In the beginning we have stated that race and racism are in no way problematic. They are the problems of the western civilization and also of South Africa. Here our problems of social and cultural level relate to caste.
Caste is a hereditary group. However, as stated earlier, there are no physical features which differentiate one caste from another. But, there are social and cultural privileges and disabilities among different castes.
Actually, there is a fixed caste ranking which Dumont calls Homo hierarchic us. There is caste endogamy. All these differences rest on caste superiority and inferiority. Quite like racism, casteism has also distorted the hereditary characteristics of a particular caste. As there are race wars, so we have in our country caste wars.
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The doctrine of Mandalization has made the caste war more intense. It is said that the legislation on schedulization has continuously made this war ongoing. In fact, caste continues to remain a hereditary group.
It has nothing to do with culture. If a Brahmin can speak Ma- rathi, so can an untouchable also speak Marathi? Brahmin and untouchable are two hereditary groups and language is a culture. It is common to all. In other words, culture is independent of caste.
Language:
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Recently, the French sociologists have given a new dimension to the concept of structure. Actually, the new structuralism, which has emerged as a tradition of sociology and social anthropology, draws heavily from sociology of language.
In the initial development of new structuralism, the influence of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) is dominant. Basically, Saussure was a philologist.
His argument is that quite like the structure of language, there is a structure of society. It is all a culture. Kroeber, a well known cultural anthropologist, tries to explore the relationship between race and speech family.
He says that a race does not have its own language. Language is learned. If, for instance, a Muslim is comfortable speaking Urdu or if Pakistan has Urdu as its national language, any Hindu can also speak Urdu.
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However, the fact is that if one wishes to have complete understanding of a people, one must take its language into consideration.
It is a truism that the faculty of speech is innate. In other words, soon after birth, the child has some speech. But, the language which the child would speak is wholly acquired. Moreover, the environment of which languages are the product is not a natural one; it is geographic and social.
It means that someone born in Chennai and speaking in Tamil conveys that there is a geographical area where Tamil language is spoken. The child acquires the habit of speaking Tamil because he is born in a particular geographical and cultural region. The races in this context have their geography.
Caucasians are found in Europe and it is this area and cultural milieu which prompts inhabitants to speak any or more number of languages spoken in Europe.
Philologists have classified the languages into different linguistic families, and that is how a race has come to be related with a particular linguistic family. Thus, there is a strong association between language and civilization.