人は母語に対して否定できない忠誠心をもっている．愛着といってもよいし，拠り所といってもよい．この母語への忠誠が昂じると，言語的純粋主義 (purism) や言語的排他主義に至ることがあり，社会言語学上の関心事となる．しかし，そこまで行かなくとも，標準語の形成や規範主義の確立というような公共の問題にすら，言語への忠誠心が関与している．ある種の普遍性をもっている現象にもかかわらず，体系的に研究されたことのない主題かもしれない．
そのなかでも Weinreich の "Sources of Language Loyalty" (99--102) と題する節は稀有な論考である．言語への忠誠を国家主義と比較しながら，その性質を浮き彫りにしている．同節の導入の段落 (99) を引用しよう．
The sociolinguistic study of language contact needs a term to describe a phenomenon which corresponds to language approximately as nationalism corresponds to nationality. The term LANGUAGE LOYALTY has been proposed for this purpose. A language, like nationality, may be thought of as a set of behavior norms; language loyalty, like nationalism, would designate the state of mind in which the language (like the nationality), as an intact entity, and in contrast to other languages, assumes a high position in a scale of values, a position in need of being "defended." Language loyalty, like nationalism, can be "an idée-force which fills man's brain and heart with new thoughts and sentiments and drives him to translate his consciousness into deeds of organized action." In response to an impending language shift, it produces an attempt at preserving the threatened language . . .; as a reaction to interference, it makes the standardized version of the language a symbol and a cause. Language loyalty might be defined, then, as a principle---its specific content varies from case to case---in the name of which people will rally themselves and their fellow speakers consciously and explicitly to resist changes in either the functions of their language (as a result of a language shift) or in the structure or vocabulary (as a consequence of interference). Thus in the field of sociolinguistics purism, standardization, language loyalty, and related defensive mechanisms are phenomena of major importance requiring systematic treatment, even if, for understandable reasons, they are considered irrelevant in descriptive structural linguistics.
続けて Weinreich (100--01) は，どのような条件下において言語への忠誠が発生しやすいかを，わかりやすく説いている．
It is in a situation of language contact that people most easily become aware of the peculiarities of their language as against others, and it is there that the pure or standardized language most easily becomes the symbol of group integrity. Language loyalty breeds in contact situations just as nationalism breeds on ethnic borders. . . . / Thus language loyalty, like a nativistic movement, is "unlikely to arise in situations where both societies are satisfied with their current relationship." It is rather frustrated superiority feelings that cause language loyalty to develop.
その条件を一言で表わせば「対外的な緊張」だろう．このキーワードは「#1876. 言霊信仰」 ([2014-06-16-1])，「#2029. 日本の方言差別と方言コンプレックスの歴史」 ([2014-11-16-1])，「#2030. イギリスの方言差別と方言コンプレックスの歴史」 ([2014-11-17-1]) でも用いてきたが，言語においても国家においても，自意識に目覚めるのは，他者との何らかの接触においてしかありえない．したがって，例えば初期近代英語期におけるインク壺語の問題，明治期の日本語におけるチンプン漢語の問題，現代日本語におけるカタカナ語の問題も，それぞれの状況における他者が何であるか，その他者と自らの関係はいかなるものかを考慮することなしには，適切に扱うことができないだろう (cf. 「#1630. インク壺語，カタカナ語，チンプン漢語」 ([2013-10-13-1])) ．
・ Weinreich, Uriel. Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems. New York: Publications of the Linguistic Circle of New York, 1953. The Hague: Mouton, 1968.
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