Chapter 5 - Foreign Languages and the Discourse of Otherness

Summary

The chapter explores language ideologies and various solutions to which Greek, Latin, and Syriac intellectuals resorted when they needed to articulate their attitudes to the alloglottic Other, while forging their distinctly Christian and specific confessional identities. The discussion starts with the views of early Christian apologists on foreign languages and continues by inquiring into further transformations that their initial universalist views underwent in the post-Constantinian era. The chapter highlights the main points of the cultural dialogue between the “Christian universalists” and “cultural isolationists” and analyzes the formation of a distinct rhetoric of alienation of foreign language speakers in Christian discourse. The trend was most visible in the Greek milieu, where the feeling of cultural superiority over “barbarians” had been especially deep-rooted. Then, the chapter explores how representatives of different literary traditions – this especially concerns Latin writers – attempted to promote the status of their own tongues as legitimate and authoritative vehicles for Christian self-expression. The final section analyzes metalinguistic remarks in Syriac literature – remarks that bear witness to acute linguistic awareness among local writers and their ability to resist the major cultural biases of their colleagues from the Classical tradition.