Language otherwise: Linguistic natures and the ontological challenge

Abstract

Linguistic anthropology has remained largely unaffected by debates about ontology in other subfields. In turn, the concept of language has been conspicuously absent from ontological debates. The past few years, however, have seen attempts at articulating the two, interrogating what language is from ethnographic perspectives and extending the analytic focus to ontologies of language or linguistic natures. This article discusses such efforts and compares them to previous critical engagements with the concept of language. Calling into question the ontological equivalence of language within and across cultures, communities, and regions, it explores understandings of what language is that go against the grain of existing theoretical models.