Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:56:02.084Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Language Ideology and Observation: Nineteenth-Century Scholars in Northwestern Siberia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2023

Aneta Pavlenko
Affiliation:
University of York
Get access

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.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aarsleff, H. (1982) From Locke to Saussure: Essays on the study of language and intellectual history. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Almási, G. & Šubarić, L. (eds.) (2015) Latin at the crossroads of identity: The evolution of linguistic nationalism in the Kingdom of Hungary. Leiden/Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Bassin, M. (1991) Inventing Siberia: Visions of the Russian East in the early 19th century. American Historical Review, 96, 3, 763794.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauman, R. & Briggs, C. (2003) Voices of Modernity. New York: Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Békés, V. (2018) A “nyelvrokonság” terminus fogalomtörténeti fordulatai [Conceptual changes in the term “linguistic kinship”]. In Bakró-Nagy, M. (ed.) Okok és okozat: A magyar nyelv eredetéről történeti, szociálpszichológiai és filozófiai megközelitésben [Causes and consequences: On the origins of the Hungarian language]. Budapest: Gondolat Kiadó, pp. 2960.Google Scholar
Blommaert, J. (2008) Artefactual ideologies and textual production of African languages. Language & Communication, 28, 291307.Google Scholar
Burke, P. (2004) Languages and communities in early modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castrén, M. A. (1853) Reiseerrinerungen aus den Jahren 1838–1844 [Memories of travels from the years 1838–1844]. Edited by Schiefner, A.. St Petersburg: Buchdrückerei der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaft.Google Scholar
Cohn, B. (1996) The command of language and the language of command. In Cohn, B. Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: The British in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 1656.Google Scholar
Erman, A. (1850) Travels in Siberia: Down the Obi to the Polar Circle. Vols. 1–2. Translated by Cooley, W.D.. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard.Google Scholar
Errington, J. (2008) Linguistics in a colonial world. New York: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Etkind, A. (2011) Internal colonization: Russia’s imperial experience. London: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Fichte, J. (1845–1846) Reden an die deutsche Nation [Addresses to the German nation]. In Fichte, I. (ed.) Sämmtliche Werke, vol. 7. Berlin: Veit, pp. 264499.Google Scholar
Friedman, V. (2011) Balkan languages and linguistics. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40, 275291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gal, S. (2011) Polyglot nationalism. Langage et Société, 136, 1, 3154.Google Scholar
Gal, S. (2015) Imperial linguistics and polyglot nationalism. Balkanistica, 28, 1, 151174.Google Scholar
Gal, S. & Irvine, J. (2019) Signs of difference: Language and ideology in social life. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graber, K. & Murray, J. (2015) The local history of an imperial category: Language and religion in Russia’s eastern borderlands 1860–1930. Slavic Review, 74, 1, 127152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grenoble, L. (2003) Language policy in the Soviet Union. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Harries, P. (1988) The roots of ethnicity: Discourse and the politics of language construction in South-East Africa. African Affairs, 87, 346, 2552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirnsperger, M. (2013) Finno-ugrische Ethnologie und Nationalismus im 19. Jahrhundert: Sjögren, Castrén und Ahlqvist in Spannungsfeld nationaler Ideen. [Finno-Ugric ethnology and nationalism in the 19th century: Sjögren, Castrén and Ahlqvist in the tense field of the national idea.] In Donecker, S. et al. (eds.) Wege zum Norden: Wiener Forschungen zu Arktis and Subarktis [Roads to the North: Vienna research on the Arctic and Subarctic]. Vienna: Lit Verlag, 87106.Google Scholar
Hunfalvy, P. (1875) Az északi osztják nyelv [The northern Khanty language]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Irvine, J. (1993) Mastering African languages: The politics of linguistics in 19th century Senegal. Social Analysis, 33, 2745.Google Scholar
Irvine, J. & Gal, S. (2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Kroskrity, P. (ed.) Regimes of Language. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research, pp. 3583.Google Scholar
Khanina, O. (2021) Languages and ideologies at Lower Yenisei (Siberia): Reconstructing past multilingualism. International Journal of Bilingualism, 25, 4, 10591080.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lukin, K. (2017) Matthias Alexander Castrén’s notes on Nenets folklore. Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne, 96, 169211.Google Scholar
Lüpke, F. (2015) Ideologies and typologies of language endangerment in Africa. In Essegby, J. et al. (eds.) Language documentation and endangerment in Africa.Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 6099.Google Scholar
Morpurgo Davies, A. (1992) History of linguistics. Volume IV Nineteenth century linguistics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Munkácsi, B. (1892) A vogul-oszták népköltés irodalma [The literature of Khanty-Mansi folk poetry]. In Regék és énekek a világ teremtéséről, vogul szövegek és forditásaik [Tales and songs about the creation of the world: Vogul texts and translations]. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia.Google Scholar
Olender, M. (1991) Languages of paradise: Race, religion and philology in the 19th century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pollock, S. (2006) The language of the gods in the world of men: Sanskrit, culture and power in premodern India. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuchardt, H. (1971 [1884]) Slawo-deutsches und Slawo-italienisches: Mit Schuchardts übrigen Arbeiten zur Slavistik und mit neuen Registern [Slavic-German and Slavic-Italian]. Edited by Gerhadt, D.. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.Google Scholar
Severényi, S. & Varnai, Z. (eds.) (2021) Tematikus összeállitás: Reguly 200. Reguly Antal tudományos munkássága két évszázad távlatából [Special section: Reguly at 200. Reguly Antal’s scholarly work in a 200-year perspective]. Magyar Tudomány, 182, 1, 144.Google Scholar
Shimkin, D. (1990) Siberian ethnography: Historical sketch and evaluation. Arctic Anthropology, 27, 1, 3651.Google Scholar
Singer, R. & Vaughan, J. (eds.) (2018) Special Issue: Indigenous multilingualisms. Language and Communication, 62B, 83196.Google Scholar
Slezkine, Y. (1994) Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the small peoples of the North. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Slocum, J. (1998) Who, and when, were the inorodtsy? The evolution of the category of ‘aliens’ in imperial Russia. The Russian Review, 57, 2, 173190.Google Scholar
Stammler-Gossmann, A. (2009) A life for an ideal: Matthias Alexander Castrén. Polar Record, 45, 234, 193206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, J. (2014) Philology: The forgotten origins of the modern humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Vermeulen, H. (2015) Before Boas: The genesis of ethnography and ethology in the German Enlightenment. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Weber, E. (1976) Peasants into Frenchmen. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wickman, B. (1988) The history of Uralic linguistics. In Sinor, D. (ed.) The Uralic languages: Description, history, and foreign influences. New York: Brill, pp. 792818.Google Scholar
Woolard, K. (2018) Language ideologies. In Stanlaw, J. (ed.) International encyclopedia of linguistic anthropology. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×