Language and nation

The rise of cultural nationalism in the second half of the eighteenth century includes the rise of linguistic nationalism. Language played a prominent role in the efforts at and the pleas in favour of cultural unification, and the period thus witnessed the rise of a national language ideology. Such an ideology that aims to create a language that unifies the population is often also referred to as standard language ideology.

Standard language ideology or SLI, discussed by Milroy & Milroy (2012) and also explored in Milroy (2000, 2001), is analysed in great detail by Lippi-Green (1997), who defines it as “a bias toward an abstracted, idealized, homogenous, spoken lan-guage which is imposed and maintained by dominant bloc institutions and which names as its model the written language, but which is drawn primarily from the spoken language of the upper middle class” (1997: 64). Lippi-Green analyses SLI in the contemporary United States. This present book is historically oriented and focuses on the rise of SLI in the Netherlands in the second half of the eighteenth century, when the Dutch language underwent “nationalization” (Burke 2004: 166) or “totemization” and was “adopted as one of the defining social properties of a group” (Le Page & Tabouret-Keller 1985: 263), viz. of the Dutch nation. This cul-tural idea of language as a symbol of the nation was politicised around 1800, when a homogeneous, normalised form was called for by the national government, which was to be used in the administrative and educational domains.

The fusion of different concepts such as language and nation into one con-ceptual framework, making them interdependent, was a widespread phenomenon in the eighteenth century, and a main topic in contemporary public discourse.

The ultimate epistemological consequence of the interdependence of language and nation is linguistic relativism (or Whorfianism, or the Sapir-Whorf hypoth-esis), which is often traced back to the works of Wilhelm von Humboldt, such as Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaus und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts (1836; cf. Noordegraaf 1999: 344).

Humboldt, however, had many well-known predecessors who discussed the intrin-sic relationship of language and nation, including Etienne Bonnot de Condillac’s Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines (1746), Johann David Michaelis’s Von dem Einfluss der Meinungen eines Volcks in seine Sprachen, und der Sprache in die Meinungen (1760), Johann Gottfried Herder’s Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache (1772), and even further back in time the works of Giambattista Vico from the first half of the century, and John Locke’s Essay concerning human understanding (1672) and Two treatises of government (1690) (cf. Christman 1966; Aarsleff 1974;

Bauman & Briggs 2003; Neis 2003).

Of these authors, Herder is often singled out as canonical, and considered to be a major representative of the conceptual fusion of language and nation, to

which a third main concept should be added, viz. history. Herder is usually held co-responsible for a Copernican revolution in the semantic development of the Volk concept (Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe 1992: 283). He is thought to be the founder of the romantic concept of Volk or Nation as a collective individuality with a specific culture, which primarily manifests itself in poetry and language. This could be termed the ontological foundation of Volk. In addition, he is considered to be one of the originators of historicism, interpreting the history of mankind as the necessary development of distinct nations, which might be termed the historical foundation of the romantic Volk concept. According to Berlin (1976: 145), “he is the father of the related notions of nationalism, historicism, and the Volksgeist”.

This is a well-known story that does not need to be retold here. Instead, I will focus on Dutch sources from the eighteenth century that discuss the concepts of language, nation and their inherent connections, illustrating the rise of linguistic nationalism (Noordegraaf 1999; Rutten 2004). A crucial and relatively early author was Meinard Tydeman (Noordegraaf 2012). In 1762, when he was only 21 years old, he wrote a short essay in which he argued that cultivating the moedertaal

‘mother tongue’ would greatly contribute to the well-being of society as a whole (see Tydeman 1775a). One of Tydeman’s arguments concerned civil command of the language with regard to a democratic ideal of citizens speaking in vrije volks- en raads-vergaderingen ‘in free national and council meetings’ (1775a: 6). In the interest of a smoothly running political system, he considered it to be important that members of the nation practise their language skills. In an essay of the previous year, 1761, Tydeman had advocated the foundation of a scholarly academy which would by order of the national government supervise the national education system (see Tydeman 1775b). Every schoolmaster should be subjected to a Dutch test, and should be forced to use in class a not yet existent brief grammar with the principles of the Dutch language, and to study a more extensive grammar in order to truly understand the principles (Tydeman 1775b: 17–19).

Also in the 1760s, Joan Jacob Mauricius published a thick book on the history and use of foreign words in various languages, including Dutch, in which the history of the peoples who speak these languages occupies an important place (Mauricius 1765). Mauricius uses the term Volk ‘people’, which he appears to conceptualise in a romantic Herder-like fashion. He frequently refers to Michaelis’ prize essay Von dem Einfluss der Meinungen eines Volcks in seine Sprachen, und der Sprache in die Meinungen and the 1760 volume that it was first published in, the Dissertation qui a remporté le Prix proposé par l’Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres de Prusse, sur l’Influence réciproque du Langage sur les Opinions, et des Opinions sur le Langage. Avec le Pieces qui ont concouru (Mauricius 1765: 13, 42, 45, 53, 55, 59, 61).

One of the claims made by Mauricius (1765: 55) is that de beschaafdheid en geestryk-heid van een Volk altyd in eevenrediggeestryk-heid [is] met de rykdom en beschaafdgeestryk-heid van

deszelfs taal ‘the cultivation and ingenuity of a people is always in proportion to the wealth and cultivation of its language’. This idea, which has been referred to as the These vom Weltbild der Sprache (Christmann 1966), was important from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards and well into the nineteenth century, and remains so even today. Within a few decades, it had become an idée reçue. When in 1819, Petrus Eekma wrote an introduction to Dutch linguistics, he considered the influence of the language op de zeden der menschen en ‘s Lands wetten […] reeds zedert langen tijd, eene aangenomene waarheid ‘on the customs of people and the laws of the country […] an accepted truth for a long time now’ (Eekma 1819: III).

In 1771, a Dutch translation of Michaelis’s essay was published (Michaelis 1771). Interestingly, the adjective nationaale ‘national’ is inserted into the title, signifying the interrelatedness of language and nation: Prysverhandeling over den wederkeerigen invloed van de aangenomen begrippen onder een volk op de nation-aale taal, en van de taal op de nationnation-aale wyze van denken (‘Prize essay about the reciprocal influence of the accepted ideas of a people on the national language, and of the language on the national way of thinking’). On the whole, the translation appears to be quite faithful. However, the translator, Cornelis van Engelen, allows himself occasional interruptions to Michaelis’s argument, which are reminiscent of Herder’s Abhandlung, which would not be published until 1772, i.e. one year later.

One telling example is when van Engelen inserts a passage on proverbs (Michaelis 1771: 6–9), and in particular on the way in which these demonstrate the linguistic preservation of the vorige levens-wyze des Volks ‘earlier way of life of the people’

(Michaelis 1771: 7). The ontological qualities of the people are borne by their lan-guage. Moreover, in another inserted passage, van Engelen claims that the ety-mology of some Dutch words reveals the theological outlook of the Dutch people, thus adding a historical dimension to the interrelatedness of language and nation.

Such Herder-like insertions into the translation of Michaelis’s essay take on a new aspect when a few years later van Engelen shows that he has read his German contemporary. In 1775, a certain C.V.E., probably van Engelen, published an article on waarom de dieren niet spreeken, en hoe de menschen hebben begonnen te spreeken

‘why the animals do not speak, and how man began to speak’ (see C.V.E. 1775).

The author refers to the essay competition organised by the Berlin Academy a few years before, where the origin of language was the main topic (Neis 2003), as well as to Herder’s prize essay, admitting that he was not able to consult the essay itself and relied on review articles. He is, therefore, not able to provide the intended translation, and instead offers his own thoughts on the topic, interlaced with quotes from articles about Herder’s Abhandlung. C.V.E’s views turn out to be consistent with Herder’s (cf. 1775: 199–230). From the tones that man originally used to ex-press perceptions, and which are preserved in interjections, man has developed language due to the capacity to abstract from concrete situations and constitute

ideas. Therefore, the historical development of language and knowledge go hand in hand, as with Herder’s historical foundation of the romantic Volk concept. C.V.E.

does not want to dwell on the reciprocal influence of language and opinions, since

“Professor Michaelis before me has treated this part conclusively in his prize essay, and one knows the enlarged translation of this excellent work, which is available”.² C.V.E. thus advertises Cornelis van Engelen’s translation of Michaelis.

As has already been mentioned, Herder’s Abhandlung was published in 1772, as the winning entry to the Berlin essay competition of 1769. Mestingh (1771) was originally meant as a response to the prize competition as well, but he did not submit his essay to the Berlin Academy. The essay clearly reveals that Herder’s Abhandlung provides but one example of a widespread theory of the origin of lan-guage in which interjections and onomatopoeia play a crucial role (cf. Neis 2003).

Mestingh deduces the origin of language from the need to express emotions and passions to others, implying that interjections are the first words. In addition, peo-ple want to communicate thoughts to others. For exampeo-ple, by imitating the sound of a sheep one can make clear that a lost sheep has to be looked for, hence the word bleat comes into existence. This onomatopoeic origin of language leads to mostly monosyllabic words. These monosyllabic words are verbs denoting certain actions, such as the bleating of sheep. Therefore, verbs are the linguistic primitives from which nouns are derived (Mestingh 1771: 36–48). This theory including the example of the bleating sheep is almost identical to the opening passage of the

“Dritter Abschnitt” of the first part of Herder’s Abhandlung (Herder 1772: 44–48).

In 1772, the first volume of the Werken (‘Works’) of the Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde (‘Society of Dutch Language and Literature’) appeared.

This society was founded in 1766. In the preface to the first volume of the Werken, the society justified its existence and its goals, such as the study of the Dutch lan-guage, including the following statement:

Het kan den Liefhebberen van geleerdheid ook niet onbekend zijn, hoe veel in-vloeds de Tael op onze wyze van denken heeft; en hoe veel derzelver beschaving en uitbreiding toebrengt tot de juiste vorming, nette onderscheiding en klare uit-drukking van onze denkbeelden, en tot de wenschelyke vermeerdering onzer

kun-digheden. (Werken 1772: +2^r)

It cannot be unknown to those who love erudition, how much influence the lan-guage has on our manner of thinking, and how much of its cultivation and elab-oration contributes to the correct formulation, proper discrimination and clear expression of our ideas, and to the desirable accumulation of our knowledge.

2. C.V.E. (1775: 220): “de Hoogleraar Michaëlis heeft dat stuk in zyne Prysverhandeling voor my afgedaan, en men kent de vermeerderde vertaaling die van dit voortreffelyk Werk voor handen is”.

This quote once more expresses the linguistic relativism associated with the eight-eenth century, in particular the idea that a nation’s language determines its view of the world. In the Handelingen (‘Proceedings’) of the Maatschappij of 1774, which traditionally begin with a presidential address, repeated reference is made to the famous Johann David Michaelis, the great Michaelis, the judicious Michaelis (Handelingen 1774: 7–8) in a passage about the importance of cultivating the moed-ertaal ‘mother tongue’ or landtaal ‘country’s language, national language’. The rea-son why cultivation of the language is important lies in its interrelatedness to the nation itself as well as its level of erudition.

The inherent relation between language and nation, or in more contemporary terms between the national character (volkskarakter) and the characteristics of the language, is also exemplified in the works of Matthijs Siegenbeek, who authored the official spelling of 1804. In 1814, Siegenbeek published an essay on exactly this topic (Over het verband tusschen de taal en het volkskarakter der Nederlanderen ‘On the relation between the language and the national character of the Dutch’). In it, he linked properties of the Dutch language on the phonological, syntactic and lexical level to moral characteristics of the Dutch people (see Chapter 8 for discussion).

In language ideological terms, the idea that a language mirrors the national character of its speakers, thus symbolising essential aspects of the nation, is a pro-totypical case of what Irvine & Gal (2000: 37) call iconisation, which “involves a transformation of the sign relationship between linguistic features (or varieties) and the social images to which they are linked. Linguistic features that index social groups or activities appear to be iconic representations of them, as if a linguistic feature somehow depicted or displayed a social group’s inherent nature or essence”.

The discursive construction of an iconic representation is composed of three the-oretically independent ideological steps. The linguistic features or varieties, in our case the Dutch language, need to be perceived as a uniform whole. Similarly, the social group is subject to discursive homogenisation. Finally, and this is the real semiotic step of iconisation, these two entities are brought together into a symbolic relationship.

The iconic connections between language and nation as developed in Late Modern nationalistic discourse are dependent on four additional language ideo-logical steps. Iconisation often co-occurs with erasure. Erasure refers to a discursive operation by which sociolinguistic space is simplified, as a result of which “[f]acts that are inconsistent with the ideological scheme either go unnoticed or get ex-plained away” (Irvine & Gal 2000: 38). The most basic way to conceptualise Late Modern erasure is to think of sociolinguistic space as consisting of one and only one variety, i.e. the national or standard language. Alternatively, sociolinguistic space was sometimes thought of as more varied, viz. as consisting of non-standard lan-guage in addition to standard lanlan-guage. The category of non-standard encompasses

and demotes all variation outside the standard, often by elaborating on its threats to homogeneity, both linguistic and social.

Another important ideological aspect of iconisation is the pre-emptive dis-course of authenticity, which is manifest in the ubiquity of moedertaal ‘mother tongue’ as a principal concept. The threat posed to homogeneity and uniformity by the existence of variation is neutralised by conceptualising the nation as a uniform whole, and by surrounding it with a naturalising discourse of the mother tongue.

Thus, the national language is not just a symbolic, but also a natural and authentic representation of the nation (see Part II, where also anonymity is discussed, cf.

Woolard 2008, 2016). By implication, non-standard language is not underpinned by an ideology of authenticity.

A third important ideological step is linked to history as the third crucial con-cept in the Herderian fusion of language and nation. The iconic relation of lan-guage and nation is often cast in historical terms. Nations are conceptualised as time-honoured entities, anchored in ancient times, and distinguishable from other nations by various cultural practices, such as their language (see also Chapter 5 on the Golden Age Myth).

The ideological backbone of discursive moves such as iconisation, erasure, au-thenticisation and historicisation is homogeneity, the idea that both language and nation are discrete and uniform entities, free from variation and change. In a study of language myths in the history of English, Watts (2012: 595–596; cf. Watts 2011) calls the myth of homogeneity the “underlying” language myth, i.e. the founda-tion on which other language myths are built, for example myths of the longevity of English, of language purity, and of polite language. In a detailed discussion of the language ideologies of Herder and Locke, which are very different in many respects, Bauman & Briggs argue that they “converge in denying the legitimacy of multiple voices and multiple languages in public discourse […] This ideology of a monoglot and monologic standard has provided a charter […] for homogenizing national policies of language standardization and the regulation of public discourse”

(2003: 195). The main idea in Blommaert & Verschueren’s (1998) seminal study is that diversity is an inherently problematic concept in the modern period, precisely because it opposes the ideal of homogeneity. In a historical analysis of Spanish, del Valle & Gabriel-Stheeman (2002) also identify homogeneity as one of the main concepts in nineteenth-century linguistic nationalism. Homogeneity applies to the nation as well as to the language. One of the key instruments in nation-building to attain both social and linguistic homogeneity is education.

2.4 Education

The reconceptualisation of language as a national symbol had political conse-quences. Language became an object of political control, for which national policies were developed. The official spelling and grammar regulations of 1804 and 1805 are the prime examples of this politicisation of language (Siegenbeek 1804a; Weiland 1805a). In their discussion of Herder’s and Locke’s language ideologies, Bauman &

Briggs (2003: 191–195) draw attention to another point of convergence: in addition to homogeneity, both authors share a discourse of social inequality. The Lockean ideal of a rational, purified, objective language is attainable by men, but the success rate is conditioned by factors of occupation, class and gender. The Herderian ideal of a poetic language expressing the Volksgeist is inherently connected to the Volk as a homogeneous entity, from which, however, the rabble and women were excluded.

This means that the national language was a social privilege.

The national language, however, was also a goal. The Dutch Enlightenment is characterised by a fixation on education. Education became an object of political control, too, and was seen as a powerful tool to homogenise the population. The dissemination of the national language, previously the privilege of certain social groups, through education was part of this nation-building policy. In other words, there was a clear educational aspect to the official language policy that led to the 1804 and 1805 spelling and grammar. These language-in-education policies can be seen as the immediate result of the many debates on the education of man charac-terising the second half of the eighteenth century, and in particular the public and semi-public sphere of periodicals and societies (Rutten 2012). From the 1760s on-wards, intellectual societies had engaged in prize contests on the moral and physical education of man (Los 2005). In 1784, the Maatschappij tot Nut van ’t Algemeen, or: ’t Nut (‘Society for Public Advancement’) was founded, which adhered to an explicitly inclusive ideology of public civilisation. The inclusive ideal does not imply an ideology of equality. Instead, it is the duty of the privileged groups to integrate the less privileged into the nation.

The ideal of inclusive citizenship was also at the heart of the contemporary

The ideal of inclusive citizenship was also at the heart of the contemporary