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rfmcdonaldThere's been a minor political scandal precipitated by the impolitic statements of Jason Kenney, the Canadian federal Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, on Canadian Gaelic, the branch of Scots Gaelic that was transplanted across the Atlantic Ocean to Atlantic Canada--particularly Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island, but also to the remainder of that province as well as my own Prince Edward Island.
For a greater taste of popular sentiment, see the multiple angry comments at the website of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald.
An opinion piece published in that same paper written by one Jerry White argues that Gaelic can still be saved.
The thing is, Canadian Gaelic is in a far, far worse position than the people who compare it to Romansh or Yiddish, never mind French, seem to realize. Canadian French is spoken by a solid bloc of seven million people, about half of whom can only speak Canadian French, who live concentrated in a single province where Francophones form the majority population, one branch of a worldwide Francophone community where regular speakers number in excess of a hundred million people. Yiddish is the traditional language of the Ashkenazic Jews, at its pre-Holocaust peak spoken by millions of people around the world and widely used in all fields of public and private life, still spoken regularly despite everything by substantial numbers? Romansh? That language, as I noted in 2009, is spoken by tens of thousands of people but is arguably doomed by, among other things, the division of a small language community into smaller factions as each tries to promote its own dialect.
Canadian Gaelic, at last count, is nearly moribund, with just over two thousand people in all of Canada speaking it as their mother tongue as of the 2011 census. Even if they all lived in Nova Scotia, that would still amount to a third of a percent of that province's population.
Canadian Gaelic shouldn't be compared with Punjabi or Mandarin, I agree: those two languages are much more widely spoken within Canada and have more promising futures. If the current support lent to Gaelic by Nova Scotia's government had been given a century ago, perhaps the language would have a brighter future. As things stand, I actually tend to agree with Kenney on the grounds that spending federal funds promoting a moribund language that no one cared much for until very recently is a waste of federal funds.
Gaelic speaking Nova Scotians are not happy with federal minister Jason Kenney.
Kenney has weighed in on the merits of the language and the government's role in preserving it. Kenney said federal government money should not be used to promote languages that are fighting for survival.
"I think we should focus on the common languages that unite us in our diversity, English and French," said Kenney. "I encourage communities to maintain their heritage languages, be they Gaelic or Punjabi or Mandarin, but that they do so with their own funds."
In the Cape Breton community of Mabou, those words are not going over well. In Mabou, you'll find street and road signs that show you the Gaelic language is alive and well.
Former Nova Scotia Premier and now CEO of the Gaelic College, Rodney MacDonald, said the Gaelic language is the cultural fabric of the Celtic community.
"I think the minister should apologize to the Gaelic community of Nova Scotia. He should apologize for the remarks. They were inappropriate. Like they say in politics, it's never too late to do the right thing."
For the last six years, the Nova Scotia government has had an Office of Gaelic Affairs. This year's budget is a little more than $500,000.
At the local grocery store in the heart of the community, people were saying the Gaelic language is important.
"It's a cultural thing and it's as important as Mi'kmaq and French is to the culture of the country," said Janice Langille. "It's all part and parcel of our heritage and should be preserved."
"Well there's a lot of things in French is that a waste of money," said Maureen Hart.
For a greater taste of popular sentiment, see the multiple angry comments at the website of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald.
An opinion piece published in that same paper written by one Jerry White argues that Gaelic can still be saved.
Nova Scotia Gaelic is facing its “Yiddish moment.” Yiddish was, for generations, the language of the shtetl, the small Jewish communities of central and eastern Europe whose culture was dealt its final blow by the Holocaust, just as Gaelic was once the language of the Highlands and was dealt its near-death blow by the Highland Clearances.
Both Yiddish and Gaelic made it over to the New World and, for a while, did fairly well; Yiddish was once very strong indeed in New York (where the Yiddish edition of the newspaper The Forward is still published) and Montreal, just as Gaelic was once an inescapable part of the life of Cape Breton. And both languages have declined very sharply.
Both have some fluent speakers left, but with Yiddish as with Gaelic, most are elderly. Younger people who consider either language part of their identity rarely (not never, but rarely) know enough to hold down a conversation. It’s more typical for them to know snatches: songs, little sayings, a few words and phrases. Nobody who spends any time getting to know either Gaelic or Yiddish can avoid seeing that reality.
It does not have to be that way. Gaelic speakers have rights, and they could start to assert those rights more forcefully. Nova Scotia’s Office of Gaelic Affairs offers a model of how that could be done. Anyone who has visited their website knows that every-thing they do is available in Gaelic. Everyone who has been to an event where they are present has seen their indefatigable chief Lewis MacKinnon speaking mellifluous Gaelic; whenever he says anything in public, he says it in Gaelic first, and then repeats it in English. The office is fully capable of doing the everyday and sometimes tedious work of government in Gaelic.
Rodney MacDonald is working to move St. Ann’s Colaisde na Gàidhlig, formerly known as the Gaelic College, in the same direction. Institutions like these are pointing those of us who care about Gaelic’s future as a living language away from the realm of the folkloric and sentimental, and towards the reality of the world we live in.
They are pointing us towards Romansh. Romansh is, along with German, French and Italian, one of Switzerland’s four “national languages.” But unlike the other three, it’s not an “official language.” The Swiss government doesn’t use it more than it has to, and you don’t encounter it much outside of small mountain communities, where it has always had to struggle against German for survival. But Romansh speakers have made a lot of progress over the last years.
Advocates of Nova Scotia Gaelic have worked hard to get the language in more schools, and that’s a struggle in Romansh communities as well. Nova Scotians who drive towards Cape Breton start to notice bilingual signage as the approach the causeway, and signage is an area where Romansh communities have actually done quite well. You can get your phone bill in Romansh, if you ask for it.
The thing is, Canadian Gaelic is in a far, far worse position than the people who compare it to Romansh or Yiddish, never mind French, seem to realize. Canadian French is spoken by a solid bloc of seven million people, about half of whom can only speak Canadian French, who live concentrated in a single province where Francophones form the majority population, one branch of a worldwide Francophone community where regular speakers number in excess of a hundred million people. Yiddish is the traditional language of the Ashkenazic Jews, at its pre-Holocaust peak spoken by millions of people around the world and widely used in all fields of public and private life, still spoken regularly despite everything by substantial numbers? Romansh? That language, as I noted in 2009, is spoken by tens of thousands of people but is arguably doomed by, among other things, the division of a small language community into smaller factions as each tries to promote its own dialect.
Canadian Gaelic, at last count, is nearly moribund, with just over two thousand people in all of Canada speaking it as their mother tongue as of the 2011 census. Even if they all lived in Nova Scotia, that would still amount to a third of a percent of that province's population.
Canadian Gaelic shouldn't be compared with Punjabi or Mandarin, I agree: those two languages are much more widely spoken within Canada and have more promising futures. If the current support lent to Gaelic by Nova Scotia's government had been given a century ago, perhaps the language would have a brighter future. As things stand, I actually tend to agree with Kenney on the grounds that spending federal funds promoting a moribund language that no one cared much for until very recently is a waste of federal funds.
