Download Language and nation building in Europe

This final chapter pulls together a number of the themes discussed at length in earlier
chapters and sections.
The first half provides the historical frame in which the scholars who have contributed
to this work are operating. Remarks on the political organisation of medieval Europe
give the context in which the dialect continua of Europe developed. A discussion of
the early Modern period pulls together common themes in the rise of national
vernaculars. A section on territorial boundaries shows how and where political and
linguistic boundaries were not congruent. The next focus is the role of language in
European nation building in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. The case is made
that minorities are a product of the nation state system. There can be no minorities in
a polity if there are no majorities. The structure of the old empires allows
multilingualism in a way that is not possible in the nation state. The concluding
remarks to the section deal with communication across national borders, and language
in an era where networks are increasingly post or supranational. Globalisation and its
flow and networks may dismantle – at least in part - the communities of
communication constructed in the national era.
In the second half of the chapter, attention is turned to the role that linguists have
played in these political and social developments. The research traditions of Europe
are seen to be deeply rooted in the political systems in which they are produced. The
importance of linguists and of their contribution to societal organisation is reevaluated.
Before Europe became a mosaic of nation states, its political organisation was both
more European and more local. The ruling class acted on a European stage. The major
dynasties chose marriage partners for their children among a small continental elite
and sent their sons to be raised in other households to cement alliances. These links
usually required a sizeable retinue to accompany the royal person. Royal courts of the
late medieval period were in consequence a multilingual group. Their exchanges
produced a ruling class whose frame for action was Europe.
The boundaries for interaction were religious. The limits for elite association were
dictated by membership of the Catholic or Orthodox churches. The two
Christendoms promoted a sense of cohesion. In the west, the pope presided over an
organisation which penetrated all polities and claimed ultimate authority. Catholicism
also contributed to the idea that Europe was the frame of reference. Papal authority
was centralised in Rome (and briefly Avignon) and transmitted in a hierarchical
system to the most far flung parish. Latin was the lingua franca which permitted this
to happen and even the most lowly priest had at least some knowledge of the basic
liturgy so that he could fulfil his function within this system. Those who were literate
in the medieval feudal system were usually so because the Church had educated them;
in many periods and places the ordained were the only literate members of society,
and they were literate in Latin.
These two groups can be categorised as European. Even if most members did not
actually move from their place of birth, they belonged to systems that crossed
boundaries. In contrast, the peasants were anchored within local structures. Those
who were serfs had no right to leave the village in which they were born nor to choose
marriage partners freely. Rooted in the land, the vast majority of Europeans would
have had no need to engage in communication across boundaries. This and their
endogamy produced language practices where dialect boundaries became clear along
dialect continua. The language that the medieval peasant spoke was a variety whose
currency was extremely limited in geographical terms. The exceptions to this occurred
in times of war, when the lord took foot soldiers with him on campaigns. The
crusades against the Holy Land drew commoners as well as knights. Did the ordinary
fighting men see themselves as part of Christendom against the infidel? At times this
may have relocated the peasant from the local to the European level of identity. If this
happened it was an exception to the rule. In general, the medieval European world
was both more local and more European in its structures and identities than the
societies which were to follow it.
In the early modern period the definitive fixing of frontiers begins and some European
states begin to take the shape on the map that they have conserved until this day.
France, Spain, Portugal, England and Sweden were in this category and their rulers
started to act in a way that can be defined as national. Wresting power from the
barons and replacing the loose organisation of feudal structures, they governed
through bureaucracies. Louis XIV in France and the Tudors in England, for example,
created a new class of administrator drawn from neither the Church nor the feudal
elites, answerable directly to the crown and overseeing the whole country. Appointed
from a new middle class, men like Colbert and Vauban began to manage the economy
and the defence of France in a national way. They used the language of power, the
language of the monarch’s capital and court to do so. This was then enshrined in law,
as in the case of the Welsh (15XX) that.required any administrators of the Crown in
Wales to communicate with London in English.
Other societal developments promoted the use of the prestige version of the
vernacular. As Anderson (1983) has shown, the introduction of printing and the
Reformation interacted to promote use of the vernacular as a written as well as a
spoken language, and aided standardisation. Use of the vernacular in the law and in
literary creation supported by the monarch’s patronage also promoted the process of
standardisation and convergence.
The revolutionary movements that brought to an end the power of the absolute
monarchs and introduced a new political organisation that drew its legitimacy from
the sovereign people brought about a revolution in language practice as well. When
the people were subjects there had been no need to consult them; when they became
citizens and the ultimate arbiters of who would rule, then the question of language
community became a major issue.
In all19th century national(ist) movements linguists played a central role. As various
national movements within the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and
British Empires fought for self-determination for their group, it was clear that the
proto elites needed to convince the mass of the people that they did indeed constitute
a ‘nation’. This could be demonstrated effectively if the group had a language which
united them while at the same time differentiating them from their neighbours. This
was easy to show where isolate languages such as Estonian were spoken, but not
always self-evident in the great dialect continua; where one Slavic national language
ends and another begins is to a large extent an arbitrary decision caused by political
variety merged into another. As Kloss has shown, the linguist’s job was to develop a
national standard that promoted maximum comprehension and cohesion within the
nation and maximum difference from others.
The linguist was also of use alongside the historian and the archaeologist in
establishing the long standing existence of the group. Folk tales, national epics, both
genuine and invented (e.g. Kat, Est) were circulated to demonstrate that the group had
a long history. These stories often presented a myth origin and promoted the idea of
ancestral right to territory.
When and wherever national movements achieved their goal of a separate homeland,
we witness language planning. Status planning made language of the group the
national language. Because movement within Europe has created an immense melting
pot this has usually meant that members of other language groups were caught within
the state boundaries. They have mostly been forced to assimilate linguistically or be
marginalised. There is little historical record of tolerance for multilingualism within
the nation state. Using the national language became a test of loyalty and an easy
measure of who was with and who against the nation state. It is arguable that the very
concept of linguistic minority is a product of the nation state system. The medieval
system could not and did not produce minorities in the same way.
Nationalist corpus planning is part of Kloss’ Ausbau process mentioned above. The
national language is developed in the national academy, the national dictionary and
the national grammar to be different. Linguists root out foreign influence, particularly
the influence of those who had previously dominated the national group. Thus
Estonians replaced words from German and Russian; Norwegians split in the battle to
distance Norwegian from Danish. In use the present advisedly. In a number of newly
independent states this kind of corpus planning is currently being enthusiastically
undertaken.
The third strand of language planning is acquisition planning. The state makes
provision for all to learn the national language and become literate in it. The national
education system provides for the younger generation and literacy campaigns work
among adults. The national language is not simply acquired in the educational setting,
conscription into the national army also has the (side) effect of promoting the national
language. It is learnt in the melting pots of large urban and/or industrialised centres. It
is promoted as the bureaucratic state intervenes more and more in citizens’ lives and
demands that all interaction with it be in the language of the state.
Because the national language has been planned top down to be different from allied
varieties and, because this variety has been taught in the national education system,
right to the very border of the territory, the ancient dialect continua start to weaken.
As the traveller crosses the border from Italy to France to Spain, it is evident that
these are language as well as political borders. Only those who hold onto their local
dialect against all odds maintain the ability to communicate with close geographical
neighbours living on the other side of the frontiers. Protected domestic markets and
defence which relies wholly on the national army intensify internal cohesion and
external difference.