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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Nikolai Marr and the idea of a unified language

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Abstract Nikolai Marr’s idea of the class-character of language assumes that language mechanically reflects the characteristics of the socio-economic basis. Marr argued that typological similarities between different languages are not based on ‘blood relationship’ but derive from the fact that all languages have developed through the same stages corresponding to the stages in the development of the socio-economic basis. For Marr, national oppression resulted from ‘racial’ or ‘ethnic’ definitions of such concepts as language and nation. His aim was to battle against oppression by replacing ‘racial’ definitions proposed by Indo-European linguistics with his non-ethnic and ‘sociological’ understanding of the concepts.