Saving Gaelic – Is It Rocket Science?
A few years ago, someone criticized my work, saying that Gaelic language revitalization wasn’t rocket science.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, because she was right. Language revitalization isn’t rocket science — it’s far more difficult.
Rocket science, or any type of engineering, formulates and solves problems. Get the math right, solve the problem. On to the next problem. Something breaks or goes wrong? Find the math or programming mistake and fix it. Human error is a factor, but the math is reliable.
Language revitalization, on the other hand, is not so simple.
The International Space Station – definitely rocket science
A formal definition of language revitalization is: “the attempt to add new linguistic forms or social functions to a language which is threatened with language loss or death, with the aim of increasing its uses and users” (Kendall King 2001, p. 4). Basically, it’s the effort to “save” a language that is gradually going out of daily use.
Why is it so difficult to save a language? Because it involves a deliberate effort to change people’s opinions, ideas, feelings, and behaviors.
In this sense, language revitalization is much more like public health than rocket science.
Public health is the effort by a state government to monitor, regulate, and promote the health of its population as a whole. Public health is difficult. The Harvard University School of Public Health alone employs dozens of professors to research and teach about epidemiology, nutrition, public policy, etc. Have they solved all the problems of public health yet? Look at vaccines. Although some deadly diseases have been nearly eradicated by public health programs of vaccination, we are now seeing a resurgence of measles in the USA. Why? Because a significant number of people have come to fear vaccines.
Even in the 1920s, public health advocates struggled with anti-vaxxers.
How did some parents come to fear vaccines? How did the idea take hold that they were dangerous? It’s complicated, but it includes faked scientific research results; trust of anti-vaccine doctors; contradictory but not unjustified distrust of doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and governments; and trust of celebrities.
Parents who are responsible for taking their children to get immunized (a behaviour) have opinions, ideas, and feelings. Through fear, mistrust, or misplaced trust, they have decided that it is in their children’s best interests not to immunize them against deadly diseases. Their behavior reflects that — avoiding immunization, and applying for vaccine exemptions or homeschooling to avoid public health requirements.
This behavior is now affecting a much larger group of people due to the weakening of “herd immunity.” People who cannot be immunized for medical reasons, whose vaccines didn’t provide full immunity, or who are more vulnerable to infections, are now catching measles again in greater numbers. It’s spreading rapidly.
The question I’ve heard over and over on Facebook is, How on earth can we get more parents to vaccinate their children? Some people think it’s going to happen through public shaming of anti-vaxxer parents. Some people think it’s going to happen by presenting more and better scientific explanations to parents. Some people think it’s going to happen by changing the laws to eliminate more vaccine exemptions. Whether any of these strategies will work still remains to be seen.
In language revitalization, we also see how parents’ opinions, ideas, feelings, and behaviours can be influenced by a whole range of sources: other parents, friends and family members, educators, celebrities, what they see on the internet, what they hear on TV and radio. What Gaelic-speaking parents heard, for a very long time, was that they ought to speak English and not Gaelic to their children. Educators told them that Gaelic would be bad for their children’s future. Many parents were persuaded to fear for their children’s future if the children were raised with Gaelic, and then the presence of their English-speaking children increased the pressure on other parents to conform. The media still regularly repeats the stereotypes and lies that Gaelic is pointless, outdated, inferior. The result was that parents stopped transmitting Gaelic to their children in Gaelic “heartland” areas.
Even when parents do choose to speak Gaelic to their children, the metaphorical “herd immunity” to language shift is gone. There is nowhere that children can remain in a totally Gaelic-speaking environment. They will hear English — and more importantly, prejudice against Gaelic — almost everywhere they go. Because of this, it becomes an even greater challenge to ensure that children get enough Gaelic interaction and input to build up their language skills to fluency, and just as importantly, to build a positive emotional connection to the language.
The Shawbost Report
We have sent astronauts to the moon, and built and staffed an international space station. That is rocket science.
Can we save the Scottish Gaelic language from going out of daily use? It’s not rocket science.
But it takes persuading people to feel willing, happy, safe, and supported as they go about it (along with experience, expert knowledge, and research-based decisions). Trust and positive emotions are key to language revitalization.
And if you try to go about it by spreading lies, insults, and ill-will, you will never succeed.
An issue I come across regularly in the Gaeltacht is that English speakers often feel it’s rude that others would speak another language they don’t understand when everyone has a mutual language.in this case English.
Any idea how to positively address that issue ?
Politely pointing out that the nearly constant presence of English speakers means that Irish (or Gáidhlig ) can never be spoken in most public situations never seems to influence opinions.
Nor does the fact that a large portion of the English speakers moved here and expect others to accomidation them.
Thank you for your comment. I think it is enormously difficult because when English speakers take that attitude, it seems to be part of a larger ideology that’s been called the “ideology of monolingualism”, the idea that people should properly speak only one language, and that even having to overhear other people speaking another language is an imposition and a problem. Perhaps it’s not unique to native English speakers, but they have certainly perfected this wrongheaded ideology over the centuries. If people have been socialized since birth to believe this, then it’s very difficult to overcome… perhaps rather like supporters of a certain politician, who do not respond to facts and reason. So perhaps the only way to deal with it is to avoid or ignore reactive arguing or debating, and get on with proactive speaking of Irish (where possible). I say this not to preach that it’s the only way, but to offer an opinion.
Another way to deal with it could be through humour of various kinds. For example, I created another blog post to try to make light of these destructive ideologies: https://gaelic.co/anti-gaelic-bingo So now, when I see people dragging out these tired old ideologies online, I just shout “BINGO” and move on…
Your article on anti Gaelic Bingo hits the nail on the head. These deeply seated prejudices are frequently trotted out, even by people making an effort to learn Gaelic.
Given that language loss took place only a few generations ago for most Irish people, this seems to add another layer of shame and guilt that manifests itself in defensive hostility. As someone who was a monoglot English speaker, and struggled massively with Irish in School, I myself would espoused those views. Mainly as a subconscious defence of my own shame in failing to learn the language.
It was only when I studied sociology that I really began to question those views. Once I abandoned my hostility I realised that the language was all around me and heavily influenced my English speaking world.
I think education is the key, but most people wont necessarily come across views in their educational life which might make them challenge those particular beliefs. How exactly you could get people to engage I am not so sure.
Perhaps humour is the tool as you suggest. It does help break down the barriers without seeming preachy but I feel it needs lead people on to other sources of information that help reinforce the message.
It would seem to me that minority languages could come together to jointly tackle the issue. As most of the comments on anti Gaelic bingo show the prejudices faced by all of them are pretty much the same.
They are indeed similar across the Celtic languages, and I’ve heard from a German dialect speaker that they are similar as well. The similarity is due to the larger ideology of standard language (with its concomitant “ideology of contempt” or negative affect towards minoritized languages that are not designated as the standard). I’ve written a little bit about this in my academic work (the two 2010 articles in particular)–if you’re inclined you can check out the “Academic” link in the top right menu for PDFs. It’s a tough nut to crack…
I just wanted to thank you for what you do to keep the language alive. After tracing ancestry and DNA testing back to Scotland, I’m going to try to learn Scottish Gaelic, albeit slowly. In the meantime, thank you for everything you do to keep it a living language.
Mòran taing, that’s very kind of you. Many people are working hard to keep it going. Best wishes with your own efforts!
Go for it, Emilie! From my own experience, finding a teacher to teach you Gaelic is well worth it, rather than learning it alone. My teacher is a German chap who is well-respected in the Gaelic world, and I’ve made much more progress by absorbing his teaching slowly, but surely 🙂 Good luck!
I am not fluent in any Celtic language but have some knowledge of and past exposure to Scottish Gaelic and to Breton. I normally wear a Scottish kilt and occasionally [only in Scotland] get asked silly questions about it. I find a useful reply, said very courteously, is “Tha mi duilich, Chan’eil Ghaidhlig agam a nis” [I am sorry, I cannot speak English just now]. I have also found this useful in replying to unwanted cold calls on the telephone.
Another thought – “Gaelic has no words for YES and NO”. When I started learning some Nepali in Kathmandu, it was the same – to say Yes or No you needed to put the verb of the question into the positive or negative. [“Are you happy ?”, “Am” = Yes, “Am not” = No]. Hindi, which is a very similar and neighbouring language, does have words for Yes and No.