18 Harald Haarmann
Language as a Marker of Ethnic Identity
As a major marker of ethnicity, language occupies a crucial role in the formation of ancient
civilizations and in the relations between the various populations in the Mediterranean.
We should begin, however, by considering the dynamic role of language in processes of
ethnic identification. Humans have been labeled “man the toolmaker” (Oakley 1961).
For a long time, this reflected a prevailing view among scholars with an interest in human
evolution. Much later, the image of “woman the gatherer” was added to complete the
picture (Cashdan 1989: 28 ff.). And yet, there is still another essential characteristic of
the human capacity for culture: symbol-making. “The symbol-making function is one
of man’s primary activities, like eating, looking, or moving about. It is the fundamental
process of his mind, and goes on all the time” (Langer 1942: 32).
There are many symbolic systems that have served human beings in their need to
perceive and conceptualize the world and their living conditions. Humans have devised
many sign systems for constructing their cultural environment and for facilitating
interactions in a network of social relations. These sign systems may be related to
language, or they may function independently without the participation of language
(Haarmann 2007: 88–89). Examples of the latter category range from the very
elementary, such as communicating with gestures and poses forming a gestural code,
to the very specialized, such as the digital processing of information in computers.
Language appears in two major manifestations, as a system of auditive signs (spoken
language) and as a system of visual signs (written language). These manifestations
are perhaps the most effective and powerful symbolic system that human beings have
created for themselves to construct culture, this being the most essential manifestation
of human agency. In human history, language has assumed an extraordinary variety
of functions.
The evolutionary leap that occurred with the elaboration of cultural and linguistic
skills in modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) cannot be explained by the working
of a simple adaptation mechanism. It is inconceivable that the necessity for modern
humans to adapt, some 45,000 years ago, to the harsh climatic conditions in Ice Age
Europe could be solely responsible for the triggering of the creative outburst that
has been termed the “Upper Paleolithic revolution,” the explosion of figurative art,
both fixed (as in the paintings and carvings in the caves) and mobile (in the form of
sculptures and decorated artifacts), and the advancement of the lithic industry, when
the Mousterian gave way to the Aurignacian horizon between 37,000 and 35,000BP
(Gamble 1999: 272 ff.).
Modern humans are capable of constructing complex cultures, whereas other primates
(and earlier hominid species such asHomosapiensNeanderthalensisorHomoerectus) only
reached the level of elementary culture. Knowledge construction is a prerequisite for the
organization of any culture. The acquisition of knowledge in the human mind relies on
cognitive capacities that are innate in hominid species. There is a mental force in human
beings that made the evolutionary leap from elementary to complex culture possible,
and this is identity, to be understood as a continuously evolving process. The process