下面的文字是本人出版的一本书Language and State: An Inquiry into the Progress of Civilization, Second Edition的第一章。题目是：人民

主题是人是怎样汇聚在一起成为人民，并逐步组成国家。原文是英文。欢迎感兴趣的读者阅读。

Chapter 1:People

1.  People Using Language

People are animals using language. Using language for communication, people also use media. Using media, people communicate over long distances. Then, they start a process of gradually extending the reach of their linguistic communication. Many people commence to associate together. If we assume that now people are going to form a society larger than a tribe because more people associate together, we believe that people gradually depart from the tribe. This means that they leave kinship attenuating. That is, people, using language, extend the reach of communication. Then they increase the size of their group or community. Language finally plays a role of helping people group themselves as a people. Then, the people build the state.  So we see that people who use language are able to form themselves into a people and a people can form their state. People are no longer bound together by kinship as now they are interlinked  with each other by language. This should be the key to understanding how the human community evolves from a tribe to a state. This means that language leads to the dissolution of tribes and the formation of the states. But people need to associate together as a people first. If we study how a group of people become a people, we can view the making of a people in history from the perspective of language first.  That means that when some people use language for communication, they form a comparatively large community. As people who form this community communicate with one another by using the same language, many people share the same experience, cooperate with one another in production, and construct the consciousness of the collective being. They find the formation of their common interest. Then they become a people. Then they form their state. The state can be considered to be a large community.

      Then we see that while kinship is the reason for the formation of the tribe, language gradually becomes the reason for the formation of the state. In the primitive society people built their matriarchal society and patriarchal society in tandem. Thinking that they had special relationship with certain animals, plants or other non-living objects, including bear, wolf, eagle, tree, star, mountain and river, people addressed their tribes or clans respectfully by using the names of those animals, plants or other non-living things. The related names became the titles of honor, namely, totems. People believed that totems had sacred power and could protect them.  Those terms which denoted totems gradually became the names of clans. All clans had or used to have a totem. And in each clan denoted by the totem all the members of the clan had blood relationship. Though the related blood relationship was different from kinship in some sense, the size of a clan was still small so long as the population of each clan was concerned. But along with an increase in population in the society and the development of linguistic communication in an increasingly large area, people commenced to group themselves in mutual interactions assisted by linguistic communication.

       In ancientChina, family names which stemmed from the names of clans in the outset were used to determine if a man could get married with another woman because the names of clans could be used to judge if a man did not have a very close blood relationship with another woman. In later times they were sometimes used to identify the social status of some people because some families emerged as powerful and rich ones, resulting in a distinction between the family of a noble and the family of a commoner. From the period of Xia Dynasty (2070—1600BC) onward, however, people gradually adopted other terms as their family names which could not identify kinship or close blood relationship even though blood lineage was emphasized from time to time when a title of nobility was granted. For example, in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), each kingdom set up the system of prefectures and counties. These prefectures and counties needed to be governed. People needed to set up the administrative system. While nobles were appointed as the officials of governing the prefectures and counties, the authorities would inspect their pedigrees of clan. Yet, as kinship discontinued functioning, family names were increasingly used for the organization of the state with the so-called blood lineage functioning as a medium in the organization of the ruling class only. Some people adopted the name of a kingdom or a manor as their family name. Some others adopted the name of a place of residence such as a village or township, or the name of an official post, or a title of nobility, or the name of a skill as their family name. Some people even had a family name bestowed by the emperor after the empire had emerged. The ties of kinship or blood relationship between one another got obscured or blurred. According to a legend, all the Chinese people are the offspring of the Yellow Emperor. Yet some of them may not have the blood relationship with the Yellow Emperor. Family names were gradually used for administration because the authorities standardized the naming system to facilitate census-taking and the use of census information.

       In the Roman Empire, the nomen, the gens name, was used to identify group kinship with the praenomen being used as a “forename.” Family names were, however, uncommon in the Eastern  Roman Empire and non-existent in Western  Europe from the fifth to the tenth century. Though family names became prevalent in Europe from the tenth century onward, those family names were usually not used to identify kinship or blood relationship. InEngland, the introduction of family names is generally ascribed to the compilation of the Domesday Book in 1086 following the Norman conquest. Under the decree issued by William, the conqueror, people completed a record of a large-scale survey checking the population and properties of various areas like a census for the purpose of taxation. Though from the thirteenth century onward people had adopted hereditary family names inBritain, most family names have no longer been used to identify kinship or blood relationship. Some family names are now the original given names such as “Anderson.” Some family names are now an occupational name such as “Smith.” Some family names are now a name of the place of inhabitation such as “London.”

       In some countries people used no family names until early modern times. For example, family names were adopted in theNetherlandsin 1811, inJapanin 1870s and inTurkeyin 1934. Those family names usually cannot denote any kinship throughout history. If they can denote any blood relationship, this blood relationship is more significant for the nation than for a family in some sense.

       I believe that this change takes place because people use language in communication. That means that language provides a condition for the making of an ethnic group of people since or along with the dissolution of tribes. This ethnic group of people may evolve to be a people. Language provides a condition under which people group themselves in a new method. Prior to the grouping of people in this new method, people who formed the tribe in the primitive society were grouped by blood relationship represented by kinship. So tribes were usually isolated from one another. They could not be amalgamated. They could not grow in size persistently. They were always comparatively small in size. By contrast, people normally group themselves by language in the civilized society. They group themselves as an ethnic group of people and then as a people this way though they may still be grouped by the remote blood relationship to a small extent. That means that the making of a people in the civilized society  depends on the role played by language. As humans can extend the distance of linguistic communication due to the use of language, a number of tribes may join each other to form an ethnic group of people and a number of ethnic groups of people may join each other to form a nationality or an ethnic group of people may grow to be a nationality. This description cannot even exclude the case that people may be grouped time and again by changing blood relationship because the blood relationship of some people may change since now language enables people to group themselves in a new way. If some ethnic groups of people join each other to form a nationality, they get mixed. A change takes place in their blood relationship. Conversely, if a nationality splits up into several different ethnic groups of people, a change also takes place in their blood relationship. This evolution of blood relationship may factor into a process in which a certain group of people become a people. Thus, a human community may often be re-organized due to the operation of the linguistic communication that enables people to engage in their mutual interactions and cooperation regardless of blood relationship. Therefore, we sometimes even see that an ethnic group of people may evolve to be a nation and a nation may also evolve to be an ethnic group of people. Yet in terms of a process that leads to the making of a people, whenever different ethnic groups of people or different nationalities evolve to be a nation and hence form a state along with an increase in population, all, residing in the state, are required to speak the same language or a lingua franca. This is because  communicating with each other by using language, people create a condition for the formation of their common national character and hence for them to become a nation. A nation often constitutes a people. This is because the character of nation is changing and nearly all the nations undergo a certain change in their growth, including the change due to the split of the nation or the fusion of the nations. This is because people are animals using language. They can learn a new language. In particular, when a group of people learn the language used by another group of people, the two groups of people may unite to form a nation. Then there will be a condition for the making of a people. This is the reason why some nations can fuse into one, leading to the making of a new people. For instance, when two nations happen to fuse, the process of fusing these two nations often involves a process in which one nation pivots to using the language of the other. Karl W. Deutsch tells us that:

[T]he Slavic settlers in the Peloponnesus were assimilated to the Greek speech of the towns during the ‘dark ages’; the peasants ofEgyptgradually changed their Coptic speech for Arabic between the seventh and the twelfth centuries  A.D. (although the process may not have been completed until the sixteenth).¹

A.C. Woolner also writes that “The ‘Long Beards’ of Lombardy were Germanic invaders ofItaly. Now all their descendants speak Italian and pride themselves on their ‘Latin blood’.” ² The Chinese history also furnishes us with many related examples. In Chinese history the northern minorities invaded the central area ofChinaand later adopted the language of Chinese used by the Han Chinese inhabiting the Central Plains ofChina. In the period of Han Dynasty (206 BC-220AD), several parts of northern minorities, such as Xiongnu (Hun) and Xianbei from the peripheral areas in the north, fused themselves with the Han Chinese who came from the Central Plains because they adopted Chinese as their language. The rulers of Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) of China were originally the rulers of some of the Mongolian people and the Manchu people respectively with the former inhabiting the northern China and the latter inhabiting the northeastern China as a minority. The Mongolian people or the Manchu people spoke their own language. After they began to rule the wholeChinain the thirteenth and the seventeenth century respectively, they gradually adopted Mandarin, the language used by the Han Chinese, as their language. The Mongolian people who resided inChinaas a minority, or the Manchu people who resided inChinaas a minority, finally fused themselves with the majority of the Han Chinese ruled by them. This demonstrates that people, inhabiting the same area, can learn the same language and this will result in the formation of the common interest. Then we see the making of a people.

      In the ethnological view a member of an ethnic community is supposed to have blood relationship with all other members of this ethnic community. People of an ethnic community are supposed to have a common ancestor. The blood relationship among the people of an ethnic community may be highlighted to hold the members of the community together and differentiate them from those who are the members of other ethnic communities. But when a community grows large in population and area, people of different ethnic origins may reside in one and the same area. They may form a new community in which there are many different ethnic groups. They may be mixed. In fact, a nation-state is often formed by various ethnic groups through the process of their fusion with a language being spoken and written by all. When different ethnic groups interact with each other because of the relocation of one ethnic group or a part of it and because of the appearance of a language spoken and written by all of those different ethnic groups, the fusion of various ethnic groups may take place. Such fusion usually results in the making of a people. Take the Russian people as an example, when we read a book of the Russian history, we see that the Russian nation originated with East Slavs, who emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the third and eighth century. Along with the growth of the Russian nation after the founding of Kievan Rus’ in the ninth century and the independence of the Grand Duchy of Moscow from the Golden Horde in the fourteenth century, the Russian Empire emerged in the eighteenth century. In this historical process, people who formed the state became the people among whom Slavs were the majority and the people of some other ethnic groups, such as the indigenous people of the North and the Far East, were the minorities. The growth of some other nations may also show the similar pictures which indicate that when a common language is in use, a new people appear due to the fusion of different ethnic groups of people or even different nations. Similarly, according to Deutsch, in Germany when a Saxon king Henry I had himself crowned as emperor of the Franks and Saxons and appeared for the coronation in Frankish dress in the tenth century, the German people appeared because Henry I made it clear that from then on Saxons and Franks were going to be one people, even though it took quite a while.³ The German nation emerged through the fusion of different ethnic groups of people. And according to E. J. Hobsbawm, in southeastern Europe pre-Roman Illyrians, Romans, Greeks, immigrant Slavs of various kinds and various waves of central Asian invaders from the Avars to the Ottoman Turks make up the ethnicity of any people in southeastern Europe. The Montenegrins, originally considered Serbs but now a nationality, appear to be a combination of Serb peasants, relics of the Old Serb Kingdom and of Vlach herdsmen moving into the area depopulated by the Turkish conquest. Magyars, descended from the waves of central Asian nomadic invaders, spoke variants of a language utterly unlike any which surrounded them.⁴ And at that time, “Italy,Spainand many others were all once similar polyglot populations that eventually turned into nations, glued together from many different tribes and groups.” ⁵ Likewise, in history the English people underwent the fusion of different ethnic groups as they descended from Britons and the people of German tribes in early times and from Danes, Normans and the people of other ethnic groups in later times though these peoples are genetically similar.

        In a civilized society people are normally unable to communicate with each other on a large scale unless language is in use. A language is essential for the formation of the common interest through the mutual interaction of people in the process leading to the making of a people. Although states are formed by people in different areas on earth in different ways because the conditions of different areas are different, language is invariably a basis for the making of a people.

        If we argue that some special conditions have been essential for the formation of the state since the dissolution of the original small communities—tribes, we will see that that people speak and write the same language across the community is always a favorable condition for people to build the state because a state is usually formed by a people using the same language. The language, jointly used by all as a people, is actually a medium that helps people associate together. Such a language then always serves as a basis for the making of a people and for the formation of the state. I present four different cases in point.

The first case in point is that in Chinese history the First Emperor (259BC—210BC) unified the wholeChinathrough a series of wars in 221 BC, ending the Period of Warring States (475―221 BC). After the unification ofChina, the First Emperor, who was aware of the importance of using one language throughout the empire, ordered that all writings adopt the same characters and all carriage wheels have the same standard form and size. Language was a tool of communication that went on throughout the state. Transportation was a medium in support of the linguistic communication that went on throughout the state. Though he built an empire consisting of various different regions spanning large swaths of land across the empire, the Chinese people turned to using a unified language because of his decree in early times. Since then, through a long period of time in history, the Chinese Empire has turned to becoming a nation-state successfully because all people, using the same language, have become the same people. By contrast, some other cases show that if an empire fails to build a community in which all use the same language, the empire usually cannot evade the destiny of  final disintegration. That is, an empire is a political entity controlling a large territory and having a polyglot population. All ethnic groups or nationalities cannot constitute a people. If the use of coercion fails, the empire will crumble. So we see that in Europe all the empires which were not built through a unified language finally crumbled. As different peoples under the rule of an empire did not use the same language, the people of an ethnic group could not communicate with the people of another ethnic group. As the peoples of different ethnic groups did not communicate with each other and hence did not interact with each other, this case prevented their common memory, culture and the consciousness of belonging in the community from taking shape. People were prevented from creating a condition for the cultivation of their common character and the formation of their common interest. As Deutsch writes when describing the empires of Central and Eastern Europe in history, “All such empires had a solid basis in the local isolation.”⁶ Various groups of people, inhabiting each empire, belonged to different peoples. Yet, when an empire lost its control on part of its territory, or collapsed because of war or the self-determination of various nationalities that were the ethnic groups of people in the past, those nationalities under the rule of the original empire often turned to requesting the formation of their nation-states respectively because people, within each nationality, spoke the same language and they had their own common interest. They actually grew to be a people. The birth of many nation-states in Eastern Europe before or after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire and the Russian Empire that happened either during or after World War One sheds light on this case.

        The second case in point is that in history the ruler was sometimes unable to build a state in line with language. People who spoke and wrote a certain language might be under the rule of several adjacent states. All these people did not form one state. In medieval Europe, feudal states as territorial states were often built not in line with language, for example. Feudal states failed to realize the principle that each state adopted a unique language. In other words, people who spoke and wrote one language did not form one particular state. The formation of the state relied on the will and capacity of the ruler. Yet if someone called on his compatriots to build one state with all of them speaking a particular language, he would be very influential. He might launch a national unification campaign and nobody could stop it. A case in point is that prior to the unification ofItalyin 1861, there were small independent states in which Italian was spoken. Yet as people in these states all spoke Italian, their own national consciousness took form. This national consciousness gradually became the potential nation-state consciousness when economic and social conditions in each related region became favorable for the nation to build their nation-state and this nation found that all had the common interest as a nation.  So among people speaking Italian Giuseppe Mazzini appealed to them for the building of a unifiedItaly. And speaking Italian was considered to be an essential identity of the nation ofItalyand a ground for the formation of one nation-state. The unification ofGermanyin 1871 is also a similar case. In Germany where the picture was different in many aspects largely at the same time, a process of national unification also began under the agitation of some German nationalists who were directly or indirectly influenced by some German philosophers such as Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who believed that a group of people, speaking the same language, should be a nation. The German unification campaign arose.Prussiaplayed a major part in the unification with many other German speaking independent states exceptAustria. This means that  people who use the same language in a specific area are often a people and a people tend to form a state. As far as the unification ofItalyorGermanyin history is concerned, it proves that the enhancement of the status of vernaculars such as Italian or German in linguistic communication and cultural exchange among the native people helped people group themselves as a people. This is a basis for the formation of a nation-state.

            The third case in point is that if people gain control of their own destiny without a ruler ruling them according to the ruler’s view and in the interest of the ruler, they tend to unite to form a state because they use the same language and they have become a people.  Conversely, the making of a people merely results from it that all speak and write the same language. This dictates that people unite to build one community. This community is usually a state. Here let us have a look into the American history and take the making of the American people as a specific example. When European immigrants went to the colonies of North America to build their new communities, they had different national backgrounds. They came from different states. But they all turned to accepting English as their common language. English, used by them, actually created a primary condition for the making of a people and for the birth of a new nation-state. Describing the process of the construction of theUnited Statesby European immigrants who came toAmericabatch by batch, Alexis de Tocqueville writes that:  

[T]he immigrants who came at different times to occupy what is now the United States were not alike in many respects; their aims were not the same, and they ruled themselves according to different principles. But these men did have features in common, and they all found themselves in analogous circumstances. Language is perhaps the strongest and most enduring link which united men. All the immigrants spoke the same  language and were children of the same people.⁷

That means that when the people of different national backgrounds relocate from one area to another for any reason such as the outbreak of a war, overpopulation, religious persecution or the need of economic activities and happen to form a new community in an area, they turn to using the same language because only by using the same language can people create a condition for the formation of their community. If they speak different languages, they will have to undergo a process of the “unification of languages.” They will have to choose one language as the common language. Otherwise they will not be able to become a people and thus they will not be able to form a state.

      The fourth case in point is that if people who live in one area speak two different languages, they may not be determined to unite. Sometimes they are ruled by a government which fails to fully consider their need. Sometimes they are ruled by the ruler because the ruler uses enormous coercion against their will. Yet after they get independent, they tend to build their state in line with language because it is very difficult for people to build a state in which people use two different languages in communication if these two languages need to be announced as the official languages of the state unless they come across very special circumstances. The reason is that if people build their state in line with language, the organizer of the state will receive the strongest support. As the state needs to be formed by a people, people who are a people need to use the same language. The building of several nation-states in the Indian subcontinent of Asia in 1947 nearly immediately following the end of World War Two is a case in point. When the leaders of the peoples inhabiting the Indian subcontinent prepared to establish their new nation-state after the end of the English colonial rule, they found it that they were unable to form one state because of the lack of adequate common interest of different nationalities. The lack of common interest was particularly highlighted by cultural cleavage and perhaps linguistic cleavage. Thus, the emergence of two states, namely,IndiaandPakistan, in 1947 indicated that the formation of a state required the formation of the common cultural character. In the meantime, people needed to use the same language. As Muslims believed in Islam while Hindus believed in other religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism and as there was no unified language used by all or the majority of the population on the Indian subcontinent, the Indian subcontinent was partitioned along with Hindu-Muslim lines into two parts. Two states took shape. So the fact was that after the independence of India Hindi was announced by the leaders of the state as the official language of the state while after the independence of Pakistan Urdu was announced by the leaders of the state as the national language of the state. In the meantime, as Urdu was not spoken by all Pakistanis, the issue of language further led to the separation of the then East Pakistan from the then West Pakistan. Although  nearly all or the majority of Pakistanis in West Pakistan could accept the language policy of defining Urdu as the national language, a large portion of the population in the then East Pakistan hoped that Bengali could be chosen as a state language. Then there occurred the event of the independence ofBangladeshin 1971 resulting from a struggle of several years between the then East Pakistan and the then West  Pakistan. Though the independence of Bangladesh is attributable to many causes such as economic disparity between the then East Pakistan and the then West Pakistan, the use of different languages and the cultural cleavage at least in part given rise to by the use of different languages in these two areas are also an important factor leading to the independence of Bangladesh. For example, in some sense the Language Movement of 1952, aimed at recognizing Bengali as a state language, proved to be the first step toward independence. Later political struggle was waged by the masses inBangladeshin 1971 following a political crisis occurring because Awami League that had emerged as the largest party in Pakistan Parliament after 1970 election was not allowed to form the government. This political struggle finally led to the birth ofBangladeshas a nation-state.

            In short, if people do not use the same language, it is difficult for them to build a state or maintain a sustainable state. If a group of people happen to use one language, this language will underlie their association as a people. If a conqueror conquers a group of people and then builds a state against the will of those who are conquered, all people may not speak and write the same language. But this situation may not last long as people who form one state need to use the same language. Then the conqueror may promote a language or the conqueror may turn to using the language of those who are conquered. If a state cannot be built because different peoples insist on using their own languages, they may turn to building different states. In these circumstances, people are no longer able to form their state in line with kinship. Even blood relationship may not be able to play a decisive role.   I believe that while a group of people become a people, they may be aware of being interlinked with each other by blood relationship. But the concept of blood relationship is disseminated by using language. If people do not use language, they will not be aware of any role played by blood relationship. Kinship becomes thoroughly defunct. While we admit that kinship serves as a medium in the association of a group of people within a tribe, I argue that language serves as a medium in the making of a people within a state. Language plays a role in the making of a people and then in the formation of the state. While people use language in their mutual communication and interactions, they convey information to each other, exchange feelings with each other, disseminate ideas among all and share the common memory of their past. They rely on language to associate together. Then language even serves as their identity. This is the reason that while people form their state, they need to become a people first. If a group of people do not group themselves as a people, they may not form a state. Blood relationship no longer plays an extremely important role in the making of the people and hence the formation of the state though people may disseminate the consciousness of blood relationship to buttress the unity of the people.

2.  The People Using Native Language

While we insist that people, performing linguistic communication, may become a people and lay a foundation for the formation of a state, it should also be accentuated that a people cannot effectively emerge unless people keep on performing such linguistic communication for long. People will not cooperate with one another in production, grow up their traditional idea, have the common memory of the past and adhere to the custom of the local area so as to group themselves as a people until they keep on performing linguistic communication in the long run. If they need to keep on performing linguistic communication in the long run, they also have to keep on living in a specific area. They should not wander from one area to another from time to time. As they tend to live in livable areas, livable areas are attractive to them. Then they choose to remain in those livable areas generation by generation. Those livable areas are media because people tend to congregate in livable areas. Those areas may be characteristic of mild climate with adequate rainfall and appropriate humidity. There may be a large-size grassland or forest in each of those areas. Those areas may be safe from the devastation of any natural disaster. Those areas may be characteristic of having rich natural resources. People remain in, or spread themselves to, the areas with rich natural resources. In those areas there may be an abundance of arable land and minerals. Large quantities of aquatic products or timber may be produced in those areas.  Those areas may also be characteristic of being peopled because the society of that location is well-governed. This society may be peaceful and without the fear of being invaded by outside nomads or wandering gangs. This means that people normally congregate in the areas where it is suitable for them to live and to raise their children. Those areas are media. Population grows in those areas. Those areas may be plains, basins, river valleys, deltas, hilly regions, coastal areas, peninsulas or islands encompassed or separated by highland, mountain, river, lake, desert, marsh, ocean, bay, and strait.  These areas are often discrete from each other due to transportation discontinuity. Each area is self-contained. The economy of each area is particularly self-sufficient though people may engage in long-distance trade beyond the frontier of each area. Then as people have lived there for long, they share the same traditional idea in this area. People have a common memory of the past in this area. People speak and write a particular language. They grow to become a people in this area. Then they form a state.

            If we argue that since the birth of a language, this language can be used by many people, people who use this language will not group themselves as a people unless they have lived in an area for long. Then such language is a particular language exclusively used by people who live in this area. If people move from one area to another, carrying their language with them to many other livable places, language may also evolve. As livable areas are often not closely connected with one another, people, living in different livable areas, do not perform constant linguistic communication. Though they use the same language to communicate with one another, they communicate using this language in the local area only. Then language, used by people in each area, evolves over time. This language becomes particular. This is because while people use a language, this language is usually used by people in a particularly livable area. The special interest of the local area takes shape. Then language plays a role in the making of the people in each area. Therefore, wherever people communicate using a particular language in an area over a long period of time, they will become a people residing in that area. They have their own traditional idea, custom and belief. Their language and their traditional idea or custom or belief interrelate each other. Their language and their place of abode interrelate each other. Then people build their state as a people. Then I argue that whenever a language is spread to a very large area, this language tends to splinter off in the long run because people tend to use a particular language in a local area. The appearance of different languages in different areas due to the split of one original, common language makes it possible for people to become the different peoples of various areas. I call these different languages “native languages.” Then the evolution of languages in different areas may lead to the making of different peoples and different peoples may form different states.

      First, a language may be originally used by all in an area. Along with an increase in population, people carry this language to many other areas. As different groups of people spread themselves to different areas, they no longer communicate with one another between different areas constantly. People only perform constant linguistic communication within each area. The original language, jointly used by all, is gradually given up. Language, used in each area, begins to vary. The special interest of each area—the common interest within each area—takes shape. Then appear different peoples who build different states in different areas. One example is that in Europe, Latin was widely used as a common language in medieval times. But while Latin was used in a very large area, linguistic communication, performed by using Latin, was concentrated in each isolated area. Then we see that when the territory of the Roman Empire was expanded, Latin became divided in some aspects. Wilhelm von Humboldt writes that:

n the heyday of the Empire, Latin in the provinces was being differently spoken, according to their own differences, from the way it was inLatiumand the capital. Even in this original seat of the nation, the vernacular language could have had peculiarities of its own, which only came more generally to view later on, after the educated speech had declined. There would naturally have arisen departures in pronunciation, solecisms in construction, and probably already an easing of formal constraints by auxiliary terms, where the cultivated language permitted them not at all, or only as quite particular exceptions. The popular idiosyncrasies must have become dominant when the latter, as the community declined, no longer felt itself buoyed up by literature and the spoken use of it in public. The provincial degeneracy spread the more widely, the looser became the ties attaching the provinces to the whole.⁸

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, people gradually abandoned this common language. In later times, as the people of each area started to use their own vernacular or native language, they began to group themselves. They became a people. Then each people, living in a particular area, united to form their state. The growth ofFrance, the German states and some other European states in history may shed light on  this sort of phenomenon. For example, we know that Charlemagne, King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to 814, expanded the Frankish  Kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. Charlemagne’s son and successor, Louis the Pious allocated the empire to his three surviving sons, who signed the Treaty of Verdun, according to which the Frank Empire was divided into three parts, of which one part was constituted by part of today’s France; the second part was constituted by a large part of today’s Germany; and the third part was constituted by the lands in the northern area of today’s Italy and an area crossing the borders of today’s France and Germany. In the meantime, we see that Charlemagne was a German speaker. Two generations after Charlemagne, one of his grandsons, Charles the Bald, opted to speak publicly in the lingua romana, (Old) French, while his brother spoke teudesca lingua, (Old High) German. Some of the philologists believe that this is the origin ofFrance.⁹

       Likewise, both Dutch and German are Germanic languages. They have a common root in the distant past. Yet along with the passage of time Dutch became different from German in certain aspects and then became the official language of Holland. Thus as Max Weber writes, dialects, used as the chancellery language of autocephalous political units, hence of their rulers, have become orthodox forms of speech and writing and have  led to the separation of Holland from Germany.¹⁰

            Second, a series of neighboring areas may originally use a common language created by people in one of these areas. Yet as people of different areas perform constant linguistic communication within each of these areas, people of each area get estranged from those who are in any other area. As people of each area which borrows the language from another area in history grow up to become a people, they hope to have their own language as the original language gradually fails to function as a mechanism in keeping the unity of all different areas. That is, as using the original language cannot effectively facilitate the formation of the common interest of all in the local area, people turn to creating or reforming their language. The appearance of native language formally symbolizes the making of a new people and hence the birth of the state or the reinforcement of the building of the emerging state. An example is that the Chinese Empire was a huge state that had very strong cultural influence in East Asia in history. The Chinese language was used by some people living in some other areas in ancient times. The Chinese language was borrowed by foreign peoples. That the peoples of those areas turned to creating and using their own languages in medieval or early modern times marks the beginning of an actual process of the growth of those peoples and the building of their nation-states.

Specifically, historical documents show that Japanese imported Chinese characters and started to use them as their scripts in about the sixth century. In about the tenth century Japanese created hiragana and katakana, two basic components of Japanese writing system. Japanese was later created on the basis of hiragana, katakana, and Kanji, namely, Chinese character. Koreans even have a history of using Chinese characters for over a millennium until the fifteenth century when their national writing system was created under the commission of Sejong the Great.  This system is now called Hangul. Though today some Chinese characters are still used in Japanese writing system and are still used in support of the presentation of certain Korean documents such as Korean legal documents, the development of Japanese and Korean means that Japanese and Koreans began to use their own national languages respectively. And  using one of their own national languages clearly means the emergence of a different people and the building of a different nation-state. Likewise,Vietnamhad witnessed the prevalence of the Chinese script in the periods of reigns of over ten dynasties since the tenth century. However, the Vietnamese gave up the Chinese script in early modern times in the growth of the nation. Benedict Anderson comments that the dynasties ruling in Honai and Hue kept a mandarinate consciously modeled on that of the Chinese. Recruitment into the state apparatus was geared to written examinations in the Confucian classics; dynastic documents were written in Chinese characters; and the ruling class was heavily Sinicized in culture though these dynasties tried to defend their independence from Peking. But after Confucian examinations were successively abolished in ‘Tonkin’ in 1915 and in ‘Annam’ in 1918, recruitment into the civil services of Indochina was realized exclusively through a developing French colonial education system. After European-invented script was gradually popularized as the Vietnamese language, this script became the popular medium for the expression of Vietnamese cultural (and national) solidarity. ¹¹

        Third, a group of people use a certain language in a certain area. But later part of this group of people relocates to another place. As now people who originally use the same language reside in two different places far from each other permanently, the original language tends to split gradually. In the meantime, as the people of these two areas gradually become different peoples, they are often in conflict. Then the people of an area reforms the language used by them because they believe that using a particular language may motivate all to unite in this area. The evolution of a particular language in a particular area objectively makes the local people become a people in the local area. The evolution of such a particular language further underlies the formation of a state. A case in point is that the colonies built by those who relocated fromBritaintoAmericawere part of the British Empire in history. The peoples of the colonies and the people ofBritainused the same language—English. But as North America is separated by the Atlantic Ocean from British Islands, the colonies of North America became self-contained in some sense. Then the indigenous consciousness of the local people grew. The English language, used by the local people, began to vary. Though historians may interpret the formation of the nation-state in North America in many aspects, what should be accentuated is the evolution of language which results in the appearance of a difference between the language used by the nationalists of North America and the one used by the people of their metropolitan state—England—in the aspects of pronunciation and spelling of English. The evolution of language, in some sense, creates a condition for the making of a people in North America and hence leads to the independence of the local people fromEngland. Then they formed their state. 

That is, the evolution of language makes a group of people grow up as a people and hence results in the formation of a new nation-state. In history the British people blamed the Americans for undermining their language. After the American Revolution some anti-Britain elements also used to propose giving up using English and adopting another language. Though such  proposal was unfeasible, some Americans actively advocated the use of a sort of English which differed from the English language used by the people residing inGreat Britainin some aspects. Noah Webster was a forerunner of advocating the standardization of English of this new nation-state. The priority of his language plan was to create a new method of pronunciation and spelling different from that of the English language used inEnglandof the other side of the Atlantic. He hoped to reach this goal by compiling a dictionary for the Americans. In 1789 Webster says that: “[A]s an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain, whose children we are, and whose language we speak, should no longer be our standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline.”¹²

According to Anderson, “Noah Webster’s 1828 (i.e., ‘second generation’) American Dictionary of the English Language was intended to give an official imprimatur to an American language whose lineage was distinct from that of English.” ¹³ Another scholar Amilcar A. Barreto also points out that Webster attempted to change what was an accepted norm of the British society. Webster “called for the establishment of an American cultural counter-hegemony that would offsetBritain’s cultural hegemonic order on the North American continent.”¹⁴ The dictionary, compiled by Webster, ultimately demonstrated its potency. This dictionary became a standard for all Americans to correctly spell the English words and this standard differed to some extent from the standard for the British people to spell English words. Webster’s dictionary cultivated the cultural character of the citizens of theUnited Stateswhich was slightly but apparently different from that of the British. Webster actually created a means for the making of the American people on the new continent. He then contributed to the growth of a nation-state in North America.

            In sum, there is the phenomenon that while a language has been used for long in a certain area, such a language, which tends to be special, helps people group themselves as a people and hence build a state. As people keep on performing linguistic communication in a certain area, the formation of native language, used by people in a certain area following the split of an original language, often demonstrates that people have grouped themselves as a people and they have built a state. Then we also find more cases in point as follows.

       First,  Slavic peoples originally spoke the same language. That language is the so-called proto-Slavic, the ancestral language of all Slavic languages. This language is defined as the last stage of the language preceding the geographic split of the historical Slavic language. In the meantime we see that the Slavic people are Indo-European people originally inhabiting a certain area in Europe. From the early sixth century onward they spread to inhabit most of the Central and Eastern Europe as their population grew. Some Russian Slavs settled later in Siberia and Central Asia. During this period of time  language, used by them, evolved, leading to the variation of this language. Then people grouped themselves as different peoples. For example, according to Deutsch, “People who may have originally spoken a uniform Slavic language began to splinter off into dialect groups around Belgrade, Sofia, and other Balkan centers. There are now at least six Slavic languages in Balkans.”¹⁵ In the meantime as the Slavic peoples gradually spread themselves to a larger area with part of them moving to different regions, they form different regional customs, traditions, and cultures and gain different historical experiences. They become different peoples. For example, Slavic peoples, residing in different regions, keep the different or slightly different religious faiths. Some Slavic peoples are associated with the Eastern Orthodox Church while some other Slavic peoples are associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Slavic peoples, inhabiting different areas, also form different historical memories, folk customs, and national traditions. They also have their own special interests in relation to the areas inhabited by them. Then they form each of Slavic states. So we see that as of 1878, there had been three Slavic states in the world: the Russian Empire,Serbia, andMontenegro. In 1908Bulgariadeclared official independence from the Ottoman Empire. In 1918 after the end of World War One the Slavic peoples established some other states such asCzechoslovakia, the Second Polish Republic, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.¹⁶ Now Slavs have been subdivided into East Slavs (mainly, Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians), West  Slavs (mainly, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Wends or Sorbs) and South Slavs (mainly, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins).¹⁷ They are the peoples of different nation-states now.

      Second, in the Middle East language, most widely spoken by Arab peoples, is Arabic. Arabic is a Semitic language originating in Arabia. Arabic must have been spoken by a small group of people in a local area in the outset. The most popular Arab accounts even hold that an eponymous father called Yarab was supposedly the first to speak Arabic. Later Arabic was spoken in a large area and by a large population. Arabic spread to various different areas. The evidence in support of my argument is that the earliest documents show that the word “Arab” denoting a group of people appeared in the ninth century BC in Assyrian records, which described the inhabitants of Arabian Peninsular. Then various groups of people came to speak Arabic across most of West Asia and North Africa. Following the rise of Islam in the seventh century and the adoption of Arabic as the language of the Koran, Arabic eventually became the lingua franca of the Middle East. Yet while the Arabic language and culture were widely disseminated both through conquest and cultural contact and the modern standard Arabic is widely taught in schools, universities and used in workplaces, government, and media due to the fact that it is needed to be used by an increasing population, Arabic has developed into many different geographically distributed spoken varieties, some of which are mutually unintelligible.  People, residing in each of different areas, use a local variety of Arabic in spoken communication. Thus people, inhabiting each area, perform more frequent internal linguistic communication and cultivate the unique local custom, tradition and culture of each area. They finally become different peoples and form different states with a different cultural character and tradition in each area. For example, Arabs are generally divided into Sunni, Shia or Ismaili Muslims. Though all are Muslims, they may show different religious inclinations. Sunni Muslims may congregate in some states while Shia Muslims may cluster in some other states. For example, nearly a vast majority of the people inSaudi   Arabiaare Sunni Muslims while a large majority of the people inIraqare Shia Muslims. There is also a small group of Arab Christians. Besides this, peoples, holding different religious beliefs in different areas, have developed different or slightly different forms of regional or local culture. So Arab peoples form different states in different regions while they use their varieties of Arabic in their own regions. The independent states, formed by Arab peoples, now include most of the states of West Asia and all the states of North Africa.  

      Third, there is  a correlation between the evolution of the Spanish language or any other European language and the formation of the state due to the growth of population and the relocation of people in Latin  America. Specifically, after colonizers arrived in Latin America, they went to reside in various regions. Then they were often unable to communicate with each other easily. This is because different regions were far from each other and hence often isolated. As Anderson write, “The very vastness of the Spanish American empire, the enormous variety of its soils and climates, and, above all, the immense difficulty of communications in a pre-industrial age, tended to give these units a self-contained character.”¹⁸

Then we see that while people, speaking Portuguese, formed one nation-state, namely, Brazil because Portuguese was spoken in one region only, people, speaking Spanish, were prevented from forming one nation-state in the New Continent because Spanish was spoken in different areas. As people resided in different areas for long and as the populations of different areas grew, the Spanish language gradually varied in pronunciation and vocabulary and even in grammar in different areas because people, inhabiting a certain local area, might perform close and frequent mutual communication while being estranged from the other groups of people inhabiting other areas. Thus Spanish, used in Latin America, not only gradually varied from the Spanish language used in Spain in some aspects, but might also vary in some aspects in different Latin American states. While all the Spanish dialects used the same written standard, all spoken varieties might differ from each other in different degrees. There appeared many different dialect areas. Then as people, inhabiting different areas, performed frequent linguistic communication within each area only, the people of each area formed their own tradition, custom and culture. They also showed different characters in the development of economy and politics. They grew up to be different peoples. They created the condition for the formation of the common interest of the people within each area. They formed different nation-states. These nation-states today are located in North America, Central America and South America. Some countries are large while some others are small. For example,Mexicois a country large by population whilePanamais a small one by population. Yet even though Spanish is spoken widely in Latin America, people build different countries.  

In the meantime the picture of any other language may be analogous if this language is used in different areas. If a language is spoken in different areas, the people of different areas may be prevented from communicating with each other. The variation of language appears. Then the people of different areas show different characters in religion, culture, history, economy and politics. They become different peoples. Thus, since English spread to various different areas, people, speaking English, have formed different states. These states today include some Caribbean countries located in Central America. Likewise, since French spread to certain areas, people, speaking French in different areas, have formed their own states.  Some  Caribbean countries in which French is spoken are also built by them.  

All these cases show that when people communicate using the same language or perform constant linguistic communication with each other in a certain area, they closely interact with each other, share the same experience, engage in active cooperation in production, and display the common cultural character. They become a people. They may form one state when population grows large enough. Once language, used by people, changes in some aspects, people may diminish the frequency of their linguistic communication among different groups of people. These people may form different states. For instance, where people are prevented by distance from communicating with each other though they speak the same language, they may turn to using the variants of language. They diminish the chances of communicating with each other in a large area. They have actually realized the formation of their special interest in a certain area. This special interest may become the common interest of the local area. They may become different peoples and form different states. For example, according to Hobsbawm, educated native speakers of German from Kiel may have the greatest difficulty in understanding even educated Swiss Germans speaking the plain German dialect.¹⁹ And according to Deutsch, “the Swiss are one people, even though they speak four languages; German-speaking Swiss and German-speaking Germans are different peoples even though they speak the same language.”²⁰ As they do not communicate constantly with each other, they are prevented from having the chances of sharing the same experience, engaging in day-to-day cooperation in production and displaying the common cultural character. Along with the passage of time, people who  perform constant linguistic communication in an area adopt their own unique form of language and create a condition for the making of a people and for the building of a state.

Therefore, choosing to use a different language after the growth of population often means that people group themselves as a people. When a people, inhabiting an area, keep on performing their own internal linguistic communication for their own internal mutual interactions, they adopt a particular form of language in spelling, pronunciation, grammar or other aspects to a varying extent. The birth of a language or the evolution of language may lead to the fact that a group of people become a people and hence build a state.

      That means that people are normally grouped by language  though they were also often grouped by ethnicity before the times of nation-states and are grouped by nationality in the times of nation-states. As various groups of people originally live in separate areas, they form different states on earth because living in a certain area is a condition for keeping on performing linguistic communication and forming the common interest of all. So people become peoples in different areas and build different states.

      Thus, in history some German philosophers noticed that the evolution of language may result in it that the local people proclaim that they are a people, as noted earlier. They probed the reasons for the appearance of such phenomenon. Herder writes in his famous book On the Origin of Language that “Man is by destiny a creature of the herd, that is, of society; and the continuous development of his language is hence natural, essential, and necessary to him.”²¹ And “As it was impossible for the entire human race to remain one herd, so it also could not remain restricted to one language. There ensued the development of diverse national languages.”²² Then he holds that the ancestral language of a people was essential to its continued well-being. Each nation was unique and for a group of people to preserve its specificity and survive as a discrete entity it must preserve its own language.²³ Fichte further explains his reasoning. Describing his theory that the growth of population and the evolution of language may result in the making of a people, he asserts that there are many historical factors causing a change in the features of humans. Among these factors language is an important one. The different branches of the people of the same descent show their different features because some branches of the people turn to using different languages. The German is a branch of the Teutonic race. What made the Germans differ from the other branches which grew from the same root was that the former remained in the original dwelling-places of the ancestral stock and used the original language, whereas the latter moved to other areas and adopted foreign languages.²⁴ Then, a change in language leads to a change in the trait of the people when people spread themselves to different areas along with the growth of population because “men are formed by language far more than language is formed by men.”²⁵ That is, people, using different languages, are unable to easily communicate with each other so as to create a condition for the formation of their common custom, tradition and common historical memory. People become different peoples. Then they build different states.

 Viewing the role of language in the formation of the state, we can offer another point of view:  whenever language is used by people to perform communication in a local area, this language must be the one used by people for long. As it has been used for long, it is this language that enables people to see the formation of their common interest. This language serves as a basis for the formation of the state. This language is the native language. Then the evolution of language this way often means the making of a certain people. Then such a people form a state. While we argue that language serves as a basis for the formation of the state, we see that it is often a native language or a particular language that results in the making of a people. Such a people form the state. In terms of the correlation between language and the formation of the state, the fact is that common interest takes shape in the process of linguistic communication instead of being formed by language itself. People only use the native language. People do not use the original language or proto-language. The common interest of the people takes shape because people use that native language. As a result, the evolution of language sometimes results in the making of a people and then in the building of a state.

3. The People Using Written Language

While we argue that people communicate using language, particularly native language, a fact that results in the making of a people and then the formation of a state, we also believe that written language strengthens linguistic communication. While people form their tribe, they also use language. They use spoken language. They have their common interest. They have their common interest because of kinship. They also have their common interest because people perform spoken communication with one another. Yet, while humans form their state, they additionally use written language. Written language helps people extend the time and the reach of spoken communication. Written language is also important. My reasoning is that in a long period of time in the evolution of human society humans can only perform spoken communication. While humans perform spoken communication only, spoken communication uses an invisible material as a medium. This medium is air. While humans perform written communication, written communication uses a visible material as a medium. Such a medium may be a stone or a piece of wood. Although such a material is very simple or ordinary, it decisively extends the distance of human communication though we admit that spoken communication is still indispensable. It is significant for people to extend the distance of communication in the building of the state. While the course of communication, realized by an audio sign created by spoken language, is ephemeral, the course of communication, realized by a visual sign created by written language, is persistent. An invisible material such as air allows sound wave to move in space defined by the reach of human perception while a visible material such as a stone or a piece of wood, mentioned earlier, enables the image of writing to go dramatically beyond the reach of human perception. In spoken communication, people themselves act as media as they perform human-chain linguistic communication, whereas in written communication particular materials substitute for humans. The wide application of visible material media supplied by nature strengthens linguistic communication. Written communication extends the time and the reach of linguistic communication. This is a great change.

Then we see that while people perform spoken communication, they also perform written communication in support of spoken communication. This means that while humans perform spoken communication only, they will not have strong memory of their past. If they live in separate tribes, they may not know the original tribe in which the common ancestors of all lived. In the meantime, we know that while humans performed spoken communication only, they built a small community. Then humans invented scripts and began to perform written communication. In primitive society humans already started to perform linguistic communication, but spoken communication only. Though humans also performed human-chain linguistic communication and extended the distance of linguistic communication in primitive society, such distance of linguistic communication was limited because human-chain linguistic communication might not enable people to convey accurate and true information over long distances. Information conveyed this way might change in the middle of the process of communication. The identity of the person who activated the related process of communication in the outset might not be verified, and people might not be able to confirm the truthfulness of the information conveyed by people. That is, while humans performed spoken communication over a short period of time, they would not remember their common ancestors along with the growth of population. People always grouped themselves by direct kinship. They would not unite to form themselves into a people. They were always small groups of people. If population increased, there was always a limit to the increase of population.  They always formed tribes as their communities. For example, a tribe which expanded to a certain extent broke up into several smaller tribes like the case   indicated by Frederick Engels in his study of the tribes of the Indigenous peoples  in North America more than one hundred years ago.²⁶ The reason is that the attenuation of blood relationship, resulting from an increase in population,  prevented kinship from playing a role in   the formation of a large group of  people while humans had not started written communication. Specifically, in the primitive society, all spoke a dialect. No common or unified language was spoken between different groups of people. Therefore, the groups of people were always small in size. Each group of people, organized as a tribe, could not grow to be large enough to become a people so as to form a state. As noted in the prologue, scholars have found out that the size of a tribe in the primitive society was about several thousands of people on average.

Written communication makes a difference. Written communication ensures the certainty of linguistic communication that goes on over long period of time and on a large scale. Linguistic communication, performed by people, is strengthened on a large scale. Thus, since people began to use written language, they have no longer grouped themselves by kinship. People, coming from different groups of people formed by kinship in the past, begin to mix. They begin to form a large group of people. They grow to become a people when they have lived in a certain area for long. Then they form their state. A state is always larger in population than a tribe. From ancient to medieval times, city-states were the smallest states. According to Engels, the Athenian city state had about 90,000 citizens and over 360,000 slaves.²⁷ The medium-sized states were kingdoms which took form in an area. According to the research by demographists, the population of a kingdom in medieval Europe might exceed one million. The population ofEnglandis estimated to be about 3.7 million during High Middle Ages.²⁸ The largest state form was empire built by humans before the end of World War Two. The British  Empire used to be inhabited by 500 million people.²⁹ In modern times nation-states emerge normally in place of city states, traditional kingdoms and empires. TheUnited   Kingdomhas a population of about 64 million today. Sometimes a large nation-state, such asIndiaorChina, has a population of over one billion nowadays.  No matter whatever a change a human community undergoes, a group of people, forming a state, is always larger than a group of people forming a tribe. Among the people who form a nation-state today, we can witness a fresh phenomenon. That is, among the people, people may speak a dialect. The inhabitants of different regions speak different dialects. Written language, used by them, however, is normally uniformed. As Rousseau observes, “[D]ialects tend to be distinguished by oral speech, while writing tends to assimilate and merge them. . . .The more a people read and learn, the more are its dialects obliterated, and finally they remain only as a form of slang among people who read little and do not write at all.”³⁰

Therefore, we find today that people can tolerate the co-existence of multiple dialects spoken by them, but usually they cannot tolerate the co-existence of multiple written languages. A dialect does not pose a direct threat to the unity of the people, but a different script does. In keeping the unity of the people, people need to use the same script. Even though people can tolerate a dialect, they often need to use a common language such as a national language. This case indicates  that the attribute of language dictates whether or not a group of people can become a people. Written language is the key. Script is, basically speaking, a physical condition for a group of people to grow up as a people. 

      Then we see that as materials, offered by nature, can be used as media in support of written communication, those materials create a condition for the making of a people and for the formation of a state. In contrast, those materials did not play any role in the evolution of any group of people in the primitive society and hence the formation of any tribe. As nature can provide an abundance of those materials, people perform written communication widely. This is a condition for the making of a people and hence the formation of a state.

      Therefore, we see that people use various materials in support of their communication significant for the making of the people and hence the formation of their state. They may use materials directly coming from the earth.

     In Mesopotamia in antiquity, people performed written communication with clay tablets. With clay tablets people drafted criminal and civil laws. People recorded business information, including accounts, with clay tablets. People also made contracts by using them. Due to the use of clay tablets, people also created literature.

      In ancientGreece, Rome, andChina, stone was often the medium for written communication. People inscribed laws, decrees and religious scriptures on stone. Power holders might use stone to perform linguistic communication with ordinary people for whatever purposes. In ancient Rome, rulers erected stone tablets to promulgate their achievements in the building of the state. In ancientChina, rulers displayed stele inscriptions to manifest their rule and authority.

     In Europe and Asia throughout history, people have been performing written communication with metal objects. They engraved religious scriptures, laws, and decrees on bronze tablets or tripods in ancient times. They began to make coins as currency in support of the circulation of commodities in ancient times. Coins have been still in use throughout the world ever since.

     In ancient Asia and Europe people used materials from animals as media in support of their linguistic communication, too. During Shang Dynasty (1766—1122 BC) of ancient China, the rulers performed written communication with oracle bone inscription that explained the activities of the rulers as the divine will, a type of communication in direct or indirect relation to the building of the state. In ancientChina, people also used silk cloth as writing material. In ancient Rome people inscribed law and decree on ivory. In medieval Europe, people used vellum and parchment as writing materials. In late medieval times people used parchment as a writing material to copy or print Bible.

     In Asia, Europe and some other regions, people also have been using materials from plants as writing materials throughout history.

     In ancient Africa, West Asia and Southern Europe, people used papyrus produced in the Nile valley  of Egypt as a writing material. In ancientGreecescholars like Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus and Thucydides all wrote with papyrus. Excavations and researches, conducted by archeologists in Southern Europe and West Asia, reveal many times that papyrus was one of the most popular writing materials in ancient times. In the ancient Rome, generals built a whopping empire spanning large swaths of land in Africa, Asia and Europe. They built the roads leading in all directions, leaving behind them a saying that all roads led to Rome. These roads were not only used to move troops swiftly, but also applied for daily communication. The use of papyrus in communication supported the operation of the Roman Empire.

     InChinathroughout history or in Europe and elsewhere from medieval to modern times, people have been using paper as a writing material. InChinasince ancient times and in Europe since late medieval times the officials of the government have been making documents with paper. People print laws on paper. People make books with paper. Books spread knowledge and ideas. People sign contracts drafted on paper for business. In modern times paper is used to print newspapers and magazines. 

     In sum, humans have largely developed three types of media in support of their written communication. First, some geological materials are or were used as media, including stone, clay tablets and metal objects. Second, people used to use some materials from animals, including bones, turtle shells, ivory, silk, vellum and parchment. Third, people used materials from plants, including wooden and bamboo slips, papyrus and so on. Chinese began to use paper in ancient times. Paper has been in wide use in the world since late medieval times. 

      That people use various materials as media in support of linguistic communication results in a change in the structure of human communication as well as the development of human community while spoken communication is also performed. While we argue that spoken communication dictates that people can only be a small group of people and written communication dictates that people can be a large group of people, written communication actually functions as a medium of spoken communication in the context of the making of a people and hence the formation of a state because spoken communication is indispensable. If we argue that speech dictates that people are only a small group of people, we should also argue that speech and script jointly dictate that people can be a large group of people. Speech is the form of spoken communication, whereas script is the form of written communication. Yet written communication functions as a medium of spoken communication in the context of the making of a people and the formation of a state.

     First, while people commence to group themselves as a people, not all  write and read scripts. Some people do not write and read. These people perform spoken communication only. They are often regarded as illiterate people. Performing spoken communication, these people form a society directly. This society is usually a local community. Yet they do not directly participate in the formation of the state because they do not perform communication throughout the state. Nevertheless, as some other people perform written communication under the condition that all are the members of a people, there are some people performing communication among the people. They are literate people. They are dispersed everywhere. As all agree to the formation of the state, they participate in the formation of the state on behalf of all. This is because script can go throughout the state. In this sense, written communication is a medium of spoken communication.

In other words, as all perform spoken communication and some people among them perform written communication, written communication is a medium. Script plays a part in the making of a people and the formation of a state. The intonation of speech may vary in different areas within the state because people often use dialects or regional languages. The script usually does not vary in different areas. If the script may vary because sometimes people tend to use different styles of the script in writing, people can even adopt some technologies to prevent the script from varying because, using a material as a medium for writing, people can uniform the style of the script. For example, the development of printing plays a prominent role in the acceleration of the formation of the national language across the state  on the basis of which people build a nation-state. This is because printing fixes the form of written language. Then written language underpins the making of a people and hence the formation of a state though it is likely for the spoken language to change into different dialects. That is, if spoken language changes into different dialects, written language may still be able to help keep the unity of the people and the state because people, speaking dialects, may not be tempted to group themselves as several different peoples and hence form several different states under the condition that they are using the same written language. This is precisely because with the script people can invent printing and printing “strongly works for uniformity of spelling and uniformity of meaning.” ³¹ That is, with printing developed to use a certain visible medium, people  persistently use the same language on a large scale. If several regional languages are in use, a regional language may become a language that finally substitutes for all other regional languages and hence becomes a dominant language persistently used among the entire people and across the state due to the development of printing.

The evolution of the English language in history may corroborate this situation. For example, we know from the history of English that English has undergone a process of standardization over a long period of time. This process of standardization commenced when William Caxton introduced the printing press inEnglandin 1476. This was accompanied by the adoption of the south-east Midlands variety of English, spoken in London, as the print language. This variety then became entrenched as the prestigious variety of English. Then it follows that when this variety was used for administrative and literary purposes and for the standardization of grammar in the eighteenth century, and when it was promoted through mass education in the following period of time, adopting printing resulted in the creation of an essential condition for the commencement of the process of spreading the English language. Printing served as a technical means for  the maintenance of the unification of a language on a large scale. So the dictionaries of languages were compiled and printed and were used by more and more people. Then the development of languages contributed to the making of peoples and then to the formation of nation-states. For example, after Martin Luther affixed his theses to the door of the Augustinian chapel at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, his theses, translated into German and summarized, were printed as flysheets and distributed throughoutGermany. Within 15 days they had been seen in every part of the country.³² Shortly later, quite a few works, written by Luther in German, were published. Then, as Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin write, “Luther, with the aid of the press, played a decisive role in the development of the German language.” ³³ Then the development of the German language reminded Germans of being one people. Thus, Germans  unifiedGermanyin the nineteenth century.

       Second, while humans perform written communication with each other by using the script, they write books. A book is a special form of written communication. A book usually consists of several pages of writing material or more. This form of written communication is adopted by humans for a special purpose while spoken communication is usually performed for a general purpose. If we suppose that humans perform primarily communication in an attempt to convey information, books are usually written to spread professional information. If we assume that there are various forms of linguistic communication in the human community, the form of linguistic communication, represented by book, differs from the forms of linguistic communication that conveys non-professional information. Non-professional information is usually not spread through books. If we suppose that while people perform linguistic communication they spread knowledge or an idea, they may spread it on a small scale or on a large scale, depending on the purpose of their linguistic communication. If we assume that common sense is also knowledge, people gain common sense in living. People often gain common sense from the living experience of people themselves. If someone popularizes common sense, he usually performs linguistic communication on a very small scale. For example, a school teacher may popularize some common sense to students in class. But we seldom see that people write a book to spread common sense widely. Likewise, a traditional idea may be formed by people in the local area. Such a traditional idea may be gained by people on individual basis because some traditional ideas spread through the social intercourse of people. If people spread a traditional idea, they often spread it in the form of spoken communication in the small social milieu. People do not need to spread common sense or a traditional idea on a large scale because common sense or the traditional idea takes shape in the local area. The common sense or the traditional idea of a local area, concerning living or social production, is often or usually analogous or the same. The common sense or traditional idea may vary from a region in the north to a region in the south because of the variance of climate or geographic environment. But people will not spread such common sense or traditional idea on a large scale because such common sense or traditional idea takes shape in each local area respectively.  By contrast, people usually spread professional knowledge or a humanistic idea through books throughout the state.

That is, ordinary people, usually, cannot create such professional knowledge or humanistic idea by themselves. When humans create professional knowledge or a humanistic idea, they need someone who is well-educated, knowledgeable and very intelligent. Those who are able to create professional knowledge or a humanistic idea are geniuses. They are rare in the society. As people are unable to create such knowledge or idea in each local area, people spread such knowledge or idea on a large scale. As every group of people need to be armed with some professional knowledge or humanistic ideas, books play a role in the maintenance of the unity of the people and the state. Books are media in support of certain linguistic communication that goes on among the people throughout the state. Some books which are often read by people even become famous. Nearly everyone knows these books or has ever read those books. For example, nearly everyone has ever read some books or part of them written by Honoré de Balzac inFrance. Nearly everyone has ever read some books or part of them written by Leo Tolstóy inRussia. Those books should be the media created by the authors to perform linguistic communication with ordinary people among the people throughout the state. Usually, people who read the same books embrace the same knowledge or idea. They have the same structure of knowledge. They uphold the same idea. They associate together. They are a people. They build a state. This means that even though some people do not read books within the state, other people who communicate with each other by way of books unite to create a condition for the making of a people. They then build the state on behalf of all among the people. So as compared with all other forms of written communication, books function as media in support of written communication which further plays a part in the making of a people and in the formation of a state.

            Third, while people write and read books and perform written communication among the people, those who write books also function as media in support of linguistic communication that plays a role in the making of a people. As ordinary people need those authors to write books to help them share knowledge or an idea, those authors become media. In other words, not all people are able to write books. Only a small number of people are able to write books. Yet, despite that only a small number of people are able to write books, the unity of the people can be ensured by this small number of people because these people perform linguistic communication on behalf of all. This is because people receive varying education. Some people are diligent in learning knowledge while some others not diligent in doing so. In addition, not all are able to create knowledge or an idea. If some people are able to create knowledge or an idea, the related knowledge or idea may neither systematic nor complete nor quintessential. If some local people create certain knowledge or a certain idea, such knowledge or idea may spread in the local area only because such knowledge or idea cannot be enhanced to the level of creating a theory or a thought. Only a very small number of people are able to create systematic, complete and quintessential knowledge or a systematic, complete and quintessential idea in the society. This is because only a small number of people are true geniuses in the society. While humans perform written communication, they build a large community, as noted earlier. In the large community people witness the development of the division of labor in production and in the organization of the community.

In terms of the development of the division of labor in production, along with the growth of the community, people gain the professional skills of production. People tend to pursue different careers. Some people work as carpenters, smiths, coppersmiths, tailors, shoemakers while some other people work as brewers, cooks, bakers, inn keepers, porters and others. In the meantime, some people do manual work while some others mental work. As far as the authors of books or the men of letters are concerned, the society does not need a large number of authors or the men of letters because the knowledge or the idea, created by a small number of people, can be shared by many others in the form of written communication. Therefore, the society lets a very small number of people create knowledge or ideas. As a very small number of people create knowledge or ideas, they invariably often perform written communication among the people. As ordinary people need the knowledge or idea, that knowledge or idea acts as a medium. Such a medium underpins the process of written communication performed by the authors or the men of letters with the ordinary people.

In other words, because of the knowledge or the idea, a certain group of people communicate with another group of people. This is a process of linguistic communication performed by a small number of people with a large number of people. A small number of people are able to take initiative to communicate with a large number of people while a large number of people are unable to do so. The authors or the men of letters are active communicators while ordinary people are passive communicators. Though the latter account for the majority of the people, the former play a special role in the maintenance of the unity of the people because knowledge or an idea, needed by ordinary people, is created by them. As they play a role in the supply of knowledge and ideas, they play a role in the making of a people and in the building of the state.

      Materials, used as media in support of written communication, are crucial if we compare written communication with spoken communication. This is because the nature of those materials fits in with long-distance linguistic communication, whereas air normally serves as a medium in support of short-distance linguistic communication. The nature of materials is the linchpin.

      First, people, communicating by using written language, use a visible medium that can be separated from the bodies of the persons who communicate. Thus people are able to break down the process of communication into several different processes of communication so as to extend the distance of communication and finally create a new way of communication that functions on a large scale. In the communication realized through the use of written language, the movement of the visible medium can help realize the communication performed by people who are not at the same location. When people convey information, the person, sending out the information, and the person, receiving the information, usually do not contact each other face-to-face and do not enter the process of communication simultaneously. While people perform written communication, they are not required to meet each other. They are connected by a medium that moves between them who are at different locations. Thus with written language functioning on a large scale and using the same medium, communication naturally adopts a fixed form. This makes a difference. That is, using spoken language in communication, people may change it unwittingly without the use of a fixed form separated from the human body. Spoken language is thus used among a small group of people. By contrast, people, performing written communication, may be a large group of people. Then people may become a people.

  Second, in written communication, people, staying in different places far or near, may communicate with each other effectively. People, staying at different locations, may be able to perform close communication and interaction. The relevance  of the variation of the reach of communication diminishes in some sense. Distance is seemingly not a variable in the effect of communication in written communication. For instance, by performing written communication by virtue of a book or a pamphlet, people may perform the same communication no matter where they perform such communication. A case in point is perhaps that written communication is able to go on a large scale without losing the accuracy and reliability of information transmitted in communication performed by people. For example, if the readers of one book stay in different places, one reader’s understanding of this book may not differ from that of the other reader. That is, a reader’s understanding of a book may not vary very much no matter whether this reader is adjacent to the author or not. If a book is read by a reader who is far away from the author, his understanding of the book may be no worse than that of another reader who is adjacent to the author, provided that the reading comprehension capability of one reader is the same as that of the other. So after a book is printed, many readers read it. If a book as a commodity is circulated on the market, this book may be well-known among all. So if this book disseminates an idea, this idea may be finally shared by many or even by all across the state. People may feel like to unite due to the formation of a common idea if people spread their idea this way.

      Third, as written language relies on a visible medium in communication, humans can process or manufacture this visible medium. This medium may enable people to save a large amount of information on it. A change takes place in the structure of linguistic communication. Specifically, if two people communicate with each other, the amount of information transmitted varies with the reach of communication performed by  them staying at different locations. If two people meet each other because they stay at the same location, they may talk with each other in detail. They may transmit a large amount of information to each other. If two people do not meet each other because they are at different locations, they may not transmit a large amount of information to each other. By contrast, books, written by people, are usually intended to transmit a large amount of information. The process of written communication, performed by a novel, is comparatively long, for example, while the process of spoken communication, performed by a legend, is comparatively short. A systematic and complete knowledge or a complex idea often contains a large amount of information. People cannot save such a large amount of information effectively unless they save it on a book. Only written communication enables people to convey a large amount of information. This enhances the cohesion of the people as the people can share the same knowledge and idea due thereto. The cohesion of the people is a basis for the formation of the state.

      Then we find that written language, underpinned by a visible medium, functions on a large scale. Then it especially supports spoken communication by using materials as media and hence facilitates people to communicate with one another on a large scale. People can thus interact with one another across the state. This fact culminates in the union of people and the formation of the state.

Notes

   1. Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication: An

Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality (Cambridge: The M.I.T.

Press,1966), 120.

  2. A.C. Woolner, Languages in History and Politics (London: Ox-

ford University Press, 1938), 9.

  3. Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Its Alternatives (New York:

Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1969), 12.

  4. See: E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1990), 63-64.

  5. Ibid., 13.

  6. Ibid., 48.

  7. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, translated by George Lawrence (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.,1969), 32-33.  

  8. Wilhelm von Humboldt, On Language, the Diversity of Human Language Structure and Its Influence of the Mental Development of Mankind, translated by Peter Heath (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1988), 208.

  9. See: Harold F. Schiffman, Linguistic Culture and Language policy (London: Routledge, 1996), 81.

10. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Sociology, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968) Vol.1, 215.

11. See: Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006),125-128.

12. James Crawford (ed), Language Loyalties, A Source Book on

English Controversy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1992),

34., cited from Amilcar A. Barreto, Language, Elites, And the State.

Nationalism in Puerto Rico and Quebec (Westport, Connecticut:

Praeger Publishers,1998), 51.

13. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin

 and Spread of Nationalism, 197.

14. Barreto, Language, Elites, And the State Nationalism in Puerto

Rico and Quebec, 51.

15. Deutsch, Nationalism and Its Alternatives, 44.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 52.

19. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, 52.

20. Deutsch, Nationalism and Its Alternatives, 14-15.

21. Johann Gottfried Herder, On the Origin of Language, translated by Johan H. Moran and Alexander Gode (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1966), 173.

22. Ibid.

23. Please see: Sue Wright, Community and Communication: The Role of Language in Nation State Building and European Integration (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2000), 15.

24. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Address to the German Nation, translated by R.F. Johns and G.H. Turnbull (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1979), 52.

25. Ibid., 52-55.

26. Frederick Engels points out that with population increase, an Indian tribe broke into several tribes in North America.  See：Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (New York: International Publishers, 1972), 217.

27. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, 230.

28. Josiah Cox Russell, Medieval Regions and Their Cities (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1972), 122.

29. See: R. R. Kuczynski, The White Population of the Empire, in Sociological Review, Vol. XXIX. No. 3. July 1937.

30. Jean Jacques Rousseau, On the Origin of Language, translated

by John H. Moran and Alexander Gode.(New York : Frederick

Ungar Publishing Co., Inc.,1966), 24.

31. Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: the Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 156.

32. Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book: the Impact of Printing 1450-1800 (London: New Left Books, 1976), 289-290.

33. Ibid., 322.