In contrast to the national liberation movements in the Americas, language was a central element in the development of European nationalisms. The rise of nationalism in Europe began roughly as the revolutionary era that created independent nation-states in the Western Hemisphere concluded. The century of European nationalism, lasting approximately from 1820-1920, saw the collapse of dynastic empires (for example, the Austro-Hungarian and Russian monarchies) and the birth of many ethnic nationalisms. These nationalisms were marked by the critical role of vernacular languages as expressions of national identity. In contrast to the nationalist movements in the New World, they were also characterized by their populist politics, which engaged the lower classes in the struggle for national independence.

Global exploration and the acquisition of colonial empires by the European powers during the 17th and 18thcenturies gave birth to the scientific study of languages at the start of the 19thcentury. The new science of philology, through comparative studies of grammars and vocabularies, was able to classify languages into related groups and construct a family tree of European and Asian languages. Comparative linguistics had a democratizing effect on the study of languages. Stripping the old sacred languages (Latin, Greek, and Hebrew) of their privileged position, it elevated the vernacular languages to an equal footing worthy of study.