Once languages lost divine status, their native speakers became their owners.

Evidence

If all languages now shared a common (intra-)mundane status, then all were in principle equally worthy of study and admiration. But by who? Logically, since now none belonged to God, by their new owners: each language’s native speakers – and readers. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 290

Categorization

• XREF: Ownership of language by native speakers is foundational to how nations imagine a bounded ‘we’ — scaffolds the imagined-community and race-thinking concepts. — connects to: Languages came to be seen as the property of specific national communities — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 345; Sacred languages were imagined as emanations of reality itself — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 64

Related

• Languages came to be seen as the property of specific national communities (similarity 0.89)
• Sacred languages were imagined as emanations of reality itself (similarity 0.79)
• Linguistic distinctions were extended to claim ontological differences between peoples (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Sacred languages were imagined as emanations of reality itself #qualifies (0.78) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 64