The relationship between language, ethnic identity, nationalism, and race has been defined differently at different historical periods and for diverse purposes. This entry analyzes the construction of those unidirectional links from the time of the German Romantics as a way to consolidate power. In the twenty‐first century, scholars have questioned the construction of that link, and even the meaning of the word “language” itself. Taking up language as a social practice enmeshed in ideology, this entry reviews how this understanding of language practices or “languaging” affects the relationship between language and ethnicity, nationalism, and race.