I know I post a lot about efforts to keep languages alive, but Rhoda Meek’s piece in The National (Glasgow) focuses on an aspect not often discussed (at least at LH) — the psychological barriers to using a fading language, in this case Scots Gaelic:
If Gaelic is to be “saved” in any meaningful way, we need a radical change in how we approach it, and that change has to start in the Gaidhealtachd itself – not by creating new speakers – but by inspiring those of us who already speak it. […]
Even as a reasonably confident Gaelic speaker, my opportunities to use Gaelic in Tiree are limited. I use it with some of the more willing older speakers – particularly in the context of crofting and fishing, or at funerals and animal sales. Over the last few years, a few of us “younger” ones have taken to proactively speaking to each other in public, or in the shop or pub, starting conversations in Gaelic and carrying on – trying to break the discomfort we feel. We’re ignoring the desire to be polite in the company of English speakers, and finishing our conversations in Gaelic before switching language. […]
The truth is that in a desire to do the right thing, we have “educationalised” Gaelic to the point that everyone is suffering. Older, native speakers, with beautiful, lyrical, spoken Gaelic, steeped in their dialects and with idiomatic turns of phrase I would die for, often think that their Gaelic isn’t good enough because it isn’t “school Gaelic”. They might use it among themselves, but rarely with my generation. The majority of school-age kids don’t regularly hear Gaelic at home or in the community. So how can they possibly become confidently fluent?
Learners are often taught a formalised Gaelic which can be incomprehensible to the older vernacular speaker. In conversation, the vernacular speaker defaults to English because they feel inferior, and the learner assumes that they are being snubbed, resulting in a misconception of snobbery on both sides.
Because Gaelic has needed to develop vocabulary for a new world, a multitude of words has been created. Gaelic orthography has been standardised, as has phrasing. That increasing standardisation has created a homogeneous dialect all of its own, beloved of the Gaelic college in Skye, rampant in the media, and baffling for many without “formal” Gaelic education.
If you take the combination of all of the above, the systematic oppression of Gaelic in the education system in my father’s era, the idea that “Gaelic will never get you anywhere”, which pervaded island communities until very recently, and a mainland-based Gaelic development agency focused on Gaelic education and teaching learners from scratch, you get to where you are today. […]
Since the research into vernacular usage was published, there has ensued a lively debate, kicked off by the suggestion that a formal Gaidhealtachd should be created – a way of recognising the remaining vernacular communities and committing to supporting Gaelic there as robustly as possible. The concept created an outcry among the urban speakers. There really is no winning.
Tragically, we won’t know how many native speakers we have left, or have lost because the census in 2022 didn’t ask about the extent of an individual’s Gaelic understanding, speech, writing or reading. In data terms, a few rounds of Duolingo will have equal weight in comparison to a lifetime’s usage. That will muddy the waters enough to annoy everyone and provide very little useful information.
There’s nothing to be done about that now. We need to move forward. The answer is not to fight over who constitutes a native speaker, or where the boundaries of a Gaidhealtachd lie. The answer is not in throwing yet more resources at GME, and the answer is not in the mountains of Gaelic plans that public bodies and institutions churn out on annual rotation – sucking up immense amounts of time and energy.
The answer is not in learners’ Gaelic classes either. It is important people learn but right now it is more important that the people we still have speak. […]
I am also guilty. There are many people – including current school pupils – with whom I should speak Gaelic, but this strange block occurs, where it feels odd to do it because it is so unfamiliar, and so I take the easy way out, and I don’t.
I need to change that. But for it to work, others need to change it too. We cannot keep burying our heads in the sand, and hoping that Gaelic will be saved by some form of magical thinking and yet another round of research. We have to do the hard work – in our Gaelic-speaking communities – and it has to be all of us. It can’t just be the long-suffering Gaelic Development Officers ploughing a lonely furrow. It has to be a team effort.
I know how hard it is to speak a language when it’s not your mother tongue, or in a situation where it could be seen as embarrassing, or annoying to others, and I admire those who can make themselves do it.
For a long time, the speech of actual Welsh speakers was stigmatised by (posh) Welsh speakers as a sort of degenerate form of Literary Welsh (a language that has never been anybody’s mother tongue, in point of sober linguistic fact.)
I think this attitude is thoroughly dead now, though there have been some missteps along the way: the big advantage of Literary Welsh is that it’s (more or less) supradialectal, and creating a replacement written “standard” has involved some miscalculations.
It no doubt helps that Welsh dialect differences are not colossal. (Mind you, I was reading somewhere that the remarkable novel Un Nos Ola Leuad was taken off the Welsh school syllabus because southern pupils said the Bethesda dialect it’s almost all written in was too hard to understand. Young people of today, grumble, grumble …)
Does the Gaelic taught in schools owe anything to Classical Modern Irish (which would probably be the nearest analogue to Literary Welsh)? Or is it a sort of Frankenstein’s Monster compromise?
And yet Esperanto (and Cornish?) thrive. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s a different feel to the enthusiasm one feels in nursing an ailing language back to vigor, to that of maintaining a language community in blissful self-containment.
I wonder if it’s similar to the situation of Czech enthusiasts learning to speak Lakota in isolation, versus those trying to maintain it within a Lakota community.
I too was thinking of both Welsh and Irish; I hope someone (Jen?) will be able to answer your question.
Others will know more than me, but I think 13th-century Irish (is that “Classical Modern Irish”?) was the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland till the 17th century under the name “Common Gaelic.” Then Scottish developed its own standard.
the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland till the 17th century
That is indeed what I meant (hence the comparison with Cymraeg Llenyddol, which is basically the language of the 1588 Bible, which was already archaising even then, but was regarded as the only really “correct” form of Welsh until the twentieth century.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_Irish
Standard German is largely founded on the language of Luther’s Bible translation (1520s through 40s) – and that was, at the time, quite colloquial in terms of vocabulary and idiomatics (though cherry-picked to be as widely understandable as Luther felt he could make it), but conservative to severely archaising in phonology (as far as the spelling implies any) and grammar. Check out what I just found (in German). Since then, the vocabulary and the idiomatics have changed faster than the grammar.
I can sort of answer David’s question, but not Y’s.
On school Gaelic – I don’t think so. The general complaint is that it’s too modern – decimal counting system and all. A bit too tidy, but I think a lot of the dialectal differences have started to fade anyway – there’s Lewis and there’s Everyone Else, to some extent.
(‘Classic’ Gaelic – the golden age – is 18th century poetry, Duncan Ban MacIntyre and Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair and so on.)
I’ve heard the swipe at Sabhal Mor before – like a lot of these things, there’s a bit of truth to it, but also a bit of something else that I can’t currently put a name to.
There was definitely a sense at some point that if there was going to be Gaelic education then it had to be possible to talk about all sorts of educational things in Gaelic, not just switching back to English when it got too modern or complicated. And a broader sense that if Gaelic is useful for talking about crofting or highland landscapes but not modern jobs or whatever then you’re not going to get anywhere.
But that did kind of become a passion for making up a word for EVERYTHING. Although even there – a research university is going to need and use a lot of words that other people don’t use much, and that’s not specific to Gaelic, and maybe it’s ok. There are plenty of people who think that English has a lot of fancy words that are no real use to anyone!
Y: That kind of enthusiasm seems to be exactly what the article is arguing *against*!
Standard German is largely founded on the language of Luther’s Bible translation (1520s through 40s) – and that was, at the time, quite colloquial in terms of vocabulary and idiomatics (though cherry-picked to be as widely understandable as Luther felt he could make it), but conservative to severely archaising in phonology (as far as the spelling implies any) and grammar
The really striking thing about the Welsh 1588 Bible from the point of view of someone familiar with more recent Literary Welsh is actually the archaic syntax: in particular, the default word order is the SVO “Abnormal Order” (so called because in Middle Welsh, it’s the normal order …)
https://www.lotpublications.nl/Documents/424_fulltext.pdf
(The actual title is “Why Jesus and Job spoke bad Welsh.”)
Surely speaking bad Welsh would be evidence of the κένωσις of the Incarnate Christ? Or is the point that he didn’t speak Welsh badly in the way that a wandering Sassenach or Israelite afflicted with the finitude and frailties of human life would tend to, but in some other way?
Κένωσις would not account for Job: unless you are delving into Typology? *
There was, however, according to the paper I linked, some (misplaced) uneasiness regarding the idea that the Biblical word order might have been corrupted by that of (shudder) English.
* This one (as JWB will know):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typology_(theology)
My theologian father-in-law once did a double-take on seeing me reading a book on typology in the Hattic sense.
stigmatised by (posh) Welsh speakers
Very like Masons who look down on (operative) masons, or in the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell the separation between those who study magic (posh) and those who practice it (stigmatized).
Does the Gaelic taught in schools owe anything to Classical Modern Irish (which would probably be the nearest analogue to Literary Welsh)? Or is it a sort of Frankenstein’s Monster compromise?
The latter. It evolved in the mid-20C as a kind of Kanzlei-Irisch, based on the perceived need to translate the body of English-language legislation into the official language of the State, which involved saying what the official language was going to be. The translation department of the Oireachtas (Parliament) undertook the necessary spelling and grammar revisions in order to create a standard written form that would:
1) be intelligible to speakers of the three surviving dialects (Munster, Connacht, Ulster);
2) simplify Irish spelling by eliminating letters that had fallen silent in all dialects (thus beiriú for Classical Irish beirbhiughadh);
3) create a simplified grammar that would be easier to learn.
The resulting Caighdeán Oifigiúil (‘Official Standard’) is revised every seven years, and is not only used for official purposes, but is taught in the schools of the Republic using mostly spelling pronunciations. (In Northern Ireland, Ulster dialect is still important as an alternative.) It has become the predominant L2 form of Irish. Over time it has been influenced by the dialects but has also influenced them extensively; in addition, mixed forms of the dialects have evolved from radio and TV use.
In some cases, simplicity trumps the maintenance of silent letters useful in only one dialect: thus some Connacht speakers pronounce Classical Irish a rithist ‘again’ as aríst (both with palatalized /r/), or even aruíst (with velarized /r/), but this is ignored by the standard in favor of arís, the majority pronunciation overall.
Unfortunately, these changes have pushed standard Irish further away from standard Scottish Gaelic, especially in spelling. Thus, Classical Irish bádh ‘bay’, báidh ‘sympathy’, and bádhadh ‘drowning’ are all now written bá in the Irish standard (having been pronounced identically for centuries), whereas they are bàgh, bàidh, and bàthadh (all likewise pronounced identically) in ScG.
creating a replacement written “standard” has involved some miscalculations
I think there is general agreement on that, but no general agreement on how to fix them.
I think there is general agreement on that, but no general agreement on how to fix them
I think that the situation is better than that: specifically, people are readier to accept that not everything actually needs to be standardised in a “standard” language. Dialect forms don’t have to be banished to the outer darkness (unless they really are incomprehensible to outsiders) and even highly literary forms are OK in their place. They only need to be vigorously suppressed if they get above themselves and try to take over.
Thanks for the stuff about Irish, which is interesting in itself: though I’m afraid I confused everyone (including you) by talking about Classical Modern Irish in the context of Scots Gaelic, which is technically correct, but only technically. I accept full responsibility, and promise never to do it again.
it’s been a long day, so i won’t try to get into the yiddish parallels except to say: a lot of this reminds me of the (non-hasidish) yiddish situation, where a major problem is the lack of spaces for non-cradle-tongue speakers to do things af yidish that aren’t some kind of formal study, especially with cradle-tongue speakers whose speech is alternately (when not simultaneously) fetishized and taught against.
I think that the situation is better than that: specifically, people are readier to accept that not everything actually needs to be standardised in a “standard” language.
Indeed, the official part of the Official Standard abstains from mentioning pronunciation, though its spelling is influenced by the pronunciations of the dialects (as of 70 years ago, anyway). Fortunately, the schools of Ireland are not so foolish as to try to teach Irish as a written-only language.
Dialect forms don’t have to be banished to the outer darkness (unless they really are incomprehensible to outsiders)
It’s more the other way about: the de facto English-influenced pronunciation of L2 Irish is incomprehensible to L1 speakers, in the same way that anglophone L2 French is incomprehensible to the French.
and even highly literary forms are OK in their place. They only need to be vigorously suppressed if they get above themselves and try to take over.
Well, too late for French, as Etienne points out.
I’m afraid I confused everyone (including you) by talking about Classical Modern Irish in the context of Scots Gaelic, which is technically correct, but only technically. I accept full responsibility, and promise never to do it again.
I know this is that British linguistic phenomenon that we Yanks are not supposed to be able to understand. But while I am careful to say Old East Slavic and not Old Russian nowadays, because it quiets a host of nationalistic fears, I do not care (nor do I think does anyone else) whether you say any of {Early Modern / Classical} {Irish / Gaelic} or for that matter Gaoidhealg[*], as all five names mean the same thing. I do not, after all, merely because I speak the majority supradialect, insist that the works of the Best. Anglophonian. Poet. Evar are written in “Classical American”.
[*] Not to be confused, as they say in Wikipedian, with Gaeilge, Gàidhlig, or Gaelg/Gailck, which are three different things, even if each of them uses the same name for itself and the other two.
I do not care (nor do I think does anyone else) whether you say any of {Early Modern / Classical} {Irish / Gaelic} or for that matter Gaoidhealg[*], as all five names mean the same thing.
This is an odd thing to say when the subject under discussion is specifically Scots Gaelic in Scotland and not Irish Gaelic in Ireland.
But if I’m understanding correctly, these are five names for the most recent common ancestor, when there was neither Scottish Gaelic nor Irish Gaelic. So I’m not sure I understand your point.
I do think that Old Irish etc. are slightly misleading names in that it makes them sound somehow more the ancestor of Irish than of other forms of Gaelic, but I don’t think they’re offensive.
The Esperanto movement is indifferent to L1 Esperanto, treating it as a bastardization of, like, actual E-o with the language of the speaker’s residence. “La infanoj diris, ke mia turbo estas Kreisel!” —Ino Kolbe, krokodilisto, Leipzig, age 3
As for Cornish, it has approximately six standard written forms, only two of which are called “the Standard Written Form”. Fortunately, pretty much all L2 speakers of Cornish understand all the rest when they speak, and if not (like all Celts except Bretons and Argentine Welsh) they can always fall back on the Common Speech, viz. Hattic.
I am curious about hat’s usage of “Scots Gaelic” versus e.g. JenInEd’s use of “Scottish Gaelic” (which is what I would use in a context where bare “Gaelic” was too ambiguous). The latter seems per n-gram viewer to be overwhelmingly dominant although you can find the minority variant in the title of at least one 21st-century textbook by someone who does not appear at first blush not to be respectable.
As to Irish ancestry, the Scoti came over from Hibernia to Caledonia to conquer the Picts, innit?
“Scots” (the adjective) and “Scottish” are both Officially OK, as opposed to “Scotch”, which on not-altogether-rational grounds has been declared Unacceptable to All True Scots (as in, plural of “Scot.”)
The older name for what is now called “Scots” (the language) was Inglis/English, whereas Gaelic was (of course) called “Scots.” (Later, it was called Erse/Irish, but you’d better not do that now.)
It’s all perfectly simple.
https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_Gaelic
“Scottice” is, as you will know, Latin for “Irish” (the language of Ireland.)
I suppose “Scotch” goes with “Welch”, except you don’t use “Welch” anymore even with whisk(e)y (just grape juice).
I was gifted a bottle of Welsh whisky by a grateful patient, which actually (despite my initial snobbishness about the very concept) turned out to be very nice indeed.
Next we’ll have to start saying “Frennish”.
Asking the assembled wisdom of the Hattery:
I’ve seen various stray references to alleged Brythonic “substrate” influence on the syntax of Scots Gaelic. This seems to boil down to liking periphrastic verb constructions, as far as I can see.
Similar McWhorteresque claims about English have always struck me as, basically, ludicrous, but then Scotland was Brythonic speaking before the Scots arrived (what with Cumbric and Pictish), and Strathclyde, at least, seems to have remained so up until the eleventh century*, so the thing is not impossible.
I know almost nothing about modern Irish, but have the impression that it is pretty strong on exactly the kind of thing that these stories would like to attribute to a Brythonic substrate.
Does Scots Gaelic really have widespread verbal constructions lacking in Irish?
And if so, are they distinctively like anything in Old (not Middle) Welsh/Cumbric? (The English forms aren’t, whatever McW thinks in his determination to see creolisation everywhere. The meanings don’t match, and the timescale doesn’t work without making assumptions about the persistence of Brythonic in Lloegr for centuries after the area was conquered by the English, for which there is zero other evidence. Claims that it was a northern ex-Hen-Ogledd thing that spread into southern English reek of saving-the-phenomena special pleading to me.)
* The WP article on the Kingdom of Strathclyde contains the aside “Áedán’s byname in later Welsh poetry, Aeddan Fradawg (Áedán the Treacherous) does not speak to a favourable reputation among the Britons of Alt Clut.” I don’t know. We Britons have always valued such attributes … perfide Albion …
I usually say Scottish Gaelic (if disambiguating) to be more distinct from Scots-the-language, but there wasn’t any implied criticism, just a reversion to my own word.
Check out what I just found (in German). [Füße, Bote, ich mache usw without the final e]
Das ketzerische e ! The plural Füß is still alive in Kölsch.
Luther’s Bible translation (1520s through 40s)
I read in the book highly and justly praised by Y, The Book in the Renaissance, that, in those years and beyond, Cologne remained defiantly Catholic and set agin everything issuing from Luther. Including, I suppose, heretical e’s.
I had the impression that at some point the more prescriptivist Scottish nationalists had purported and somewhat arbitrary rules about which nouns went with “Scots” and which with “Scottish,” along with the remaining acceptability of “Scotch” for pretty much whisky only.* Perhaps they’ve mellowed out; perhaps there’s in practice free variation; or perhaps use of one alternative rather than the other with a particular noun is or at least will be construed by some as some sort of factional-allegiance indicator. The possibility (not probability) of the last was part of what piqued my curiosity.
*I continue to refer to the relevant subset of my immigrant ancestors as being “Scotch-Irish” by ethnicity, because I don’t care about the sensibilities of modern Scottish nationalists at least when it comes to topics outside their jurisdiction like what historical ethnic groups in the U.S. should be called.
I interpreted DE’s question “Does the Gaelic taught in schools owe anything to Classical Modern Irish” as “Does the Scottish Gaelic taught in Scottish schools now owe anything to the early-modern Irish-and-Scottish Gaelic literary standard?”. Therefore John Cowan’s description of how Irish Gaelic is taught in Irish schools now is not strictly answering the question. Not that it was irrelevant to the question, even ignoring languagehat’s admirable tolerance of divergences and tangents.
You were right to interpret it thus (though I could have expressed it rather more clearly.)
Happily, Jen answered my intended question anyway.
But if I’m understanding correctly, these are five names for the most recent common ancestor
Just so.
I do think that Old Irish etc. are slightly misleading names in that it makes them sound somehow more the ancestor of Irish than of other forms of Gaelic, but I don’t think they’re offensive.
Old Irish and Primitive Irish are pretty much the prevailing terms, as the language was not yet widely spoken outside the Island of Doctors and Saints (some few PrimIr stones in western Britain, and OIr written in monasteries all across Catholic Europe). Middle Irish OTOH was a dialect continuum across the three Goedelic nations, with Scottish and Manx varieties closest to the now-extinct East Ulster varieties; some surviving Middle Irish MSS are classified as Old Irish because it is clear that they started out that way and were transmogrified by Middle-Irish-speaking scribes. You do see the alternative terms Old Gaelic and Middle Gaelic from time to time, though.
You were right to interpret it thus
Ah. I evidently got lost without realizing it, so I fell back on
looking for my keys under the lamppostexplaining what I do understand.“Old Goidelic” would be a better name, if we were starting from scratch. But we’re not.
I have a feeling that I first learnt here that “Goidel/Gael” is actually a Brythonic loanword. (And moreover, it’s pejorative: “Woodsmen/Bush people.”)
I interpreted DE’s question “Does the Gaelic taught in schools owe anything to Classical Modern Irish” as “Does the Scottish Gaelic taught in Scottish schools now owe anything to the early-modern Irish-and-Scottish Gaelic literary standard?”. Therefore John Cowan’s description of how Irish Gaelic is taught in Irish schools now is not strictly answering the question.
Yes, that was my reaction too.
I was mildly amused by the fact that we both gave a perfectly relevant answer to the question in isolation, taking ‘Gaelic’ to mean ‘Irish Gaelic’ or ‘Scottish Gaelic’ depending on which was closer to our heart.
The following bits and pieces got lost from my last post:
The first widely used ScG Bible translation was not until 1767, much later than usual in Protestant Europe (quoth WP, few languages without an early modern translation make it to standardization), and Modern Standard Gaelic evolved from it, but now has enough Abstand that both L1 and L2 Gaelic-speakers have trouble with it (perhaps as much as the KJV or even more).
There was never any ScG spelling reform on the Irish scale, so that at least is a linkage to Classical Gaelic.
Up through the mid-20C Abstand-free dialects still existed: the ScG of the Mull of Kintyre (the northernmost part of Scotland on Great Britain and the Irish of the island of Rathlin off the coast of Co. Antrim were mutually intelligible, though also unique: e.g. Rathlin Irish íorbáll ‘tail’ [ˈiːɾˠbˠaːl̪ˠ] is distinct from both Standard Irish eireaball [ˈɛɾʲəbˠəl̪ˠ] and Scottish Gaelic earball [ˈɛɾɛpəl̪ˠ].
I continue to refer to the relevant subset of my immigrant ancestors as being “Scotch-Irish” by ethnicity, because I don’t care about the sensibilities of modern Scottish nationalists at least when it comes to topics outside their jurisdiction like what historical ethnic groups in the U.S. should be called.
Same here, and I’ve written at dogged length about them/us.
“Scotch-Irish” seems to be a set expression (and moreover, is not simply the sum of its parts.)
I can’t see any reason for non-Scots to avoid “Scotch” anyway, myself. In fact, the arguments for anyone avoiding it seem rather abstruse to me. (I say “Scots” because, Why not?)
As a non-Scot my principles are these:
1) Scots law and the Scots language aka Scots.
2) Food, like Scotch eggs; drink, like Scotch whisky aka Scotch; trees, like Scotch pine; and branded products, like Scotch tape[*]. Also when quoting the sad, sad man.
3) All else is Scottish, unless I have missed something.
[*] There are probably other compounds with Scotch, just as there are still a few compounds with Owhyhee instead of Hawaii or Hawai’i — though not in Hawaii.
@John Cowan:
I attended an Esperanto event once in my life, and there was an L1 Esperanto speaker (at least Esperanto was said to be one of his L1s, besides Danish) who played some songs. I really can’t judge his music, but I found his use of language quite interesting. For one thing, his pronunciation sounded quite Danish (and why not?) – and thus very marked in contrast to that of the other attendees, mostly speakers of German, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian or Russian. (I found him very easy to understand, though, even though I almost never use Esperanto.) On the other hand, he occasionally omitted the accusative ending (which I remember finding surprising), and his spelling (the lyrics to his songs were projected on a wall) was non-standard in some regards, for example compound nouns were written separately. (Of course, it may be that someone else had done the typing, I don’t know.)
Apart from that, I had the impression that the existence of an L1 speaker was considered somewhat of a curiosity and people were a bit proud that such a person existed. I wouldn’t call it indifference, though, but, indeed, L1-speakers’ usage is apparently not noticeably norm-defining.
@JC:
“Scotch eggs”, definitely, I agree. Indeed, a minimal pair with “Scots/Scottish eggs”, though one certainly encounters Scottish Scotch eggs (if one is not careful.)
@Bybo:
The omission of the accusative ending is apparently universal in L1 Esperanto. I’ve got a paper on it somewhere …
Scotch Roman typefaces.
@David Eddyshaw:
Fascinating, never occured to me that that might be a thing. A quick search yielded Bergen, “Nativization processes in L1 Esperanto” (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and what appears to be a draft version, which I am just now skimming:
(n = 8 children interviewed at some Esperanto venue)
I believe I once mentioned the Cutty Sark case I once saw that had “Scots Whisky” on the ends and “Scotch Whisky” on the sides.