Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:29:00.111Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Tread of European Nationalism—the Language Aspect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Karl W. Deutsch
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In recent years, public opinion in the democratic countries has become increasingly aware of the dangers inherent in the unlimited competition of a host of rival nationalistic movements and sovereign nation-states. Having recognized it as a danger to be overcome, many liberal thinkers, like the experts of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, or Mr. Max Lerner, are prone to assume that the trend toward nationalistic disintegration has already reached its peak. Many consequent suggestions of policy are based on the assumption that nationalism is declining, or about to decline.

Type
International Affairs
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , June 1942 , pp. 533 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1942

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

1 Nationalism; A Report by a Study Group of Members of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (London, 1939), p. 336; Lerner, Max, “The War as Revolution,” The Nation, Vol. 151, pp. 68–71 (July 27, 1940).Google Scholar

2 In 950 A.D., there were in Europe six full-fledged written languages, i.e., languages with a grammar, literature, and some employment in business and public administration—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Anglo-Saxon, and Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian). See Sarton, G., Introduction to the History of Science (Baltimore, 1927–1931), Vol. I.Google Scholar In 1250 A.D., two languages, Anglo-Saxon and Provençal, had become submerged, but there were 17 languages flourishing in Europe, as noted in Sarton's survey: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Church Slavonic, High German, Low German, French, Icelandic, Russian, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. Sarton, op. cit., Vols. II and III. (“… a deeper study would introduce other languages; I speak only of those [outstanding] … by their exceptional vitality or by the creation of masterpieces,” ibid., Vol. II, p. 293). In 1800, five of the languages of 1250 had become submerged or relatively inactive: Hebrew, Arabic, Low German, Catalan, and Norwegian; and a survey published in 1809 showed only 16 languages flourishing in Europe: Greek, Church Slavonic, German, French, Icelandic, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Danish, English, Dutch, Polish, Magyar, and Turkish (Osmanli). Adelung, J. Ch.—Vater, J. S., Mithridates (Berlin, 1809).Google Scholar In 1900, a century later, 15 of the above-mentioned languages were flourishing, Church Slavonic being the only one to have dropped out; and to their number had been added Welsh, Flemish, Norwegian (Riksmaal and Landsmaal), Finnish, Rumanian, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian (a common literary standard language with two sharply different alphabets, traditions, literatures, and loyalties), Slovene, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Yiddish, Esthonian, and Latvian. See Finck, F. N., Die Sprachstämme des Erdkreises (Leipzig, 1911)Google Scholar; Meillet, A., Les Langues du Monde (Paris, 1925)Google Scholar; Graff, W. L., Language and Languages (New York and London, 1932)Google Scholar; Bloomfield, L., Language (New York, 1933)Google Scholar; and works on the individual languages.

3 In 1937, all of the thirty national languages of 1900 were flourishing, and still more were joining their number with new literatures and educational or political institutions or movements: Lithuanian, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Rheto-Romance, Lusatian Serb, Albanian, Hebrew (modem), Karelian, Byelo-Russian, Moldavian, Georgian, Ossete, Bashkir, Cheremiss, Chuvash, Mordvin, Samoyede, Syryen (Komi), Tartar, and Votiak. Sources as above. The data for 1900 and 1937 have been checked with the survey of Biblical translations in North, E. M., The Book of a Thousand Tongues (New York and London, 1938).Google Scholar Nationalities in the European part of the U. S. S. R. of 1937 are listed in accordance with the language map of Europe by Drexel, A. and Wimpissinger, R. in their Atlas Linguisticus (Innsbruck, 1934).Google Scholar Exclusion of the territory of European Russia from consideration would not materially change the picture of the basic trend.

[As philologists disagree in many cases as to what to count as standard languages and what as dialects, the different surveys have been taken in conjunction and their testimony verified, wherever possible, against evidence from sources within the disputed language group.]

4 Sources as above, and current statistics.

5 Sources as above.

6 See note 3, second paragraph, above. On the Moldavian language and nationality, see Eleven Union Socialist Soviet Republics (Moscow, 1938), p. 33 (in Russian); and Kloss, H., “Sprachtabellen,” in Vierteljahresschrift für Politik und Geschichte, Vol. 1 (7) (Berlin, 1929), pp. 111–112.Google Scholar

7 “The actual number of languages recently computed by officers of the French Academy is put at 2,796.” World Almanac, since 1929. A more recent survey by E. Kieckers lists almost 3,000 living languages. Die Sprachstämme der Erde (Heidelberg, 1931), pp. 237–257.

8 Laubach, F. C., Toward a Literate World (Columbia University Press, 1938)Google Scholar; quoted in North, op. cit., p. 18, note 3.

9 While standard languages are evolved in the capital cities, they are not necessarily dominated by the original dialect of the metropolitan region. Rather, they will be based on the speech of the new urban population, and particularly of its most important social group, even if its members have been recruited from all over the country. Jespersen, O., Mankind, Nation, and Individual from a Linguistic Point of View (Oslo and Cambridge, Mass., 1925), p. 65.Google Scholar

10 “Gradually the language of the Dutch Republic began to be considered in Belgium as that of the enemy and the heretic, and an opposition was created between Dutch and Flemish….” Duflou, G., “The Flemish Language,” in Encyclopedia Britannica (14th ed., 1937), Vol. IX, p. 371.Google Scholar

11 “… the movement for an autonomous Macedonia … tends to wean away from the main national body one-fifth of the total Bulgarian population and set it up as a separate nation.” Christowe, S., in An American Symposium on the Macedonian Problem (Indianapolis, Ind., 1941), p. 21.Google Scholar

12 Macartney, C. A., Hungary and Her Successors (London, 1937), pp. 88, 127.Google Scholar

13 Weingart, M.et al., Slovanské spisovné jazyky v době přítomné (Prague, 1937), p. 5.Google Scholar

14 Cf. the section on Scotland in Aucamp, A. J., Bilingual Education and Nationalism (Pretoria, 1926)Google Scholar; also Brogan, M. C., “Linguistic Nationalism in Eire,” in Review of Politics, Vol. 3, pp. 225–242 (1941).Google Scholar

15 “It does not often happen that a language form created by conscious deliberation and planning wins the warm support and widespread acceptance which has fallen to the lot of New Norse, the creation of Ivar Aasen.” Haugen, E. I., “The Origin and Early History of the New Norse Movement in Norway,” repr. from Publications of the Modern Language Association, Vol. 48, No. 2, p. 558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 The Macedonian movement calls for the support of “all Macedonians regardless of nationalities, religion, sex, or political convictions … for the establishment of Macedonia as an independent Republic within her geographical and economic boundaries.” Cf. Anastasoff, Ch., The Tragic Peninsula; A History of the Macedonian Movement for Independence since 1878 (St. Louis, 1938), pp. 308–310.Google Scholar

17 Craigie, W. A.et al., The Scottish Tongue (London, 1924), pp. 3–46.Google Scholar

18 Pansier, P., Histoire de la Langue Provençale à Avignon (Avignon, 1927), Vol. IV, pp. viii–ix.Google Scholar

19 Martin, F. (ed.), The Statesman's Year-Book, 1871 (London, 1871), pp. v–ixCrossRefGoogle Scholar; also 1914, pp. xix–xxix; and 1937, pp. ix–xiii.

20 New York Times, July 14, 1940, p. 21: 1–3; July 26, p. 3: 7; July 27, p. 6: 3.

21 A representative of still another European nationality—the 54th—spoke at the “All-Slav Conference” in Moscow on Aug. 10 and 11, 1941. According to the report, he represented 400,000 Slonzaks or Lakhs, a Slav people on the borders of Czech and Polish Silesia. The Slavic Peoples Against Hitler (New York, 1941), pp. 20–21.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.