Mother Tongues and Nations

This monograph examines the ideological legacy of the metaphors, 'œmother tongue'� and 'œnative speaker,'� by historicizing their linguistic development. Early nation states constructed the ideology of ethnolinguistic nationalism, a composite of national language, identity, geography, and race that generated the philologies of (early) modernity and their genetic and arboreal 'œfamilies'� of languages. Enracination of language persists today. Scholarly recognition of the biological metaphors that racialize language will help to combat continued ethnolinguistic discrimination.