Book Section
Elena Vogman
Language Follows Labour
Nikolai Marr’s Materialist Palaeontology of Speech
This chapter invites the reader to rediscover Nikolai Marr’s scientific work, which is situated at the intersection of archaeology, linguistics, and anthropological language theory. Marr’s linguistic models, which Sergei Eisenstein compared to a reading of Joyce’s Ulysses, underwent however multiple waves of critique. His heterodox materialism, originating in an archaeological vision of history and leading to a speculative ‘palaeontology of speech’, reveals a complex vision of time, one traversed by ‘survivals’ and anachronisms.
Keywords: palaeontology; gesture; survival; linear speech; material culture; linguistic theory; materialism; historiography; social conflict; Benjamin, Walter; Marr, Nikolai
| Title |
Language Follows Labour
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| Subtitle |
Nikolai Marr’s Materialist Palaeontology of Speech
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| Author(s) |
Elena Vogman
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| Identifier | |
| Description |
This chapter invites the reader to rediscover Nikolai Marr’s scientific work, which is situated at the intersection of archaeology, linguistics, and anthropological language theory. Marr’s linguistic models, which Sergei Eisenstein compared to a reading of Joyce’s Ulysses, underwent however multiple waves of critique. His heterodox materialism, originating in an archaeological vision of history and leading to a speculative ‘palaeontology of speech’, reveals a complex vision of time, one traversed by ‘survivals’ and anachronisms.
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| Is Part Of | |
| Place |
Berlin
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| Publisher |
ICI Berlin Press
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| Date |
2 March 2021
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| Subject |
palaeontology
gesture
survival
linear speech
material culture
linguistic theory
materialism
historiography
social conflict
Benjamin, Walter
Marr, Nikolai
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| Rights |
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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| Language |
en-GB
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| page start |
113
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| page end |
132
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| Source |
Materialism and Politics, ed. by Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato, Marlon Miguel, and Ayşe Yuva, Cultural Inquiry, 20 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2021), pp. 113–32
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References
- Alpatov, Vladimir, Istoria odnogo mifa: Marr i marrism [The history of one myth: Marr and marrism] (Moscow: Ed. URSS, 2004)
- Benjamin, Walter, Selected Writings, 4 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996–2003)
- Benjamin, Walter, ‘Problems in the Sociology of Language: An Overview’, in Selected Writings, III: 1935–1938, ed. by Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings, trans. by Edmund Jephcott, Howard Eiland, and others (2002), pp. 68–93
- Benjamin, Walter, ‘On the Concept of History’, in Selected Writings, IV: 1938-1940, ed. by Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings, trans. by Edmund Jephcott, Howard Eiland, and others (2003), pp. 389–400
- Devel, T. M., and T. B. Tomes, ‘Sobranie N. Ia. Marra v fotoarchive LOIA AN SSR’ [N. Ia. Marr’s Collection in the Archive of the Institute for History of Material Culture], Istoriko-filologicheski zhurnal, 3 (1971), pp. 289–95
- Geroulanos, Stefanos, and Jamie Phillips, ‘Eurasianism versus IndoGermanism: Linguistics and Mmythology in the 1930s’ Controversies over European Prehistory’, History of Science, 56.3 (2018), pp. 343–78 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0073275318776422>
- Jakobson, Roman, ed., N. S. Trubetzkoy’s Letters and Notes (The Hague: Mouton, 1975)
- Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien, How Natives Think (1910), trans. by Lilian A. Clare (New York: Washington Square Press, 1966)
- Marr, Nikolai, Izbrannye raboty [Selected Works], 5 vols (Leningrad: Gosudarstvennaia akademia istorii material’noi kul’tury (GAIMK), 1933–37)
- Marr, Nikolai, ‘Novyi povorot v rabote iafeticheskoi teorii’ [New Turn in the Work of Japhetic Theory], in Izbrannye raboty, I (1933), pp. 312–46
- Marr, Nikolai, ‘Iazyk i myshlenie’ [Language and Thought], in Izbrannye raboty, III (1936), pp. 90–121
- Marr, Nikolai, ‘Aktual’nye problemy i ocherednye zadachi iafeticheskoi teorii’ [Current Problems and Imminent Tasks of the Japhetic Theory], in Izbrannye raboty, III (1936), pp. 61–77
- Marr, Nikolai, ‘Ob iafeticheskoi teorii’ [On Japhetic Theory], in Izbrannye raboty, III (1936), pp. 1–34
- Marr, Nikolai, ‘Sredstva peredvizhenia, orudia samozazhity i proizvodstva v doistorii’ [Means of Transportation, Instruments of Self-protection and Production in Prehistory], in Izbrannye raboty, III (1936), pp. 123–51
- Marr, Nikolai, ‘O proischozhdenii iazyka’ [On the Origin of Language], in Izbrannye raboty, III (1936), pp. 180–215
- Marr, Nikolai, O raskopkah i rabotah v Ani leta 1906 [On the Excavations and Works in Ani in Summer 1906] (Saint Petersburg: Imp. akad. nauk, 1907)
- Marr, Nikolai, Ani, knizhnaia istoria goroda i raskopki na meste [Ani, a Written History of the City and the Excavations] (Moscow: OGIZ, 1934)
- Stavrinaki, Maria, Saisis par la préhistoire. Enquête sur l’art et le temps des modernes (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2019)
- Strätling, Susanne, Hand am Werk: Poetik der Poiesis in der russischen Avantgarde (Paderborn: Fink, 2018) <https://doi.org/10.30965/9783846760925>
Cite as:
Elena Vogman, ‘Language Follows Labour: Nikolai Marr’s Materialist Palaeontology of Speech’, in Materialism and Politics, ed. by Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato, Marlon Miguel, and Ayşe Yuva, Cultural Inquiry, 20 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2021), pp. 113-32 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-20_06>