The Politics of Language Linguistic Despotism from Colonialism to Nationalism

Abstract

Languages have always been under the impact of political powers - both national authorities and foreign forces. They have been used as a tool of power to control and rule. In doing so, some languages have been given hegemony over others. The hegemonic ones have always been under de and re-construction. That is aiming at creating a parallel form of language along with the hegemonic ideology of the power itself. Besides, liberal thoughts and libertarian movements could not enough help the plural linguistic community of mankind. They, however, followed almost the same method as the others in using language as a tool to control and rule. While colonialism negatively affected languages, de-colonialism and nationalism also did almost the same. That is because the modern understanding of the very idea of the nation-state is mostly about unifying a country within an only framework of identity. It is obvious that to unify is to merge, if not to eliminate the other. Thus, it can result that the hegemony of a language, within a political border of a country, and even beyond that, is always threatening the survival of other languages.