Whereas this is an American girl's request that we all speak Americanish ...
(Update, 2023-07-18: I see that video is no longer available. Here's another: link)
It's difficult to tell them apart, isn't it? I mean, they are essentially making the same point, aren't they?
Mitchell. Noun. That sense of disappointment and sadness you feel when you realise a person you used to admire and think was really cool and clever and funny is actually just a twat.
Language attrition is a very well studied topic. "UNESCO operates with four levels of language endangerment beyond 'safe' (not endangered), based on intergenerational transfer: 'vulnerable' (not spoken by children outside the home), 'definitely endangered' (children not speaking), 'severely endangered' (only spoken by the oldest generations), and 'critically endangered' (spoken by few members of the oldest generation, often semi-speakers)."
It took me literally two seconds to find that out using Google and Wikipedia. So contrary to Mitchell's dire prognostications, Gaelic is not even vulnerable, let alone on its last legs limping towards death (my own children speak Gaelic "outside the home").
Mitchell's feigned concern about the status of Gaelic tells us much more about his own fantasies of English language supremacy and his own lazy assumptions than it tells us anything about the health of Gaelic. He claims Gaelic is, to all intents and purposes, dead, only because it would suit him if it was dead. Either that or he is inexplicably unfamiliar with the workings of the internet.
He requires the insight displayed by the characters in a classic Mitchell and Webb sketch who asked themselves "are we the bad guys?"
This whole thing bothers me because the man is not an idiot, the evidence presented here notwithstanding. When he talks, people listen, so when he talks rubbish, he must be contradicted.
Mitchell. Noun. That sense of disappointment and sadness you feel when you realise a person you used to admire and think was really cool and clever and funny is actually just a twat.
Language attrition is a very well studied topic. "UNESCO operates with four levels of language endangerment beyond 'safe' (not endangered), based on intergenerational transfer: 'vulnerable' (not spoken by children outside the home), 'definitely endangered' (children not speaking), 'severely endangered' (only spoken by the oldest generations), and 'critically endangered' (spoken by few members of the oldest generation, often semi-speakers)."
It took me literally two seconds to find that out using Google and Wikipedia. So contrary to Mitchell's dire prognostications, Gaelic is not even vulnerable, let alone on its last legs limping towards death (my own children speak Gaelic "outside the home").
Mitchell's feigned concern about the status of Gaelic tells us much more about his own fantasies of English language supremacy and his own lazy assumptions than it tells us anything about the health of Gaelic. He claims Gaelic is, to all intents and purposes, dead, only because it would suit him if it was dead. Either that or he is inexplicably unfamiliar with the workings of the internet.
He requires the insight displayed by the characters in a classic Mitchell and Webb sketch who asked themselves "are we the bad guys?"
This whole thing bothers me because the man is not an idiot, the evidence presented here notwithstanding. When he talks, people listen, so when he talks rubbish, he must be contradicted.
The first video is a young ill informed teen, the second is by a patronising arse. The gaelic language was deliberately removed from our society by the English government after the rebellion in 1745. The Scots were punished if it was spoken and the schools in Scotland treated gaelic as a second class language up until recent history, discouraging it's use.
ReplyDeleteHi Karen
ReplyDeleteI think we can identify certain key events and ideas that have contributed to the decline of Gaelic historically.
Proscription, as you mention, is one ... we can chart the trajectory of state intervention back beyond the Statutes of Iona under James VI in fact, beyond James IV (the last Gaelic speaking Scottish king) to the Battle of Largs, I believe. The re-orientation of Scottish affairs away from the Gaelic speaking continuum on the western seaboard that extended to include Ireland, towards a more centralised approach around the authority of a Canmore court, is the beginning of the slippery slope which extends through the end of the Lordship of the Isles, the Battle of Harlaw, and so on, to the present day.
Another key event is the exclusion of Gaelic from the Education (Scotland) Act of 1872, which is the basis for the corporal punishment of children who spoke Gaelic at school into living memory.
Finally, misconceptions about language itself led parents not to transmit the language to their children during the latter part of the 20th century: the understanding (seeming ridiculous now) was that knowing Gaelic would hinder the child's English comprehension, and as English would be more useful in an adult career, it was favoured and Gaelic deliberately neglected by the parents. We now know this is nonsense, but that was what many people thought at the time.
Fortunately *none* of these influences have any prevalence at all today. Indeed, understanding Gaelic is seen to be a positive benefit when it comes to both comprehension of other languages and general cognitive agility in children. The future of Gaelic is looking bright, as none of the impediments I list above prevail any more.