ABSTRACT
The basic assumption of the civilizing mission – that the imperial nations had a duty to impart the benefits of modernity to subject peoples – went hand in hand with the assumption that such benefits were accessible through the imperial language. But this raises several questions, not the least of which is: What made imperial nations think that ‘subject’ peoples might want their language? Clearly this question never entered their heads. Macaulay’s Minute gives a good demonstration of the arrogance with which the colonizers took their cultural power for granted. This attitude was justified, for them, not only because they maintained power over these subject peoples, but because their attitudes were embedded in a long-standing discourse of discrimination. In short, ‘subject peoples’, were subject races. This justified the exertion of power over them, but it raises another fundamental question: How are language and race interconnected? It becomes clear that the connection between race and language, evident in the attitudes of imperial powers, became formalized in the nineteenth century because of a quite extraordinary development of race-based philology.
