preserve of our cultural memory’, etc. Praise of one’s own language is as
common as the idea that it is unique and, therefore, worth defending against
others and protecting from decay.
More than 150 language academies and other regulatory agencies throughout the
world watch over the development of languages, following the examples of the
Italian Accademia della Crusca (founded 1583) and the French Académie
française (founded 1635). Typically, these institutions promote the
standardization of the language in question, compiling dictionaries and reference
grammars as well as teaching materials for disseminating it. They all operate on
the somewhat contradictory assumption that their language has a natural
immutable identity that must be controlled. Conceptually this is possible for a
similar reason that humans and other living creatures are thought to have an
identity. They change perpetually, yet they persist through time.
Direct identification of a language with a people or ethnic group implies a
commitment to its survival, which is equated with the survival of the group. This
attitude lies behind the fact that political nationalism often breeds linguistic
nationalism. Like the former, the latter finds expression in xenophobia, which in
the case of language manifests itself as purism. Much as racists portray
immigrants as undermining the integrity of ‘our people’, purists fight the
contamination of ‘our language’ by loanwords. The fact that all languages have
always interacted with others and there is, accordingly, no pure language on
earth does not concern them. Instead of the historically attested
interconnectedness, they emphasize borders. Ethnic cleansing has its linguistic
counterpart in lexical purification, sequestering or proscribing foreign elements.
The analogy between race and language carries a long way in as much as, like in
the case of race, the ‘pure language’ is a scientifically untenable, but still socially
powerful idea, which is to show that languages cannot be reduced to the
instrumental function of content communication. The notion that they have an
identity rooted in, and uniquely suited to expressing, the inner self of the people
is deeply ingrained and always ready to serve symbolic purposes of identity
politics.
Conclusions
For individuals and groups, language has instrumental and symbolic functions,