Cha chreid mi nach e

I suppose this post has ended up as something of a love letter to Gaelic.

I am a Gaelic learner. My mother is a fluent native speaker. However she is of the generation who failed to transmit the language to their children, misled by ideas about the utility of the language and what they thought was best (e.g. "why speak Gaelic if it won't help you get a job?"). My own children attend a Gaelic school because of the benefits to them, but I must confess to a desire on my part to remedy this generational failure to transmit the language.

As a learner, I love the phrase cha chreid mi nach e. For me, at the moment, at my current stage of language acquisition, it exemplifies in a nutshell much of what I find fascinating and distinctive about Gaelic.

Bear with me during this digression about grammar please! I promise it will be brief.

Meaning something like "I would not believe that it isn't", cha chreid mi nach e is a wonderfully understated, elliptical double negative for conveying the idea "I think so", "Je pense que oui", that I think gives some insight into the kind of thinking that Gaelic supports, in line with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Looking at the mechanics of the language we see the use of the depedent form of a verb to indicate subordination - "that it isn't" is indicated by same mechanism one would use to ask "isn't it?" In effect that question is being answered by the clause that subordinates it. I find a grammar that combines direct question and indirect answer in this way so elegant and economical.

The verb is not conjugated with reference to person. What matters instead is whether it is a question or statement - is e "it is" or an e "is it?" - and whether it is positive or negative - chan e "it isn't" and nach e "isn't it?". All information about person is in the noun or pronoun.

We see a distinction between contingent tha and essential is forms of the verb to be. We can distinguish between what a thing is in and of itself and what temporary properties or conditions may pertain to it in a way that allows concision, subtlety and nuance not possible in English.

There are so many other examples of features of Gaelic I find fascinating: the use of the genitive case instead of the accusative case. I do not "kick a stone", tha mi a' breabadh cloiche, "I am at the kicking of a stone".

The language describes not what one thing does to another thing, but rather, how it relates to the other thing. The use of prepositional pronouns also lends power and suppleness to this facility. I do not "colour in" a shape, I cuir dath oirre, "put colour on it". I do not "sleep", tha mi 'nam cadal, "I am in my sleeping".   

Grammar digression over. 

There are many other features of the language which lend it descriptive possibilities not otherwise available, which I can't illustrate in the five simple words to which the phrase I have chosen, cha chreid mi nach e, is limited. Going beyond the narrow utilitarian monoglot perspective that results in languages being steam-rollered out of existence, Gaelic represents, in line with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, a valuable and unique way of seeing and describing the world that we must not lose.

I am fond of the origin myth of Gaelic. The story goes that a man, Fenius Farsa, was concerned about the confusion of tongues that followed God's destruction of the Tower of Babel. He assembled a team of 72 scholars to study the world's languages and reconstruct the original language that preceded them before the confusion of tongues, and Gaelic was one of the outcomes. Hence the affectionate way in which Gaelic is referred to as The Laguage of the Garden of Eden. 

I enjoy analysing myth. One of my favourite books is "The White Goddess" by Robert Graves. I see in the 72 scholars of Fenius Farsa another instance of the number 72, such as we see in the 72 jewish scholars of Alexandria who translated the Hebrew Pentateuch. Of course, the ancient Egyptians had a calendar of five 72 day seasons plus 5 halycon days, but I like to speculate that the recurrence of this number in myth relates to the 72 days between the inferior conjunction and maximum eastern elongation of the planet Venus. This appeals to my background in astronomy and my inclination to find the origin of our origin myths in our prehistoric ancestors observations of the heavens.

My fascination with linguistics leads me to speculate about the relationship between the name Fenius and the Gaelic word for "self", fein, and to muse upon the somewhat gnostic capacity for reflection the Gaelic language mediates. I imagine this facilitated the esoteric yet intimate contemplations of Gaelic saints meditating in stone cells along the western seaboards of these islands one and a half millenia ago, and can give us access to their spirituality in the same landscape they experienced and described it in while they were recasting their language's origin myth in explicitly Christian terms.

One thing that I, as a learner, find intensely frustrating, is objections from member of the native language community to forms of Gaelic other than their own dialect, in particular, forms that they perceive to be relatively artificial products and projections of centralisation, standardisation and authority - "BBC" Gaelic, or "Sabhal Mor Ostaig" Gaelic, or however they choose to refer to it.

Yes, the influence of the learner community, with its need for a standard version, is transforming the language, but that need is a consequence of tthe native community's failure to transmit the language. I would rather than language survived after this process of transformation than went extinct. If the native community want to preserve the language in the form they prefer, they must make the effort to speak it to their childern, to their colleagues, and to their clients, rather than just complain about those prepared to invest the effort to learn it. This effort is the modern Fenius Farsa project that will ensure the survival of the language. Get on board or step aside!

In conclusion, I would like to propose something. Although I started out by referring to misconceptions about the utility of language and the harm this has done to the Gaelic language, I couldn't help but note with great sadness the decline in Gaelic in its Hebridean heartland while on holiday in Lewis this summer.

Of course I would want about a narrow utilitarian perspective when trying to remedy this. For example, if one looks to the Cajun language community in North America, one sees its recovery closely linked to cultural efforts surrounding their music from which we can learn a lot.

Nevertheless, I would like to see Gaelic as a language of business and the workplace in its own heartland. Surely some support could be given to shops and companies that choose to transact business between each other and their customers in the Gaelic heartland using the Gaelic language. When a child leaves Gaelic medium education as an adult, let's provide them with jobs where they can speak Gaelic.

Is this such a bad idea? Cha chreid mi nach e!