Language and Power

MAY 2018

Semantics is the study of language specifically the meaning behind words. Within the field of semantics there is a specific sector referred to as lexical semantics that explores how words develop meaning. Ann Curzan and Michael Adams two American linguists explain semantics is founded on the conceptualization of reference (222). This idea holds there is a relationship between referents and referends as well as history and the changes in the meaning of words. Further, words are not only linked to referential objects, people or ideas in a moment, but their meaning can change due to personal, special, and temporal conditions (Curzan and Adams, 223). An important concept to note about semantics is the meaning of a word can be subjective to a group or an individual. The role of cognition explains how understanding meaning is personal, thus an experience can lead to one’s understanding of a word and not a word of the understanding of an experience. For example, the word freedom is understood by how a person was conditioned to experience the concepts around it. These ideas on language are the foundation for how people in the 1920s conditioned words to support ideas of a hierarchal race of Nazism. The semantic shift, or denotation, of the words Volk and Nordic, are two major components of building broader nationalistic feelings around anti-Semitism and German loyalty, which filled a social need of pride for the nation before World War II.

The basis of these semantic shifts revolves around the temporal conditions in the time period of the 1920s in Germany which allowed the connotations, or feelings associated with Volk and Nordic to alter the denotations or traditional definitions. After World War I there was a desire for unity amongst the German society and it was capitalized on by the National Socialist revolution, specifically the principle of volkisch-political totality. Christopher Hutton in his book, Race and the Third Reich, argues how the concept of the Volk was the foundation for the Nazi seizure of total power in 1933 (1). Volk was the perfect foundation for building Germany’s national identity due to its original definition. The original definition of Volk in English would be “people” or “nation,” but this does not nearly cover the connotations which surround the word. This term came from “Volkskunde” (“folk studies” or “folklore”).  A German theologian by the name of Wölfling kept a travel log to discover untold tales and published it in 1796 (2). Within the Volkskunde writing, it discussed “national physiognomy” and an explanation to the “general character of the German nation” (Wolfgang, 4).  However, this initial seeking of explaining differences in various regions illustrates the initial aim of Volk to be finding collectivity in Germany.

Brothers Grimm also became intrigued by the science of linguistics is when a shift of Volk developed. German theorists of the Volk were reacting to outside social and political forces such as France (Hutton, 7). German romantics felt that there was a fleeing lack of authenticity and sought to find a unity. Around 1806, Grimm brothers reconnected authenticity to a collection of simple German vocabulary in poetry, specifically in folklore to create “origins” (Luu). Folklore was seen as a primitive form of creation at the time. This studying illustrated how the Grimm’s deep studying into how German language transformed and could be a tool into an authentic past. Wilhelm Grimm wrote, "I strove to penetrate into the wild forests of our ancestors…listening to their whole language, and watching their pure customs" (Synder,4) Specifically, their work was a clear divide between Germany and the Indo-European “other” languages. Their main poetry work “Hausmärchen” is said to be fanatical accurate, yet exuding German nationalism (Snyder, 6). For example, the class system was distinct with upper and lower depicted favorably, a middle class consisting of merchants, innkeepers, etc., but more importantly, Jews were already depicted being “condemned for greed and quackery” (Snyder, 6). Additionally, in “The Sole” the Grimm’s introduction states, “"How delightful it would be," said they, "if we had a king who enforced law and justice among us!" and they met together to choose for their ruler the one who would cleave through the water most quickly and give help to the weak ones” (Snyder, 6). This style of hidden sentiments in simple folklore allows for the conditioning of reader to nationalist identity, and words incorporated within the fairytales to gain connotations.

This type of hidden conditioning allowed for authors to use Volk in their works. Nationalists used the ideas started in the 1920s against the “West” and promoted liberation against universalism, or the idea of everyone as a collective thought body (Snyder, 7). After World War I the defeat of Germany was the perfect catalyst for the Volk ultra-nationalism and ideological superiority. This is the turning point of the true denotation shift of Volk from folklore “volkische Bewegung” or “folkish movement” to the nationalistic Volkisch used to fuel Nazi ideology. This created a lexical gap for the word to build connotations around it, giving German society a new way to subjectively view themselves in the Volk. Ernst Kreick in his work “The Racial-Volkisch-Political Conception of History” exemplifies this conditioning to his audience by using Volk in the traditional meaning of people, but then enforcing it by hierarchal connotations. He writes about the organic life of the Volk and its natural order over others. This language illuminates the feelings around the word Volk which allow for its permanent denotation change.

One of the main connotation Kreick creates for his readers is the idea of how natural the Volk’s authority is. He states the science,

“proffers the rational form of a truth that is inextricably bound to the Volk” and “science is not isolated from the world of events…it’s a mean and methods…into the historical process of the Volk as it evolves and actively participates in and endures these occurrences and this process of evolution” (Kreick, 121).

This exempt drew a natural connotation to the word Volk, allowing it to be seen as scientific and inherent. The word’s primitiveness allowed for easier acceptance of harsher connotations placed on the word. One of these harsher connotations behind Volk was the idea of hierarchy over others. While Kreick states, “History is not the sum of individual things…not any more than Volk are the sum of individual people” (123). While he tries to emphasize to his audience the unity of Volk  to aid the nation, he ironically creates a clear order of hierarchy in his final section speaking to natural selection and political concepts of race (Kreick, 123). He states race is a fixed enduring character and “determines the standard of life” and the “hierarchy of values” (123). This hierarchy is one that is built upon the priority of values of honor, loyalty, camaraderie, the tenacity of body and spirit and “commitment to the commonwealth of the volkisch” (Kreick, 123). These notions around the word promote the necessary commitment the race of the Volk, and secondary the authority over other as the “new aristocracy” (Kreick, 123). Through this style of writing Kreick aided in shifting the subtlety of Volk to a tool of power, and a distinguishing term to associate “moral standards” to.

 The term Nordic was another semantic shift which supported the growth of the Volk and the German nation. As Volk moved against the masses, Nordic held the push the primitive human characteristic of the Germanic people that helped distinguish the Volk, specifically distinguish them from Jews (Snyder, 9). Bo Strath delves into the modernity of Nordic through tracing its history to the origin of northern European countries, specifically Finland, Sweden, and Norway (6). Thus, this idea exposes one of the first denotations of Nordic as simply referring to rural people of northern countries, and in the 19th century, they were struggling for identity against powerhouses such as France. This allowed German in its time of nation-building to align with Nordic, or northern, countries as Sweden and change perceptions of the race. One way to change these perceptions was through semantically shifting the meaning Nordic. Susanna Pertz defines the new definition used by German hierarchy as,

“Designates a group of human beings of a certain physical, intellectual, and psychological type that includes not only the major portion of ancient Germanic tribes but that also applies to certain non-Germanic peoples based on their physical constitution and their unique intellectual-psychological nature” (140)

Similar to Kreick’s usage of connotation around Volk, Pertz creates feelings and insinuations around the term Nordic. Instead of simple building on the idea of Germanic northern people she creates inherent tangible and intangible features of the word such as intelligence or the “Nordic thought” (Pertz, 140). Ironically, she offers that her idiomatic usage has “departed to some degree to previous,” however her continually persistence of making the term hold new nationalistic meaning overrides its original denotation (Pertz 140).

  Kreick and Pertz was not a singular voice in promoting Volk and Nordic as linguistic building blocks for the German nation of the 1920s. Eberhard Freidank summarizes the effort of these two words being surrounded by a “German spirit” (148). In this work, Freidank illustrates how Volk had to shift from an anti-Semitic idea to a political policy as a way of German “self-preservation” (Freidank, 148). This German spirit was built upon acknowledging the inherent natural right to be united in the Volk, with the ideas of Kreick that it was strictly “Germanic blood” and a social commitment (123). Those who were non-Germanic blood than were traced to barbarians, building higher prestige to the exclusivity of the Volk. This political shift to the Nazi regime was sustained through the connotation of Nordic becoming concrete through groups, leagues, and orders (Freidank, 148). These groups transformed the idea of northern people and adapted Pertz’s Nordic thought and intelligence to revive the “Nordic” soul (149). This allowed for a forum to condition thoughts around this select group in universities and link Nationalistic ideologies to the meaning.

    Volk and Nordic are not the cause of the destructive nation Germany built in the 1920s, however, they are tools to which aided the collective thought which allowed for Nazi reign. Germany was in lack of guidance and capitalized on by those who saw an opportunity to fill the social need. One way this was done was using these two terms to fill lexical gaps for ideologies those in power wished for society to absorb. As meaning of words are subjective to an individual, this allows for them to be shaped by references around, or understanding the realities around words to signify meaning. Ludwig Wittgenstein creates the idea of a language game which is how we use language to construct realities based on needs (Arsith, 15). Through playing a language game, words are changed based on circumstance to create a security or bases of understanding (Arsith, 16). This places words denotations as illusion masking deeper connections they hold to the world. Language is one way of social order or continuity and the connotations behind definitions are where the true expression of words lie.

 Ironically, Freidank closes the work relaying the concepts of Volk spirit to the great “German idealist such as the Brothers Grimm, insinuating these semantic shifts have a clear link (149). In Germany a change in social order was desired and language semantically shifting was mean to construct this change in reality. Those who controlled language and society knew derivation and shaped Volk and Nordic from their simplistic folklore origins. Volk ‘s denotation of “people” was developed in these folklore texts allowing conditioning of German readers, or a naturalization into the cultural. This familiarity of Volk was then catalyzed when a lexical gap arose to further term the inherent distinction Volk. Thus, Volk was no longer simply people but a select people with a duty and a social commitment rooted in their natural rights. As connotations around Volk allowed the definition to grow stronger, words such as Nordic morphed alongside to help construct the reality. It is in the word Nordic that the meaning is not simply northern, but there is thought and intellect unattainable to non-Germans. These two words today although they can be defined in simple terms on dictionaries hold expression beyond their definitions. Those expression allowed for a defeated 1920s Germany in turmoil to define themselves against others, imagine hierarchy and unify themselves to destruct others. Volk and Nordic were tools of language which allowed a unity to be built by being circumstantially used to benefit a need for the nation of Germany.

Works Cited

Arsith, Mirela. "Ludwig Wittgenstein and Language Games (A Literary Application)." Acta        Universitatis Danubius: Communication, vol. 5, no. 2, 2011, pp. 14-21.

Curzan, Anne, and Michael Adams. How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction. , 2006.

Freidank, Eberhard. “Nordic Ecstacy.” The Third Reich Sourcebook. 1933.

Hutton, Christopher. Linguistics and the Third Reich: Mother-Tongue Fascism, Race, and the      Science of Language. vol. 1.;1;, Routledge, London;New York;, 1999;1998;.

Kreick, Ernst. “The Racial-Volkisch-Political Conception of History.” The Third Reich    Sourcebook. 1934.

Luu, Chi. “Cultural Nationalism: The Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales.” THE FAIRYTALE              LANGUAGE OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM, ITHAKA/JSTOR, May 2018.

Stråth, Bo. "Nordic Modernity: Origins, Trajectories and Prospects." Thesis Eleven, vol. 77, no.   1, 2004, pp. 5-23.

Pertz, Susanna. “The Word Nordic.” The Third Reich Sourcebook. 1939.

Synder, Louis. “Cultural Nationalism: The Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales.” Roots of German         Nationalism. Indiana University Press, 1978. p35-54. Source:Nineteenth-Century   Literature Criticism. Ed. Suzanne Dewsbury. Vol. 77. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999.

Jacobeit, Wolfgang. "Concerning the Traditional Understanding of 'Folk Culture' in the German   Democratic Republic: A Scholarly-Historical Retrospective." Asian Folklore Studies, vol.             50, no. 1, 1991, pp. 67.