypothesis, which may
have seemed like a maverick theory at first, especially to linguistics
within Great Britain, has gradually gained acceptance. Along with the
description of the “ideological blinders” worn by scholars of
Afrikaans in Hamans’ first contribution, these accounts encourage
linguists to look for their own blind spots.
All the contributions point towards a correct, objective method for
studying language historically. However, when it is applied correctly,
this method does not always give satisfactory answers, as Smith shows
in his paper. Bugarski looks at the method from the opposite direction
in his paper on applied language engineering—which didn’t work out as
desired.
The last few papers step away from linguistic minutiae and look at
linguistic nationalism in the present and future, with the final
contribution bringing the collection full circle with a warning that
“methodological nationalism … is nevertheless still present in
linguistic theorizing and in linguistic methodologies” (310).
Linguistics has, intentionally or not, contributed to nationalist
ideologies just as they have pushed linguists in one direction or
another.
REFERENCES
Angela Marcantonio. 2002. The Uralic language family: Facts, myths,
and statistics. Oxford/Boston: Blackwell.
Kalevi Wiik. 2002. Eurooppalaisten juuret [The roots of the
Europeans]. Jyväskylä: Atena.
László Marácz, 2009. Hungarian revival: Political reflection on
Central Europe. The Hague: Mikes International.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Bev Thurber is an independent scholar interested in historical
linguistics and the history of ice skating.



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