In premodern times, linguistic multiplicity was integral to cosmopolitan life. The 13th-century Sufi poet Amir Khusro exemplified this ethos, as he seamlessly composed in Persian, Hindavi, Arabic, and Turkish—thus inhabiting a multiverse of languages that enabled plural forms of thought and expression.

Modernity, however, introduced a new relationship to language. Colonial and modern philologists began ranking languages through hierarchical frameworks and often privileged certain tongues as intellectually or morally superior (Masuzawa 2012). This shift helped justify racialized and class-based distinctions and contributed to what has been termed linguistic apartheid. In today’s neoliberal order, language is increasingly valued for its instrumental function—its capacity to produce, manage, and govern—rather than its ethical or imaginative possibilities.

This transformation has had profound cultural consequences. For instance, Persian, once central to cultivating adab—a sensibility of refinement and ethical conduct—among Indian Muslims (Kia 2020), has been relegated to the margins, and has come to be increasingly associated with sectarian identity rather than shared literary heritage. Such changes reflect a global trend in which nationalism has redefined language as a marker of difference rather than a medium of connection.

This panel invites reflections on the linguistic re-imagination in the modern post-colonial nation states that employ literary, philosophical, historical, and comparative approaches, as well as close readings of specific writers and movements. How have multilingual traditions historically shaped alternative ways of dwelling in the world and how are they being reclaimed? What kinds of ethical, spiritual, or aesthetic visions continue to emerge from these linguistic multiverses—and how do they challenge the dominance of monolingual ideologies and the nation-state’s “linguistic intransigence”? We welcome work on literary traditions in Middle Eastern, African, Central and South Asian, and European languages.