Anthropological Perspective Regarding Language

Subject: Linguistics
Pages: 1
Words: 260
Reading time:
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One of the main ideas of the anthropological linguists which is not put under question is that languages are changing. Anthropological linguists in the contemporary world are sure that the languages are changing and the basis for these languages are the dialects and the languages of the communities which influence the already existing languages. Even though many anthropologists in the 19th century were sure that there is a concept of language superiority and/or inferiority, many contemporary scholars disagree with this idea. Thus, there are two points of view, that here is the language superiority and Latin should be considered as the superior and that all the languages are the modifications of other languages and dialects and therefore there is no opportunity to dwell upon language superiority and/or inferiority.

Considering the information from the point of view of the anthropologist who supports the language superiority and/or inferiority, it is important to state that they believed that Latin was the superior language in Europe. However, considering the situation from another perspective, Latin is the basis for most languages. Most of the languages are originated from Latin and in this case this language cannot be called the superior and others as the inferior as Latin is the background for all the languages, and the superiority of it cannot be even discussed. Most European contemporary languages should be considered as the variations of Latin one. Thus, each of the languages which were based on Latin may be considered as the continuation of Latin and therefore, it is impossible to rank them from superior to inferior.