The Linguistic Unity and National Identity: A Legal Retrospective

The author provides a retrospective analysis of the legal aspects of language policy during the modern era, when national identity, largely based on a common language, becomes intertwined with civic identity, which demands unconditional political loyalty to the state. Under these conditions, the modern state, regardless of its form of government, political structure, or regime, attempts to unify diverse groups — ethnic and otherwise — into a political nation primarily integrated linguistically, through language policy and the legal regulation that mediates its implementation. The paper shows the central role that linguistic ideologies and language regulation played in the formation of civic identity and the political nation mediating respectively the ideological-value and positive-legal aspects of language policy. It is shown how the progressively increasing politicization of language issues was accompanied — within the context of state-building processes and the formation of civic identity — by the legal framing of this discourse. The article proves the irrelevance of the point of view of radical constructivism regarding the relationship between language, national identity and legal regulation. The final conclusion emphasizes the importance of comparative-historical study of the experience of legal influence on the linguistic sphere as a key component of national identity for determining optimal forms of legal impact on language relations.

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