Николас Остлер - Empires of the Word - A language History of the World

Consider the varying success of Greek in western Asia and Egypt, after Alexander’s epochal conquests in 332-323 BC. In principle the administration was everywhere converted from Aramaic to Greek, and there were Greek settlements all over, at least within bigger cities; but Greek only became pervasive in Asia Minor, the great peninsula of Anatolia. (See Chapter 6, ‘Kings of Asia: Greek spread through war’, pp. 247ff.) In other words, Greek was most successful in the old domain of the Phrygian language in the centre (known from inscriptions to have been closely related to it), and of the Lydian and other Anatolian languages, Indo-European tongues whose structure was also fairly similar to Greek. Greek was unsuccessful, except in planted communities of native speakers, in Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia (where people spoke Aramaic), in Egypt (where people spoke Aramaic and Egyptian), and in Persia (where people spoke Aramaic and Persian). It is most surprising structurally that Greek did not take root in Persia, since Persian is a fairly similar Indo-European language (and was famously learnt in a year by an ageing Greek Themistocles—see the Plutarch quote on p. 5); but perhaps there are non-linguistic reasons why an alien language should be particularly resented and so resisted in the heartland of what had been an independent and mighty empire for over two centuries.

A third example where language structure seems to have been crucial in the life prospects of a language is almost total absence of Mongolian from central and western Asia and from Europe, since the far-reaching conquests of the Mongols under Tamerlane across Iran in the fourteenth century, and previously under Genghis Khan and his successors in the thirteenth. The Golden Horde which sacked Kiev in 1240 was a Mongol army; and even Babur’s dynasty, which dominated India from the sixteenth century, rejoiced in the name ‘Mughal’, that is to say Mogul or Mongol, although his language, as we have seen, was Turkic. (See Chapter 3, “Third interlude: Turkic and Persian, outriders of Islam’, p. 106.) None of the Mongol invasions was soon undone or rolled back: what had happened to all these successful Mongolians?

A crucial feature of the Mongol-led invasions was the fact that they largely recapitulated earlier conquests of Turks (such as Huns and Khazars). Furthermore, they were conducted predominantly with contingents of Turkic-speaking warriors. Now Turkic and Mongolian, even if they are not genetically related, have become highly similar to each other structurally. (See Chapter 4, ‘Northern influences’, p. 145.) It was very easy, therefore, for a Mongol speaker to pick up Turkic, so to speak—and no doubt often quite literally—on the trot. Outside Mongolia, Mongols tended to be in a minority, and so their language was submerged in the language of their Turkic allies.

A fourth example has been suggested by a student of the Roman takeover of Gaul. We have seen that this led to a rapid, and surprisingly thorough, spread of Latin in place of Gaulish. Brigitte Bauer presents evidence that Latin and Gaulish were in many respects highly similar languages. [743]This similarity would have allowed the kind of word-for-word language replacement that we have just posited in the spread of Arabic over Aramaic. By contrast, the structure of British—still perhaps bearing the influence of a pre-Celtic substrate—was rather different, above all being a verb-initial language: verbs come first in the sentence. It would have been harder for Britons to learn to express themselves in Latin than it was for Gauls, and this stubborn fact may be at the root of why France today speaks a Romance language, but Great Britain does not.

Overall, it seems that—despite the received wisdom of linguists over two centuries and more—there may be circumstances in which the very essence of a language, its structure, can play a role in its viability. Languages, we suggest, are more easily learnt by a new population, and hence spread more easily, when they are structurally similar to the old language of that population. No particular structure is preferred in this process, just similarity of new with old. Otherwise learning a new language is an uphill struggle, perhaps too difficult for many who are already grown.

If this book has shown one thing, it is that world languages are not exclusively the creatures of world powers. A language does not grow through the assertion of power, but through the creation of a larger human community.

Clearly, military or economic might can act as strong inducements to community growth. Rome’s irresistible armies, Spain’s adelantados and Britain’s Royal Navy have all played essential roles in the wider projection of Latin, Spanish and English in their eras. But failures of naked conquest or commercial development to cause linguistic spread have been too frequent to ignore: the political success of Turkic, Mongol and Manchu in mastering northern China did not extend their languages, nor did the Germanic invasions of the Roman empire dislodge or even reduce Latin. The Netherlands’ commercial success for two centuries in South-East Asia did nothing for Dutch. Those universal traders, the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean and the Sogdians up and down the Silk Road, may have spread literacy skills along with their merchandise; but they did not convert their customers to wider use of their languages.

It appears that military conquest or economic domination will usually spread a language only if the conquerors come in overwhelming numbers, either through long-term immigration or a collapse of the native population. A less brutal alternative is for the conquerors to enlist the conquered into what is clearly a more technically developed, and potentially enriching, civilisation, as the Romans did in Gaul, and the British in India.

But this is just another aspect of the fundamental point about language spread, namely that it depends on community growth. This is how Sanskrit was able to spread in South-East Asia for a millennium without a conquest, how Quechua took over the domains held by the Inca, and how French was taken up at the eastern end of Europe by the elite of foreign powers who simply wanted to imitate the highest culture they knew. Aramaic too was first spread through a widely scattered community of bilingual scribes capable of originating and interpreting messages written in it, even as communities that spoke it were being uprooted and resettled over the entire Assyrian empire. There are more ways, and indeed more effective ways, than violence by which to enlarge a community. A common language is what enables ever more members to participate in it. As Anderson puts it: ‘Much the most important thing about language is its capacity for generating imagined communities, building in effect particular solidarities. After all, imperial languages are still vernaculars , and thus particular vernaculars among many.’ [744]

Each community is differentiated with its own particular approach. Each is given its character by the traditions of its past, and many or most of them are conveyed by narratives and rituals shared in its own language. Contrary to the assumption of most twentieth-century Western philosophy, a language is never simply ‘language’. Each language has its own colour and flavour. In this book, we have glimpsed some of the distinctive traits of the various traditions: Arabic’s austere grandeur and egalitarianism; Chinese and Egyptian’s unshakeable self-regard; Sanskrit’s luxuriating classifications and hierarchies; Greek’s self-confident innovation leading to self-obsession and pedantry; Latin’s civic sense; Spanish rigidity, cupidity and fidelity; French admiration for rationality; and English admiration for business acumen. These manifold qualities can sometimes be seen in the languages’ literatures. But they leap out when the languages’ histories are told.