Political societies, whether the empires of the past or the states of the present, are often distinguished from their neighbors by the languages they speak. Just as often, any given society may feature substantial variation in the languages spoken by its population. What import does language have in the form and structure of political societies? Taking account of perspectives from historical linguistics, political theory, law, sociology, and quantitative social science, this course examines a number of questions about language in the life of a political society: How does a language emerge to spread across a political society? Why do some go on to expand regionally and even globally while others shrink and decline? How does the presence of multiple languages in a political society affect communal relations and institutional development? How can we model and test theories of language dynamics? By examining these and other questions, students will broaden their knowledge of language dynamics in contemporary and historical political societies, sharpen their critical reasoning and argument construction skills, and develop familiarity with approaches to modeling sociodemographic change.
5 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit · GER: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Political societies, whether the empires of the past or the states of the present, are often distinguished from their neighbors by the languages they speak. Just as often, any given society may feature substantial variation in the languages spoken by its population. What import does language have in the form and structure of political societies? Taking account of perspectives from historical linguistics, political theory, law, sociology, and quantitative social science, this course examines a number of questions about language in the life of a political society: How does a language emerge to spread across a political society? Why do some go on to expand regionally and even globally while others shrink and decline? How does the presence of multiple languages in a political society affect communal relations and institutional development? How can we model and test theories of language dynamics? By examining these and other questions, students will broaden their knowledge of language dynamics in contemporary and historical political societies, sharpen their critical reasoning and argument construction skills, and develop familiarity with approaches to modeling sociodemographic change.
Offered in Spring 2026 at Stanford University.