Linguistics and the intellectual challenge of diversity

Abstract

: The status of modern linguistics within the modern disciplinary order is unclear, as it is neither a recognizable natural science, nor primarily a hermeneutic, interpretative discipline. In seeking to understand the intellectual history of colonial linguistics and its impact on polities such as India,this ambiguous status isacomplicatingfactor,inparticularwhenweconfrontquestionsofuniversalism, cultural difference, and identity politics. The key concept in this history is ‘Aryan’. The intellectual confidence with which nineteenth century comparativismsought to map the world’s languages, races, and cultures has largely disappeared, under assault from a range of ideological and intellectual opponents. In particular, the racial model of Indian civilization, reflected in Herbert Risley’s reading of a bas-relief at Sanchi, has been completely discredited. Yet colonial linguistics, which had arguably a much greater and more long-lasting impact on India, remains largely unchallenged, with the exception of critics associated with Hindu fundamentalism. For these critics, the distinctions drawn within colonial linguistics led to a schism within Indian society, by conceptualizing a historical divide between invading Aryans and indigenous Dravidians. A set of difficult questions arise from this. On the one hand, the rejection of western science is today linked to Hindu fundamentalism, and is driven by a xenophobic form of cultural relativism; on the other, linguistics is not a science in any universal sense, and its role in creating divisions in Indian society has arguably been a highly destructive one.