We were talking about the CVS pharmacy chain at dinner the other night, and my 15-year-old son was extolling the stores’ amazing virtues, not least of which was that they seem to be found anywhere with a population over 500: “They have everything a person needs,” my son gushed. “Shampoo, aspirin, food, candy, magazines, wall-to-wall carpeting, and prescription drugs. And anywhere you go, every CVS is exactly the same!”
The English language could already be the CVS of the linguistic world: It’s got Latin, Sanskrit, Old Germanic, vocabulary from all over the globe, volumes from Shakespeare, American musical songs from Rogers & Hammerstein, rock and roll words, technology terms, old words with new meanings, new expressions with old words; and you can find English spoken just about everywhere; English is the common language of India and the corporate world in general; it is the principal language link between all foreigners; and it even serves as a link to people who speak the same language but with different accents, as in:
A French student of mine was once standing in line at the post office in Paris, while a man from the south of France was asking the clerk for what sounded like, “Taym-bra,” (instead of the more nasal standard French pronunciation of the word, “timbre”); the clerk, flustered, barked out, “Tell me in English!” and the southern French man immediately barked back, “Stamps!”
So, yes, in some ways English, like CVS, is wonderful -- convenient, safe, and certainly fills many needs. Still, aren’t we all a little disappointed when a store closes and we imagine what we’d love to see take its place … only to find out it’s another CVS (or bank or real estate office)?
At this point, most of us Americans take it for granted that people from other countries will most likely speak English, or at least be acquainted with it. And who can blame us? Think back to the Mayflower pilgrims for a minute. As the story goes, those pilgrims who survived that first horrible winter in the bitter wilds of the New World, where for thousands of years only thousands of Native American tribes had been living and speaking their tribal languages, were greeted in the spring by the Wampanoag native, Squanto -- who actually spoke English! (He had been kidnapped some years before and had spent time as a slave in England.) As my kids would say, “How random is that?!” And yet I’ve never read of Miles Standish’s amazement at this coincidence – did he simply cluck, “Quite right!” to himself and then ask about proper farming techniques?
So … as we arrive at the annual celebration of the Irish, St. Patrick’s Day, it’s time to give some thought to this day from both a cultural and a linguistic point of view – if only as a small, temporary antidote to the CVS-ization of American-Anglo language and culture.
The Irish, as the saying goes, are lucky: Even as somewhat goofy as St. Patrick’s Day is (though I love men in kilts playing bagpipes; and also love cupcakes with dyed-green frosting and dark green sprinkles), I can’t think of any other group of hyphenated-Americans that gets a whole national day of celebration as the Irish do every March 17 – parades, green beer, a dyed-green Chicago River, even green bagels – from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. As for St. Patrick the man – who’s he?! St. Paddy’s Day in the U.S. is about being Irish – even if you’re not. And though I have never bought a green carnation or a “Pinch Me, I’m Irish!” button in my life, to the whole event I say, “Erin Go Bragh!” (Irish Gaelic for “Ireland Forever!”)
The reason for my enthusiasm is, Ireland might be forever (or until the predicted effects of global warming wash the island out), but their Gaelic language might vanish far sooner.
At the moment, Irish Gaelic is on the list of Endangered Languages (http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_index.html) Figures vary:
According to the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages (last updated 1999) there are perhaps only 20,000 speakers of Irish Gaelic left; According to a 2005 book, “Beginner’s Irish” by Gary Rosenstock, there are 30,000 native speakers and 100,000 speakers who have learned it as a second language. This could mean renewed interest since the last UNESCO survey, or just … different figures. But one more thing: there are three Irish dialects (Ulster, Connaught, and Munster) of which most only speak one. Still, there is an Irish radio station catering to all three dialects and an Irish TV station (http://www.tg4.ie/).
In Scotland, according to the UNESCO report, more than 50,000 claimed to know the language, but less than half spoke it actively. Welsh, the healthiest of the Gaelic groups, might have up to 250,000 regular, active speakers. So though this doesn’t spell immediate doom for those Gaelic branches, either could die out in a generation or two if children do not learn the language. Though children are now being taught Welsh in school and more adults are interested in learning it, it’s too early to tell if this will stop the erosion completely -- but it’s a good sign. After centuries of being beaten back, Gaelic is finding some muscle.
Once upon a time the Gaelic language, culture and literature ranked just behind the Greeks and Romans. Though the Celtic tribes that spoke Gaelic were mainly fierce warriors and not too meticulous at writing everything down, they did have a strong oral tradition; and what they did manage to write down has been collected and treasured in their many Irish myths, as well as in the original legend of King Arthur, a 6th century Celt and Gaelic-speaking warrior himself.
Irish Gaelic’s fall began long, long ago with the English colonization of Ireland in 1169; Anglicization intensified in the 1500’s – King Henry VIII even issued an order to Ireland in 1537 entitled, “An Act for the English Order, Habit and Language,” which discouraged Gaelic. By the 20th century, children who slipped up and spoke Gaelic at school were punished. Even parents came to realize if their children were to succeed in the world, they had to speak English – not Gaelic. And once a language is no longer handed down to the next generation, its lifespan is severely limited.
David Crystal, a leading language authority, believes that of the world’s roughly 6,000 languages, a good half of them could vanish in the next century or so from the mere lack of speakers – some have fewer than 1000; those on the verge of extinction may have 100 or 10, or even just 1. And once those speakers are gone, the language is gone too. Two other forms of Gaelic, Cornish (from England’s Cornwall) and Manx (from the Isle of Man) have already died out.
What helps languages survive is having people believe that the language is important enough to speak regularly and properly and to pass on to their children. Cultural pride helps – and a national celebration like St. Patrick’s Day can nurture Irish pride, and interest in Gaelic might go along with that.
Gaelic, despite its strange spellings and difficult pronunciation, is an Indo-European language like English. Linguists more knowledgeable than I am can see a correlation in some of Gaelic’s words for words in Sanskrit, one of the bases of Western languages.
But Gaelic is different from other Western languages in many more ways than it’s similar. It only has 18 letters (no j, k, q, v, w, x, y, z); and most simple sentences go verb-subject-object: “Saw I a play last night.” Nor does the language have distinct words for “yes” and “no.” That’s why, in answer to a question like, “Are you going home for dinner now,” you might hear an Irish person say, “I am;” or, “I’m not.” Welsh Gaelic is said to be a particularly melodic language, and the influence can be heard in their English:
In the movie version of “My Fair Lady,” Professor of Phonetics Henry Higgins is astonished at the natural language ability that Eliza Doolittle’s boozing, panhandling father has; at one point, Mr. Doolittle, exasperated at not being able to explain why he wants a little money from the professor, exclaims, “I’m willing to tell you! I’m wanting to tell you! I’m waiting to tell you!” Higgins, moved by the rhythm and alliteration in “willing,” “wanting,” and “waiting,” says to his friend, Col. Pickering, “That would be the Welsh strain in him.”
But let’s go back to that prediction that of 6,000 languages in the world now only 3,000 will be spoken in a hundred years. I find it hard to even name more than 25 languages off the top of my head, you too might think that 3,000 languages are an absolute wealth of words. But language is not just about tourists or business people communicating with native speakers and other foreigners. It’s about diversity -- as much as is saving the snow leopard and blue whale. Animals have it over languages because you can see them – and when photographed by National Geographic, they’re often really cute. A language, on the other hand, particularly one down to its last dying speaker, leaves just an invisible breath; if that language is lucky, there might be a field worker’s notes on its grammar and vocabulary. Otherwise, a world simply evaporates.
So on this St. Paddy’s Day, consider treating yourself to a nice, green-frosted cupcake adorned with a small plastic shamrock, and take a moment to appreciate the Irish – or perhaps some other nationality or ethnic group – be they Laplanders, Outer Mongolians, or Cherokees. Every language reflects a unique spirit, history, even fashion sense. And imagine that every time a language is lost, a new CVS opens up in its place.
P.S. Three-quarters of what I know in Irish Gaelic has already been displayed with “Erin Go Bragh;” but walking up the Bowery the other day, I added one more word to my vocabulary -- thanks to an Irish bar by the name of “Slainte” (pronounced Slahn-tya, also in Scottish Gaelic), which means “Cheers!”
And in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here are some handy Irish Gaelic proverbs with English translations to keep in mind:
(Sorry, but the Gaelic pronunciation is anyone’s guess)
Is minic a bhris beal duine a shorn.
“A person’s mouth often broke his nose;”
Na diol do chearc la fliuch.
“Don’t sell your hen on a wet day;”
and
Maireann croi eadrom I bhad.
“The light heart lives long.”
A top o’ the morning to you all …. And Slainte!
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