Some intellectuals urged abandoning native languages to adopt English

Evidence

At the same time, slowly increasing literacy (by 1869 one third of the adult population), the spread of print-Magyar, and the growth of a small, but energetic, liberal intelligentsia all stimulated a popular Hungarian nationalism conceived very differently from that of the nobility. This popular nationalism, symbolized for later generations by the figure of Lajos Kossuth (1802–1894), had its hour of glory in the Revolution of 1848. The revolutionary regime not only got rid of the imperial governors appointed by Vienna, but abolished the supposedly Ur-Magyar feudal Diet of Noble Counties, and proclaimed reforms to put an end to serfdom and noblemen’s tax-exempt status, as well as to curb drastically the entailment of estates. In addition, it was decided that all Hungarian-speakers should be Hungarian (as only the privileged had been before) and every Hungarian should speak Magyar (as only some Magyars had hitherto been accustomed to do). As Ignotus drily comments, ‘The “nation” was, by the standard of that time (which viewed the rise of the twin stars of Liberalism and Nationalism with boundless optimism), justified in feeling itself extremely generous when it “admitted” the Magyar peasant with no discrimination save for that relating to property; and the non-Magyar Christians on condition they became Magyar; and eventually, with some reluctance and a delay of twenty years, the Jews.’ Kossuth’s own position, in his fruitless negotiations with leaders of the various non-Magyar minorities, was that these peoples should have exactly the same civil rights as the Magyars, but that since they lacked ‘historical personalities’ they could not form nations on their own. Today, this position may seem a trifle arrogant. It will appear in a better light if we recall that the brilliant, young, radical-nationalist poet Sándor Petófi (1823–1849), a leading spirit of 1848, on one occasion referred to the minorities as ‘ulcers on the body of the motherland.’ — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 386 (#complicates, via linked claim)

If the task of the intellectuals is to determine and to organise the reform of moral and intellectual life, in words to fit culture to the sphere of practice, it is clear that “crystallised” intellectuals are conservative and reactionary. For while the new social group at least feels itself split off and distinct from its predecessor, these intellectuals are not even conscious of this distinction, but think that they can reconnect themselves with the past. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1608 (#complicates, via linked claim)

It had become necessary to rationalize colonial policy and mission education. The formation of native elites was to be more deliberate. In the beginning there would be an appropriate contingent of clerks and a limited number of professionals, not nationalistic intellectuals; in the West Indies, such was the educational policy laid down generally at the end of the nineteenth century. In Africa, where populations were large and mission schools relatively few, the same policy was inaugurated in the years following World War I, and a common place by the 1930s. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 856 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Adopting a new language evidences dislocation and the inferiority complex among the educated.; Learning another group’s dialect to pass as them constitutes alienation — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 145; Choosing an outgroup’s language is perceived as ethnic betrayal — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1292 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Popular nationalism reproduced exclusion by demanding linguistic uniformity #complicates (0.76) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 386
• Intellectuals who cling to inherited language are conservative and reactionary. #complicates (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1608
• Colonial education policy deliberately aimed to avoid creating nationalist intellectuals #complicates (0.74) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 856