On the Nature of Language
Introduction
It strikes me as incredibly fascinating that wherever human society has gone, language has always followed. It’s as if culture and tongue are in constant lockstep throughout history and across all human societies this case seems to be universal. There is no real reason to suggest why language should change just as we change. What reason does language have to evolve and alter at the same pace our societies change? Why shouldn’t it just remain the same? It appears to be a fact that language is no more of a fixed phenomenon than our biology. As evolution has demonstrated, our species is just the last in a long line of endless variation and adaptation. Each person is a product of a long, long history of mutation and tweaking, the forces of nature making us up into our optimum form to take on the world most effectively. Language is no different in this respect.
Since its conception, whenever that was, language has been constantly evolving. Latin was once a dominant language of the Europeans and now its represented in the Romance languages into which it developed. While Sanskrit was the main language on the Indian subcontinent, its daughters of Hindi, Urdu, Gujarat reflect the evolution of that society. The wonderful genetic relationship between all these languages is not just wonderful for a linguist, but any lover of humanity would be incomplete without a full appreciation of this fundamental humanistic element. The reason why language is so important for human society is because it is the very foundation of it. In fact, all communication begins not with a want to interconnect, but a need to express, and this self-expression is the essence of what makes both an individual and a society.
Communication did not start with human beings, of course. Indeed, many species have been able to communicate with one another in the past and the present. It is not the case that there has been one stage in which complex, abstract language has jumped from meaningless grunts. Rather language has been in constant development since individual lifeforms began to interact with one another. The overall complexity of this ability to express seems to also reflect the intelligence level of the being. The more complex the language, the more complex the consciousness seems to be. This seems perfectly obvious. If we look to such animals as dolphins and chimps, their defining characteristics which make us associate them as more intelligent species is their ability to communicate at such a high level.
This consciousness has been in development through evolution, and as with the process of language change, varying with different levels of complexity. The thoughts and personality of a dog, for instance, are usually instinctive, whereas chimps have been shown to act on a higher level than this. A fundamental difference is their communicative ability. Humans have, by far, the most complex system of communication of any species, and therefore have the most highly developed consciousness (on those rare it reveals itself). This, of course, is all taking place in the context of an evolutionary viewpoint. After we developed language, our interaction and ability to express increased enormously, and in particular our creative capacity. We built civilisations, composed music, created gods, allegory, debated, wrote books, designed cars, and all down to the refinement of our expression. All this development can be traced within the development of our languages.
It strikes me as incredibly fascinating that wherever human society has gone, language has always followed. It’s as if culture and tongue are in constant lockstep throughout history and across all human societies this case seems to be universal. There is no real reason to suggest why language should change just as we change. What reason does language have to evolve and alter at the same pace our societies change? Why shouldn’t it just remain the same? It appears to be a fact that language is no more of a fixed phenomenon than our biology. As evolution has demonstrated, our species is just the last in a long line of endless variation and adaptation. Each person is a product of a long, long history of mutation and tweaking, the forces of nature making us up into our optimum form to take on the world most effectively. Language is no different in this respect.
Since its conception, whenever that was, language has been constantly evolving. Latin was once a dominant language of the Europeans and now its represented in the Romance languages into which it developed. While Sanskrit was the main language on the Indian subcontinent, its daughters of Hindi, Urdu, Gujarat reflect the evolution of that society. The wonderful genetic relationship between all these languages is not just wonderful for a linguist, but any lover of humanity would be incomplete without a full appreciation of this fundamental humanistic element. The reason why language is so important for human society is because it is the very foundation of it. In fact, all communication begins not with a want to interconnect, but a need to express, and this self-expression is the essence of what makes both an individual and a society.
Communication did not start with human beings, of course. Indeed, many species have been able to communicate with one another in the past and the present. It is not the case that there has been one stage in which complex, abstract language has jumped from meaningless grunts. Rather language has been in constant development since individual lifeforms began to interact with one another. The overall complexity of this ability to express seems to also reflect the intelligence level of the being. The more complex the language, the more complex the consciousness seems to be. This seems perfectly obvious. If we look to such animals as dolphins and chimps, their defining characteristics which make us associate them as more intelligent species is their ability to communicate at such a high level.
This consciousness has been in development through evolution, and as with the process of language change, varying with different levels of complexity. The thoughts and personality of a dog, for instance, are usually instinctive, whereas chimps have been shown to act on a higher level than this. A fundamental difference is their communicative ability. Humans have, by far, the most complex system of communication of any species, and therefore have the most highly developed consciousness (on those rare it reveals itself). This, of course, is all taking place in the context of an evolutionary viewpoint. After we developed language, our interaction and ability to express increased enormously, and in particular our creative capacity. We built civilisations, composed music, created gods, allegory, debated, wrote books, designed cars, and all down to the refinement of our expression. All this development can be traced within the development of our languages.
Language & Individuality
On an individual level, language is the most radical quality which defines our uniqueness against another individual. We are all materially unique: we have different biologies based on our individual genetic codes, that we are not the same physically to another in totality. Even identical twins are both individuals and are not the same. However, this material uniqueness is not what gives our personalities – or souls – their individuality nor explains why we are similar in personality to family members and other members of our communities. If it were material, a Chinese baby brought up in Italy would have a personality based on her biological parents, but this isn’t the case. Yes, the material has an influence of course. You are biologically human and that makes you a human, with the pitfalls and advantage that gives. I would also say biological sex is something that also has a profound influence on you, since it what defines the hormones and your development into an adult. But all this is material because, without a personality, you would just be an empty shell, with no soul; there would be nothing but sameness. However, our psychological makeup, how our soul is defined, is influenced by our experience of the world. The soul is shaped by its response to events in the physical or material world and creates your personality; who you are is deeply influenced by your biology from birth, your emotional reactions and your psychological traumas. These are all reactions to events in reality which condition your soul. We are shaped by events in the real world which makes us the individuals that we are.
The majority of humans have the same initial universal experiences: we are formed in the womb, we are then birthed in more or less the same way, and, most importantly, we acquire language. A point I would highlight is that, where these nearly universal experiences are not the case, are accounted for in the differences in the individual’s psychological makeup. The acquisition of language is one of these experiences which occurs very early on. You start to acquire language from the moment of your birth when you are exposed to the speech of your caregiver. One of those universal traits which are built into human biology is the ability to learn any language. It is, needless to say, one of the most significant experiences that a human will ever have in the initial stages of their development. This process is extremely radical because it is the first transmittance of a person’s ability to self-express. Without it, your ability to be you in the real world – to self-actualise – is diminished hugely therefore it is necessary to have language in order to be an individual. Much like with languages following societies, your personal way of speaking – your idiolect – follows your development as a person. As you develop, your personal language develops with you and reflects that. You become more articulate as you become a better thinker. Who you are on a profound, psychological level is the same as the idiolect you speak.
When you speak, what are you doing? You are not communicating, or just merely so. You are expressing your personality in complete honesty in an act of raw creation. This is true in several ways. Firstly, we know that every utterance is completely unique, that is, that everything you say has never been said by anyone else in the history of time. When you speak, that is a creative act because it is you expressing your creativity in the most basic way – so basic that it is completely unconscious and effortless. This is not the same as communication, but self-realisation. But isn’t language fundamentally a social organ built for communication? Is it not communication, the functionality and practicality of language which has facilitated our capacity to express, rather than to express solely? Of course, communication is important when we speak, that we need to convey ideas to one another and accomplish tasks, but the creative element is far more primary.
So, when we talk, what is going on? If we look at language cynically, we can say that you are spitting out arbitrary sounds that correspond to some pre-agreed upon notion in my brain, and through that, we communicate ideas. I think this explanation is far too simplistic and not at all in tune with the reality of what languages are. How language is built and refined through time is not for the facilitation of communication, but for the increased precision for individual expressionism. This comes from the need to express ourselves to a greater degree than animals so, although their communication is still the result of this creativity. However, it might be so primitive and unsophisticated that it may not have progressed to the level of being creativity; it could be a proto-creativity for example. Could it be the case, for instance, that creativity is just an evolved form of communication?
When you and I build a language together, isn’t this an act of shared creativity? You and I through our creativity and individualistic expression create an entity which is reflective of both of us. Those initial grunts you make for that stick and my repetition and refinement of it, is our construction. As our language gets more complex, as we get more complex, we create more words, more structures, using more sounds. This language is therefore not a tool for communication, at least not primarily, but an artefact produced by our joint collaboration. A language then is not divorced from our individuality, it is, in fact, a product of combined individualities.
A language, on a societal level, is this two-person example expanded to maybe millions of speakers. A singular language becomes a rich tapestry of our collaborative creativity through time, each speaker contributing his or her individuality to it. The way dialects develop is through the elective choices of a group of individuals, who each possess their unique preferences for words and pronunciation and they are agreed upon by the others in that group. The idiolect shapes the sociolect, and thus the sociolect shapes the language. In this way, we have new languages, since the speakers unconsciously agree on the choice of aesthetics and alter the course of a language’s development. This is all down to the individual’s creativity, that the individual is the key shaper in the creation of a language, and the wonderful thing is that in order to produce a language it requires more than one individual. A language can’t exist without individuals, and neither can an individual exist without a language.
When we inherit a language, what is the significance of this? Acquisition of a language is the acquisition of all that shared creativity across time. Every evolutionary detail and choice which has shaped that language, the individual expressions of every speaker’s soul as part of their contribution to language, is now a core part of who you are, and you express your own uniqueness as an individual through this shared heritage. It doesn’t let us hide either but reveals the quality of our souls. Ideologues are revealed by their slogan dependent utterances and the psychopathic given away by their manipulative use of language. The refinement of one’s soul is always followed by the refinement of one’s speech, that skilled articulation is a true indicator of the peacefulness of someone’s soul. The totality of you is therefore human, language and individual. Human because that is what you are materially; language because that is your way of expression; and individual. All these things taken integrally make you who you really are.
On an individual level, language is the most radical quality which defines our uniqueness against another individual. We are all materially unique: we have different biologies based on our individual genetic codes, that we are not the same physically to another in totality. Even identical twins are both individuals and are not the same. However, this material uniqueness is not what gives our personalities – or souls – their individuality nor explains why we are similar in personality to family members and other members of our communities. If it were material, a Chinese baby brought up in Italy would have a personality based on her biological parents, but this isn’t the case. Yes, the material has an influence of course. You are biologically human and that makes you a human, with the pitfalls and advantage that gives. I would also say biological sex is something that also has a profound influence on you, since it what defines the hormones and your development into an adult. But all this is material because, without a personality, you would just be an empty shell, with no soul; there would be nothing but sameness. However, our psychological makeup, how our soul is defined, is influenced by our experience of the world. The soul is shaped by its response to events in the physical or material world and creates your personality; who you are is deeply influenced by your biology from birth, your emotional reactions and your psychological traumas. These are all reactions to events in reality which condition your soul. We are shaped by events in the real world which makes us the individuals that we are.
The majority of humans have the same initial universal experiences: we are formed in the womb, we are then birthed in more or less the same way, and, most importantly, we acquire language. A point I would highlight is that, where these nearly universal experiences are not the case, are accounted for in the differences in the individual’s psychological makeup. The acquisition of language is one of these experiences which occurs very early on. You start to acquire language from the moment of your birth when you are exposed to the speech of your caregiver. One of those universal traits which are built into human biology is the ability to learn any language. It is, needless to say, one of the most significant experiences that a human will ever have in the initial stages of their development. This process is extremely radical because it is the first transmittance of a person’s ability to self-express. Without it, your ability to be you in the real world – to self-actualise – is diminished hugely therefore it is necessary to have language in order to be an individual. Much like with languages following societies, your personal way of speaking – your idiolect – follows your development as a person. As you develop, your personal language develops with you and reflects that. You become more articulate as you become a better thinker. Who you are on a profound, psychological level is the same as the idiolect you speak.
When you speak, what are you doing? You are not communicating, or just merely so. You are expressing your personality in complete honesty in an act of raw creation. This is true in several ways. Firstly, we know that every utterance is completely unique, that is, that everything you say has never been said by anyone else in the history of time. When you speak, that is a creative act because it is you expressing your creativity in the most basic way – so basic that it is completely unconscious and effortless. This is not the same as communication, but self-realisation. But isn’t language fundamentally a social organ built for communication? Is it not communication, the functionality and practicality of language which has facilitated our capacity to express, rather than to express solely? Of course, communication is important when we speak, that we need to convey ideas to one another and accomplish tasks, but the creative element is far more primary.
So, when we talk, what is going on? If we look at language cynically, we can say that you are spitting out arbitrary sounds that correspond to some pre-agreed upon notion in my brain, and through that, we communicate ideas. I think this explanation is far too simplistic and not at all in tune with the reality of what languages are. How language is built and refined through time is not for the facilitation of communication, but for the increased precision for individual expressionism. This comes from the need to express ourselves to a greater degree than animals so, although their communication is still the result of this creativity. However, it might be so primitive and unsophisticated that it may not have progressed to the level of being creativity; it could be a proto-creativity for example. Could it be the case, for instance, that creativity is just an evolved form of communication?
When you and I build a language together, isn’t this an act of shared creativity? You and I through our creativity and individualistic expression create an entity which is reflective of both of us. Those initial grunts you make for that stick and my repetition and refinement of it, is our construction. As our language gets more complex, as we get more complex, we create more words, more structures, using more sounds. This language is therefore not a tool for communication, at least not primarily, but an artefact produced by our joint collaboration. A language then is not divorced from our individuality, it is, in fact, a product of combined individualities.
A language, on a societal level, is this two-person example expanded to maybe millions of speakers. A singular language becomes a rich tapestry of our collaborative creativity through time, each speaker contributing his or her individuality to it. The way dialects develop is through the elective choices of a group of individuals, who each possess their unique preferences for words and pronunciation and they are agreed upon by the others in that group. The idiolect shapes the sociolect, and thus the sociolect shapes the language. In this way, we have new languages, since the speakers unconsciously agree on the choice of aesthetics and alter the course of a language’s development. This is all down to the individual’s creativity, that the individual is the key shaper in the creation of a language, and the wonderful thing is that in order to produce a language it requires more than one individual. A language can’t exist without individuals, and neither can an individual exist without a language.
When we inherit a language, what is the significance of this? Acquisition of a language is the acquisition of all that shared creativity across time. Every evolutionary detail and choice which has shaped that language, the individual expressions of every speaker’s soul as part of their contribution to language, is now a core part of who you are, and you express your own uniqueness as an individual through this shared heritage. It doesn’t let us hide either but reveals the quality of our souls. Ideologues are revealed by their slogan dependent utterances and the psychopathic given away by their manipulative use of language. The refinement of one’s soul is always followed by the refinement of one’s speech, that skilled articulation is a true indicator of the peacefulness of someone’s soul. The totality of you is therefore human, language and individual. Human because that is what you are materially; language because that is your way of expression; and individual. All these things taken integrally make you who you really are.
Language & Community
“Languages are the chief distinguishing marks of peoples. No people, in fact, comes into being until it speaks a language of its own; let the languages perish and the peoples perish too, or become different peoples...”
It appears to me that the true indicator of differences in humanity is language. It is evident that it is not race or ethnicity which influences behaviour or culture. Culture seems to have been the driver of biological adaptation and differences in humanity, but these are so superficial to the personality of an individual human being that they are a poor marker for distinguishing peoples. Race is such a meaningless term anyway that any attempt to define it accurately is doomed to failure, and often a path to evil.
No, language – defined crucially by the bounds of mutual intelligibility – is what seems to be the main indicator of a difference in culture or behaviour. Peoples who speak different languages from one another have different mentalities from one another, and we acquire a shared mentality when we acquire the language. I use the word mentality because it seems the most suitable. It is not a biological nor necessarily material concept but is an attempt to demonstrate a set of behaviours, views and mannerisms which pertain to an individual. A shared mentality is deeper than a culture, it is more like the cultural potential of a group of people. You act in a similar way to how your community acts for instance, as I act in a similar way to my community. Personal mentalities are shaped through personal experiences, of course, and one of those is the acquisition of a shared mentality through language.
The differences in these mentalities are reflected and traceable through the differences in language. A difference between a German and a Portuguese is accounted for easily in their respective languages. Their grammars are different, words are different and linguistic developments are different (i.e. they both belong to separate branches of the Indo-European language family), and thus their mentalities are also different. They have different cultures and lifestyles which are indicated with their differences in language. However, a German and Portuguese are more similar than, say, a German and a Japanese, not because they have different ethnicities, but because their languages are less related (in fact not related at all) than German and Portuguese. Another way to demonstrate this is through similarities. The similarities between Italians and Spaniards are reflected in their languages’ shared historical development and the differences between them are accounted for in their grammatical, lexical and philological divergence. Even within languages themselves, the dialectal differences often indicate a slight difference in culture within a linguistic community, for example, the regional Englishes indicate massive divergences in mentalities within Britain.
“For language is precisely that connection makes one or another group of people a people. Imagine for example, that by some miracle, the Serbs lost their language and spoke Polish – would there have been a Serbian people then? No, you would say then that Serbia is inhabited by Poles of the Privislyansky Territory by their place of residence, their origin, and religion; and they would not only call themselves Poles, but would constantly gravitate towards Poland, for language is precisely what the people create... For language is man's most sacred possession; with it he thinks, rejoices and sorrows, his self-awareness is connected with him, and therefore his individual existence. If there were no difference in languages, there would be no difference in peoples: then there would be local, political, religious groups, but not national ones. How inconceivable it is to separate the concepts of “language” and “people” from one another, it can be seen from the fact that in some languages both of these concepts are directly indicated by the same word.”
Since language is the result of the shared creativity between individuals, and that it has such a radical presence within your psychology, and its existence is evidence of a shared mentality, it is not unreasonable to think of languages as a sort of common, national myth. We act through our languages as a group and it is the phenomenon which bonds us together in a feeling of communitarianism with one another. It’s why we can easily form an intimate with someone from our own nation so well, not because they were born near to us or share similar genetics, but because their soul and creative spirit share the same linguistic heritage as us. This is why learning another language is so radical. Speaking to someone in their native language allows for an immediate rapport because you are speaking to their souls and all the history of literature and culture has gone into that. Knowing a significant part of a person comes from just knowing their language. This shared national myth is strengthened through the development of literature and other artistic endeavours. National epics such as the Kalevala and the Mahabharata lay down the foundations of a people which animate that communal sense of peoplehood.
And thus, a people dies when its language dies, just as an individual would be vacant without one. Latin died and so the Romans died. Sumerian died and so the Sumerians died. But the new peoples spring up as the language changes and evolves. Once we had the Norse, now we have the Norwegians and the Swedes. Once we had Sanskrit, and now Punjab, Bengali, Marathi to name a few. Even though the Indo-Europeans are long since gone, their creative genius is still the source of all our new utterances today. We also know that a people can be resurrected from the dead, as, thanks to the work of lexicographer Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the revitalisation of Hebrew and the return of the Israeli people. The concept of a people – or nation – is connected intimately with its language. Without a language, a people cannot exist.
The wonderful thing about having an interest in language is the worldview you are gifted: because of its universality, you see the humanity in everyone and recognise them, not on an individual level, but through their history, culture and society as well. This the nature of language gives humans a tremendous superpower. It allows us to express our individuality and our honest selves, and to contribute to the world. We through our individualism can shape history and the course of language just through that process of expression. Language gives us as communities voices. It allows us to criticise, argue and debate. It has allowed us to rise higher than any other species. It is our ultimate defence from being made slaves and the true indication of our humanism. It is the natural, organic communitarianism of a people in free and voluntary association with one another, acting through their individual creativity to supply their own part to their people’s history, and thus to humanity’s.
How does all this relate to glossopoeia? Well, is it not the case, considering all that has been discussed above, that all languages are the result of glossopoeia? That there is no such thing as natural languages at all? All languages have been created and have been shaped by our own creative geniuses and have not just been an artefact of the natural world. We don’t discover languages like we discover fossils, they are made by ourselves. Of course, they respond to natural, logical and organic rules of the objective world, like all creativity is confined to. But ultimately the decisions are made by us as a linguistic community, however unconsciously. The glossopoeist merely proves that instead of doing this over a natural course of a long period of time, that it is possible for one individual genius to devise the grammar and phonology. A glossopoeist is aware of their inherent linguistic predilection and harnesses it to their creative spirit. The languages we create therefore are as natural as any others and guided by our own added genius. This is an example of what glossopoeia can reveal to us about language.
“Languages are the chief distinguishing marks of peoples. No people, in fact, comes into being until it speaks a language of its own; let the languages perish and the peoples perish too, or become different peoples...”
It appears to me that the true indicator of differences in humanity is language. It is evident that it is not race or ethnicity which influences behaviour or culture. Culture seems to have been the driver of biological adaptation and differences in humanity, but these are so superficial to the personality of an individual human being that they are a poor marker for distinguishing peoples. Race is such a meaningless term anyway that any attempt to define it accurately is doomed to failure, and often a path to evil.
No, language – defined crucially by the bounds of mutual intelligibility – is what seems to be the main indicator of a difference in culture or behaviour. Peoples who speak different languages from one another have different mentalities from one another, and we acquire a shared mentality when we acquire the language. I use the word mentality because it seems the most suitable. It is not a biological nor necessarily material concept but is an attempt to demonstrate a set of behaviours, views and mannerisms which pertain to an individual. A shared mentality is deeper than a culture, it is more like the cultural potential of a group of people. You act in a similar way to how your community acts for instance, as I act in a similar way to my community. Personal mentalities are shaped through personal experiences, of course, and one of those is the acquisition of a shared mentality through language.
The differences in these mentalities are reflected and traceable through the differences in language. A difference between a German and a Portuguese is accounted for easily in their respective languages. Their grammars are different, words are different and linguistic developments are different (i.e. they both belong to separate branches of the Indo-European language family), and thus their mentalities are also different. They have different cultures and lifestyles which are indicated with their differences in language. However, a German and Portuguese are more similar than, say, a German and a Japanese, not because they have different ethnicities, but because their languages are less related (in fact not related at all) than German and Portuguese. Another way to demonstrate this is through similarities. The similarities between Italians and Spaniards are reflected in their languages’ shared historical development and the differences between them are accounted for in their grammatical, lexical and philological divergence. Even within languages themselves, the dialectal differences often indicate a slight difference in culture within a linguistic community, for example, the regional Englishes indicate massive divergences in mentalities within Britain.
“For language is precisely that connection makes one or another group of people a people. Imagine for example, that by some miracle, the Serbs lost their language and spoke Polish – would there have been a Serbian people then? No, you would say then that Serbia is inhabited by Poles of the Privislyansky Territory by their place of residence, their origin, and religion; and they would not only call themselves Poles, but would constantly gravitate towards Poland, for language is precisely what the people create... For language is man's most sacred possession; with it he thinks, rejoices and sorrows, his self-awareness is connected with him, and therefore his individual existence. If there were no difference in languages, there would be no difference in peoples: then there would be local, political, religious groups, but not national ones. How inconceivable it is to separate the concepts of “language” and “people” from one another, it can be seen from the fact that in some languages both of these concepts are directly indicated by the same word.”
Since language is the result of the shared creativity between individuals, and that it has such a radical presence within your psychology, and its existence is evidence of a shared mentality, it is not unreasonable to think of languages as a sort of common, national myth. We act through our languages as a group and it is the phenomenon which bonds us together in a feeling of communitarianism with one another. It’s why we can easily form an intimate with someone from our own nation so well, not because they were born near to us or share similar genetics, but because their soul and creative spirit share the same linguistic heritage as us. This is why learning another language is so radical. Speaking to someone in their native language allows for an immediate rapport because you are speaking to their souls and all the history of literature and culture has gone into that. Knowing a significant part of a person comes from just knowing their language. This shared national myth is strengthened through the development of literature and other artistic endeavours. National epics such as the Kalevala and the Mahabharata lay down the foundations of a people which animate that communal sense of peoplehood.
And thus, a people dies when its language dies, just as an individual would be vacant without one. Latin died and so the Romans died. Sumerian died and so the Sumerians died. But the new peoples spring up as the language changes and evolves. Once we had the Norse, now we have the Norwegians and the Swedes. Once we had Sanskrit, and now Punjab, Bengali, Marathi to name a few. Even though the Indo-Europeans are long since gone, their creative genius is still the source of all our new utterances today. We also know that a people can be resurrected from the dead, as, thanks to the work of lexicographer Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the revitalisation of Hebrew and the return of the Israeli people. The concept of a people – or nation – is connected intimately with its language. Without a language, a people cannot exist.
The wonderful thing about having an interest in language is the worldview you are gifted: because of its universality, you see the humanity in everyone and recognise them, not on an individual level, but through their history, culture and society as well. This the nature of language gives humans a tremendous superpower. It allows us to express our individuality and our honest selves, and to contribute to the world. We through our individualism can shape history and the course of language just through that process of expression. Language gives us as communities voices. It allows us to criticise, argue and debate. It has allowed us to rise higher than any other species. It is our ultimate defence from being made slaves and the true indication of our humanism. It is the natural, organic communitarianism of a people in free and voluntary association with one another, acting through their individual creativity to supply their own part to their people’s history, and thus to humanity’s.
How does all this relate to glossopoeia? Well, is it not the case, considering all that has been discussed above, that all languages are the result of glossopoeia? That there is no such thing as natural languages at all? All languages have been created and have been shaped by our own creative geniuses and have not just been an artefact of the natural world. We don’t discover languages like we discover fossils, they are made by ourselves. Of course, they respond to natural, logical and organic rules of the objective world, like all creativity is confined to. But ultimately the decisions are made by us as a linguistic community, however unconsciously. The glossopoeist merely proves that instead of doing this over a natural course of a long period of time, that it is possible for one individual genius to devise the grammar and phonology. A glossopoeist is aware of their inherent linguistic predilection and harnesses it to their creative spirit. The languages we create therefore are as natural as any others and guided by our own added genius. This is an example of what glossopoeia can reveal to us about language.
Language as Nationality
In this way, it is reasonable to assume two things: firstly, language is was is truly meant as nationality. A language defines the borders and the groups of peoples we have in the world and indicates their shared mentalities. It is also the progenitor of culture, that in order to have culture, a language must be present. Secondly, it reveals that neither individualism or collectivism are correct about the nature of humanity. It is in fact an evident truth that the two don’t just exist at the same time, but are also not logically possible to exist without the other. In order to be an individual, you must have that medium of expression in order to express that individuality, and in order to form a society, those individuals must be the creators and shapers of the medium since only through their interaction and self-actualisation can it exist.
Therefore, if we wish to come to a conclusion on what constitutes an objective nationality, it appears that language – including dialectical differences – is the best definition. The linguistic idea of nationality can go beyond arbitrary and materialist concepts such as race or class and effectively tap into the very spirit of humanity. It is humanistic in the sense that it is something all humans possess (and have the capacity to possess) and therefore does not negate the existence of a shared humanity but rather emphasises nationality as a fundamental part to it as well as the individual. It makes nationality part of a trinity which makes up the essence of a human being: individuality, nationality and humanity, all mutually inclusive to allow for the existence of the other.
Nationality is therefore an organic part of our existence and the only valid “identity” one can have. As opposed to either the modern intersectionalist argument of multiple identities, or the scientific racialist or communist case of an overarching identity based on some materialistic concept, nationality is an actual part of you which makes you distinct and belong from and to one group or another. It is completely non-arbitrary to who you are, as opposed to race which of course is. Your skin black or white can never truly define the way you act, your language as a radically psychological experience can and does.
Since nationality makes up a fundamental part of you individual essence, any true self-actualisation or acquisition of self-knowledge as an individual will also be dependent on it. A society can only be truly free therefore if every individual is permitted to self-actualise in the way it must in order to be actualised, which makes individual liberty a salient concern. Only when every individual is free to act in the way they must can society do the same; this is the same thing as self-determination. This means that freedom for the individual means the freedom for the group and vice versa, which is why if any member of your nationality is oppressed it is also your concern for their wellbeing, as it is a humanist concern for those oppressed of another nationality; this is same thing as solidarity.
Nationality is an essence which is true, not static. Despite indeed being a radical and rigid fact within the soul of an individual, this does not mean it is necessarily immutable. Indeed, like in evolutionary biology, small mutations of individual species is what drives biodiversity; the same concept applies. However, unlike arbitrary concepts such as race, which can be changed and made up on the spot (such as the invention of the American term “Hispanic”), nationality is not something which can be altered in such a way. A change in nationality might occur however when one speaks a new language better than they spoke their mother tongue which is an experiment of something which might look like pure integration. Bilingual people from birth, who have acquired two languages natively, are also in possession of two nationalities. Catalunya in Spain is a place in which both the Spanish (Castilian) and Catalan nationalities coexist in the souls of the people who speak both. This of course applies to even more native languages. Another example would be the Jewish communities who speak their own Jargon (variant of a national language) and the national language itself, which puts them in a curious position of having both their strong religious identity and their nationality being tied up into one.
In this way, it is reasonable to assume two things: firstly, language is was is truly meant as nationality. A language defines the borders and the groups of peoples we have in the world and indicates their shared mentalities. It is also the progenitor of culture, that in order to have culture, a language must be present. Secondly, it reveals that neither individualism or collectivism are correct about the nature of humanity. It is in fact an evident truth that the two don’t just exist at the same time, but are also not logically possible to exist without the other. In order to be an individual, you must have that medium of expression in order to express that individuality, and in order to form a society, those individuals must be the creators and shapers of the medium since only through their interaction and self-actualisation can it exist.
Therefore, if we wish to come to a conclusion on what constitutes an objective nationality, it appears that language – including dialectical differences – is the best definition. The linguistic idea of nationality can go beyond arbitrary and materialist concepts such as race or class and effectively tap into the very spirit of humanity. It is humanistic in the sense that it is something all humans possess (and have the capacity to possess) and therefore does not negate the existence of a shared humanity but rather emphasises nationality as a fundamental part to it as well as the individual. It makes nationality part of a trinity which makes up the essence of a human being: individuality, nationality and humanity, all mutually inclusive to allow for the existence of the other.
Nationality is therefore an organic part of our existence and the only valid “identity” one can have. As opposed to either the modern intersectionalist argument of multiple identities, or the scientific racialist or communist case of an overarching identity based on some materialistic concept, nationality is an actual part of you which makes you distinct and belong from and to one group or another. It is completely non-arbitrary to who you are, as opposed to race which of course is. Your skin black or white can never truly define the way you act, your language as a radically psychological experience can and does.
Since nationality makes up a fundamental part of you individual essence, any true self-actualisation or acquisition of self-knowledge as an individual will also be dependent on it. A society can only be truly free therefore if every individual is permitted to self-actualise in the way it must in order to be actualised, which makes individual liberty a salient concern. Only when every individual is free to act in the way they must can society do the same; this is the same thing as self-determination. This means that freedom for the individual means the freedom for the group and vice versa, which is why if any member of your nationality is oppressed it is also your concern for their wellbeing, as it is a humanist concern for those oppressed of another nationality; this is same thing as solidarity.
Nationality is an essence which is true, not static. Despite indeed being a radical and rigid fact within the soul of an individual, this does not mean it is necessarily immutable. Indeed, like in evolutionary biology, small mutations of individual species is what drives biodiversity; the same concept applies. However, unlike arbitrary concepts such as race, which can be changed and made up on the spot (such as the invention of the American term “Hispanic”), nationality is not something which can be altered in such a way. A change in nationality might occur however when one speaks a new language better than they spoke their mother tongue which is an experiment of something which might look like pure integration. Bilingual people from birth, who have acquired two languages natively, are also in possession of two nationalities. Catalunya in Spain is a place in which both the Spanish (Castilian) and Catalan nationalities coexist in the souls of the people who speak both. This of course applies to even more native languages. Another example would be the Jewish communities who speak their own Jargon (variant of a national language) and the national language itself, which puts them in a curious position of having both their strong religious identity and their nationality being tied up into one.
Language & Nationalism
If nationality is the essence of the individual which extends beyond their singular individuality, that is to say, the phenomenon which makes a human being more than just an individual, then what is the nation? It is hardly an easy question, since we have come to understand the nation as something so natural and accustomed in our way of life and culture, that it seems almost self-evident. In fact, part of the reason why we are so willing to take it for granted is most likely due to the feeling of “rightness” the nation seems to possess. In other words, we take it so much for granted, we don’t realise that we are steadily losing it.
It is hard to think of age where there was no nation. It is even harder to (seriously) think of an age where the nation is no more. However there was and there shall come a time where this was and may be the case. The permanence of the nation is, in all historical relevance, a very new concept. There is nothing more organic to us to refer to ourselves according to our nationality, British, Spanish, American etc., but we forget that there are younger “nationalities” still who have only been around 150 years or so, such as German and Italian. There was a time when Italian before the Risorgimento (Italian unification) when the soon-to-be Italians referred to themselves only as per the city or region from which they came. After the peninsula was united under one flag and government, regional differences still mattered but they felt more complete under Italy. Moreover, the talks and rumours of a European superstate, despite being the apparent final form of the European Union, has some element of dissatisfaction. It would be extremely difficult for people who have been comfortable with bearing the demonym of their nation to replace that with just European; it is certainly not something which is possible like it has been for the United States.
It is a curious state of affairs that what constitutes a nationality does not necessarily correlate to a nation. A nationality, as discussed, is pertains to the essence of a human being, without it having to be political, that is, the nationality of a person could merely be an impartial and objective concept without any need for further elaboration; a positivist observation about the nature of man. In this way, the nation and nationality are distinct since the former certainly is political and is related to some normative (if I may borrow an economics term) proscription. In short, nationality concerns what is and the nation concerns what should be. For instance, I could not be a nationalist and agree completely with the above description of the reality of nationality. This concept is compatible with any philosophy’s politics at the very least, even if it is not compatible with its metaphysics or morality; a communist could believe in nationality but believe it didn’t matter, like liberals do.
Therefore, the nation is the policy of the nationalist, and in the view of democratic nationalism, the nation is humanity’s most sacred principle. Yet there still lacks a valid description of what a nation might be as opposed to nationality. Nations, of course, may be composed of many nationalities, such as the Swiss Confederation or the Kingdom of Spain. There are also nationalities with no nation of their own at all, such as the Romani people or the Jews before the establishment of Israel. There are also nationalities which have all the makings of nationhood but still belong to another nation such as the Kurds. Indeed, the separation of nationality and nation is important in order to solve the problem.
In the view of democratic nationalism, the nation is not a static concept such as nationality. The nation is rather the self-actualisation of a nationality (or nationalities) from the internal essence of the individuals out into reality. In this sense, the nation is a political action. Much like an individual who comes to terms with the reality of his own essence, or acquires self-knowledge of his own being which are beyond his control, a group of individuals pertaining to the same nationality should come to terms with it as an association. And if the duty of the individual is to both come to terms with this reality and then express it honestly and authentically, by extension a nationality should do the same. The product of this is the nation. The nation is not, therefore, merely a nationality organised into a state. Indeed, the political and realist implication of a state is, although important when discussing a nation, is separate. A state is a pragmatic compromise and a tool which may help and aid the nation to achieve its goals, but the nation is a moral principle.
As such, the nation is a communitarian entity since it both rejects the totality of individualism and the totality of collectivism and adopts that reality is in fact both at the same time. This is not to be confused with some dialectic where the individual and the collective are in conflict between one another to produce some settling harmony, but rather it is that both the individual and the association exist at the same time and are mutually inclusive. This, in short, is the exact essence of communitarianism, that the community is the individuals and the community allows for individualism.