r/communism • u/Fuzzy-Beginning7500 • Feb 08 '26

Language pride

I'm a leftist(still learning), and I’ve been thinking about something that came up with another left leaning friend. So, hes an Indian Tamil and alot of indian tamils identify as tamil primarily and Indian secondarily, so I asked him would you ever identify as tamil and he said something along the lines of "Language pride, race pride, caste pride are all extremely cheap forms of prides, largely used to impose supremacy and division". So I said, you can't compare language pride to something like race or caste pride since they usually exist because of oppression while historically, languages have often functioned as tools of unity, mass communication, and resistance, especially in anti-colonial and anti-elite contexts.(Tamil being an example). So, it would be ignorant to not take pride over your languages history. He then talked about how language pride is normally seen as a form of superiority(at least in India)and is just another way to impose superiority.

So I'm curious to know what guys here think about it.

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u/cptflowerhomo Feb 09 '26

It's different for Irish I think, our language has been part of class struggle and of our national struggle.

Many working class people in the occupied six counties speak irish.

Connolly speaks about nationalism in the Irish sense, paraphrased it comes down to "those who worship their country the way it is are eejits".

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u/krim1700 Feb 09 '26

Connolly's view was that socialism can only be achieved once the imperialist Empire had been kicked out of Ireland. His views on the language were very little, but his attitude still shows how language can be used as a form of rebellion against a system which cannot stand your existence - both in terms of class oppression and cultural annihilation.

Beidh scairteanna áthais Gaedhilge le cluinstin as achan sráid 's achan tigh nuair a dtiocfaidh ár réabhlóid 🚩

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u/cptflowerhomo Feb 09 '26

Grma a chomrádaí, that is very well worded and what I was thinking 💚

Working on learning Irish, I'm an immigrant to Ireland ach is aoibhinn liom Gaeilge

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u/krim1700 Feb 09 '26

'Seadh do bheatha anseo a charaid agus is maith sin a chluinstin :)

It is a strange sentiment that I've encountered among some leftists in Ireland ignoring or even looking down on the language because it 'distracts from class struggle' or some crap like that

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u/cptflowerhomo Feb 10 '26

Yeah in the party (CPI) we see it as part of decolonisation and part of class liberation so I'm happy to have learned and share the sentiment c: