ABSTRACT
The idea of an inherent link between race and language may have its inception in fact, in the sense that races in their aboriginal state may have spoken totally indigenous and different languages. The implication of a link between language and nationality, or nationalism, is clear. The link between language and religion is admissible to the same extent that we can allow for other important sociological factors. Religious belief leads to linguistic creation, linguistic borrowing, and numerous other linguistic processes. But so do trade, war, politics, science, social phenomena of all descriptions. The link is historical and specific, not inherent and universal. The point that really remains to be settled is whether there is an inherent link between language and nationality, or, to put it more exactly, between language and the mentality of the ethnic group.
