Celtic Languages Attitudes

Jawfin

Howdy fellers


I was talking recently to a unionist who commented that the Republic has failed to re-introduce the Irish language the same way Wales did. Would you say this statement is true? In Wales I think about 1/3rd of the population claims to speak Welsh, compared to about 1/6th speaking Irish over here. If so, why is this? Both countries has their language seemingly 'oppressed' by the English, but why did Irish suffer more badly? Does the apparent destruction of Cornish and Manx outweigh the suvival Welsh? Would Irish have thrived if there was no partition? And so on

Discuss

tac foley

I lived in Wales in the late forties as a very small child, and Welsh was what my grandfather spoke with ALL his relatives. I lived there again in the late fifties, and actually went to an Ysgol Cymraeg, as my remembered Welsh was still good enough to get me in there with native speakers. Later on, in the late sixties and into the seventies, whilst based in Chester, I had a Welsh g/f who miraculously forgot every word of English as we crossed the border into Wales, and none of her family spoke a work of English to me in the two years we were going out. Wherever we went in North Wales, neither her nor any of her friends, all of whom could speak perfect English, spoke any English at all, except to non-English visitors who might ask for help with directions. The reason is/was simple - Welsh is the language of Wales, and although English is tolerated, it is not overly popular, especially in North Wales, where the Welsh language dominates daily life, down to road signs, both on poles and on the road surface. Welsh is a genuinely living language in its own right, and a great part of the population has little or no problem in either teaching it or learning it from a very early age, even if is not actually the home-hearth daily language.

Manx, BTW, is on the way back, with Manx language radio programmes, Manx-speaking schools, and all IoM government documentation being produced bi-lingually. Cornish, however, appears to have died, except, perhaps, as a novelty after the style of Anglo-Saxon or Elvish, and is more often heard in Brittany than Cornwall. When visiting various music festivals in Brittany, you are as likely to hear Welsh as you are Breton, and the two branches of Brythonic are almost, but not quite, mutually intelligible.

Meanwhile, back in Ireland, you have had 94 years to put the problem to bed, and so far failed to do it, in spite of the efforts of the good folks in the various Irish-speaking areas.

Your own reticence is to blame here, IMO.

tac

Del.Monte

tac While I agree with you about Welsh being a living language the same cannot be said of Manx. The Manx language is for the Manx - most of who live in Peel - although I never heard it spoken when I lived nearby. It's a toy of the Manx government and a few nationalist 'whack jobs'. According to this http://www.indexmundi.com/isle_of_man/demographics_profile.html only about 2% of the population claim to have some knowledge of the language!

robp

Del.Monte wrote: »

tac While I agree with you about Welsh being a living language the same cannot be said of Manx. The Manx language is for the Manx - most of who live in Peel - although I never heard it spoken when I lived nearby. It's a toy of the Manx government and a few nationalist 'whack jobs'. According to this http://www.indexmundi.com/isle_of_man/demographics_profile.html only about 2% of the population claim to have some knowledge of the language!

2% is rather a lot of language that literally went extinct.

tac foley

Del.Monte wrote: »

tac While I agree with you about Welsh being a living language the same cannot be said of Manx. The Manx language is for the Manx - most of who live in Peel - although I never heard it spoken when I lived nearby. It's a toy of the Manx government and a few nationalist 'whack jobs'. According to this http://www.indexmundi.com/isle_of_man/demographics_profile.html only about 2% of the population claim to have some knowledge of the language!

I am happy to be corrected, although I hope that I never gave the impression that Manx was spoken anywhere except on the IoM.

tac

Del.Monte

tac foley wrote: »

I am happy to be corrected, although I hope that I never gave the impression that Manx was spoken anywhere except on the IoM.

tac

Nor me, I was merely pointing out that Manx tends to be spoken by very few which is hardly surprising considering the number of 'foreigners' now attracted to the island's by the finance industry.

For the PC brigade - foreigners refers to English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and South Africans on the IoM.

CrabRevolution

Whatever about our efforts about Irish, Ireland did no harm to Manx survival:

http://asmanxasthehills.com/manx-language-and-the-irish-folklore-commission/

dubhthach

Jawfin wrote: »

Howdy fellers


I was talking recently to a unionist who commented that the Republic has failed to re-introduce the Irish language the same way Wales did. Would you say this statement is true? In Wales I think about 1/3rd of the population claims to speak Welsh, compared to about 1/6th speaking Irish over here. If so, why is this? Both countries has their language seemingly 'oppressed' by the English, but why did Irish suffer more badly? Does the apparent destruction of Cornish and Manx outweigh the suvival Welsh? Would Irish have thrived if there was no partition? And so on

Discuss

Welsh underwent a fairly sustained decline through the 20th century, it became a minority language between census of 1891 and 1901 (49.9%), it then continued to drop until welsh speakers made up circa 18% of population in 1981. It's basically kept at those levels for last 30+ years.

The claim that the welsh "reintroduced Welsh" and succeeded is false, the language just happened to maintain a large enough cohort for long enough. In comparison Irish was last at equivalent percentage (in the 26 counties anyways) in the period 1881-> 1891. With highest levels of Irish speaking in areas subject to largest levels of population decline (emigration) something which didn't really affect Welsh. Most of decline in Welsh speaking is due to language shift (there was numerically more Welsh speakers in 1901 when it was minority language than in 1851) as well as the "immigration" of English speakers from England (and elsewhere) in period after 1900.

In comparison in Ireland decline is driven by both language shift to more prestigious language (English) and emigration (Galway with largest number of Irish speakers had a population drop of nearly 25% between 1901 and 1966).

Education system would never have revised Irish, and the fact that "official Ireland" basically ignored the Gaeltacht and west led to fairly large scale emigration of native speakers during the course of 20th century (there are as many home speakers of Irish in US as in Conamara as per US census data)

tac foley

Jawfin wrote: »

Both countries has their language seemingly 'oppressed' by the English

Sir, there is no 'seemingly' about it, as far as Welsh is concerned - I am not qualified to discuss what happened to Irish, but I am qualified as far as Welsh is concerned, having lived with my grandfather whose use of his mother-tongue was punished as a child by making him stand in a corner of the school-room wearing a dunce's hat, and having a slate hung round his neck bearing the words 'Welsh - NOT'. The Welsh language was actually prohibited from public use in many pubs and other gathering places, but nobody was much deterred by these infractions of civil liberties. My grandmother was often the only English speaker in the house when the rest of the Davies family came to see us.

I attended Grove Park Grammar School in Wrexham in the late fifties, and Welsh was NOT forbidden, but compulsory - with 'special Welsh' for the quarter of my class who were Welsh speakers at home. I also attended the local pure Welsh 'Ysgol Cymraeg' two afternoons in the week and and Saturday morning - a kind if Welsh immersion I guess it would be called now. No word - spoken or printed - of English could be heard or seen in the entire building.

tac

whisky_galore

In spite of the 'special place' of the language, compulsory Irish in education and the efforts of lobby groups and a whole mini-industry ranging from teachers to families lodging students in gaeltacht areas, it still hasn't caught on. Try conversing in Irish with a random Irish person on the street and in many cases I'll wager you won't get very far other than a few stock sentences and half-remembered schoolboy Irish. Then you have the half-hearted public signage, often with glaring errors, simply to conform the letter of the law.

Also, decades of poorly taught compulsory Irish, often under the threat of the 'bata', caused a lot of damage and resentment and the attitude of some language enthusiasts who suggest that you are somehow less than Irish if you can't, or won't, speak it hardly helps.

Having said that, many people are well-disposed to the language and in favour of keeping the language in the school curriculum, but you may find the same people wouldn't have a notion of speaking it themselves.

Like tac says it's an attitude thing, and no amount of lobbying or funding is ever going to revive the language as a working language outside of shrinking Gaeltachts. Bringing a horse to water and all that.

tac foley

As a polyglot who doesn't have to try very hard to learn a new language, I often come into contact with people who are not having an easy time with their newly-chosen language. If and when they ever ask me if there is an easy/easier way of getting one's head around it, I have couple of things to say.

1. Get a native-speaking girlfriend/boyfriend,wife/husband/significant other.

2. Don't be coy about making the often odd-sounding noises that native-speakers make when speaking their own language - after all, THAT is actually what it sounds like.

The latter point is probably the most difficult to either get over, or get used to.

3. Try and use the language that you are learning EVERY day - even if that means writing to fellow students or better yet, skyping them. Use it every day and watch the familiarity improve. Spending time with my GF at home in North Wales all those years ago, where nobody spoke any English, was an unintended gift that I still treasure and benefit from, not on a daily basis, but certainly on a weekly basis. We have just gotten back here from a long week-end in North Wales, where I was very useful in a couple of stores in Bala and the surrounding area where Welsh was the preferred method of communication. In fact, one little bookstore had an amusing little sign in the window -

'Saesneg, Almaeneg a Ffrangeg a siaredir yma.
English, German and French spoken here.'

IMO, Irish is not helped one by sounding nothing like the written word. In a world where children are often taught to read by using phonetic symbology, rather than the simple old ABC, trying to learn a language that has letter groups that not only change, but sound different to the similar-looking English letter groups encountered in daily reading is not helpful - comhairle/coily for instance. Many other Western languages DO sound like they appear to (even Celtic Welsh), excepting the English letter 'C' - cat/certify - and the awful (to learners) -ough/-augh and others.

Anyhow, the lesson is plain to see - Got a language of your own? Then use it, or lose it.

tac

feargale

tac foley wrote: »

1. Get a native-speaking girlfriend/boyfriend,wife/husband/significant other.

To ensure there are enough to go around you would have to introduce polygamy and polyandry.

tac foley wrote: »

IMO, Irish is not helped one by sounding nothing like the written word. In a world where children are often taught to read by using phonetic symbology, rather than the simple old ABC, trying to learn a language that has letter groups that not only change, but sound different to the similar-looking English letter groups encountered in daily reading is not helpful - comhairle/coily for instance. Many other Western languages DO sound like they appear to (even Celtic Welsh), excepting the English letter 'C' - cat/certify - and the awful (to learners) -ough/-augh and others. tac

I totally agree with you on this. The argument is as between a phonetically based spelling system and an etymologically based one. For instance the Papiamentu language has two orthographic forms, a phonetic one in Aruba and an etymological one in Curacao and Bonaire. The etymological model is grand for professors up at the university who want to stay cocooned in their comfort zone. It does not serve ordinary folk who have to contend with the practicalities of daily life. I once had a clown teaching me Irish who railed against the Department's spelling reforms. He wanted us to spell Irish as it was spelt in the 14th century, without regard to the sound shifts that had taken place over the centuries.

dubhthach

Unsurprising a thread that has supposed to be about the contrasting situation of Welsh and Irish has dropped to standard "It was beaten into me in school" meme. I'm not sure why people are so obsessesed about the education aspect as oppose to why language shift has contuined throughout the 20th century, resulting in change from something like this in 1926:



to this:

tac foley

feargale wrote: »

For instance the Papiamentu language has two orthographic forms, a phonetic one in Aruba and an etymological one in Curacao and Bonaire.

Heck! You only JUST beat me to it there......

tac

whisky_galore

dubhthach wrote: »

Unsurprising a thread that has supposed to be about the contrasting situation of Welsh and Irish has dropped to standard "It was beaten into me in school" meme.

Well, like a lot of stereotypes or 'memes' sometimes there is a grain of truth somewhere in them. The vast, vast majority of folks who grow up here first encounter Irish in the education system and not at home or in their community.

Unpleasant experiences simply put people off and coupled with that you need the critical mass to WANT to speak the language and see value in doing so, not just something as a means to an end. Simply to go through the motions to pass an exam and drop like a hot potato the second they leave the examination hall.

So in contrast with Wales, we have a whole lot of 'I'm not bothered' here.

dubhthach

whisky_galore wrote: »

Well, like a lot of stereotypes or 'memes' sometimes there is a grain of truth somewhere in them. The vast, vast majority of folks who grow up here first encounter Irish in the education system and not at home or in their community.

Unpleasant experiences simply put people off and coupled with that you need the critical mass to WANT to speak the language and see value in doing so, not just something as a means to an end. Simply to go through the motions to pass an exam and drop like a hot potato the second they leave the examination hall.

So in contrast with Wales, we have a whole lot of 'I'm not bothered' here.

In Wales though you have exactly the same attitude/issues among English speakers, the issue isn't that english speaking welsh people started speaking Welsh, instead the Welsh speaking cohort of population retained a larger more coherent geographic block for longer. Even still it shrank from about 50% of population in 1901 to a 18% (some claim today that percentage of daily welsh speakers is lower than this).

Quite simply unlike Ireland Wales never suffer a population crash during the 19th century, which disproportionally affected native speakers. That and Welsh had certain levels of prestige as a printed language used for example in religion (Methodism), whereas Irish was basically reduced to a Oral language during 19th century. (Irish basically had one of lowest amounts of printed works compare to any other insular-celtic language during 18th/19th centuries)

Education would never have revived the Irish language, heck it won't revive Welsh to been a majority language either. You've plenty of people complaining about compulsory Welsh in schools etc.

Back in the 1920's a report was commissioned on the Gaeltacht and the issues affecting native speakers (the number of which halfed between 1922 and 1939), the politicians went running at some of suggestions. For example the idea of free Secondary school education for Gaeltacht children, which Mandarins shot down as been "uneconomical for Gaeltacht parents as they needed their children to go to work at 12!"

(see JJ. Lee -- Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society), the number of native Irish speakers has collapsed since independence, the language would probably be in better condition if we had stayed part of the UK.

Basically the native speakers were told to go jump, after all what use is a ceremonial language if there are "bloody natives" using it. Hardly surprising you had movements such as the "Gaeltacht Civil Rights" movement in the late 1960's as a result.

tac foley

What a great shame that is. The loss of yet another once vibrant language, not from conquest, but by apathy, would be a terrible pity.

tac

dubhthach

tac foley wrote: »

What a great shame that is. The loss of yet another once vibrant language, not from conquest, but by apathy, would be a terrible pity.

tac

It would seem that the daily speakers of Welsh make up about 12-13% of population, what seems to be consistent is numerically number of Welsh speakers has stayed much the same for last couple hundred years. However as overall Welsh population has grown it's resulted in drop. That and increase in English speakers moving into Welsh speaking areas, this has caused controversy in areas such as "Conservation" for example:

"Don't twist reality to create the wild Wales of English romantic myth"
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/jun/26/wales-cambrians-welsh-language

What's important in Welsh context is they have large geographic continuous area where Welsh is still primary community language (and thus even wider area where there's contact with this)

Compare:



with this:




The Gaeltacht boundaries as set out in 1956 weren't even accurate for time, as they included areas already in process of language shift eg. parts of Galway city, areas on east side of Corrib etc. -- most of Mayo Gaeltacht added for political reasons

4ensic15

The reality is that small pockets of speakers cannot survive for long. A declining population and few employment outlets mean people work outside the Irish speaking areas and have to operate amongst English speakers. When an Irish speaker marries an English speaker the language of the home is often English, particularly where the neighbourhood is English speaking. Most television in Ireland from the 1960s was in English and increasing car ownership and the advent of supermarkets brought Irish speaking people into the English speaking world far more often. It can be no surprise that the Irish speaking areas have shrunk. Irish has become like Latin. The preserve of the educated and wealthy rather than a used and living language.

Manach

Slightly off topic, but I'd recommend the Duolingo site which has an Irish section. I used it myself to revive my rather half-forgotten skills. As well, the point that Irish itself is a tough language to learn is backed up by numerous discussion threads which mention that.

whisky_galore

tac foley wrote: »

What a great shame that is. The loss of yet another once vibrant language, not from conquest, but by apathy, would be a terrible pity.

tac

It won't be lost entirely, just placed on life support to live on in a sort of half-life as a not quite dead but not quite living language either.