[lg policy] Bretons fight to save language from extinction

[Harold Schiffman]

Bretons fight to save language from extinction

By Simon Hooper, CNN


    * Brittany's Breton-spekaing population has fallen to around 250,000
    * Most speakers over 70; language is losing 10,000 speakers a year
    * Activists say France doesn't recognize languages such as Breton,
Basque, Corsican
    * Campaigners hope to keep language alive by teaching a new
generation of speakers

Brittany, France (CNN) -- At a busy creperie amid the cobbled medieval
streets of Quimper in Brittany, northern France, a lunchtime crowd is
enjoying hearty galettes packed with combinations of meats, cheeses
and eggs.

The crepe has become a staple of French cuisine, but another aspect of
Brittany's culture -- the region's unique language -- is in danger of
dying with an aging generation of Breton speakers.

Almost two million people spoke Breton at the beginning of the 20th
century, according to Ofis ar Brezhoneg, the Breton Language Office.
That number has now declined to around 250,000 according to UNESCO,
which lists the language as severely endangered.

But the latest figures may already be out of date. Most Breton
speakers are now in their 70s or older and the language is estimated
to be losing around 10,000 speakers a year.

"The Breton language is the main aspect of our culture, our identity,"
Fulup Jakez, head of Ofis ar Brezhoneg, told CNN. "If we lose our
language we lose everything."

Brittany -- or Breizh in Breton -- has always had a seperate identity
to the rest of France. The northwestern peninsula was settled by
Celtic migrants who arrived from Great Britain in the fifth and sixth
centuries AD. The region remains proud of its heritage with a rich
tradition of Celtic music and culture that shares more in common with
Cornwall, Wales or Ireland than France.

Although Brittany came under French rule in the 16th century, it was
only after the French Revolution in 1789 that the country's regions
were properly incorporated into a unified state.

Central to that process was the use of French as the country's
official language, with revolutionary thinkers stating that regional
languages represented the "barbarism" of the past and needed to be
"obliterated." Brittany and other regions, such as Corsica, Alsace and
Basque areas in the southwest, are still living with the consequences
today.

"According to article two of the French constitution, there is only
one language of the republic. Collective rights are not recognized;
the Basque speakers in France are invisible," Paul Bilbao, a Basque
language campaigner, told CNN.

Bilbao said the situation in France was worse than in many other
European countries with linguistic minorities such as Spain and the
UK. France is one of few states not to have ratified the European
Charter for Regional and Minority Languages; a treaty which is
considered crucial by campaigners for the protection of the
continent's linguistic diversity.

Some go further still, drawing a comparison between the lack of
official recognition for Breton and other regional identities and
French attitudes to minorities highlighted by the recent deportations
of Roma migrants and the banning of Muslim headscarves.

"France is not at ease with diversity at all. It's part of the French
political culture to be scared of the outside and to be scared of the
inside as well," says Breton journalist Yann Rivallain, editor of
ArMen magazine.

For Breton speakers, the lowpoint in the region's relationship with
the French state came after World War II. Many activists were accused
of collaborating with the German occupiers -- and killed. For years
afterwards, the language was banned in schools, with playground
notices reading: "No spitting on the ground or speaking Breton."

"At that time, Breton did not exist in society," says Jakez. "It was a
private language you spoke at home or with your friends. There was no
place for the language in public life. It was something hidden."

Many parents simply chose not to pass on a language which was seen as
representative of a backward culture, fearing it would give their
children a disadvantage in life. Rivallain sees parallels with the
struggle of recent immigrant groups, such as those from Arab
backgrounds, to integrate into French life.

"The idea was if you give up your language, your background, your
traditions, you're going to have access to these amazing things that
are part of being French. And the second and third generation are
realizing that it's not happening at all," he told CNN. "The same
thing happened here. They asked my parents to give up everything. They
said you're going to get jobs, you're going to have a modern way of
life, but for a long time it didn't happen."

More recently however, Breton activists have benefited in their
efforts to promote the language from the support of local
organizations and politicians more sympathetic to regional issues.
Bilingual road signs have become commonplace, while Lorient's (An
Orient in Breton) Interceltique Festival has become an annual
celebration of Breton music, culture and identity.

Significantly, in 2008 the French National Assembly voted for a
constitutional amendment recognizing regional languages as "part of
French heritage." Last week, lawmakers also launched a regional
languages bill which, if passed, would commit the state to providing
regional language lessons to all children.

Davyth Hicks of Eurolang, which lobbies the European Union on language
issues, said the bill was encouraging but faced an uphill task to
become law.

"It's exactly what's needed to help safeguard France's regional
languages and help them in their efforts to avoid further
endangerment," said Hicks. "France should join with the rest of Europe
in nurturing its own linguistic diversity, not destroying it. France
claims to be the creator of modern human rights, but you have no
rights in France as a Breton or Corsican speaker."

But Xavier North, Delegate General for the French language and the
languages of France at the Ministry of Culture and Communication, told
CNN that the French government was spending one million euros a year
to promote regional languages, by hiring bilingual teachers and
funding organizations such as Ofis ar Brezhoneg. North said there were
already 400,000 school children taking lessons in regional languages
throughout France.

The situation in France was very different to other European countries
with 75 languages spoken in all French departments and territories,
including 15 regional languages, he added. By officially recognizing
these, North said, "the very essence of France would be put into
question... France faces a difficulty in recognizing all of these
languages. Historically speaking, France has been built on French."

But with Breton numbers dwindling so fast, campaigners such as
Rivallain fear political recognition may have come too late to halt
the language's demographic demise. "The French state is playing the
clock," he says. "We're going to move from 200,000 speakers to 70,000
in the next 10 years so the situation is very fragile."

In the frontline of efforts to keep Breton alive are schools such as
the Skol Diwan an Orient. "Diwan" is the Breton word for "seed" and
the name for an educational initiative intent on planting fluency in
the language in future generations. Catering for childen from nursery
age to Baccalaureat level, Diwan children are taught almost
exclusively in Breton.

"(There are) less and less older people still alive still speaking
Breton. So it's very important if we don't want to see the language
die, we've got to teach a new generation how to speak, how to write,
how to read, how to understand Breton," head teacher Valerie Le Gal
told CNN.

As the older Breton-speaking population passes away, Rivallain is
hopeful that a new wave of speakers can reinvent the language as a
vibrant and self-confident assertion of Breton identity in the 21st
century.

"You're seeing the first generation of people coming through who were
brought up bilingually in the schools; in the last three or four years
you hear Breton spoken all over the place," he says. "People go into
bars and speak the language and that's very exciting. It normalizes
the language."

Eliane Bramley, a parent at the Skol Diwan, is one of those who never
had the chance to learn Breton as a child, even though it was her
father's native tongue. Now she is learning the language with her
four-year-old daughter, Aziliz.

"We want her to have some Breton roots, out of respect for her
grandfather who was punished at school if he spoke Breton," says
Bramley.

"She's started to sing a lot in Breton, and to count. We see a
blackbird or a dog and we say it in Breton and she corrects me. And my
father is absolutely delighted to hear some Breton songs at home. I
can see he is a little bit emotional about it."



http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/11/brittany.language

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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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