Linguistic imperialism

I’ve only quoted Carl Schmitt once before on this blog. He deserves some more mention. So here’s a good quote, from The Nomos of the Earth:

A historically meaningful imperialism is not only or essentially military panoply, not only financial and economic prosperity, but, also, this ability to determine in and of itself the content of political and legal concepts. . . . A nation is conquered first when it acquiesces to a foreign vocabulary, a foreign concept of law, especially international law.