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9 - Language Ideology and Observation: Nineteenth-Century Scholars in Northwestern Siberia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2023

By
Susan Gal
Edited by
Aneta Pavlenko
Aneta Pavlenko
Affiliation:
University of York
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Summary

This paper argues that the observations of scholars are shaped by the historically conditioned ideological presuppositions they hold about what language is and what characteristics of speakers it conveys. European observers in the nineteenth century – linguists, explorers, natural scientists – brought one broad set of ideas to the task of observation. They presumed that languages are like organisms, firmly bounded, revealing speakers’ essence. Within these assumptions, observers differed according to their disciplinary interests and their differing social relations to the people they observed, as shown by widely varying reports about the languages of peoples in Northwestern Siberia.

Keywords

historic multilingualismhistorical sociolinguisticsEuropean language ideologiesconstraints on observationNorthwestern SiberiaGerman philologistsHungarian linguistsFinnish linguistsFinno-Ugric languageslanguage contactnineteenth century
Type
Chapter
Information
Multilingualism and History , pp. 170 - 186
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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