The Loss of Primordial Language and the Future of National Languages

Capdevila, Irene (ed.)
Feliu, Francesc (ed.)

The modern world, to the extent that it disassociates us from the secular traditional world, from the “primordial” jobs and words that support the cultural particularity forged over the centuries, weakens the borders between languages. Neologisms bring languages closer together irreversibly, and the loss of primordial words (the local ways of designating a plant or a bird, the words that designated instruments that are no longer used), often accelerated by standardization processes which impose a term above all other possibilities, weakens the distinctions and singularity of languages. From this point of view, linguistic diversity seems typical of a less globalized world, and languages with less communicative influence seem doomed to dissolution.
The ideology of the national language has weakened and almost extinguished, in many cases, the internal dialectal diversity of the languages. Could it be that now, for this same reason, these national languages, specially those with reduced dimensions and lacking a projection beyond their historical territories, are in danger? What role can the preservation of the primordial language play in the attempt to combat the dynamics of linguistic globalization? These reflections are the focus of the contributions included in this volume.