Is the basis of exoticism subjective or objective?

Zusammenfassung

As exotic, we usually apprehend something extraordinary, rare, unfamiliar — all of them features that challenge our cognitive instincts. Obviously, exoticism does not exist objectively and can only be defined in relative terms. Distinguishing the common from the unusual requires comparison. In the formative era of linguistics the existence of “primitive” languages was taken for granted. It was assumed that their structures may be fundamentally different from those of “modern” languages. Traces of this attitude occur as late as the 20^th century. This is how Bronislaw Malinowski characterizes primitive languages:

In a primitive tongue, the whole grammatical structure lacks the precision and definiteness of our own, though it is extremely telling in certain specific ways. (Malinowski 1923/1960, p. 300)

However, no really primitive languages have so far been detected. Obviously, they have ceased to exist 100 000 or 150 000 years ago when homo sapiens sapiens appeared somewhere in Africa (cf. Nichols 1998, p. 165). Instead, the typologists started searching for “exotic” languages and identified them with the languages of “natural” peoples or tribes.