I see language as a practical way of classifying cultures.  Language is relatively easy to compare systematically.  One may compare phonotactics, vocabulary and grammar.  I think all three should be given equal weight.  Otherwise people get stuck in the myth that languages could be loaned to death.  There are languages which vocabulary mostly comes from others.  However the language own structure has remained the same or developed separately.  The most common words have usually not bean loaned either.

Good to know in this context are the concepts of substrate and superstrate.  Substrate is the language spoken in the area before the current.  This is to say, not an immediate ancestor but an entirely unrelated or only distantly related one.  Superstrate is when the ruling has spoken an entirely different language.  Then it has influenced the language the majority has spoken.  Languages have also influenced each other because the native speakers were neighbouring peoples.  When several languages have influenced each other one talks about a diffusion area.

I have a reservation for language as indication of culture.  A culture can change considerably without its language having time to change to a particularly high degree.  One example is Western Europe since around 1700.  Most Ibero-American cultures have divided from there before.  Oftentimes they speak the same language as the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula.  But people’s view of and attitude to others may differ entirely.  Only the three southernmost countries have had large immigration later.  There it is easier for Europeans to cope with the physical environment.  Same applies to the US and Canada.  Their large immigration from Europe was after this change got up to speed.  In Australia and New Zealand it entirely took place after this.  We may compare to South Africa where people settled before it.  Afrikaans and Dutch are still mutually understandable.  However, the cultural change in Europe has just started to affect South Africa.

There are ethnic groups defining themselves by their religion.  It is then a matter of small religions which are usually in regional minority.  The four largest world religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism) are really poor indicators of culture.  Not only are there loads of peoples practicing the same religion.  Some countries are divided about equally between them.  Albania is slightly more than half Muslim and the rest mostly Christian.  In Eritrea this relationship is the reverse.  Do Christians and Muslims in these countries have fundamentally different cultures?  I don’t think they have.  In both cases an existing population first converted to Christianity.  Later parts of the population have gradually converted to Islam.  People of different religions in both countries speak the same language.  One which is moreover related to the languages of surrounding peoples.  I don’t think the cultural differences are that large between the religions.

Uploaded on the 28th of October 2024.