Language and Nationality
Language and Nationality

Summary/Abstract: There is a rather widespread belief that the originality of a nationality stands in direct relation to the degree of its estrangement from others and in inverse relation to its degree of civilization. Adherents of this belief explain it approximately as follows. We see, they say, that at the present time originality of manners, customs, and dress can be found only in remote corners of Europe, whereas in olden days it was a different story. Now the resident of an out-of-the-way place in Germany or France does not even look like a German or a Frenchman but bears a quite particular impress that belongs solely to the area in question. In contrast, in a civilized man, especially a man who has travelled much about Europe, there appears a general cultural type that is no longer characteristic of a Frenchman, Englishman, or German, but of a civilized man in general. Educated men of all nations have more in common, not only in theoretical convictions but also in features of character, than do the educated members of a people and their uneducated compatriots. Persuasive evidence of this, incidentally, is supplied by comparing oneself and one’s acquaintances with, on the one hand, heroes of foreign novels who are in the same social position and, on the other hand, representatives of the common people in Russian stories.

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