Cornish Language Making a Comeback

The National Post (orig. The Sunday Telegraph) ^ | November 18, 2002 | Francis Elliott

[tdadams]

This is a fascinating subject. I don't agree with the linguistic fascism as it is with the Welsh language, but I think preserving a language is noble.

I was recently in Ireland and Scotland, visiting some of those towns where Gaelic is still the first language. The people there are very proud of their heritage and are vigilant in keeping Gaelic alive.

I would dispute the claim of 1.75 million speakers of Gaelic in Ireland, though. There are only a little over 3 million in the country. Gaelic as a first language is only used in remote parts of the sparsely populated western coast and some of the north. I'd say a great majority of the country does not know Gaelic.

[Koblenz]

What about that woman in the GE commercials who needs computers for half the kids in Ireland? She speaks Gaelic... And that's what makes that commercial improbable).

[Physicist]

This is welcome news. I wish people here in Pennsylvania were as serious about preserving Pennsylvania Dutch (a form of German).

[Timesink]

I have no problem with diverting some gummint funds to rescue dying languages. Keeping them alive has legitimate scientific, anthropological and historical value.

[Snuffington]

I would dispute the claim of 1.75 million speakers of Gaelic in Ireland, though. There are only a little over 3 million in the country. Gaelic as a first language is only used in remote parts of the sparsely populated western coast and some of the north. I'd say a great majority of the country does not know Gaelic.

If I'm not mistaken, it is a required subject in Irish schools these days. That may account for such a large number.

Additionally, I am told there has been a push in recent years to use Gaelic in all official government documents alongside English. I know that now you now see Gaelic as well as English on all the street signs, and that did not use to be the case.

Personally, I'm torn on my feelings about this sort of thing. I love the idea of preserving a heritage and culture. But language is one of the things that unites a nation. I don't think it's any better for the United Kingdom to be balkanized than it is for the United States.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I read somewhere that Hungarian and Finnish languages are related.

[Russ]

We hold evening adult classes in Pennsylvania Dutch at our local high school here in Berks County. Unfortunately,
only the Menonites and Amish in our area are still teaching
the language to their kids.

[BikerNYC]

Cornish Language Making a Comeback

This is great news. I'll finally be able to speak to my pet Cornish game hens.

[alisasny]

I happen to have a good friend from Ireland.

Only little bity babies can NOT speak gaelic. It is mandatory in school to age 18 so just about everyone can speak it.

[Right Wing Professor]

How dare they leave out Manx, a language that had native speakers well into the second half of the 20th century!

What this article doesn't mention is the deep divide within the Cornish language movement, between those who advocate 'pure', 16th century Cornish, and those who promote the language in the state in which it became extinct, by which time it had picked up a signigficant admixture of English. Last time I looked into it they were at each others' throats.

[Loyalist]

There a still a few hundred native-born speakers of Scots Gaelic in Cape Breton, and a couple thousand more who have learned it as a second tongue. Even into the late 19th century, there were monoglot Gaelic speakers there.

[Wright is right!]

"I read somewhere that Hungarian and Finnish languages are related."

It may be by grammar. The Turkish language uses Finnish grammar.

Michael

[southernnorthcarolina]

Me na vyn cows Sawsnak. Kernow bys vyken.

[Defiant]

Finnish and Hungarian both belong to the Finno-Ugrik family of languages, the main branch of which is Turkish.

[Virginia-American]

Finnish and Hungarian both belong to the Finno-Ugrik family of languages, the main branch of which is Turkish.

Finnish and Hungrian are indeed representative of the Finno and Ugric branches of Uralic, the others being the Samoyed languages and Sammic (Lapp). The Turkic languages (Turkish, Chuvash,Turkmen, Uzbik, Azeri, etc etc), along with the Mongolian and Tungus (Manchu, Evenki, etc) lanuages, constitute the Altaic family.

Some scholars believe that there is a Ural-Altaic family that unites these, but the late Joseph Greenberg (IMO the greatest linguist of the 20th century) showed that they are two branches of the EuroAsiatic family, which also includes Indo-European, Japanese, Korean, Ainu, Gilyak, Chukchi-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut.

BTW, the Celtic languages are one branch of Indo-European; for some reason a lot of people are under the mistaken idea that they're also related to Basque, which is not closely related to anything else.

[Cacique]

More multiculturalist crap. Why don't we bring back Aramaic or Latin or maybe Phoenician while we are at it?

Yes, let's maintain separate cultures and identities here in the states while we are at it. All this multiculturalist nonsense leads to further divisions and separatness and tribalism. Food for leftist movements who use it to divide and conquer.

I say that the day that English is the lingua franca in the entire planet can't get here soon enough. American English, that is.

[Loyalist]

I say that the day that English is the lingua franca in the entire planet can't get here soon enough. American English, that is.

Just as Latin, the lingua franca of its era, fragmented into dialects which became distinct Romance languages, so too will English dialects develop into separate languages.

[nina0113]

Aramaic hasn't gone anywhere - the Chaldean Catholics still speak it. Not sure if that's only in the liturgy or in their daily life.

[Consort]

....