UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Date:______

I, ______, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in:

It is entitled:

This work and its defense approved by:

Chair: ______

SCOTS GAELIC AND WELSH: A COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY IN LANGUAGE SURVIVAL

A Thesis submitted to the

Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

in the Department of Anthropology of the College of Arts and Sciences

2005

by

Lauren A. Matus

B.A., Miami University, 2002

Committee: Dr. Joseph F. Foster, Chair

Dr. Alan P. Sullivan

ABSTRACT

Gaelic and Welsh are closely related both linguistically and culturally, yet historical events have placed these languages on diverging paths: one toward death, the other toward revival. According to conventional models of sociolinguistic theory, Gaelic should be a thriving language and Welsh should be imperiled, but, based on recent census figures, the opposite is true.

I compare Gaelic and Welsh to present a case that challenges current theoretical frameworks of language change. Through my study, I reveal the nature of social and political pressures on language systems as well as the influence of nationalist ideologies on language survival. The result of this study proves that a national identity that includes language can reverse language shift in endangered or minority languages. One implication for future research includes modification of the current models of language death to account for linguistic nationalism.

Lauren A. Matus ©2005

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my parents who have given me the opportunity to pursue my education, Dr. Foster and Dr. Sullivan, without whom I never would have been able to complete my degree, and my husband for his constant support.

Table of Contents

List of Figures…...…………………………………………………………………..………ii

Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………...1

Chapter 2: Language Endangerment and Death…………………………………………….7

Chapter 3: Scots Gaelic and Welsh………………………………………………………… 13

Chapter 4: Factors in Language Death………………………………………………………19

Chapter 5: Summary and Conclusion………………………………………………………..36

References …….…………………………………………………………………………….39

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List of Tables and Figures

Table 3.1 Percentage of Gaelic and Welsh Speakers by Age Group…………………...………17

Figure 3.1 Map of the United Kingdom Showing the Relative Distances of Wales and Scotland to London……….………………....………………………………………………….19

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Chapter 1: Introduction

“Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities. Of the 6,000 languages spoken today, fully half are not being taught to children. Every two weeks an elder dies and carries into the grave the last syllables of an ancient tongue. Within a generation or two we are losing half of humanity’s social, cultural and intellectual legacy.” - Wade Davis

Until recently, the topic of language endangerment and extinction was only discussed

within academic circles, but lately it has been showing up in some unlikely places; the above

quote, by Dr. Wade Davis, Explorer-in-Residence for National Geographic, is part of Starbucks’

“The Way I See It” campaign. By printing stimulating, and sometimes controversial, quotes on

their coffee cups, Starbucks is seeking to “foster philosophical debate in its 9,000-plus

coffeehouses” (Cridlin 2005). Such actions by the ubiquitous coffee chain give exposure to

some of the more obscure dilemmas that many of the world’s populations face, including the

issue of linguistic rights.

Following World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was ratified in

1948; it stated that “everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms [regardless of] race,

colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth

or other status” (Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, http://www.linguistic-

declaration.org). However, it was not until much later that the “problem” of language came to

the center of debates on what constitutes a violation of inherent human rights.

In recent years, identifying linguistic rights has become a cross-disciplinary venture.

Educators, lawyers, activists, psychologists, and anthropologists are just a few of the groups who have dedicated years of research to this subject. In order to transmit information, we read, write, speak and think using language. As Kontra, et al. (1999:1), proclaim in their treatise on

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linguistic human rights, “Language can serve, in all spheres of social life, to bring people together or to divide them. Language rights can serve to unite societies, whereas violations of language rights can trigger and inflame conflict.”

I have chosen to use the Celtic experience, particularly that of Scotland and Wales, as the lens through which to examine how linguistic ideology plays a role in nationalistic movements as well as the determination of national, ethnic and individual identity, and vice-versa: how nationalist movements impact the success of language reclamation efforts.

“One important contribution of anthropology to debates about history has been illustration of how the past may be constructed in light of contemporary interests” (Macdonald

1997:31). By drawing from various disciplines, yet maintaining an anthropological perspective, I will show that language rights are often an integral part of cultural heritage, and demonstrate why it is vital to survey the damage caused when a language dies.

I will examine the key concepts of nationalism, identity, collective ethno-history, government, “Otherness”, among others, in order to explore the various phenomena that contribute to language endangerment and death. I seek to discover more about the external determinants in language death, and am inspired by J.W. Aitchison and H. Carter (2001:246)

who state:

Language death is a social phenomenon, and triggered by social needs. There is no evidence that there was anything wrong with the dead language itself: its essential structure was no better and no worse than that of any other language. It faded away because it did not fulfill the social needs of the community that spoke it. The central element in this statement, that languages do not die because of their inherent

structure (e.g., syntax, morphology, phonology, etc.) or complexity, is echoed in Victoria

Fromkin and Robert Rodman’s (2000:26) list of Twelve Language Universals: “There are no

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‘primitive’ languages— all languages are equally complex and equally capable of expressing any idea in the universe.”

Language death is directly correlated to various social phenomena. Typically, these phenomena can be dichotomized as the conflict between rural–urban, cultural identity–national identity, prestige–mediocrity, high-class–low-class, and so on; in the case of Scotland and Wales,

we must include the pair: Britishness–“Otherness.” While considering these “basic oppositions”

of French and the Celtic language, Breton, Lois Kuter (1996:76) outlines three such oppositions:

(1) “The political symbolism of French as the ‘national’ language, opposed to Breton as a

‘regional’ language; (2) The socio-economic symbolism of French as the language of

civilization, progress and the future, opposed to Breton as a language of the past, fit only for

backwards peasants; and (3) The cultural symbolism of French as an international, urban

language, opposed to Breton as a marker of a uniquely local, rural identity.” Kuter’s paper

clearly places one of the surviving Celtic languages, Breton, within the same context that the

other Celtic languages face: each hold positions of minority status and are encroached upon by

more influential languages, namely French and English. If something is not done soon to

preserve and protect these languages, “in the next stage, the younger generation will recognize

only a few scattered Gaelic words, usually plants, foods, or town names. At this stage, the

language can be said to have died, or, more appropriately, to have been murdered by the influx of

another socially and politically dominant language” (Aitchison 2001:246).

Language is not only a means of communication, but is an expression of one’s culture.

For the purpose of this thesis, I adopt the perspective of Fromkin and Rodman (1998:269): “Each language is a unique vehicle for thought. When we lose a language, we lose an essential part of

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the human fabric with its own unique perspective. A culture and thousands of years of communication die with that language.”

Scotland and Wales are two countries in which a new-found appreciation for a common

Celtic heritage has spawned festivals, music, art, literature, tourism and a greater interest (at home and abroad) in all things Celtic. It is through this link to a common identity that language begins to function as more than simply the medium through which culture is transmitted; language provides a viable avenue for social and political mobilization. In the case of both

Scotland and Wales, the issue of linguistic rights has become the propellant in a long battle for political independence from the United Kingdom. Those fighting for devolution are also seeking

(in the case of Scotland) and have sought (in the case of Wales) official recognition of their native tongues; in these two countries, language and independence are intertwined, but to differing degrees.

The English, and later the British government, had been forcing political, cultural, economic and linguistic assimilation onto the Welsh and Scottish since the 16th century, yet the

first nationalist parties were not established in either country until the 1920s1 (Rawkins

1978:525). “Like other social movements, the minority nationalist movements are agencies of

change, or organized expressions of desire for change. As such, they express and articulate those

anxieties, fears, concerns, and demands of particular social groups not readily met or

accommodates by the established order” (Rawkins 1978:531). The rise of nationalist movements

in Scotland and Wales united Celtic-speakers under a common identity, an identity which is

couched in terms of “anti-Britishness.” “In these circumstances, the re-emergence of Welsh,

Scottish, and English nationalism can be seen, not just as the natural outcome of cultural

1 This is only a reference to the first acknowledged nationalist parties.

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diversity, but as a response to a broader loss of national— in the sense of British— identity”

(Colley 1992:328).

One aspect of the “new” Celtic identity is the revitalization of Celtic languages.

However, to state that the disassociation with “Britishness,” and, therefore the English tongue, is expressly attributable to a renewed interest in linguistic rights, is yet to be proven. This thesis

examines the influence of nationalist ideologies on language reclamation, and seeks to explain

why Welsh appears to be an example of successful language planning, whereas Scots Gaelic

does not.

Organization

Anthropologists need to understand the antecedents to language change to fully

comprehend the essential components that create, sustain, and sometimes destroy, cultural

conventions because, as Mertz (1989:113) asserts, "the importance of a language in the

community's repertoire cannot be assessed by mere mathematical frequency of use; it is the

entire cultural-linguistic framework through which speakers actively interpret their linguistic

experience which gives relative weight and meaning to particular linguistic usages.” Chapter 2

explores anthropological research in the field of language endangerment as well as several

models that have been used to “predict” language death.

The case study of Gaelic and Welsh begins in chapter 3. The reason for using these

languages is twofold: first, the peoples of Scotland and Wales have experienced similar histories

(e.g., a common Celtic heritage, centuries under English rule, etc.), and each language holds a

position of minority status and is encroached upon by a larger, more influential (politically,

socially, and economically) language, English. Second, there is every indication that Gaelic

would have a better chance of survival than Welsh. Yet, as I will explain, Welsh is thriving

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while Gaelic is not. In order to reveal the underlying reasons for this contradiction, in chapter 4,

I examine several factors that have been known to effect language change such as economy, migration patterns, governmental policies, educational systems and the media. Chapter 5 addresses the question, “how could two countries that are so closely linked, both culturally and politically, be so different from one another?” In this chapter I compare Gaelic and Welsh to general models of language death and provide questions for further research.

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Chapter 2: Language Endangerment and Death

In 1934, William Cameron Townsend organized the Summer Institute of Linguistics

(now called SIL International), a course in the techniques that are most useful in linguistic

fieldwork. Townsend lived among the people he was studying, learned their language,

developed orthographies, and translated the New Testament (SIL, http://www.sil.org). One

outcome of Townsend’s work was a catalog, The Ethnologue2, of 6,912 languages, that includes

the region where each language is spoken, the current number of speakers, its classification in a

language family, as well as information on language use and development. The Ethnologue is a

useful reference for anyone interested in language, but it has also become instrumental in

recording “nearly extinct” languages, which are defined as such when only “a few elderly

speakers are still living” (Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com). There are currently 516

languages on this list. SIL’s mission is to protect and preserve the world’s lesser-known

languages, as well as to record as much as is known about those languages for future generations.

Within the field of anthropology, there has always been concern for the maintenance of

indigenous languages, but since the 1970s the literature has been flooded with theories regarding

language endangerment, and possible strategies for minority language3 preservation and

reclamation. It is vital to understand language systems— how, where, why and by whom, a

language is used— if there is to be any hope for the development of language planning policies

that can effectuate the desired result of protecting and preserving endangered languages.

In What is an Endangered Language? Jan Wirrer (1996), poses the difficult question:

“what do we actually mean when we refer to a particular language as being endangered as opposed to another language which is not endangered or more or less endangered than the

2 The Ethnologue was first published in 1951 (Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com). 3 “A language which is, and long has been, the first language of some part of the population in a country in which the national language is something different” (Trask 1997:142).

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language in question?” To answer this complex question, he posits the theory of the ecology of natural languages through what he calls different “scenarios of endangeredness” (Wirrer

1996:231).

All languages change, the only “static” languages are those that are no longer spoken, or, in other words, are dead. In a situation where the speakers of one language are isolated from speakers of another, internal factors4 would be exacting the only pressures on that language.

However, very few, if any, languages actually exist under such conditions. Instead, most

languages are constantly exposed to, and resisting external pressures from other languages

(contact languages or contact varieties) that carry with them greater economic, political and

cultural influence. Wirrer (1996) describes two types of language systems that function within

speech communities and can be used to diagnose the survivability of any language. A persistent

language is a language that is “highly imperiled when a section of its environment changes”

(Wirrer 1996:238-9). A persistent language is therefore at a higher risk for extinction as the

number of external pressures increase over time. “A resilient language, however, does not suffer

substantially and is not imperiled by extinction when one of its traditional domains is being lost”

(Wirrer 1996:239). Though the efficacy of such a model for substantive language maintenance

is yet to be demonstrated, Wirrer contends that:

the external setting, the speech behaviour, and the linguistic phenomena join in a more comprehensive homeostatic system. This means we do not have to account for feedback processes between these three sets of data. These feedback processes are extremely relevant to the extension, the maintenance, the decay, and finally, the death of a language and might either stabilise the language in question or induce an acceleration of its expansion or its decay respectively. (Wirrer 1996:240)

4 Internal factors could include a gradual change in syntactic structure or the addition of “slang” words.

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If we are able to understand the forces that act upon languages, as well as understand the systems within which all languages exist, we will be one step closer to establishing strategies for language maintenance.

In 1974, the last known speaker of Manx, a member of the Celtic language family, died; at that point, Manx was said to be extinct (Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com). Though there is an effort to revive Manx— several hundred people have learned the language as adults— its status remains “extinct as a first language.” Recently, the dramatic increase in the literature

and theories surrounding issues of language endangerment and death corresponds to the sense of

urgency to protect languages that began with the sudden extinction of minority languages such as

Manx. In 1974 Manx died along with its last native speaker, a scenario that is all too common

within the field of linguistics (Katzner 2002:14). Although any attention that can be focused on

the issue of language extinction is encouraging, it is often too late (as in the case of Manx); we

need to identify the problem before the language becomes extinct. Languages do not usually5 go extinct because the people who speak them pass away, most often there are external forces that cause (either forcefully or voluntarily) people to stop speaking one language, and replace it with another.

Language Replacement

Language replacement exists when the speakers of one language “shift” from speaking their native tongue and begin to speak another language. This phenomenon is sometimes due to a forceful change (e.g., colonialism), but is often motivated by other, more benign situations.

In a section of his book entitled Progressive Traditions in African and Oriental Studies

(1988), H. Ekkehard Wolff outlines several non-linguistic agents of language shift. Isolation,

5 Languages have been known to become extinct in cases of genocide, but for the purposes of this thesis, on the global scale, this scenario is not typical.

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Migration and Language Contact refers to the geographical distribution of speakers of a common language. In this model, language systems are threatened by migration (which leads to isolation and language contact) when speakers leave the speech community as well as when speakers of other languages move into, or near to, the speech community. This process results in a breakdown of conventional speech behavior, which can lead to complete language replacement. The second agent, Modernization, affects language when speakers can no longer use traditional vocabulary to describe new technology or express new concepts, the result of which is a massive influx of “foreign” words that “may lead to drastic changes in, for instance, the sound inventory and system (phonology) of the language” (Wolff 1988:309-10).

Bilingualism and Assimilation

When speakers of a minority language come in contact with, or are conquered by, a politically or economically dominant group, the speakers of the minority language can be compelled to learn the new language in order to survive in the new cultural and economic atmosphere. As the global economy continues to grow, the language of commerce increasingly becomes the language of survival. Ngugi wa Thiong’O, an African scholar, believes that culture is “a product and a reflection of human beings communicating with one another in the very struggle to create wealth and to control it” (Ngugi 1986:15). When faced with the threat of a loss of lifestyle, many people chose bilingualism:

The factors that create and sustain bilingualism are often grouped into three main categories that we shall refer to as societal, contact, and attitudinal…The societal layer is a broad socio-structural area, and is manifested concretely in the existence of social institutions and media. Contact concerns the individual’s experience of the social world, particularly social interaction— what language does an individual use with neighbours, in the shops and cafés, and with the doctor? Attitudes and beliefs exist within the mind of the individual, although they are mostly socially constructed, and are to some degree shared with others as part of culture. (Gibbons & Ramirez 2004:5)

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Once the conditions for bilingualism have been established, it is plausible that the minority language can undergo a complete replacement and subsequent status as a secondary language, as Aitchison and Carter explain:

In particular, sociolinguistic work on code-switching indicates how dying languages can be intertwined with healthy ones. Bilingual speakers often ‘switch codes’, that is, move from one language to another and back again in the course of conversations. Sometimes it is unclear which one they are speaking at any particular point. The process may result in language mixing. But in most cases, one of the languages wins out, and the other is demoted to subsidiary status. (Aitchison and Carter 2001:246)

When speakers of a minority language completely assimilate to the new language it can

lead to the extinction of the original minority language. Wolff has observed that, “language acts

as a social bond, and language behavior reflects social and communicative distance” (1988:303).

When this bond is broken, class and ethnic rivalries are revealed; it is this breakdown in

communal identity and ensuing assimilation that I attribute the advancement of language

endangerment and extinction.

Current Anthropological Interest

The discipline of anthropology seeks to understand variations within institutions, and

how both internal and external forces modify those existing structures. In the past five years,

three major works on the topic of language extinction have appeared. Andrew Dalby explores

the development of a global language, and its repercussions, in Language in Danger (2002).

Dalby investigates the influence of English, in all forms— British, American, Canadian and

Australian— and how its vast territory, which spans three continents, along with its economic

strength, has contributed to its expansion to all reaches of the Earth. In a biting commentary on

the plight of the world’s languages, David Crystal (2000) fosters awareness from an

‘ecolinguistic’ perspective. His Language Death provides a compelling argument that “if

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diversity is a prerequisite for successful humanity, then the preservation of linguistic diversity is essential, for language lies at the heart of what it means to be human.” (Crystal 2000:34)

Similarly, in Vanishing Voices: the Extinction of the World’s Languages (2000), Daniel Nettle

and Suzanne Romaine echo Crystal’s opinion that language death threatens not only the cultural,

but the environmental stability of the world.

In addition to the recent surge in publications, several journal articles also address the

topic of language endangerment. M. Eleanor Nevins, in The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology

(2004), reveals two conflicting linguistic domains, the pedagogical and the domestic, within which the people of the White Mountain Apache Reservation must operate, and evaluates traditional perspectives on language loss. In the American Anthropologist Joseph Errington

(2003) examines the ideological grounds that form much of the dialogue surrounding minority language loss in his article “Getting Language Rights: The Rhetorics of Language Endangerment and Loss.”

The issue of language death has become the focus in the ongoing debate surrounding the interface of culture, identity and the global economy. Yet even with the elevated visibility that has been afforded the issues of language endangerment and death by academics, as early as

1981, Desmond Fennell understood one of the keys to successful language planning: “the only

people who can stop a shrinking language group from continuing to shrink are the group

themselves…It follows that their collective will to stop the contraction is the basic factor in their salvation…Any attempt to ‘save’ a community must begin by arousing in them the will to save themselves” (Fennell 1980:37f).

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Chapter 3: Scots Gaelic and Welsh

The peoples of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland and Wales share a common Celtic heritage

from *Proto-Celtic. Dalby (2002) suggests that in A.D. 731 Cornish, Welsh, and Cumbrian6,

three dialects of the original Celtic language in Western Europe, were spoken in Britain, along

with the newly introduced Irish Gaelic and Pictish, a language of controversial origin, i.e. some

scholars believe it preceded any Celtic peoples, while others believe it to be yet another branch

in the Celtic language family (Dalby 2003:83).

Fifteen-hundred years after the first known records of a Celtic people, the languages of

the Celts, which once were spread throughout Europe and Asia Minor, are now only found in the

periphery— in the “Celtic Fringe” of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Even these

peripheral regions, which have, for many hundreds of years, maintained their linguistic

individuality, are in danger of forever losing their Celtic heritage. Though the peoples of

Scotland and Wales share a common Celtic heritage, for the past several centuries the political

and social scenes of each country have been quite disparate.

Wales and Scotland are both countries and nations, they share an island, and are part of

the United Kingdom which aligns Wales and Scotland with each other, as well as with Northern

Ireland and England. This political alliance, and close proximity to England, has served to afford

Wales and Scotland certain advantages as well as to obfuscate Celtic identity and individuality.

Victor Durkacz (1983:1) remarks that “One of the most consistent trends in modern British

history has been the cultural and linguistic conflict between Anglo-Saxon and Celtic Britain.”

6 A relative of Welsh, Cumbrian was spoken in Cumberland, Lancashire, Elmet and Strathclyde (Dalby 2003:83).

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Welsh Welsh, with lexical influences from both Latin (ancient) and English (modern), “was the language of independent principalities until the English conquered the last of them, Gwynedd, in

1282. From that point onwards Wales was ruled in English, yet down to the mid-twentieth century there were many monolingual Welsh speakers” (Dalby 2002:84). When the English proposed the Acts of Union in 1536 and 1543, Wales, having no unified state institutions, was in no position to negotiate the terms of the agreement (Jones 1992:353). One year after the final Act of Union, “the Lord Marcherships7 had all been converted into English shires, and the English

system of law and administration extended successfully into Wales” (Durkacz 1983:3). The Acts of Union had effectively solidified absolute English rule in Wales for four centuries until 1964 when The Welsh Office was created, and initiated the slow process of regaining political

autonomy (devolution) by assuming limited powers in such areas as education, agriculture and

transport (Wales Office, http://www.walesoffice.gov.uk). In 1999, the first elections of the

National Assembly for Wales took place. Though the National Assembly does not have

legislative power in the areas of criminal justice, national defense, social security, taxation,

foreign policy and immigration, the creation of the Assembly was one fundamental step towards

political autonomy.

Scots Gaelic

When the last Tudor monarch of England, Elizabeth I, died without leaving an heir to the

thrown, the Stuart king, James VI of Scotland succeeded her as King James I of England (thus

known as King James VI & I). Scotland and England were ruled by the same king for more than

one hundred years before they were officially united as one country; during this interlude, the

7 Norman-sponsored autonomous fifedomes.

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Scottish Parliament remained an independent entity from its counterpart in England. In 1707, during the proceedings resulting in the Acts of Union, the Scottish Parliament served as arbitrator to try to ensure an equitable merger with England. Shortly thereafter, the Scottish

Parliament was abolished and Scotland joined the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in

London. In 1885 the Scottish Office was created to assume control of “local” issues such as

education. As early as 1894, whispers of devolution could be heard in the Scottish Office,

however it was not until the Scotland Act of 1998 was passed, that power was returned to the

Scottish Parliament. The terms of the devolution settlement include the acquisition of legislative

power regarding anything of Scottish national import (e.g., education, the justice system, taxes,

etc.), while the reserved powers remain in London and oversee matters of international concern,

or those that affect the entirety of the UK (Scotland Office, http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk).

Based on this historical evidence, one might think that Gaelic stands a better chance at

survival, as the following facts suggest:

(1) Gaelic has a long history in Scotland. In fact, it is thought that Gaelic was the only language spoken in Scotland when Lothian was conquered in 1018, and continued to be spoken by most of the population through the 1800s (Grant 1983:133). By contrast, the Welsh language has been influenced by its contact with English since the 13th century. (2) Until the Welsh Office gained control over schools and universities in 1970, Wales did not have any control over the education of its children. In contrast, Scotland had been managing its own educational system for almost 100 years (Raffe et al. 1999:11). (3) Scotland entered into the Acts of Union more than a century and a half after Wales. Both countries devolved from the Parliament of Great Britain within one year of each other, and Scottish devolution was more extensive than the Welsh. (4) The Scottish Highlands, which constituted a large portion of the Gàidhealtachd (the traditional Gaelic-speaking region), were very remote and its inhabitants were difficult for the English to manage (Matheson and Matheson 2000:213).

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However, census data prove that the contrary is true. The year 1881 marked the first time that the questions regarding language were asked in the Scottish census. Since that time there have only been two years (1891 and 1971) that showed an increase in the number of Gaelic speakers, and those increases have been attributed not to an actual growth in the number of speakers, but to a change in the census questions (MacKinnon 2003). Results from the 1881 census revealed that the people of the “Highland Counties” constituted 87.8 percent of

Scotland’s Gaelic-speaking population, with the remaining 12.2 percent residing in the Lowlands and Northern Isles (MacKinnon 2003). This region, the Gàidhealtachd has since seen the sharpest decline in Gaelic speakers as evidenced by the past three censuses. Between 1981 and

1991, the number of Gaelic speakers decreased by 13.9 percent in the Highland Council area.

Eileanan Star (The Western Isles) lost 19.6 percent of their Gaelic speakers between 1991 and

2001, and Argyll and Bute witnessed a 14.5 percent decline during the same period. In 2003 the so-called Highland/Lowland split moved closer to center with 44.5 percent of Gaelic speakers living outside the Gàidhealtachd (MacKinnon 2003).

Comparatively, recent censuses have shown that the Welsh language is seeing a marked increase in its number of young speakers, a fact that might save the language from extinction.

The following table shows the percentage of speakers (aged 3-24 years old and 65 and older) in the last four censuses in both Wales and Scotland (1971-2001).

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Table 3.1 Percentage of Gaelic and Welsh Speakers by Age Group

1971 1981 1991 2001

Scotland (Age) 65+ 22.7 24.4 25.2 24.5

3-24 21.3 21.9 20.5 21.9

Wales (Age) 65+ 31.0 27.4 22.6 16.9

3-24 25.6 29.1 34.0 43.7

(Data from MacKinnon 2003)

Scotland has witnessed very little change in the percentage of speakers in either age

group despite increased awareness and improved educational opportunities. The percentage of

Gaelic speakers over the age of 65 has been hovering around 25 percent for the past four

decades; an aging Gaelic-speaking population does not bode well for the future of the language.

In contrast with Gaelic, these numbers indicate a significant decrease in the rate of

language replacement in Wales. In 1921 there were over 900,000 Welsh speakers in Wales, and

by 1981 that number had dropped to roughly 500,000. However, the period between 1981 and

2001 exhibited positive change. The 2001 census revealed an increase of 71,171 (from 113,236

to 184, 407) Welsh speakers aged 3-24 from the 1991 census; this figure is almost double the

1971 number. Additionally, the percentage of Welsh speakers over the age of 64 has been nearly

halved between 1971 and 2001 (MacKinnon 2003). The most likely explanation for these figures

is that there is a “gap period” between the start of the most intensive language reclamation

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efforts8 and the time that the children in those programs turn 65 years old. Regardless, the best

indicator of language preservation is the percentage of young people speaking the language,

which, in the case of Wales, is increasing at each census.

Yet, even with encouraging census data, Dalby (2002:84) reminds us of a bleak future for

the languages of Scotland and Wales:

And so Gaelic and Welsh, though still spoken by large numbers, have now reached the status of a regional minority language whose speakers are almost all bilingual. This was the position that was noted for Cornish about 1600. From there, Cornish sank to extinction in something over two centuries. Before Gaelic and Welsh meet a similar fate as Cornish, an examination of the various

cultural and political pressures that have been exacted on both languages may provide clues as to

why Welsh seems to be recovering from centuries under English rule, while Gaelic is not.

8 When Plaid Cymru (The Party of Wales) was founded in 1925.

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Chapter 4: Factors in Language Death

Figure 3.1 Map of the United Kingdom Showing the Relative Distances of Wales and Scotland to London (taken from www.worldatlas.com).

Geography

Though both Wales and Scotland are contiguous to England, Scotland is more remote than Wales which is located closer to the center of political power (e.g., London). In fact, one would hypothesize that in Scotland’s northernmost territories Gaelic would thrive, but, as mentioned above, these are the regions that are most threatened by language replacement. In

Wales, language reclamation efforts have been the most successful in the English borderlands and on the southern coast; these regions are experiencing an increase in the overall percentage of

Welsh speakers. (Aitchison and Carter 1986:482). We might expect that adjacency to a

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controlling power and an invasive language would accelerate cultural and linguistic assimilation, yet a close proximity to England does not seem to have negatively impacted the Welsh language any more so than it has Gaelic.

Economy/Industry

As the global economy expands, the language of commerce increasingly becomes the language of survival. The scenario in the United Kingdom is not any different; both Scotland and Wales are dependent on England for economic stability, yet they also suffer when there is competition for resources. Phillip Rawkins (1978:522) cites the “development of vast national and transnational conglomerate enterprises which has brought about social and economic changes within state boundaries [and] has resulted in a transformation in the character of the state.” In Scotland and Wales, the industries of coal, iron, steel and agriculture have been adversely affected by new technology, the expanding global economy and their status as subordinates to England. The closing of many mines and factories in the 1990s marked the end

of the traditional economy and caused an influx of people to the cities— the English-dominated

centers of commerce; such changes in demographics result in cultural and linguistic change

(Jones 1992:349). As traditional industries failed, Wales and Scotland were forced to rely

heavily on large, multinational corporations to sustain their economies (Williams 1986). One requisite tool for prosperity in this “new” economy was knowledge of the English language, and

the linguistic composition of Scotland and Wales reflected this necessity.

Tourism

One industry that is on the rise in the United Kingdom is tourism. Increased interest in

all things Celtic, coupled with a new awareness of Celtic influence to Great Britain’s cultural

development created an economic niche in the United Kingdom. “Green tourism and cultural

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tourism are emerging as promising new opportunities to gain both market share and added value and are widely predicted as long-term growth sectors worldwide” (Pedersen 1996:90). However, the linguistic element of cultural tourism might not be pervasive enough to make an impact on the overall survival of the language. Both Wales and Scotland could benefit equally from the commercialization of their Celtic heritage, yet, with tourism comes the potential for linguistic backslide. Brian Wilson (2005), a former Scottish Office Minister, cites an example of this problem in and among the organizations of Scotland:

in Washington last year, at the annual Smithsonian festival, the Scottish Tourist Board asked the organisers [sic] to take down signs with Gaelic, in case potential visitors thought it was not an English-speaking country.

Religion

The conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism influenced the political, social, cultural and linguistic atmosphere in Great Britain throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In

England, the Protestant movement received encouragement from King Henry VIII9, who, during

what was termed the Henrican Reformation, endeavored to reject the authority and jurisdiction of the Vatican, and from this point forward, British identity was encased in the conviction that

Catholicism was antithetic to Protestantism. It was because of this sentiment that the Crown decided to remodel the Celtic periphery to reflect Protestant ideology. Victor Durkacz (1983:1) adds that only in the 16th and 17th centuries “can it be said that [the Scottish and Welsh] were

brutally repressed by central government which in the period pursued a rigid policy of linguistic

uniformity in the Celtic periphery.” Furthermore, the impact of such policies affected both

Welsh and Gaelic equally, as Durkacz asserts, “linguistic repression sprang from the

9 Henry VIII was anti-Lutheran/Calvinist but his desire to disunite with the Vatican was supreme.

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Reformation which presented exactly the same challenges to the indigenous cultures of Ireland,

Wales and Scotland” (Durkacz 1983:1).

The preceding factors in language endangerment have been expressed similarly in both

Wales and Scotland. However, Welsh language revival efforts have been facilitated by several

variables that were manifest differently, or absent altogether, in Scotland.

Immigration/Emigration

Beginning in the mid-18th century and lasting through the first half of the 19th century, the

English began a campaign known as the Scottish Clearances, which was intended to rid the

Highlands and the Islands of the native Gaels, and transfer the fertile lands into English hands

(BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk). During this time, tens of thousands of people were displaced

from their land and forced to live elsewhere. Concurrently, the economic downturn that

followed the 1844 potato blight caused a ripple-effect of mass emigration that lasted into the

early 20th century. Between 1904 and 1931 more than one million people (nearly 20 percent of

the total population) emigrated from Scotland to North America and elsewhere in Great Britain

(BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk). This mass relocation separated Gaelic speakers from one another,

diminished the rural basis of the linguistic community, and forced contact with speakers of other,

non-Celtic languages (Matheson and Matheson 2000:213). Sutherland (2001:201) explains the

linguistic consequences of the Scottish emigration:

Despite groups of adults in different countries who cultivate some Celtic language learning, and links with the ‘home countries’ of the Celtic languages, these languages cannot enjoy the transnational support available to speakers of many Asiatic or African languages. Conversely, in the first several decades of the 1900s, Wales was infiltrated by large

numbers of English citizens seeking “the good life” (Jones 1992:351). As Merfyn Jones (1992)

recalls, “to those who considered the language to be ‘the badge of our national identity,’ in-

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migration was identified as the ‘greatest immediate threat to the Welsh language’ and, thus, by extension, to the Welsh identity” (Jones 1992:351-52).

Political and Legal Developments

English would supplant Gaelic as the official language in Scotland when James VI & I imposed the Act of Privy Council in 1616 (Matheson and Matheson 2000:213). The intent of the

Act was to eliminate completely the use of Gaelic in Scotland, an objective that was reinforced by the Education Act of 1872, which forbade the use of Gaelic in schools. These policies would have succeeded in eradicating Gaelic if not for the recent Gaelic revival, one consequence of which was the passing of the Gaelic Language Bill of 2005. Since the bill was passed, Gaelic is officially recognized as a national language in Scotland, yet many supporters of revival efforts claim that English is still given preferred status (Save Gaelic, http://www.savegaelic.org). Yet, one positive achievement of the bill is the requirement of a national plan to provide for the preservation of the Gaelic language.

The Welsh experience has been quite different from that of Scotland. When Wales entered into the Act of Union of 1536, it agreed to the clause in the Act which required that

English be the official language of both England and Wales. English maintained its position as the official language of Wales even after the Welsh Courts Act (1942) and the Welsh Language

Act (1967) provided for the use of Welsh in the public sector (Bwrdd Yr Iaith, http://www.bwrdd-yr-iaith.org.uk). The Welsh Language Act of 1993 sought to make Welsh an official language, but the final version of the Act only “confirms the status the language enjoys, and places obligations on organizations which provide services to the public in Wales to treat

Welsh on a basis of equality with English” (Elis-Thomas 1996:11). One crucial offshoot of the

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Act of 1993 was the creation of the Welsh Language Board. The purpose of the Board is to develop language schemes that will

give effect to the principle in the Act that Welsh and English be treated on a basis of equality; illustrate the range of services to be provided in Welsh to Welsh speakers; reflect the views of those who will use the services— the Act provides for consultation; and be updated to keep pace with changes in service provision and the needs of Welsh speakers. (Elis-Thomas 1996:12)

Welsh has clearly reaped the benefits of the Language Act, as is evidenced by the increase of Welsh speakers; even so, as Dafydd Elis-Thomas (1996:1) attests, “the main achievement of the Welsh Language Act of 1993 is that it creates the opportunity for Welsh

speakers to save their own language.”

In 1992, the Council of Europe approved the European Charter for Regional or Minority

Languages. States that endorse the Charter agree to “give official recognition to a minority or

regional language and provide for education through that language, or for the teaching of that

language, at all levels, from pre-school to adult and continuing education” (Sutherland

2001:200). On March 27, 2001, the United Kingdom ratified the Charter for Northern Ireland,

Scotland and Wales. However, since the Welsh Language Act of 1993 preceded the Charter by

eight years, the immediate effect of the Charter on the Welsh language may prove to be minimal.

Regardless, this action by both the European Union (EU) as a whole and the individual

governments which sanction the Charter bodes well for the future of minority and regional

languages; the awareness created by the Charter has persuaded the EU to become both

benefactor and champion to the cause of language preservation (Dalby 2002:119).

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Education Currently, there is a movement promoting Welsh and Gaelic-medium schools in the

Great Britain. However, in both countries, the progress is very slow and hindered by political

and cultural institutions of the past and present.

When the English system of education was actualized, Wales had already consented to

the Acts of Union, which has resulted in similar educational policies in England and Wales

(Raffe et al. 1999:10). Conversely, as Raffe et al. (1999:10) indicate:

In Scotland, compulsory education was first promoted by an Act of 1494 or 1496 (allegedly the first such legislation in the world), but the origins of Scottish education are more conventionally traced back to the 16th century reformation which established the principle (and, more slowly and unevenly, the reality) of a school in every parish. Scottish education had thus begun to develop as a national system before the union with England in 1707, and it has remained more distinct ever since. In both countries, education was the key to upward mobility, but as part of the United

Kingdom, this meant that knowledge of the English language was compulsory, regardless of the

damage caused to the indigenous languages and cultures (Grant 1983:136). A study by Sharp et

al. (Cohen 1984:236) shows that attitudes varied according to the ages of children: “as pupils get

older, attitude towards Welsh tends to become less favourable, and attitude toward English tends

to become more favourable.” Similarly, Sutherland (2001) refers to remarks made by the

Advisory Council on Education in 1947 in regards to Gaelic-medium education. The Council

gave the following reasons as to why Gaelic language education was not a valid expenditure of

both time and money:

Gaelic is not easier but much harder than the Romance Languages’, its ‘utility value’ is not high, and ‘while Gaelic literature is rich in appeal for those to whom it is native, it could hardly be claimed that it has either the sustained greatness or the immense range and volume of the European Literatures. (Sutherland 2001:203)

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In addition to the challenge that Welsh and Gaelic faced in terms of competition in the global market, the educational systems in both countries were confronted with several other obstacles in their attempt to establish Welsh and Gaelic language schools.

One such problem was a lack of qualified teachers who are fluent in the indigenous tongues. Pedersen (1996:85) and Sutherland (2001:202) both remark that this problem has dramatically hindered the growth of such schools and Sutherland (2001:205) also refers to the dilemma of standardized orthographies:

From the teaching point of view there is the further problem of different pronunciations in different areas; until recent attempts, there has also been a lack of standardisation of Gaelic spelling and accents: the language has suffered from stagnation during the years when it was falling into disuse.

The final encumbrance may be the most difficult to overcome because it is a matter of discrimination— Welsh and Gaelic were seen as “socially denigrated as the inferior tongue of barbarous sections of the population” (Sutherland 2001:199). Children were subjected to humiliation practices and physical punishment if they were caught speaking their native tongues in school; the Welsh not and màide-crochaidh were two such mechanisms for humiliation— ropes that were hung around the offending children, identifying them as “barbarous” to others

(Matheson and Matheson 2000:215).

The Welsh Office was established in 1964, but it was not until 1970 that it oversaw the implementation and administration of educational policies in Wales. Not only has the intervention by the Welsh Office resulted in the promotion of Welsh-medium education, but it has succeeded in channeling a good portion of the national budget towards language preservation efforts (Wales Office, http://www.walesoffice.gov.uk). In addition to the administration of educational policies by the Welsh Office, there have been several Acts that have positively

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altered the Welsh educational system to the favor of the Welsh language. The first provision for

Welsh language teaching came in 1944 when the Education Reform Act provided funding for

Welsh-medium schools. By 2001, 440 Welsh-medium or bilingual schools taught over 51,000 students through the Welsh language (Bwrdd Yr Iaith, http://www.bwrdd-yr-iaith.org.uk).

Although this accounts for roughly 25 percent of school-age children in Wales, Reynolds et al.

(1998), conclude that “the Welsh-medium provision of education has increased, though still far

from achieving equality with English-medium provision” (Sutherland 2001:201). Even so, the

statistics prove that the Welsh language is not only surviving, but making resurgence in the 3-24

year old age group (school-age children).

Scholars have varied opinions about what has most benefited the Welsh language in

regards to education. Sutherland (2001) credits the Education Reform Act (1988) as well as the

Welsh Language Act (1993) with improving the situation for Welsh whereas Aitchison and

Carter (1986:490) acknowledge the Ysgol Meithrin (Welsh nursery school) movement as stimulating the progress that the Welsh language has undergone in the past several decades.

Raffe et al. (1993:15) claim that a national ethnic identity might fortify existing educational policies, noting that “neither Gaelic nor the Scots language plays a role in maintaining the distinctiveness and identity of Scottish education comparable to that of the Welsh language in

Welsh education” or of Scottish culture generally versus the role language plays in Welsh culture.

As early as 1885, the Scottish Office controlled most aspects of education, yet Scotland, by contrast to Wales, has seen “limited government intervention in the form of financial assistance to local authorities…but policy determination has in some degree been left to local authorities who have made the decisions on the creation of Gaelic-medium units, Gaelic classes”

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(Sutherland 2001:207). It was not until one century later, in 1985, that the Scottish government entered into an agreement with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which allocated funds specifically for Gaelic language teaching (Sutherland 2001:204). By 1997 there were seven secondary Gaelic-medium schools, and as of 2003, there were only 36 Gaelic-medium schools (including nursery, primary and secondary levels) teaching approximately 1200 students

(Highland Council, http://www.highland.gov.uk/educ/gaelic/gaelic.htm). The slow action on the part of the Scottish Office to provide funding for and begin the establishment of Gaelic-medium schools is reflected in the seemingly constant statistics regarding school-age Gaelic speakers over the past 40 years.

Several scholars have weighed in on this dilemma as well. Like Aitchison and Carter

(1986), Roy Pedersen (1996:85) believes that “The creation of Gaelic medium pre-school playgroups, mother and toddler groups and nursery schools has emerged as the fundamental element in the chain of measures for the re-generation of Gaelic.” Alternatively, Sutherland again takes the perspective that the Education Acts of 1872 and 1918 contributed to the language situation in Scotland, but for Gaelic the results are not encouraging. She points out that though the 1872 Act made education mandatory for all of Scotland’s children it “seems to have served some of them ill, since it provided for school education only through the medium of English”

(Sutherland 2001:203). Sutherland (2001:203) credits the Education Act of 1918 with providing

Gaelic teaching in Gaelic-speaking areas, but also criticizes the Act for failing to furnish the necessary funding to effectuate any real change. Matheson and Matheson conclude that the

Scottish Society for Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SSPCK), which advocated Gaelic- medium education, actually “polluted” the existing pockets of Gaelic-speaking regions

(particularly in the Highlands) by promoting “transient bilingualism.” They also make the claim

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that “Since [the early nineteenth century], for most of its history, the school system in Scotland has assiduously fostered the use of English only” (Matheson and Matheson 2000:214). Yet they do concede that the future for Gaelic might be brighter, as “the experience of the Welsh with bilingual education and the cultural ramifications thereof have done much to inspire the Gaels to do likewise” (Matheson and Matheson 2000:215). However, as Pedersen (1996:85) indicates, the economic benefits of Gaelic language knowledge must be great enough to induce government officials, parents and children to develop, fund and execute language planning schemes. As it stands, other modern languages, such as German and French, are deemed more economically valuable than Gaelic10, and unless there are some major changes in the educational

system, Gaelic will not survive. Kenneth MacKinnon affirms my sentiment, stating that “as presently constituted [Gaelic-medium education] cannot effectively reverse language shift even

in the case of the Western Isles” (MacKinnon 2003). This is quite an ominous realization.

Despite the importance that is placed on language education within the framework of language

reclamation and revival projects, there are other language-medium outlets that, when placed in

conjunction with governmental action and educational policies may contribute to language

survival. Wilson illuminates one such arena in his article in The Guardian: “There is plenty of

evidence around the world of what can be done to help a minority [endangered] language

flourish in our monocultural global village. One lesson is that to stand a chance, they need

access to mass communication” (Wilson 2005).

Media Influence/Mass Communication

Wales has had the benefit of an all-Welsh language television channel (S4C) since 1982,

and since 1998 S4C has been broadcast in both analog and digital formats, creating access to

10 In 1999, 330 students took the Standard Level Exam in Gaelic, while only 95 sat for the Gàidhlig (for fluent Gaelic speakers) exam. In that same year, 38,206 and 16,660 students took the corresponding Standard Level Exams in French and German, respectively (Sutherland 2001:205).

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many more people and regions. S4C is funded by Her Majesty’s Treasury and is allocated a fixed sum each year. In 2000, that sum was equivalent to more than 130 million U.S. dollars (S4C

Web). Gaynor Cohen (1984) describes S4C as a catalyst that has furthered support of Welsh language education, and Merfyn Jones (1992) acknowledges that the creation of S4C has helped to unify the fragmented Welsh-speaking areas (Cohen 1984:236; Jones 1992:350).

In Scotland, some radio programs, television shows, books, newspapers, etc. are in

Gaelic, “but the volume is small— partly for economic reasons, partly because previous educational policy left many Gaels literate in English only” (Grant 1983:139). In 1998, Wilson was the proponent of what should have led to a Gaelic TV channel similar to S4C, yet, as of

April 2005, no such channel exists.

The popular medium of television is not the only source of native language transmission.

Oral and written literature both contribute to native language survival as well as songs and poetry. As Sutherland (2001:207-08) elucidates: “A dying language may be cherished because it has been the expression of a way of life, responding to the activities of the people using the languages, expressing their characteristic thought processes and social attitudes.” The

“expression of a way of life” is thus directly linked to a national, ethnic and local identity.

Identity

In Scotland and Wales, “identity” is manifested in many different ways. There is the connection to the Anglo-Saxon history which contradicts a Celtic heritage as well as the ethnic identities of Wales and Scotland, and the national identities that are associated with those specific territories (Gundara 1990:100). Cohen (1996) recognizes that “national identity never seems to be so secure and so lacking in ambiguity and ambivalence that it can be left to look after itself. So we find it ritualized, mythified, symbolized, emblematized— evidence that we

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are continuously working on and with it” (Cohen 1996:806). In Scotland, we find that the

Scottish identity does not necessarily preclude a linguistic cohesiveness, even though

Welshman’s English is readily identifiable, but it is in Scots English or the Scots’ pronunciation

of standard English that is found and which expresses their national identity. Sutherland

(2001:207-08) affirms that, for the majority in Scotland, “it seems to be rather

Scottish/English— or the Scottish accent(s) — which express their national identity.” Scotland

also has a national dress, music and image that are recognized by people the world over as

distinctively “Scottish.” Conversely, in Wales, there is no such national equivalent, instead, the

Welsh language has become the focal point in what it means to “be” Welsh; and it has become

the junction between the past and present of Welsh ethnic and national identity.

As these identities are constantly threatened by globalization and the Anglo influence, the

people of Wales and Scotland are faced with a dilemma: to maintain their individuality at the

expense of economic gain, or resist the pressure and sacrifice financial stability in order to

maintain a connection to their cultural heritage. For many the choice is simple, and the need to

assimilate is obvious, augmented by the prestige that has been and continues to be given to the

English language.

Prestige

In the early 1800s, Highland Scots were referred to by their Lowland counterparts as

“savages or aborigines…impoverished and violent, as members of a different and inferior race,

rather than as fellow Scots” (Colley 1992:314). The situation in Scotland has not changed much

during the past two centuries; similarly in Wales, “local Welsh people are seen to be ‘essentially

subordinate’” (Aitchison and Carter 1986:491). The tension that surrounds the preferential

treatment given to one language over (English) another (Gaelic and Welsh) is typically mitigated

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through bilingualism. For several generations, native speakers of the Celtic languages were forced to become bilingual in English. Unfortunately, over time, this language shift bilingualism led to less and less native-language knowledge and the fragile language system deteriorated into a virtually monolingual society. The educational system (Watson 1989), the economy (Wilson

2005), and at times the folkloric belief that bilingualism was an impediment to language-learning

(Mertz 1989) resulted in many of the people of both Scotland and Wales, particularly those in the periphery, becoming convinced of the inevitability of the various Englishes11 superseding their

own indigenous languages.

Cultural/Folkloric Movements

In modern Scotland and Wales, folklore is mostly restricted to prescribed settings such as

festivals and in poetry and song. In Wales, the Gwerin (folk) movement, which began in the

1840s, has been “a mediation between a collective past and a sense of contemporary Welsh

cultural identity” (Griffiths 1994). The Gwerin has also served to disassociate Wales with the

Anglicization that came with the Acts of Union (Griffiths 1994). Another festival, the

Eisteddfod, has emerged from an ancient Druid tradition (Matheson and Matheson 2000).

Scottish attempts toward “the revival of Gaelic began in earnest in 1891 with the foundation of

An Comunn Gaidhlealach [CNAG], whose main aim was to establish a Gaelic Festival along the

lines of the Eisteddfod” (Matheson and Matheson 2000:214). The result of such efforts is a

competition-based festival, The Mòd which has been inexistence since 1892.

11 I use Englishes here to denote that it is not only British English that is threatening indigenous languages; American English, Australian English, Canadian English, etc. are all a part of the group know as the “World Englishes”.

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Such cultural and linguistic renaissance is an indicator of an “awakened” national identity; it is such a consciousness that leads to movements and social change. How then do does nationalism affect threatened languages?

Nationalism

Nationalism is realized in different ways in Scotland and Wales, respectively. Scottish nationalistic ideology lacks “the same anxiety [as Wales] concerning the maintenance of a

consciousness of separate nationality, [and] has generally concentrated on political and economic

questions (Rawkins 1978:526). Conversely, Welsh nationalism emphasizes, as Rawkins alluded,

culture and language. As Cohen (1996:803) explains, “it is essentially a cultural nationalism that

has some similarity to nationalistic and other reactions that follow from a popular perception of

the denigration of a culture by a powerful neighbor or an occupying force.”

In Wales, this cultural nationalism was begun in earnest in 1886 with the creation of

Cymru Fydd (Young Wales), which is also known as the Welsh movement. “The goals of the

Welsh movement, whose leaders included the young David Lloyd George, were restricted to the

search for symbolic recognition of Welsh culture and Welsh distinctiveness” (Rawkins

1978:524). Unfortunately, by the early 1900s, the Welsh movement had failed to effect much

change. In 1925 Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru (the National Party of Wales, which was later

shortened to Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales) was established to accomplish the following

goals:

To promote the constitutional advancement of Wales with a view to attaining Full National Status for Wales within the European Union; to ensure economic prosperity, social justice and the health of the natural environment, based on decentralist socialism; to build a national community based on equal citizenship, respect for different traditions and cultures and the equal worth of all individuals, whatever their race, nationality, gender, colour, creed, sexuality, age, ability or social background; to create a bilingual society by promoting the revival of the

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Welsh language; and to promote Wales's contribution to the global community and to attain membership of the United Nations. (Plaid Cymru, http:// www.plaidcymru.org, emphasis added) Plaid Cymru has become a political force in Wales; with over 8,000 members, Plaid

Cymru is represented by 3 MPs (Members of Parliament) and twelve AMs (Assembly Members) in Parliament (Plaid Cymru, http:// www.plaidcymru.org). “Plaid Cymru has continued to give considerable emphasis to the state of the language, to cultural questions, and to the maintenance of ‘the Welsh way of life’ in the rural hinterland” (Rawkins 1978:526, emphasis added). Plaid

Cymru has become a force for change in both cultural and political arenas, unlike the Welsh

Language Society which focuses primarily on issues of language and culture.

In 1962 the Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) was founded to

“campaign for the future of the Welsh language” through peaceful methods (Cymdeithas, http://cymdeithas.com). According to Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, since its inception, more than one thousand of its members of have been imprisoned while fighting for language rights; fights that have resulted in “two Welsh language acts, bilingual road signs, and the establishing of S4C, the Welsh language television channel” (Cymdeithas, http://cymdeithas.com).

Other forms of cultural nationalism are realized through smaller, regional groups such as

Cymuned, which is “a community-based pressure group that campaigns for the future of Welsh as a community language.” Cymuned currently boasts 1,537 members, the majority of which reside in the north and west of Wales (Cymuned 2003).

By comparison, in Scotland, it was not until the Scottish Cultural and Fraternal

Organization, Siol nan Gaidheal, was established in 1978 that there was any sort of movement to protect and revive Scottish culture and languages. Calling themselves an “Ultra-Nationalist”

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organization, the members of Siol nan Gaidheal abide by a set of 17 principles. However, only one of those principles mentions language:

(14) Linguistic nationalism— or the promotion of Gaidhlig as our national language, recognising the legitimate historical footing of Lowland "Scots" and Standard English— is also a fundamental tenet of our political ethos. The proper relevance of this question to our national identity and consciousness needs to be considered outside the Unionist and utilitarian agendas set for us by the media, academic and state apparatus, amongst others. (Siol nan Gaidheal, http://www.siol-nan-gaidheal-usa.com/princip.htm) Though Siol nan Gaidheal does mention promoting Gaelic as a national language, it is

clear that political independence is the primary goal of this movement (Siol nan Gaidheal,

http://www.siol-nan-gaidheal-usa.com/princip.htm).12 Though this statement clearly addresses

the need for the protection of the Gaelic language, it is quite divisive in nature (e.g., “the

legitimate footing of Lowland Scots”).13 A successful reclamation of Gaelic must involve all the

people of Scotland, otherwise the language will never survive if it continues to be segregated

from the majority population. Finally, if Gaelic has any chance of survival, as we have seen with

Welsh, the people of Scotland must unite to force change in education, the government, and the

media.

12 See the Siol nan Gaidheal website for the remaining 16 tenets. 13 It has been suggested that Gaelic was the only language spoken in all of Scotland as early as A.D. 1018 (see section 3.2).

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Chapter 5: Summary and Conclusion

In the first chapter, I agreed that language change over time can be attributed to many internal and external factors in the language system, but change does not necessarily result in the death of a language. Chapter 2 examined some of the factors involved in language change; we saw that when the situations of isolation, migration, language contact and modernization arise,

they provide the fertile ground in which language change takes place. Once this environment is

provided, internal factors such as assimilation and bilingualism begin to play a role in language replacement and death.

The linguistic situations in Wales and Scotland provided an opportunity to do a comparative case study of the variation that exists between these two closely related countries.

In chapter 4, I examined factors such as governmental policy, geographical distance from central power, education and nationalist ideology to contextualize current models of language death and survival as related to Welsh and Gaelic. Though several frameworks exist to explain the nature of language endangerment and death, they are not sufficient to explain the multiple pressures facing many minority languages today. As Crystal (2000:93) laments, before language endangerment can be evaluated, researchers must create and utilize a framework that consists of models to “inter-relate relevant variables involved in endangerment.” Likewise, it is clear that these models do not account for the interesting case of Welsh, which has survived in the face of such pressures. We must expand these models of language extinction and reclamation to more fully understand how the role of national identity contributes to the decline or success of a language.

I hypothesize that language is wholly a part of the Welsh identity whereas Scottish identity, which has evolved to include a particular dress, music, and perhaps accent, has not

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embraced Gaelic. Matheson and Matheson conclude that the reason for the success of the

Welsh language is that:

Welsh was able to find an urban heart and also a place in the general Welsh identity. The knowledge of Welsh among the mass of the population of Wales may amount to little more than the occasional song sung at rugby matches but this in itself is a lot better than nothing at all, and gives the Welsh people the feeling that Welsh is theirs…As for the Scots, they seem to see Gaelic not as a language belonging to the whole of Scotland but only to the Highlands. In other words, Gaelic occupies a very marginal part of Scottish identity since the language is associated only with the Highlands and its inhabitants (Matheson and Matheson 2000:215).

Consequently, Welsh provided a viable avenue for social and political mobilization that

resulted in both cultural (e.g., Gwerin, Eisteddfod, etc.) and political (e.g., Cymru Fydd, Plaid

Cymru, Cymuned, etc.) movements. In Scotland, on the other hand, "the kitsch Gaelic identity

which emerged in the nineteenth century was a tame accessory of British unionism and

imperialism, and did nothing to restore to Scots a powerful ethno-cultural identity, the lack of

which has been a serious constraint on the development of a full-blown Scottish nationalism"

(Kidd 1994:1214). Though one group in Scotland, Siol nan Gaidheal has attempted to address

the problem of language death, the group has not reached the critical mass14 of people needed to induce change.

As we have seen, identity, whether ethnic, local or national, plays a large role in the

futures of both Gaelic and Welsh. In Scotland, the lack of a unified cultural identity, separate

from that of Great Britain, has made it difficult for nationalist movements to focus on anything except political independence, which is something that transcends cultural and linguistic identity.

On the contrary, Welsh allegiance to nationalistic ideologies, which include cultural and linguistic preservation, have resulted in an increase of Welsh speakers throughout the country.

14 The number of speakers need for language maintenance (Crystal 2000:93).

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The future of both these languages is yet to be seen, but the outlook for Gaelic looks grim.

Wilson (2005) concludes that "Scottish Gaelic enjoys nothing like the status of either Welsh or

Irish, because its supporters have never been able to equal the political influence of their Celtic

counterparts.” Grant makes a further prediction into the future of Gaelic: "There have, then,

been some advances over the last few years— modest, limited and often achieved against

considerable resistance. [However] Scotland is 50 years behind Wales" (Grant 1983:147).

It is obvious that the problem of language endangerment and death is of concern in both

Scotland and Wales. However, despite all odds, the Welsh experience of language reclamation

has been quite successful, while the effort to protect Gaelic has fallen short. Through an examination of concepts of national and ethnic identity as well as linguistic ideology, I have agreed that the role of nationalist movements in language protection efforts can be quite substantial, clearly more so for Welsh than for Gaelic. Further research must be conducted to more fully understand how current sociolinguistic models of language death can be altered to accommodate for the role of national identity in successful language reclamation projects. For anyone interested in protecting and maintaining endangered languages, my case study of Welsh is instructive because it reconstructs conventional models of language death to include issues of identity as well as national and linguistic pride.

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