Book Section
This paper focuses on a key contradiction in nineteenth-century nationalist ideology, namely the opposition between the emphasis on the sacred status of the mother tongue, on the one hand, and the use of universal mandatory schooling as a means of homogenization, on the other. The influential philologist Jacob Grimm insisted that only people whose mother tongue was German counted as members of the German nation; the mother tongue was the key criterion of authentic belonging. Yet Grimm also realized that mandatory schooling imposed a uniform language across a wide territory, wiping out local dialects and effectively giving shape to a more linguistically unified people. He thus witnessed how modern mass instruction forged a more standardized culture at the expense of the more natural-seeming transmission of language within families. In Grimm’s writings on education, the valorization of the mother is continually disturbed by the presence of a surrogate figure, the school teacher.
Keywords: Jacob Grimm; nationalism; nation building; 19th century; mother tongue; schooling; compulsory; education; folklore; philology; German literature
Title
The Mother Tongue at School
Author(s)
Jakob Norberg
Identifier
Description
This paper focuses on a key contradiction in nineteenth-century nationalist ideology, namely the opposition between the emphasis on the sacred status of the mother tongue, on the one hand, and the use of universal mandatory schooling as a means of homogenization, on the other. The influential philologist Jacob Grimm insisted that only people whose mother tongue was German counted as members of the German nation; the mother tongue was the key criterion of authentic belonging. Yet Grimm also realized that mandatory schooling imposed a uniform language across a wide territory, wiping out local dialects and effectively giving shape to a more linguistically unified people. He thus witnessed how modern mass instruction forged a more standardized culture at the expense of the more natural-seeming transmission of language within families. In Grimm’s writings on education, the valorization of the mother is continually disturbed by the presence of a surrogate figure, the school teacher.
Is Part Of
Place
Berlin
Publisher
ICI Berlin Press
Date
4 September 2023
Subject
Jacob Grimm
nationalism
nation building
19th century
mother tongue
schooling
compulsory
education
folklore
philology
German literature
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.
Language
en-GB
page start
85
page end
103
Source
Untying the Mother Tongue, ed. by Antonio Castore and Federico Dal Bo, Cultural Inquiry, 26 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2023), pp. 85–103

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Cite as: Jakob Norberg, ‘The Mother Tongue at School’, in Untying the Mother Tongue, ed. by Antonio Castore and Federico Dal Bo, Cultural Inquiry, 26 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2023), pp. 85-103 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-26_4>