"All languages do not have the same worthiness."
Gregory Campbell, Ulster's greatest Glasgow Rangers supporter and Northern Ireland’s new Culture Supremo?
"We can't put on the same level a great language of culture and an impoverished dialect. Is there a Rousseau in Occitan, a Tocqueville in Basque, a Balzac in Ch'ti …, a Montesquiue in Catalan?"
No, unlikely; I’m hazarding a guess that Rousseau, Tocqueville or Balzac do not number amongst Gregory's literary heroes (and I must admit I’ve never heard of Montesquiue).
Rather astonishingly the words were uttered by Jean-Claude Monneret of the Académie française. A summary of the full story is here; suffice to say that he and they are not enamoured with the concept that regional languages are "part of the patrimony of France".
Even more astonishingly (and let’s hope the DUP's Cultural Warriors don’t get to hear this) is the news that the promotion of the Irish, Welsh, Catalan and various other minority languages by the EU is, in fact,a German/Eurocrat-imperialist plot to destablise all those countries of the European Union which «include groups belonging to linguistic minorities»
"This question of regional languages in Europe should also be considered in the context of a German-inspired geopolitical initiative in Brussels. Today in Europe there are interest groups who agitate for reforming Europe on an imperial political model. The manoeuvre of encouraging the recognition of all minority languages is just a decoy, an oblique strategy that in fact aims to deconstruct, to de-knit European nations other than Germany, who all include groups belonging to linguistic minorities.
Thus, subtly, one doesn't attack the member states directly, but one begins with linguistic recognition. This is very "democratic", it doesn't seem to amount to anything. But after that, it's a slippery slope."
Completely batty, of course, but very eloquently put isn’t it?- so much politer than referring to "leprechaun languages" ,"reciprocal funding for our wee tongue" and what have you.
(The original is probably even more poetic:
Cette question des langues régionales en Europe est aussi à penser dans le cadre d'une géopolitique bruxelloise d'inspiration germanique. Il y a aujourd'hui en Europe des groupes d'intérêt qui militent pour un reformatage de l'Europe sur un modèle politique impérial. La manoeuvre qui consiste à encourager la reconnaissance de toutes les langues minoritaires n'est qu'un leurre, une stratégie oblique qui vise en fait à déconstruire, à détricoter les nations européennes autres que l'Allemagne, qui toutes incorporent des groupes d'appartenance linguistiquement minoritaires.
Ainsi, subtilement, on ne s'attaque pas frontalement aux États, mais on commence par une reconnaissance linguistique. C'est très «démocratique», ça semble n'engager à rien. Mais à partir de là, c'est le toboggan.
...but still batty.
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