LANGUAGE IN THE OPTICS OF WAR

Abstract

Language security studies are currently undergoing a phase of intensive formation. Recent research explores language both as an object of study and as a subject of security and military studies. This article aims to provide a scholarly interpretation of language as an object of language security research. Language acquires military determinism alongside its status as a national value, which falls within the scope of national interest, particularly when such a status is discursively accentuated. In situations of threat or emerging danger, any language – especially when it serves as a crucial element of a society’s political framework, a marker of ethno-political identity, a symbol of its native speakers, and a matter of national interest – demonstrates its inherent militarisation. The exemplary material includes the existentially distinct Yugoslav military events between 1991 and 2001, as well as russia’s war against Ukraine since 2014, including its full-scale phase from 2022. At first glance, language and war may seem like entirely distant concepts, yet they are interconnected through human agency. Language is an inherent characteristic of human nature, while war is a human conscious activity that cannot exist without language. The relationship between language and war extends beyond the individual to the state, particularly in modern times, where political language identity of it is almost always subject to protection, including military defence. Even if, for a certain period, language and war appear to occupy opposite extremes on the spectrum of human existence, there inevitably comes a moment when they converge, and language, despite all else, becomes an integral part of war. The militarisation of language typically manifests through two main models: 1) when, during a certain period, a shared language serves as a security instrument for many but, with a shift in context, transforms into a threat and disintegrates; and 2) when two languages exist in existential opposition, meaning that their organic coexistence within the same linguistic group, at the same time, in the same territory, and with the same functions, becomes virtually impossible. The Ukrainian language, which actualizes the second model, demonstrates its militarised nature particularly under the following conditions: war and occupation of part of its territory; the legacy of colonisation and russification; and external influences on linguistic minority groups in Ukraine.