Language pride dissolves because it is too entangled with discredited nationalism

Evidence

It surprised us that participants also devalued the cultural importance of the Afrikaans language. Since Afrikaners often use ‘Afrikaans’ as a synonym for ‘Afrikaner’, we expected the language to be central to Afrikaner identity. We were therefore surprised that some participants were eager to distance themselves from the language, or at least from the taalstryd (the struggle for language). … Historically Afrikaans was much more than ‘a communication tool’ for Afrikaners and was intimately tied to the very core of Afrikaner nationalism and Afrikaner identity. Given the historical importance of the struggle for language in the emergence and maintenance of an Afrikaner nation, it initially seemed strange to us that modern Afrikaner identity could be produced by denying the importance of die taal (the language). However, on reflection we began to understand that expressing pride or pleasure in the Afrikaans language has become difficult because of its central place in the racist, supremacist Afrikaner nationalism that produced and sustained apartheid. — Cornel Verwey and Michael Quayle, Whiteness, racism, and Afrikaner…, 95

Categorization

• XREF: Contrast with Afrikaner history where the taalstryd (language struggle) was the founding mobilizer of group identity pre-apartheid — now inverted into a liability. Echoes other post-defeat language griefs (e.g. German in WWII aftermath, Ottoman-era subjects abandoning imperial languages). — connects to: A stigmatized identity becomes concealable and then actively disowned — Cornel Verwey and Michael Quayle, Whiteness, racism, and Afrikaner…, 73; Language-identity links are ideological, not natural — Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, Identity and Interaction: A…, 50; A lingua franca succeeds by being detached from any single ethnic or ideological identity — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 166
• SEED: The inverted asset: how a group’s single most ‘authentic’ cultural asset becomes radioactive once it is coupled to a discredited project, while an alien rival’s language (English) becomes camouflage and mobility.

Related

• Language, expected as core to Afrikaner identity, was instead devalued and distanced from. (similarity 0.88)
• Proficiency in the rival language becomes the shield that cancels ethnic stigma (similarity 0.84)
• After democracy Afrikaans lost power and became symbolically tied to the apartheid past (similarity 0.82)
• Displaced Afrikaners salvage identity by repurposing it as whiteness shared with former English rivals. (similarity 0.79)
• Afrikaner nationalism rested on interwoven discourses of racial purity and heroic autonomy (similarity 0.79)
• A stigmatized identity becomes concealable and then actively disowned (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Language-identity links are ideological, not natural #corroborates (0.80) — Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, Identity and Interaction, 50
• A lingua franca succeeds by being detached from any single ethnic or ideological identity #qualifies (0.75) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 166