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   simsa04 (simsa04@gnusocial.net)'s status on Monday, 05-Dec-2022 08:07:17 JST simsa04

   • es0mhi
   > For me, this commitment to geographical, language-based spaces is in contradiction to what attracts me to the internet in the first place.
   
   Seconded. And, with regard to the Estonian Mastodon instance, "communities" created in that way seem to be created to enhance feelings of national pride and identity. Even if it is done to promote the use of Estonian language, it's exploitability for (and by) nationalist causes speasks against pursuing this path.
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     simsa04 (simsa04@gnusocial.net)'s status on Monday, 05-Dec-2022 08:30:15 JST simsa04

     in reply to

     • es0mhi
     Yes, I this aspect of language promotion due to a numerically small group of native speakers in mind was on my mind when I suggested the bivalnece of such endeavours: Reviving (or preserving) a language and the risk of such projects being drawn into nationalist agendas. But perhaps I am too wary about this possibility because of the history of German "Sprachgesellschaften" ("language societies") in the baroque period which not only tried to pin down a genalogy of High German to one of the four original languages ("Urspachen") but by doing so tried to foster a sense of German superiority over other European nations.
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     es0mhi@tilde.zone's status on Monday, 05-Dec-2022 08:30:16 JST es0mhi

     in reply to

     @simsa04

     Totally agree. In the case of Estonian, however, there is also the aspect that it is a 'small' language (1.1 million native speakers) and that such projects are always about doing something to preserve the language. If Estonian is no longer present on the net, its future is uncertain.

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     es0mhi@tilde.zone's status on Monday, 05-Dec-2022 09:09:14 JST es0mhi

     in reply to

     @simsa04

     From an Estonian perspective, of course, such concerns seem bizarre: it is not a matter of superiority, but rather of a will to assert oneself.

     But this is a difficult discussion anyway: much depends on whether a culture defines itself primarily through language (as is the case with estonian culture) or whether language and the possible loss of it do not seem all that essential.

     simsa04 likes this.