From Enlightenment Speech to Romantic National Languages

Abstract

Linguistic human rights advocates believe it is important to retain minority languages, because language embodies our identity, and each language involves a unique way of looking at the world. These ideas may be traced back through the Boasian anthropological tradition to the Romantic view of language and nation, and the ideas of the German philosophers Johann Hamann and Johann Herder. This chapter examines Enlightenment concern with language as communication, and Romantic concern with lan-guage as culture, and how their ideas anticipate contemporary language rights debates.