UK Government ignores Cornish Language

Er, this is entirely frivolous and silly, isn't it?

>> The State of Massachussetts is bursting with English place names after glancing at the map.....Worcester, Boston, Leominster, Lynn, Cambridge, Norwich...up in New Hampshire (wow you've even pinched our counties as well!) there is Manchester and down Connecticut way there's Hartford and Stamford. <<

Head south and you'll find Dover and Newcastle in Delaware, Aberdeen and Salisbury in Maryland, Norfolk, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Richmond, Hampton, Newport, Bristol, and Covington all in Virginia.

And don't forget Dedham, Massachusetts (which is probably forgettable, but I have ancestors from there).

Deborah:

Dedham (England) is certainly UNforgettable......on the River Stour down there on the border between Essex and Suffolk and so picturesque and beautiful that the local landscape painter John Constable immortalised it in one of his most famous paintings...notably "The Haywain".

What has this to do with Language? Nothing much...except when I say I will probably get deleted by mjd's ruthless scissors so if I mention getting bollocked for misbehaviour I may be granted pardon.

Bollocking .....common UK term for a telling off, ticking off, admonishment, putting it politely. Bollocking could be considered "rude" as some people think it comes from the word "bollocks" meaning the front lower regions of the male anatomy. For this reason more polite people may say rollocking.

Bollocks is also an instant sharp reponse meaning "Rubbish, Nonsense, Crap etc "

<<Er, this is entirely frivolous and silly, isn't it?>>

Quite honestly, JJM........yes it is.

>Celtic Devon and the Wessex Society and Wessex Regionalists have now all jumped on the bandwagon and are promoting their distinctiveness and Devon has even recently copied the Cornish flag, but having a white cross on a green background, instead of the Cornish white cross on the black background (very original, not !!!)

The region of Galicia in Spain often claims to be a Celtic nation. Ironically, Galicia has its own minority language, and it isn't Celtic.

Lazar, well, it did historically have a Celtic population, even though its language today is not Celtic at all. But in this regard it's Celtic the way that France is Celtic, that is, purely historically, not the way Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany are Celtic.

Is there a difference in meaning between "bollocks" and "bollox"?

Damian, Dedham, England, certainly is picturesque. I shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss Dedham, Mass -- seems it contains the oldest known framed house in New England (1630-something).

"The region of Galicia in Spain often claims to be a Celtic nation. Ironically, Galicia has its own minority language, and it isn't Celtic."

I don't know if "claim" is the right word here. I mean it's a fact that the Celts were in Iberia. Not only do you hear bagpipes in some Portuguese folk music, but there are a lot of words of Celtic origin.

<<I don't know if "claim" is the right word here.>>

I meant that some Galicians claim to be the seventh Celtic nation, right after Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Man, and Cornwall.

<<I mean it's a fact that the Celts were in Iberia.>>

I knew that. The Celts were also in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria, but that doesn't mean that these countries are Celtic nations.

Deborah:

I think they're the same...not really, really sure to be honest.

Well I found my way to get into this interesting forum... Galicia (or Galizia, but not the same as Galitzia in Easter Europe).

The Celts were in North and Central Spain and, as has been said here in most of Central Europe. However, the process of Latinisation (or Romanisation) by the Roman Empire and Germanisation by the North Germanic tribes over the Celts was of a much higher degree in some places than other. The Romans they conquered the Iberian peninsula, and the island of Great Britain, but they only colonised the rischest areas like Andalusia, Catalonia, etc. and virtually they abandoned the poor areas as it was the Basque Country or Scotland.


Galicia was latinisied to a much lower degreee than the Mediterranean coast because it was poor. There mines and the romans "planted" latin population in some few places, which they did not do in the Basque Country. However, they did it to a much lower degree than rest of Spain. The result was a latin Christian country that still has many celtic pre-cristian traditions that have dispeared in most of Spain. In the most remotes parts of Glalicia Catholicism is mixed with pre-christian believes like the "meigas" (whitches), druids, remote Christian shrines where the inhabitants still believe in wird "superstitions", used traditional herbes to cure, etc. As an Andalusian I was surprised to find a place in XXi Century Western Europe like the old shrine of San Andrés de Teixidó, a tiny remote mountain villeage full of whitches, where the population attends pre-christian rituals mixed with Cathotlic symbols in a similar way to the Caribbean Catholics use voodo. The funny thing is that it is a tabú in the Galizian society that nobody talks about in public, but they all respect and to some extent they believe. As they say: "I don't believe in witches but I know that they exist". In the Gael


While Galician is a form of old Portuguese and it is not doubt a Latin and Catholic country, you can find celtic remains in the culture, because the Catholic Church and the King did not bother about them. There is much discussion going on about whether Galician language should be unified with Portugeuese, which is what is argued by the biggest oposition party in the Galician Parliament, the Galician Nationalist (a kind of SNP or Plaid Cymru). With the independence of Portugal from the Kingdom of Galicia, Portuguese continued a fast evolution that did not take place in Galicia (and Brazilians have gone even further). Instead, Galician has been receiving a huge influence from Spanish words in lastest times. It is a similar situation to that of Flamish and Dutch before the unfification of the language in the 19th century. However, a lot of people consider them the Galaico-Portuguese language.

It is a similar process to that of the orginal Scottish caltholics (Gaels), who are not descedents of the Irish inmmigrants of the 19th and 20th Irish emmigrations (Catholic English-speakers of Glasgow). The calivinst reformation did not get to the most remote parts of Scotland in the South West Hebrides (Barra, South Uist) and in a part of the North West of Scotland (Fort William) because the Scottish Kings and the newly reformed Church of Scotland did not bother about those remote places.


Finally, it is not known that we have a fith official minority language in Spain: Occitan. It has a lower level of recognition than Spanish, Basque, Catalan and Galitian but it is recognised as the official language of a small region isolated from Spain in the Pirenees, the Valley of Aran ("Valle de Arán"), in the Constitution of Catalonia. Public administrations in Valley of Aran have the obligation to provide their services in Catalan, Occitan and Spanish. Primary schools are now Occitan medium schools, after many years of Spanish medium only and later just a few years of Catalan only education policies. I'm not sure but I think secondary schools are still mixed Catalan and Occitant medium. It's considered that Spanish language and cuture are so strong that it is teached as a foreing second or third language to guarantee a similar level of knowledge to that of a native speaker. I wanted to mention this because some of you are Occitans.

SOrry for my spelling, which is the result of my negligence.


A quick word about my host country, Scotland, and the former discussion about Irish and Scottish, and wheather Gaelic is a national language in Scotland. In my opinion the argument should be about Celtic languages and cutures and English (Anglo-Germanic) languages and cultures.


The Picts and the Brittonics who inhabited Scotland during the Roman times were Celts, product of an old celt invation from Eastern Europe. Gaelic or some different types of galeic languages were probably spoken in all Scotland as they were is most of Britain at that time. Obviously it was not modern Scottish Gaelic but some sort of old Gaelic. A second Celt invasion took place in the very early medieval ages with the Gaels from Irleand who spread modern Scottish Gaelic through the Highlands and Islands as well as Strathclyde (Glasgow). It was a very easy shift to move from the old Gaelics of the Picts and Brittonics to the new modern Gaelic, the Scottish Gaelic.


The Angles from Jutland invaded the Lowlands and broght their old English language with them at early medieval ages too. As in England they managed to imposed their language to the Celtic peoples. Since then no Gaelic, whether old or modern Scottish Gaelic has ever been spoken in the Eastern Lothians (Edinburgh), my understanding is some low parts of the North East never spoke any Gaelic since then too. The political separation from England kept the old English or Germanic Scots alive for a longer period than in England where the shift towards modern ENglish was much faster. With the unfication with England the shift of the old English or Scots towards modern English has not stopped, creating an different English dialect that is now widely spoken in the Lowlands, specially in the big cities. However, some part of the rural population in the lowlands still speak old English or Scots, which is something that you cannot find in England anymore.

In any case Scottish Gaelic was the official language for a few centuries in Scotland. However, while the language was widely spoken in Scotland, in the case of the Lothians and part of the North East only the ruling elite spoken Gaelic.

The language broght in by the Angles spread all over Strahclyde and later to the rest of the lowlands at the expense of Gaelic, whether in the form of Scots at the begining, or in the form of modern English dialect in the XX Century.

Personally I cannot see Scots (the Scottish form of old English) surviving because it is too close to English and unfortunaltly the population in the lowlands does not care much about Scots language. They feel that their identity is well match with their modern dialect of English language. They do not feel English as a foreing language from the South that has been implemented over Scots language. I have not met an English speaker in Scotland who wants to take Scots lessons or send their children to a Scots medium school. Sending your children to a Scots medium school would be a strong anathema for an English native speaker of the lowlands ("what is the point of learning a language nobody elses speaks?"). For me that is the proof that the modern Anglo speakers see themselves English as their natural heritage from Scots.


In that sense they are different from the Gaels and many English speakers who are decendents from Gales in that they are trying to preserve their Celtic language. Even when their third generation emigrated to Glasgow and no longer speak it they go to the free courses organised by Glasgow City Council to learn at least some of it.

This last argument is the reason why I am a strong defender of Gaelic and its visivility on the street. Fine, probably it should not be the case in the Lothians and Abeerdeen where it was offical language but not spoken by the population, but definetly in the city where I have lived for three years, in Glasgow I see no reson why the sings whould not be in both languages as it happens in Brussels. Germanic Scots can never become a Scottish national language because lowlanders don'd care about it, they want English-only.

Sorry to talk toom much today, but I've been looking forward to talk about these issues for a long time.

The responsability of the Cornish language is of the population in there first and foremost, because they are the ones who vote to their county council.

Before devolution and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2004, Gaelic was already official in the council of the Western Islands. Even before making it offical and against the opinion of a non-devolved and non-elected Scottish Office dominated by the Conservative Party, the Council of the Western Isles managed to established Galeic medium schools with the support of the population.

In the Spanish Basque Country the first Ikastolas (Basque medium Schools) were private schools funded with private money before devolution to the Basque Region. Even before that, the Province (County) of Alava created some Ikastolas during the Franco regime with public funding and no support from the Franco central government and that was during a dictatorial regime who did not like Basque language very much.

The resurrection of a dead language like Cornish is a nice sentiment, but hardly a practical one.

Both Welsh and Gaelic are at least represented by pockets of native speakers. However, anyone "speaking" Cornish these days is likely a native English speaker who has taught himself - a fine thing to do in its own right but not really the basis for insisting on public monies.