Native (Language) Unrest

Another day, yet another skirmish over the "indigenous"* languages question in both Wales and N.Ireland; it is becoming, unbelievably, one of the main bones of political contention. "Unbelievably", because, when all is said and done, "Welsh", "Irish" and "Scottish" are simply languages, means of communication- how could their promotion offend anybody, why the continuous battles?

I've mentioned before, the pot is partly kept on the boil by the unthinking or ignorant attitude of those opposed to any world-view other than their own restricted one, but a great deal of unnecessary heat is also being generated by those on the other side, by those *fighting* for the right to express themselves in a medium other than English.

From Ó Muilleoir's blog:

My Welsh friend Steve Eaves recalls how in North Wales language activists had to camp out on the site of a new hospital to disrupt construction before the health authorities would guarantee a bilingual service and bilingual signage

Think about the implications there for a minute.

For the sake of bilingual signage,the opening of a hospital is delayed- is that really a constructive and effective method to increase neutral public goodwill towards your cause?

And then, of course, in Northern Ireland there's Education Supremo Ruane's almost pathological obsession with the provision of "Irish Medium Education", an obsession which has undoubtedly directed her attention from three more pressing problems in our schools; the classrooms' assistants' strike, the rural school closures and the selection debate. Providing the right for parents to have their children educated in the Irish language, yes, great, I've no argument with that whatsoever- provided, obviously, their schools' financial needs and viability are judged under exactly the same criteria as other schools in different sectors. But of the four education topics I mentioned, provision of Irish Medium Education is the least urgent, yet it seems to be claiming the most of Ms Ruane's attention.
Again, is that the best way to increase neutral public goodwill (in this case thtat principally of those potentially powerful persuaders, parents) towards your cause?

Don't get me wrong; I'm a firm believer in Goethe's maxim:
"A man who does not know foreign language is ignorant of his own"

I also believe that the Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh language are part of our rich British heritage and history, it would be a shame and a loss for all of us who truly love our nation to see them to disappear. On a purely personally level, I also have a strictly layman’s interest in morphology and phonology (a fact not always apparent from how I misuse and abuse my own native tongue on here, I know, I know!), the lexical and phonetic puzzles found in all three languages are fascinating.

But everytime I see another Sinn Fein linguistically-challenged representative butcher (syntactically speaking of course!) "the Irish", simply to make a narrow and bigoted political point (their frequent use of "indigenous" to describe the language is not accidental) or read about proposed legislation which will force Welsh shop-keepers to spend money on "bilingualising" their businesses....I come to the same conclusion, once again- the true enemies of the long-term growth and promotion of these languages are not the David Collins and Sammy Wilsons of this world.