Book contents
- Multilingualism and History
- Multilingualism and History
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Multilingualism and Historical Amnesia: An Introduction
- 2 Greek Meets Egyptian at the Temple Gate: Bilingual Papyri from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Third Century BCE–Fourth Century CE)
- 3 Language Shift, Attitudes and Management in the Roman West
- 4 Languages at War: Military Interpreters in Antiquity and the Modern World
- 5 How Multilingualism Came to Be Ignored in the History of Standard English
- 6 Multilingualism and the Attitude toward French in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
- 7 Why Colonial Dutch Failed to Become a Global Lingua Franca
- 8 How Unique Was Russia’s Multilingual Elite?
- 9 Language Ideology and Observation: Nineteenth-Century Scholars in Northwestern Siberia
- 10 Studying Historical Multilingualism in Everyday Life: The Case of the Habsburg Monarchy in the Nineteenth Century
- 11 Multilingualism and the End of the Ottoman Empire: Language, Script, and the Quest for the ‘Modern’
- 12 “Multilingualism Is Now a Must”: Discourses on Languages and International Cooperation at the Council of Europe
- 13 The Role of the Past in Language Revitalization
- 14 Historic Reenactments in Contemporary Spain: Fiestas de moros y cristianos
- 15 Multilingual Ghost Signs: Dissonant Languages in the Landscape of Memory
- Index
- References
9 - Language Ideology and Observation: Nineteenth-Century Scholars in Northwestern Siberia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2023
By
Edited by
Book contents
- Multilingualism and History
- Multilingualism and History
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Multilingualism and Historical Amnesia: An Introduction
- 2 Greek Meets Egyptian at the Temple Gate: Bilingual Papyri from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Third Century BCE–Fourth Century CE)
- 3 Language Shift, Attitudes and Management in the Roman West
- 4 Languages at War: Military Interpreters in Antiquity and the Modern World
- 5 How Multilingualism Came to Be Ignored in the History of Standard English
- 6 Multilingualism and the Attitude toward French in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
- 7 Why Colonial Dutch Failed to Become a Global Lingua Franca
- 8 How Unique Was Russia’s Multilingual Elite?
- 9 Language Ideology and Observation: Nineteenth-Century Scholars in Northwestern Siberia
- 10 Studying Historical Multilingualism in Everyday Life: The Case of the Habsburg Monarchy in the Nineteenth Century
- 11 Multilingualism and the End of the Ottoman Empire: Language, Script, and the Quest for the ‘Modern’
- 12 “Multilingualism Is Now a Must”: Discourses on Languages and International Cooperation at the Council of Europe
- 13 The Role of the Past in Language Revitalization
- 14 Historic Reenactments in Contemporary Spain: Fiestas de moros y cristianos
- 15 Multilingual Ghost Signs: Dissonant Languages in the Landscape of Memory
- Index
- References
Summary
This paper argues that the observations of scholars are shaped by the historically conditioned ideological presuppositions they hold about what language is and what characteristics of speakers it conveys. European observers in the nineteenth century – linguists, explorers, natural scientists – brought one broad set of ideas to the task of observation. They presumed that languages are like organisms, firmly bounded, revealing speakers’ essence. Within these assumptions, observers differed according to their disciplinary interests and their differing social relations to the people they observed, as shown by widely varying reports about the languages of peoples in Northwestern Siberia.
Keywords
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- Chapter
- Information
- Multilingualism and History , pp. 170 - 186Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
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