Mitchif vs. French vs. English

[Kenneth Stickney]

	About 3,500 people people on Cape Breton Island still list Gaelic
as their native language and Gaelic songs are still sung by the Cape
Breton folk groups like the Rankin Family and the Barra MacNeils.
	It is, of course, one language with two dialects: Irish and
Scottish. Pogue mahone (kiss my ass) Irish and Pac mahan (kiss my
ass) Scottish.
	Silver Donald Cameron a (now) well-established Cape Breton writer,
though from Ontario originally, said he got his introduction to Cape
Breton when he went to a country music fair just after he moved there. A
comedian got up on stage and told a joke in Gaelic and 500 people
cracked up laughing.
	I was at a cigar dinner in Halifax a few years ago where the guest
of honour was a Scottish baronet. He was president of a distillery and
gave a speech about its history and how the whiskey is made. They were
able to get him for the dinner because he is a Gaelic preservationist and
flies to Nova Scotia frequently to meet the Gaelic speakers. A baronet by
birth, he's been knighted in his own right for his work preserving the
Gaelic language.

Ken Stickney,                Tell Mr. Doyle that if he had
198 Windmill Rd.,            hired smarter guys, none of
Dartmouth, NS                this would have happened.
Canada
B3A 1E9                        --Bruce Willis, in
                                 "Last Man Standing"