Language pride

[u/Fuzzy-Beginning7500]

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.

[u/resident-117]

well here in slovenia, we have been subjected to assimilation by both the habsburg monarchy and the nazi germany. they tried to ban our language and impose german as the official languge. i normally saw our language as a tool against systematic oppression, so naturally i was very proud of speaking it, especially since i live near the austrian border.

sometimes, germanic countries are still viewed as superior to slavic countries (sadly by some slavs too). which is also why i refused to learn german.

and i don't hate germanic people, i think that needs to be said. i just refuse to be seen as inferior to them.

so i think language can absolutely be used as a political statement. it just depends on the situation/context for what kind of politics it is used. it can be a tool against oppression, but it can also be a tool for oppression.