LL-L: "Language maintenance" LOWLANDS-L, 02.MAR.2001 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 02.MAR.2001 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Criostoir O Ciardha [paada_please at yahoo.co.uk]
Subject: LL-L: "Language maintenance" (was "Language
survival")                     LOWLANDS-L, 02.MAR.2001 (03) [E]

A chairde,

This is probably now an obselete appendix but I have
been unable to devote the time I wished to reply at
the relevant time. Nonetheless, I would like to add my
overdue input.

Firstly, in the context of language standardisation, I
have had grave doubts over how benign such a
linguistic device actually is. It seems an irony and
something of an oxymoron to me that in response to
threat of extirpation, a move would be made to
synthesise a "standard" and then propose, impose or
present this construct as anything less than
extirpative itself, with local forms - in the
"standardised" context now considered as "dialects" or
"variants" with connotations of deviance and impurity
- in carrying on to be harassed out of existence. Is
not the "standard" the artifice, the deviant, the
variant?

To answer this adequately we need to devise solid
parameters of what languages and their standards
actually are. I am aware this is the perennial
theorising, a kind of kindergarten linguistics that
bores the more rigidly academic subscribers, but it
remains a fluid and subjective concept. I have sought
and perhaps over-sought to set the concrete on this
issue if only to clarify it in my own understanding.

In my view, "language" in the accepted sense does not
exist: there are only clusters of spoken forms of
communication that share sufficient similarities to
form a bundle of varying intelligibilities. These are
self-contained forms that are not variants (as they do
not all stem from a "pure" source but rather are the
consequence of influences, substrates, superstrates,
innovations and so forth) nor deviations. We have to
accept the fact that the speech of, say, "area one" is
its own fine method of communication - not the
linguistic bastard child of "area two" or the runt
half-sibling of "area three". Each tongue, from
whatever town, street, village, district (ad
infinitum) has sufficient qualities to mark it out as
"tongue one" or "tongue two" or whatever. These are
inherently rich and varied, wonders of diversity.

Secondly, when we begin to use over-arching terms such
as "French" or "English" we create accusative,
emotionally-charged labels which hunger to
imperialise: groups of clusters are lumped together
because they share sufficient similarities to be
labelled "French dialects" and "English dialects". In
doing this one unwittingly create a chauvinism: there
is the implicit suggestion that some "dialects" are
"less French" or "less English" because they are so
diverse in phonology, syntax, etc., as to be seen to
"diverge". The notion of "divergence" is important: it
serves two actions. Firstly, in understanding what is
"divergent" one creates without realising "that which
is diverged from" - thus going further in defining
what is "French language [and its dialects]" and what
is "English language [and its dialects]"; secondly,
one creates an agenda for inferiorisation and vertical
oppression in which one form is "elevated" and others
who "diverge too much" "subjugated".

Linguistically, this is a serious transgression; the
result is a phonological and syntactical witch-hunt or
cull, wherein those idioms that in fact have *rich*
and *unique* qualities or facets are now deemed to be
"aberrant". Language standardisation is a
state-building tool: its primary function is to create
a centralised "language", the linguistic equivalent of
a centralised state. Thus we see that linguistic
oppression is a less obvious form (I shall term it
"dialectisation" for brevity) of political oppression
insofar as it defines peripherary-centre relations and
installs a framework for defining the parameters of
what is "suitable" "permissable" and even "correct".
The human effect of this dialectisation is that the
citizens outside of the newly defined "heartland" or
centre where the language spoken is considered "most
French" or "most English" are suddenly made to feel as
though they are inherently "unsuitable" and
"incorrect" in their language use. As speech is an
integral in being human, and people generally do not
feel there is much they can do about how they speak
unless they force falseness and elocute, they are left
with installed feelings of this peripheralisation,
inferiorisation and subjugation. This is undeniably
part of the political programme which indoctrinates
that "bigger is better" and that centralisation is
"the only choice". Whether for economic or imperialist
reasons, the result is very human distress and
imbedded inferiorisation. In effect, the centre
colonises what is now the peripherary when in fact
each peripherary is to its inhabitants a centre.

Therefore one arrives at the contrived and oppressive
linguistic we have today, where local speech is
considered at best "variant" and at worst "uncouth".
This is a political statement and a political intent,
not a linguistic one. But such ideological posturing
is not appropriate on this discussion list. Having
provided the background, I intend now to move onto
"dialectism" and "bidialectism" as opposed to
"standardisation".

Standardisation basically provides us with hundreds of
national Esperantos. In many cases these pidgins have
become creole, with some native speakers - witness the
increasing use of RP or BBC English as a mother tongue
in these islands as the media attempts to cull
diversity. Occasionally, we even find that these
constructs have now extirpated the colonised speeches
and become the majority idiom in the state, as in the
case of what is now termed American English which has
effectively killed all the local idioms of the United
States in all except phonology (with apologies to the
Appalachian-speakers on the list). However, we should
not underestimate the loyalty of people to their
native tongue - their home tongue, the "unstandard".
This much is obvious from my own posts.

Referencing the Irish language situation has made me
realise just how hollow and absurd "standardisation"
(read "state cultural hegemony" or "classism") and how
one extirpation is being replaced by another in the
guise of "taking back what is ours" or language
justice. It is simply untenable to talk of
"languages". Irish, for example, has what would be
lazily called three "variants", ostensibly Donegal
Irish, Conmara Irish and Munster Irish, each in itself
a local "standard" formed through literary tradition
in locales and Gaelic-speaking parishes. (I exclude
Belfast Irish and relearnt Gaelic for reasons of
cogency.) I would argue that the Irish language is
heavily complicated by a colonial and neo-colonial
political history and that the so-called
"standardisation" of Irish in the 1930s is so weak as
to have fallen into irrelevancy: there are three
Irishes (not three Irish *languages* but three local
idioms that enjoy claim of the term for
English-speakers - in any case, "Irish" is "Gaeilge"
or "Gaeilige" [i.e., Gaelic] to its speakers). One has
to choose an "Irish" to speak. This is a fact on the
ground.

I learnt Conmara Irish, as I have repeatedly and
somewhat tiresomely reported. I now live in Derry,
which is in the catchment area of Donegal Irish, where
locals are taught that "Irish" is "Donegal Irish".
This loyalty is overwhelming and at once surprising.
When I arrived in Derry I expected that I would have
some difficulty in communication because of "dialect"
variances [sic]: instead, however, I have realised
that "language" itself is an inadequate term to use -
clumsy, statist, ignorant, and, ultimately,
uncommunicative. It will be remembered and understood
by all on this list that the primary raison d'etre of
speech is to communicate. That is the sole reason for
speaking, let alone speaking one way or not another.

My communication in Gaelic in Derry has been retarded
by my grounding in Conmara Gaelic. That is also a fact
on the ground. I remain something of the oddity I was
in England - I am here in Ireland misunderstood when I
speak my tongue, as I was there - but in this case I
am an oddity in Gaelic. Such is the overwhelming
nature of Donegal Gaelic. My syntax is not understood
by Donegal Gaelic speakers; there is too much code
noise from different pronunications; there is
incompatible and misleading grammars; and, most of
all, there is a complete unintelligibility in general
that makes Conmara Gaelic - at least in my case -
functionally useless in Derry.

(There are of course sociological factors that could
explain this: impatience of the listener, disbelief on
the part of the listener that someone with an English
accent could speak fluent Gaelic; lack of attention
and concentration. Nonetheless, all plough back to the
notion of uncommunication and, as such, misvalidation
of speech.)

Conclusively, and consequently, then, I have resolved
to learn Donegal Gaelic to converse with my peers in
their own tongue whilst still speaking "our language"
- Irish. It is not a difficult thing: basically I have
to shift my perception a little to perceive my speech
in a Donegal Gaelic continuum rather than a Conmara
one. In this sense, Conmara Gaelic is not altogether
useless: it has provided me the pen to communicate: I
just need to find the appropriate ink cartridge to
communicate best.

This is what I consider the future of "language
survival" and "language acquisition" - and it is a
very old tactic indeed. Not only does "bi-" or
"multi-dialectism" (to use the inaccurate term I
deride) prove most accomodating of linguistic
realities and facts on the ground, it also enables a
far greater breadth of perception than learning to
monolith "constructs" as standards are. Historically
it was the case that a community would learn the idiom
of the next village, and so communicate that way,
bidialectally. I understand that multidialectism is
still the most common form of communication throughout
areas like Afghanistan, Papua, and the indigenous
areas of Mexico and Brazil.

Multidialectism also raises the esteem of the
community in which the idiom is used inasmuch as it
gives back the communicative status that
"standardisation" denies. This oppression of
"linguistic impropriety" is sociological murder. If a
certain form is used in the area in which the learner
resides, let the learner use that rather than some
distant unused standard that is no-one's mother
tongue.

However, of course, here we hit major difficulties
related to the inferiorisation of idioms and the
people that use them. Such is the installed lack of
pride in local forms of speech, installed by
imperialist state-building "standardisation" and
discussed above, is that often native speakers of
these idioms become offended if an outsider chooses to
try to "get in" and actually become a part of their
speech community. Local groups have long been forced
to believe that they have no right to use their tongue
- that it is improper, deviant, coarse, or, in
extremis, bluntly "wrong". Misfortunately, part of
this oppression - classism again - is the oppression
that a "foreigner" (in this case I mean someone from
outside the state rather than an intraloper [sic]) can
"learn dialect". Thus the situation arises where the
"standard" is *forcibly* used by convention: the local
uses her or his non-native tongue to converse with the
incomer and in turn is replied to in this statist
"language". It is an alienating dialogue.

I have a Norwegian friend who has to resort to English
when he wishes to speak to Swedes. This shocked me and
seemed absurd and labourious. However, my friend
informed me that whilst Swedish and Norwegian are
mutually intelligible (as is Danish to a lesser
degree), for a Norwegian to use Swedish feels socially
"awkward" and "affected" in the same way myself or a
Scots speaker would refuse to use RP ("BBC English").
My Norwegian friend however has little idiom loyalty
and prefers to switch to "the international language"
than be defiant and engage in a mixed
Swedish-Norwegian conversation, despite the fact that
both sides would understand each other fairly well.
This is a factor local groups have to overcome - they
have to take pride in their tongue and use it, not
discard it in situations where they are reminded of
their inferiorisation and of linguistic
"standardisation" and their place outside of that
process, as the "alien being".

To move back, even where the language incomer has
settled for thirty or forty years in a local speech
area and accustomed herself or himself to the local
idiom, she or he may be forced to reply to the native
speaker in the "standard" so as not to risk alienating
the local by "taking the piss" - i.e., mocking the
idiom merely by using it. Certainly this is a major
factor attendant to the oppression of the
"peripherary": an internalised contempt, a
state-sponsored self-hate, that does the state's job
for it in keeping disaffection in rein or, sadder
still, used against members of the same community.

Take the situation wherein the local idiom uses what
the standard considers to be "swearwords" as an
integral part of its unique character. Much working
class and informal speech in the "English-speaking
world" (Ireland, England, Cornwall, America,
Australia, etc.) is interspersed with "fuck" as an
intensifier, as in "It were fucking ace" to mean in
the standard, "it was exceptionally good, I really
enjoyed it, etc." (the fact that I had to write two
sentences of the standard to explain four words of the
local speech speaks volumes). The state, which bases
its power around the standard language and enacts laws
through it and of it, considers such language use
"offensive" and "obscene" and, if it is used in a
state situation (to a police officer, to a court, in
school, etc.) the speaker may be punished for speaking
their own language. This is particularly true if the
native speaker is already being reprimanded for
something - using her or his own language simply adds
to the severity of the offence, to the "breach of the
public order".

Perhaps I am simply too politicised and thoroughly
vitriolic to understand properly, but what is the
difference between this integral of discrimination
against a speaker using her or his mother tongue
(swearwords and all, it is their right to free
expression) and a policemen beating someone about the
head or a court fining someone for speaking Low Saxon,
Zeeuws, Scots, etc.? Speech is communication.
Inhibition or prohibition of speech, as I'm sure we
agree, is something all of us have long laboured under
- that is our inferiorisation, our colonisation, our
subjugation, our peripheralisation, our being made to
feel useless and secondary, our being made to feel
anything but the human beings we are.

Nonetheless, the argument for bidialectism or
integration into the local speech community remains
strong, I feel. Further, we would be doing much to
confront our own oppression and suppression if we
realised that linguistics is a political issue.
Standardisation is an agent of state hegemony, of
cultural extirpation - cultures are not merely
homogenous swathes of countries: they may be as tiny
as a single street, or a village. We would doing
ourselves a service if we began to break out of our
indoctrinated indenture to modes of thought that tie
us down and tie our communities down, that submit us
to abusing our our mother tongues and regarding
ourselves as proponents of them as worthless. Rights
should not be grovelled for - but neither should the
restriction of such fundamental human rights as
culture, speech, living with others and so on be
assisted by collaborationist elements within our own
community, in the name of "standardisation" or
"conformity". What is linguistic conformity but
language death? What, indeed, is language survival if
one lays down and commits sociolinguistic hari-kari?

Go raibh maith agaibh,

Críostóir.

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