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Ethnicity, and Language as an Ethnic Identifier

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Demographic and Socioeconomic Basis of Ethnolinguistics

Abstract

The increased saliency of ethnicity in the modern world is evident as we observe the reemergence of ethnolinguistically defined city-states, the conflicts of ethnolinguistic groups within many nation-states, the increasing prominence of ethnic identity in the national politics of many countries, and the strong opposition of the ethnically dominant population in some countries to immigrant populations, who are seen as a security threat and as assimilating too slowly to the dominant culture. To understand the ethnolinguistic differences that divide our populations today, we need to explore the many facets of ethnicity and, in particular, the linkages between ethnicity, language, nationalism, religion, and race.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Sensitivity is the proportion of cases that were correctly classified in their ethnic group. Specificity is the proportion of cases in “Other Ethnic Groups” that were correctly classified. Positive predictive value is the proportion of cases classified in “Ethnic group E” that were actually in Ethnic Group E. Negative predictive value is the proportion of cases classified in “other ethnic groups than E” that were actually in “other ethnic groups.”

  2. 2.

    The percentage of total population covered for the various countries varied from 0.3 to 79%. Therefore, before constructing the global-naming network, frequencies from each country were proportionately weighted to represent the total population of each country.

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  1. North Bethesda, MD, USA

    Jacob S. Siegel

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  1. Jacob S. Siegel
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Siegel, J.S. (2018). Ethnicity, and Language as an Ethnic Identifier. In: Demographic and Socioeconomic Basis of Ethnolinguistics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61778-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61778-7_3

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