David Gonzalez Nieto's article entitled, "The Emperor's New Words: Language and Colonization" is a compelling and innovative article concerning colonialism and its effects on native populations, more specifically how it alters their identities and ways of communicating. In a similar fashion to Mufwene's article, Nieto starts off by describing language as a living organism which is part of one's soul and in many ways is intrinsically linked to our identities. He goes on to discuss the fact that colonizers understood the essential role language plays in a community and how they would wield language as a type of weapon by forcing the natives to learn the "new", imposed language. Furthermore, Nieto goes into detail discussing the concept of "re-naming" which is also known as "linguistic dispossession". This type of communicative displacement leaves the indigenous population feeling dependent and inadequate compared to the colonizers, who in many ways seemed more advanced and elite in comparison. In addition, Nieto gives examples of "linguistic dispossession" and how it was utilized by explorers when they started mapping out their "new" found land and giving new names to already established towns. Overall, Nieto's article provides a multitude of examples concerning the metamorphosis of everyday words and places and how colonialism affected not only one's communication skills, but also the culture as well.
Nieto, David Gonzalez (2007) "The Emperor’s New Words: Language and Colonization," Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge: Vol. 5: Iss. 3, Article 21.
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