European parliament working paper
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
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- Introduction
- The use of the language in various fields
- Bibliography
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIntroductionThere is a considerable linguistic distance between the three so-called Celtic languages spoken in the United Kingdom and English, which is the normative language of the state. The three are spoken in particular territories, but in each case only a minority of the population resident in that territory speaks it. Regional development initiatives have been centrally determined, and the resulting relationship between the circulation of capital and the circulation of people or migration has not accommodated a concern with regional language and culture. This central planning is changing with the deregulation accompanying the creation of the Single Market. The UK State has tended to operate by reference to Common Law, and a degree of local and county level of self-governance gives considerable authority in a range of administrative, decision-making areas. In recent years this has led towards adopting forms of governance which is based upon accommodating the historic regions; their right to encompass the regional languages and culture is included in this devolution. Power has been dispersed in changing the nature of the relationship between the state and civil society. This has operated by reference to a neo-liberal principle, which shifts responsibility and accountability from the state to the individual and the community. While it is argued that this brings government closer to the people, the need to satisfy the principles of democracy by giving the individual and the community a direct role in policy formation and decision-making has yet to be seen, and representation may amount to little more than party control from the centre. Though English is the de facto official language of government, no constitutional legislation declares it to be so (as was the case until recently in France). This has been a curious obstacle when legislation has been enacted with regard to Welsh. The United Kingdom ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2000 (recognising Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish), and included language issues in the Agreement signed with the government of Ireland in April 1998. CornishIntroductionThe territory with which the language is associated is the English county of Cornwall (pop. 2000, 497,200206). However, Cornish lacks any normative status. It is the surviving cultural remnant of the Celtic population, which succumbed to the incursion of the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century AD. With the advent of English as the language of administration in the 14th-16th centuries Cornish lost its significance. English and Latin were the language of the Church and by the end of the 18th century the language was no longer spoken. It was reintroduced in the 19th century as a feature of the romanticism of the period. It was assisted by the publication in 1904 of Jenner's Handbook of the Cornish language. This was built upon by subsequent texts and primers. The use of the language in various fieldsThe revival was largely derived from a reaction to the centrally controlled process of regional development and the impact on the social structure of the region. It has not generated more than 1,000-2,000 speakers. The language has no legal status and such a status is unlikely to be forthcoming. Nonetheless, militants in the region pressed the state to ratify the European Charter, expecting thereby to gain a modicum of official status for Cornish. Most of those who have learnt the language have done so in night classes sponsored by the County Council. The number attending these courses has stabilised since the 1970s, but there is considerable criticism of the teaching method and its ability to generate conversational competence. There is also considerable debate about the standard form of Cornish. This hinders the introduction and extension of the language into primary school activities. Currently the language does appear in about a dozen primary schools. The language is little used in the public sector and not at all in the private sector, apart from its relevance for tourism. Radio Cornwall of the BBC broadcasts 5 min. weekly. There is a monthly review, An Gannas, which sells 200-300 copies, while An Dherwen is a quarterly literary review which sells about 50 copies. A small number of books are published each year, mostly for the schools. More popular is the use of Cornish in folk music. Agan Tavas207 (Our Language), the Cornish language advisory service, has a website. It promotes Cornish, and the site gives details of exams, and gives further links for both beginners and advanced students of Cornish. ConclusionThe number of speakers is limited, who relate to each other by social networks rather than social organisation. It is hard to envisage how it can continue to be produced or reproduced within this limited context, yet speakers of the language do so with considerable enthusiasm. Bibliographyhttp://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/web/homean/main/clasllen/cornic.html Payton, Philip. Cornwall since the War, Institute of Cornish Studies, Exeter, 1993. Gaelic (or Gallic)IntroductionScottish Gaelic is a difficult language group to generalise about because of the size of the country and the concentration of the language group in the west. The 1991 census indicates 65,978 speakers, of which 90% are native speakers. About 40% of these live in high language-density areas in the Western Isles, off the north-west coast of Scotland. The legal context is similar to that of Wales and Northern Ireland, but there is no equivalent of the Welsh Language Acts and there is no formal language-planning agency. Much of the impetus derives from the action of local authorities. Since the establishment of the Scottish National Assembly, interest in local and regional policy vis-à-vis language has grown. The use of the language in various fieldsA third of the Gaelic-using families are endogamous by language group, and about half of the speakers live in families where everyone speaks the language. The rate of endogamy is higher in the core areas. Where both parents are Gaelic-speakers, 3/4 of the children also speak the language, but only 13% of the children in families where only one parent speaks Gaelic also speak Gaelic. In a recent survey on Gaelic-speakers, 36% claimed to use no Gaelic with their partner, though most respondents came from totally Gaelic-speaking families. Usage was higher in previous generations, (and was sustained among the younger respondents): 86% of respondents’ grandparents spoke Gaelic, and 84% used Gaelic (almost) all the time at home, and in the parental generation these figures were 90% and 76%. Currently 38% of the partners use Gaelic with their children, and 31% use Gaelic and English. 17% of the children use just Gaelic together and 29% use both languages. In the home, only Gaelic is spoken at mealtime in 38% of the families, and 36% use both languages. Religion in the Gaelic communities in Scotland is in the hands of the Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland and the Free Presbyterians. They have all had a Gaelic-language mission. In the Western Isles of Scotland clergy of all denominations almost all speak Gaelic, and over three-quarters of the population attend Church regularly. Almost-two thirds of the services are in Gaelic. Gaelic-language services are still held on Skye, but on the West Coast of the Highlands they are sporadic. The extent to which voluntary associations using Gaelic flourish depends upon location, and few are outside of the Western Isles (Lewis and Harris). Education: The Gaelic language group lays claim to the same level of educational provision as is provided for Welsh. The Scottish education system has a high degree of autonomy in the UK, and much of the struggle for Gaelic provision has operated not merely in Scotland, but in relation to local authorities in the west of Scotland. A major drawback for a language group, which numbers some 66,000, is the availability of trained Gaelic-speaking teachers. Scotland has replicated the Welsh pre-school model. 142 pre-school playgroups and parent-toddler groups, run by an institution responsible for Gaelic-language pre-school education, have 2,480 children. The Highland Region runs two Gaelic-language nursery units and the Lothian region has one. There are about 42 Gaelic-medium primary units in Scotland, run by Comhairle nan Eilean (Western Isles), Grampian, Highland, Lothian, Strathclyde, and Tayside Regional authorities, educating 1,080 children. The major complaint is the lack of schools whose administration and ethos are linked to Gaelic: Gaelic units are in schools where English is the main language of instruction and the only language of administration. Mass media and the arts: Radio nan Gaidheal broadcasts 35 hours a week in Gaelic, and a Gaelic TV service now transmits 300 hours a year. The significance of the new situation in broadcasting media is that it transcends the regions of Scotland where the density of Gaelic-speakers is highest, and makes it a national service available throughout Scotland. Two independent radio stations broadcast some programmes in Gaelic. No daily or weekly papers are entirely in Gaelic, but various newspapers carry articles in Gaelic. There are several Gaelic-language magazines and periodicals, most of which receive state support. Publishing is financially supported by the Scottish Arts Council, which treats all culture as Scottish and does not distinguish between High Culture and popular culture. Thus activities in Gaelic are expected to compete with components of state culture traditionally regarded as High Culture. ConclusionThere is little confidence in the ability of the existing social, political and economic structures to sustain the production and reproduction of Gaelic. The reproduction context is weakening and the forces responsible for producing the language are ill defined. BibliographyAlladina, S. & Viv Edwards (eds.) Multilingualism in the British Isles, Longmans, London, 1991. Ball, M. J. The Celtic languages, Routledge, London, 1993. Thomson, D. S., Attitudes to linguistic change in Gaelic Scotland, in Davies, Winifred V., M. Mair Parry and Rosalind A. M. Temple (eds.) The Changing Voices Of Europe. Social and political change and their linguistic repercussions, past, present and future. University of Wales Press, Caerdydd, 1994, pp. 227-235.
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