How do you say 'dead language' in Gaelic?

[Harold Schiffman]

How do you say 'dead language' in Gaelic?


By BRIAN HENNIGAN

BY the time you read this, the massed tanks of Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez might have stirred up a large stew with neighbouring
Colombia. President Chavez is irked that the Colombian army stole into
Ecuador and killed a revolutionary leader. Chavez believes that the
Colombian government is but a puppet of the United States. The
domination of Latin America by the US is also the threat that has
caused President Chavez to issue a death sentence on the English
language itself. His point is that cultural imperialism takes many
forms and must be fought on all fronts, including stopping
Spanish-speakers using such terms as "marketing", "password" and
"mouse" and getting everyone to use the Spanish equivalents of
"mercadeo", "contrasena" and "raton".

This issue is something that should concern us also. For too long we
have been forced to say things like "Where is my sombrero?" rather
than "Where is my large, round, hat made of straw"? And only the other
day – when I wanted to ask someone to join in my hand-and-arms based
pelvic dance, I was forced to ask whether they wished instead to do
the Macarena. Such is the Spanish language dictatorship we find
ourselves living under. And don't get me started on paella.
Politicians seeking to control things that irk them is not new. What
is remarkable is the ability of anyone to believe that something as
free-flowing and organic as language can be controlled as easily as
one controls a hairdryer. In both cases there is a lot of hot air and
little else of practical use.

Languages have always evolved as the users ultimately wish – that is
why we have interesting originally non-English terms such as anorak,
pyjamas and slalom. It also allows us to create words like grisbee and
the verb "to google". The internet is good at accelerating the use of
words of common currency; it's notable that many of the apparent
targets of Hugo Chavez are associated with communication technology.

The important point for all of us is that all attempts to control how
language develops and is used are – ultimately – doomed. This affects
us in Scotland because of the ongoing policy of providing support for
Gaelic language. As of the 2001 UK Census, fully – and only – 58,652
people in Scotland speak Gaelic and there are no unilingual speakers –
people who only speak Gaelic. Even in 1755 – when Scotland had a
population of 1,265,830, only 289,798 spoke Gaelic. If it was ever
"Scotland's language" it has not been for a long, long time. Lowland
Scots has a bigger claim.

Each year, a lot of money is spent making radio and television
programmes and supporting the education of a quaint, effectively
historical language for some sort of cultural reason. When was the
last time you regretted a language not being available? Every now and
then, somewhere on the planet the last-native speaker of an obscure
language shuffles off the coil and the truth is that but for linguists
and manufacturers of "Bathrooms This Way" signs, it doesn't affect us
much.

If having different languages is so culturally important, why isn't
someone inventing them? The answer is that we don't need to invent
languages any more than we need to control their evolutions – and
deaths. The amount we spend on Gaelic is not enough to ensure its
survival nor is it so little as to be trivial. Hugo Chavez will learn
like everyone else that making a cat walk backwards is easier than
controlling language. And the – possibly sad but not necessarily –
truth is that the same is true when it comes to keeping Gaelic on life
support.

[snip]


http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/How-do-you-say-.3838834.jp

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