Only certain colonial languages acquired a vocation for the universal

Evidence

In the nineteenth century, after the Spanish language had expanded into South America and the Portuguese language into Brazil, the French and English languages successfully accompanied the widespread expansion of their own respective cultures around the world. Other Western languages, German, Italian, or Russian, for example, despite sorne limited attempts at colonization, were not driven by this propensity for self-exportation that nearly always generates a sort of vocation for the universal. As for non-Western languages, Quechua, Swahili, Hindi, or Chinese, they remain endogenous and nonproliferating; their poetics do not yet hint at involvement in the evolution ofworld histories. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 172

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘vocation for the universal’ as a property of self-exporting colonial languages.
• XREF: connects to: Colonial universalism disguised European Christian values as transcendent truths — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 49

Broader Connections

• Colonial universalism disguised European Christian values as transcendent truths #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 49