LANGUAGE AND BORDERS

Linguistic elements such as phonemes, lexemes, and syntactic or morpho logical rules cannot be taken for granted as the shape in which border -making elements come. From the actor's viewpoint, border-making eleme nts take on their social reality as ''languages,'' ''accents,'' ''mixi ng,'' or ''words.'' These terms emerge among the people to whom langua ge identities matter, in relations shaped by the politics of ethnicity , race, and class within the nation and by the politics of ethnic nati onalism.