Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Deep Acharya
Guest: Sophie Salvo, Assistant Professor, University of Chicago
Book Discussed: Articulating Difference: Sex and Language in the German Nineteenth Century (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Release Date: March 1, 2026

This episode explores Sophie Salvo’s new book, which examines how 19th-century German ideas about sexual difference profoundly shaped the emergence of modern linguistics and the philosophy of language. Salvo argues that scholars are not the inventors, but rather the inheritors, of the entwined notions of language and gender—tracing a prehistory of misogyny and gendered assumptions in language science. The episode discusses gendered origin myths for language, the scientific discourses of "women's language," the structuring of grammatical gender, and early women scholars’ resistances and contributions.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sophie Salvo’s Intellectual Journey (04:05–06:02)

• Background: Sophie traces her interest in language and gender to her undergraduate studies in comparative literature, especially French feminist theory (Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva).
• Shift in Focus: While inspired by "feminine" and "masculine" relations to language theorized in the late 20th century, Salvo shifted her focus to the 19th century to historicize those questions and probe who is included or excluded by definitions of "the human."
• Methodology: Her critical framework continues to draw on feminist theory, but with an emphasis on whose perspectives and exclusions structured early language science.

"I think I still am working with a lot of ideas from this kind of feminist theory, but I wanted to shift my focus to think about how gender and language... was thought about in an earlier period, specifically the 19th century, which is when language science is understood to have developed." (05:43, Salvo)

2. The Historiographical Intervention & Gendered Linguistic Science (06:32–09:25)

• Gap in Scholarship: Salvo notes that while histories of women's marginalization or of pronouns exist, a sustained inquiry into how notions of sex difference structured the very possibility of linguistic knowledge was missing.
• 19th-century Premises: She finds that male linguists used assumptions of sexual complementarity as a “necessary premise” for theorizing language origins, grammatical gender, and linguistic classification.
• Uninterrogated Fictions: Philosophers often constructed origin myths about "the household economy," positing men and women as fundamentally distinct and using these differences to underwrite scientific claims about language.

"Often scholars would note that indeed there seems to be something gendered going on here... but then the typical move would be to just dismiss this as irrelevant... I saw that there really were... a lot of different areas of writing on language where authors were drawing on or even depending on certain ideas about men and women in order to make their claims." (07:10–08:34, Salvo)

3. The Shift to Solitary Male Subjects in Language Origin Stories (09:25–12:57)

• Enlightenment Narratives: Early theories often featured male-female pairs or even female protagonists in speculative language origin stories.
• Philosophical Shift: By the turn of the 19th century, the "solitary man" replaces these dyads—women are no longer central even in fictional accounts.
• Defining Humanity: This shift is tied not to advances in the status of women, but to a new model that equates language with rationality—a trait ascribed more to men in these texts.
• Exclusion of Women: The canonical examples (Herder, Fichte, Humboldt) reconfigure "the human" as implicitly male, narrowing both linguistic and philosophical paradigms.

"Are women really human? And that sounds sort of silly, but you know, of course women are human and there's no author who's saying like they're a totally different species. But there is this sense that men are more sort of more human than women are. Right, they're more emphatically human." (10:38, Salvo)

4. Scientific Constructions of “Women’s Language” (Weibersprache) (12:57–15:50)

• 17th-century Caribbean Origin: Missionary reports about a "women's language" on the Caribbean islands become a touchstone; by the 19th century, linguists cite it as evidence of fundamental sexual difference in language use.
• Primitive Foil & Scientific Legitimacy: The concept of Weiber Sprache is used by linguists and anthropologists to reinforce claims of inherent, sweeping gender differences—bolstering the scientific authority of their disciplines.
• Universalizing Genderlects: There's a leap from specific, possibly misunderstood cases, to sweeping claims that "we all know men and women speak differently."

"They sort of become, they conflate these two different things—what we would now call a genderlect... and one is then marshaled as evidence... because the language sciences are invested in the scientificity of their own disciplines." (14:32, Salvo)

5. Research Process & Methodological Reflection (15:50–17:51)

• Research Trajectory: Salvo’s process was "not very systematic" at first—uncovering scattered references (e.g., Humboldt on women’s language) and following threads across sources.
• Critical Distance: Advice from her advisor pushed her to articulate the broader significance of these anecdotes—achieved gradually, over years.
• Advice for Scholars: Be patient, and keep track of advisors’ questions, as their importance may become clear much later.

"You get a hint somewhere and you follow it to something else and you get another hint... That was a lot of graduate school." (16:41, Salvo)

6. Grammatical Gender and the Debate over Sexed Language (17:51–22:34)

• Grimm and Biological Sex: Jacob Grimm and others posited that grammatical gender in Germanic languages derived from associations of strength (masculine) or passivity (feminine).
• Semantic vs. Formal Explanations: Neo-grammarians challenged this, insisting gender was an emergent property of changes in word forms, not attached to semantic "essences."
• Struggle Over the 'Sexless' Human: At stake was whether one could conceive of a neutral, non-sexed human subject or if all language (and thus humanity) was always already divided by sex.

"There comes then to be a debate actually... and the neo grammarians say... grammatical gender is purely about how words developed formally. There's not a semantic meaning... The Grimm's followers say, you know, doh. And... they start debating whether one can conceive of the human as not already sexed." (21:43, Salvo)

7. Women Scholars and Androgynous Language Science (22:34–26:23)

• Elise Richter’s Diagrams: Early female linguists like Elise Richter reproduced phonetic diagrams, but with visual modifications—removing "mustaches" and sideburns from the typical male speaking subject depicted in 19th-century scientific illustration.
• Androgynous Imagery: While it’s unclear whose decision this was, these diagrams implicitly questioned the reigning masculine model of the speaking subject and the scientist.
• Limits of Subversion: These shifts were subtle rather than overtly polemical; as women entered the field, new "neutral" representations were required, reflecting the changing social reality.

"You don't need sideburns to talk about how, like, the consonant R is produced in this mouth... there seems to have been a decision to not make this figure... explicitly sexed." (24:20, Salvo)

8. Modernist "Language Crisis" and Benevolent Misogyny (26:23–29:19)

• Projecting Utopia onto Women: Early 20th-century modernist writers (Hofmannsthal, Musil) imagined utopian, alternative forms of language—but always projected them onto female figures, whom they simultaneously cast as inarticulate or silent.
• Valorizations and Limits: The fantasy that women’s speech is more embodied or radically different serves as both valorization and a reiteration of female inarticulacy. Some authors later recognized the limitation of this trope and moved to other metaphors.
• Continuity of Tropes: These gestures extended and reworked long-standing associations between women, expressivity, and the body found in 19th-century discourse.

"In these literary texts, they imagine often female characters whose language is really pushed to the total extreme... such that... the language... is somehow really ontologically different from regular language, such that maybe it can't even be expressed." (27:13, Salvo)

9. Contemporary Resonance and the Politics of Gendered Language (29:19–33:12)

• Far-Right Rhetoric: Contemporary parties like Germany’s AfD or India’s BJP frame gender-inclusive language as a threat to tradition or national identity, invoking a fantasy of a "pure," apolitical language.
• Historical Continuities: Salvo argues that language has always been gendered—claims of a neutral linguistic past are themselves ideological myths. Recognizing this history may help demystify current "culture wars."
• Broader Message: The intertwining of language and gender—and the tenacious belief in their natural connection—has structured both scientific and political debates for centuries.

"This has always been happening, right? ...That idea of an ungendered language is a fantasy. And … even in the 19th century [thinkers] were relying on ideas about masculinity and femininity to understand... what language is." (30:51, Salvo)

10. Closing Reflections: Main Takeaway (32:16–33:49)

• Salvo’s Message: Gender has always shaped the history and structure of linguistic sciences and theories of language. It’s a misconception to think "gender and language" arose only with recent feminist scholarship.
• Implication: To understand the politics of language today, we must recognize that its scientific and theoretical foundation has never been neutral.

"To think about the history of language science or the philosophy of language as neutral... is a misconception." (33:32, Salvo)

Notable Quotes

• On language origins:
  "Once you have theories like... who really say that no, language sort of was human from its beginning and they define human as... rational reflection... these are attributes that they... associate... with the man in particular." (11:56, Salvo)
• On feminist interventions:
  "Once women were... allowed to enter the realm of language science... new figures, new examples, new characters were required." (26:12, Salvo)
• On contemporary politics:
  "That idea of an ungendered language is a fantasy... the way that this threat, the so-called threat of gendered language is presented often is that it's something new. And... if we can actually see that it has a history, it might help us or be less panicked about it." (31:18, Salvo)
• On the book's message:
  "Gender is important or ideas about gender have been important in the history of thinking about what language is... I think it’s a misconception [that it only comes with feminist theory]." (33:19, Salvo)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Sophie’s intellectual background: 04:05–06:02
• Historiographical intervention & gender as epistemic premise: 06:32–09:25
• ** eighteenth–nineteenth-century origin myths, shift to solitary male agents:** 09:25–12:57
• Women’s language & anthropological foils: 12:57–15:50
• Research process & methodological advice: 15:50–17:51
• Grammatical gender & debates: 17:51–22:34
• Women’s interventions (e.g., Elise Richter) in language science: 22:34–26:23
• Modernist fictions and benevolent misogyny: 26:23–29:19
• Contemporary right-wing gender-linguistic anxieties: 29:19–33:12
• Main takeaway: 33:12–33:49

Overall Tone & Style

The discussion is scholarly but accessible, interweaving close textual reading, intellectual history, and critical reflection. Salvo engages both philosophical nuance and practical research challenges, offering warmth and encouragement to emerging scholars.

Who Should Listen?

• Scholars of language, gender studies, or German studies.
• Anyone interested in the interrelations of science and gender ideology.
• Listeners seeking historical context for the contemporary "culture wars" over gendered and inclusive language.