#gaelige

[llyfrenfys]

I'd like to preface this with that this is a screenshot of a post I saw a few days ago in the #welsh tag and that the OP has since deleted this post, but the sentiment is something I'd like to address since I see a lot of parallels with this kind of thinking in other contexts, such as in LGBTQIA+ rights conversations.

So, the most obvious elephant in the room is the idea that Welsh is super widely spoken in Wales now and that it isn't in as much danger as other Celtic languages. This idea is wishful thinking at best and erases the very real danger that Welsh is in and that it could be lost just as easily as Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Cornish (which is related to Welsh) actually did die out and has had to be revived. To make a metaphor out of this, we classify languages on a scale of non-threatened to endangered in a similar way to how we classify species.

Here are the statuses of Welsh and Irish as of 2010 (above) and the statuses of Lions and Tigers (below).

On paper tigers are more 'in danger' than lions. But that does not mean that lions are suddenly not in danger at all. The little bracket above CR, EN and VU labels all of these classifications as threatened. It isn't (and definitely shouldn't) be a competition of 'who is most in danger' because you do not want the thing you care about (whether it be a species or a language) to be in danger.

To come back to the original screenshot "they* [Welsh speakers] have always had the means and the ways because the English didn't beat or slaughter them for speaking it"- on the most basic of levels, this is just incorrect. The Welsh Not was a wooden token hung around schoolchildren's necks if they spoke Welsh in school. If someone else spoke Welsh the Not would be hung around their neck. At the end of the school day, whoever was wearing the Not would be beaten and caned by their teachers. I needn't go into much detail but there have been concerted efforts to beat Welsh out of schoolchildren. With the lions vs tigers metaphor, making the claim Welsh speakers have never been beaten for speaking Welsh because they always had the means and ways, while Irish speakers were beaten and never had the means or ways is like claiming poachers have never shot lions, only tigers. Bottom line is, lions and tigers are both victim to poaching and both species have suffered as a result. Similarly, Welsh and Irish have both suffered language loss and both need conservation efforts in order to survive.

(*sidenote- the consistent use of 'them' and 'they' in the original post is definitely indicative of a 'us vs them' sentiment which is a deeply unhelpful attitude to have when it comes to endangered languages and the Celtic languages in particular)

I see parallels with LGBTQIA+ rights in this situation. When equal marriage came in for gay and lesbian couples in the UK in 2014, many allies began to act like gay rights had now been achieved and that gay issues had been done, they're solved. Except, they really weren't (and aren't). Progress has been made in Wales and undeniably Welsh is doing the best out of the living Celtic languages. But that doesn't mean Welsh has been saved or that full equality for Welsh speakers has been achieved. It very much hasn't. The sentiment of the post in the screenshot is not conducive to helping Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Putting down Welsh speakers and erasing Welsh-language history will not save Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Pretending Welsh has had it easy in some kind of lap of luxury is a deeply harmful and bogus claim.

I'll address the tags under the cut as this post is getting long.

To address the tags, personal feelings ≠ an accurate reading of a situation. Nor is it praxis, for that matter. Why is pride in Welsh different/less good than pride in Irish? Is it the assumed proximity to England? If so, that's a terrible claim to make. Not only that, but Scotland is also next to England- does that make pride in Scottish Gaelic the same as pride in Welsh according to this metric? It's a ludicrous thing to say and deeply insensitive to the needs of Scottish Gaelic and Welsh speakers, who cannot help any current or former proximity to England.

Additionally, proximity to England ≠ worse. I know it's a popular internet joke to hate on England because of English attempts to eradicate the Celtic languages, but when the joke becomes praxis, it does not help. England ≠ a place devoid of Celtic languages either. Many English counties near the Welsh border actually have communities of Welsh speakers, such as Oswestry (Croesoswallt) in Shropshire. Cornwall is also home to many speakers of revived Cornish. It does a disservice to Celtic speakers in England to insinuate that proximity to England taints or corrupts them somehow. This is how ethnonationalism starts and we ain't about that.

And "#it feels a little.... blehhhhh you were seen as sophisticated and english enough and you assimilated however the Irish and the Scots? #brutish animals that need to be culled". So, this is arguably one of the worst things to say about a Celtic language- or any threatened language in general. First of all, the 'you were seen as' - 'you' is very telling. The switch from 'them', 'they' to 'you' indicates that this sentiment is aimed at Welsh speakers directly. This was likely a subconscious thing that OP wasn't thinking about when they wrote this. But it does indicate unhealthy feelings of jealousy and bitterness unfairly directed at Welsh speakers, who are also struggling. This righteous anger at the decline of Irish and Scottish Gaelic would be better directed at efforts to help promote those languages- some useful things to get involved with are LearnGaelic, similar to DysguCymraeg but for Scottish Gaelic or supporting channels such as Irish channel TG4 by watching their programmes.

The idea that Welsh speakers were or are 'sophisticated and english enough' is insulting and carries with it a lot of baggage of how any of these assumptions came about. Welsh speakers were definitely not seen as sophisticated. Where Welsh was 'tolerated', it was treated as a curiosity, a relic of a bygone age. Classic museification which all Celtic languages and cultures suffer from as well. Welsh was not tolerated in any legal sense since 1535- with English becoming the only valid administrative language and the language of Welsh courts after England annexed Wales into its Kingdom. Monolingual Welsh speakers suddenly had no access to any legal representation, unless they learned English. This is no voluntary assimilation- it is an act of survival for many speakers of minoritised languages to 'assimilate' into the dominant culture, or else risk losing access to legal security and other kinds of infrastructure. You need only ask any non-native English speaker living in an Anglophone country what that process is like. Welsh people did not see English incursion as an opportunity to become 'sophisticated and english enough', they had to assimilate in order to survive.

The "Irish and the Scots? #brutish animals that need to be culled" is also painfully misrepresenting a very complex social and political process that unfolded over the span of hundreds of years. The phrasing itself of 'brutish animals that need to be culled' speaks to righteous anger at the damage done to these languages and cultures, but it reinforces negative stereotypes about the Irish and Scots themselves. It also is more complicated than a simple English hatred of anything non-Anglo, since the English conception of particularly the Irish changed a lot over the centuries. It was (and still is) rarely consistent with itself. See: the enemy is both strong and weak. The very earliest Celticists were by and large, Anglos or French.

Ernest Renan (1823-1892) for example, was an early French Celticist who published La Poésie des races celtiques (Poetry of the Celtic Races- English translation) in which he says:

"... we must search for the explanation of the chief features of the Celtic character. It has all the failings, and all the good qualities, of the solitary man; at once proud and timid, strong in feeling and feeble in action, at home free and unreserved, to the outside world awkward and embarrassed. It distrusts the foreigner, because it sees in him a being more refined than itself, who abuses its simplicity. Indifferent to the admiration of others, it asks only one thing, that it should be left to itself. It is before all else a domestic race, fitted for family life and fireside joys. In no other race has the bond of blood been stronger, or has it created more duties, or attached man to his fellow with so much breadth and depth"

Yeah. This guy (unsurprisingly) was a white supremacist. Note that this sentiment is being applied to all people considered Celtic by Renan- Irish, Welsh, Breton, Scottish, Cornish, Manx etc. None unscathed by the celtophobia of the day. In this period, Celticity was romanticised (yet disparaged at the same time). It is less 'brutish animals' and more 'archaic, time-frozen peoples' in this period. Of course, 'brutish animals' attitudes towards Celticity did still exist, but it is disingenuous to act as if it was this attitude alone which drove English celtophobia. Like many things, it is always more complicated and never clear cut as it might seem.

I'll bring this to a close shortly, but returning to OP's suggestion that the Welsh assimilated and the Scots and Irish did not, is also incorrect in that some Scots did have to assimilate to survive as well. The Statutes of Iona (1609) required Scottish Gaelic speaking Highland chiefs to send their sons away to be educated in Scots and/or English in Protestant schools. Many did as the statutes required, which led to further language loss in the Highlands of Scottish Gaelic. These are acts of survival- and not ones always taken willingly.

This has been a long post but it's one which I felt I wanted to address. There's no need for infighting between speakers of Celtic languages over who has it worse. There isn't any answer to that question, nor is it a good use of time or energy. All in all, the Celtic languages have suffered greatly over the years and its only just now that some of them are turning a corner. If you care about these languages, put your energy into something good. Only through active work will these languages be saved for generations to come.

#long post #lukes originals #cymraeg #gaelige #gaidhlig #Irish #Welsh #Scottish Gaelic #politik #not dictionary related #Celticist #Celtic Studies #This took a lot of energy to write so if you found this post useful please consider reblogging

[brw]

Irish poetry is awesome it's either like "God bless the beautiful and proud nation of Ireland and all of her natural beauty and culture", "God bless the beautiful and proud woman I am in love with who is a metaphor for the beautiful and proud nation of Ireland" or "Fucking English bastards ruining everything"

#brieuc.txt #*SpongeBob meme* this is an international vast oversimplification for comedic purposes #irish poetry has a very rich and diverse range and especially modern Irish poetry is unique and beautiful n you should read more irish poets #other than heaney and yates #gaelige

[biboomerangboi]

Thinking about how the closest I get to frequently speaking in my mother tongue is by saying my friends names and how that’s both the most beautiful and saddest thing in the world.

#all my friends have Irish names and I love that so much but it’s so sad at the same time that’s the closest we get to fluency #hozier what have you done #butchered tongue #you did this #irish #gaelige #Hozier

[burninglights]

Hozier’s Butchered Tongue is so resonant for me. Though my mother tongue wasn’t subject to a campaign of eradication like Scots Gaelic, Gaelic and Welsh, I have lost most of it to assimilation.

I’ve been relearning it for about a year now, and while it is very much a butchered tongue in my mouth, the act of speaking it is an act of resistance, of recovery, of joy.

It is still singing in me, here, above the ground - that has to count for something.

The lyrics are in Scots Gaelic (which I have been Learning more about the history of thanks to @ayeforscotland ‘s server — I highly recommend you watch his in defence of Scots Gaelic video) and my own mother tongue Setswana, and translate to “I feel at home, hearing a music few still understand.”

Finally, the person in the last panel is singing/shouting against a backdrop of newspaper headlines (one reads ‘Independence Now!’ as a nod to Welsh & Scottish independence movements) because fighting to bring back the Welsh, Gaelic & Scots Gaelic languages is a continuing challenge.

Special thanks to @relnicht for all his help with the Scots Gaelic!

#em.txt #em.jpeg #hozier #hozier fanart #butchered tongue #unreal unearth #fanart #Scots Gaelic #Setswana #hozier album #hozier unreal unearth #hozier butchered tongue #if anyone’s interested I’ll explain it panel by panel #comic #gaelige #edited to add context!!!

[belle-keys]

Irish Language (Gaeilge)

Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin. There's no fireside like your own.

– Irish proverb

#and fock the english #i love you ireland #big up cork big up derry big up dublin #shout out barry keoghan and oscar wilde and fiona gallagher and ayo edebiri #ireland #irish #irish language #irish literature #gaelic #gaelige #languages #foreign languages #langblr #studyblr #langspo #studyspo #celtic #irish aesthetic #celtic aesthetic #moodboard #nature #nature moodboard #countryside #irish countryside #indigenous languages

[oscarisaacasimov]

Hozier sings in English, lucky for me to understand him, lucky for him to make good money, but remember the violence that made our world Anglophone, the Gaelige of his homeland will always sound foreign, a poet cut off from his mother tongue.

A butchered tongue is a tragedy, more poignant when the message comes from such a blessed tongue, a talented singer and lyricist.

What other voices have been lost.

#hozier #butchered tongue #unreal unearth #dantes inferno #seventh circle of hell #gaelige #anglophone #anti colonialism #irish history #irish language #british commonwealth #imperialism #violence #indigenous people #lamguages #wexford rebellion

[dougielombax]

Imagine being scared of a language.

Pathetic.

This happens all the time where I live regarding loyalists and the Irish language.

They’re TERRIFIED of the indigenous language of the country, they’ve convinced themselves that they’re indigenous and that the Irish language is apparently a satanic invention.

Neither of those are true but they’ll believe it anyway.

They’re so fragile that it’s comical.

Ashamed of nothing. Offended by everything.

I’ve seen it before in many other countries and with many other languages.

Basque, Armenian, Syriac, Adyghe, Kabardian, Hawaiian, Kurdish, etc.

It’s a language!

It’s harmless!

#dougie rambles #personal stuff #vent post #language #languages #language revitalization #language revival #syriac #syriac language #irish language #gaelige #political crap #ireland #fuck loyalism #brainrot in action #fragility

[antlertalks]

hello! i'm tobi, and i love lingustics. my pronouns are he/him. i am fluent in english and learning irish and french. i love constructed languages, too! please talk to me in any of my languages about languages (or anything at all)! :D

bonjour! je m'appelle tobi, et j'adore la linguistique. mes pronoms sont il. je parle couramment l'anglais et j'apprends l'irlandais et le français. j'aime aussi les langues construites ! n'hésitez pas à me parler dans n'importe laquelle de mes langues à propos des langues (ou de n'importe quoi d'autre).

<STILL WORKING ON MY IRISH INTRODUCTION>

#langblr #english #french #français #irish #gaelige

[angstydiaz]

fellow irish tumblr users! mutuals! followers! random other ppl who may see this!! pls sign this (there is a not in Ireland option as well!)

the fact they're even going currently is disgusting. you can not shake hands with those committing genocide. not only do they besmirch our own history, but they are also ignoring the thousands of Palestinians who have been killed and the thousands who are displaced and under attack. solidarity with Palestine is insanely important and this would be a slap in the face to that. There is a protest tomorrow in Dublin for those who can make it.

#ireland #irish #gaelige #politics #sinn féin #palestine #free palestine #irish solidarity with palestine #anti zionisim #anti colonialism #anti imperialism #signal boost

[llyfrenfys]

Some really good notes from my post courtesy of @margridarnauds about that person accidentally using a white nationalist slogan to support the Welsh language:

I know someone who is doing a PhD on the Far Right and the co-option of cultural movements and these tags are bang on. Its the difference between a healthy nationalism and an unhealthy nationalism. A lot of this goes for Irish nationalism as well as it does for Welsh nationalism.

There's nothing wrong with (and arguably a lot right with) minority language preservation. It can be used for great good (strengthens community ties, preserves culture) but if co-option is not guarded against readily, it can also be used for great evil (see: using minority language struggles as an argument against immigration, for example).

The Far Right sees the cultural preservation of anything (white) and it's like a bat signal. These things are magnets for white supremacists and assorted fascists of all kinds. Which is why it is so goddamn important to be vigilant against people like that hijacking your movement.

I see a worrying amount of Welsh nationalists use (accidentally or not) the language of the far right to argue for Welsh language preservation. It can be as innocuous as advocating for a Welsh Academie Francaise to as obvious as insinuating that Wales must be kept "ethnically" Welsh in order to keep out foreign influence on the language. I see this go unchecked all the time in various Facebook groups for Welsh independence (most of which I've left since admins of these pages either don't know or don't care that people use their groups to share these sentiments).

Nationalism ≠ Fascism - but if you don't keep an eye on the company you're keeping, any well-meaning nationalist/independence or language preservation movement can be hijacked to promote hate. I only know a scant amount because I was only vaguely considering joining Yes Cymru a few years before they all went sideways (but I remember Owen Exie Hurcum talking about this on Twitter at the time) but the leadership of Yes Cymru began to squeeze out minorities from the group- nonwhite folks, gay people, trans people etc. Whole thing put me off from joining. I don't remember the full details but from the testimonies of others, the group was hijacked and steered into a reactionary way of being. Considering a large amount of Welsh nationalists also idolise groups like the FWA (Free Wales Army - a Welsh nationalist group formed in 1963 which tried to emulate the IRA in Ireland, with little success- mostly just playing paramilitary dress up) - whose symbol is this flag:

Even if the flag itself is based on Welsh folklore and is supposedly an entirely innocent, non fash design- it still is like a beacon to the Far Right who will take any amount of symbolic validation as a cue to join your movement and derail it for their own ends.

Which is why Celtic scholars, people with casual interest in Celtic languages and/or their respective cultures and civic nationalists alike need to be vigilant against those who would co-opt the field for their own twisted hate campaign.

So, one final thought,

Returning to my original post responding to that American chiming into Welsh politics from overseas. Please PLEASE be careful when wading into politics that isn't yours. Where the Far Right are involved, it doesn't take much to cause a dumpster fire - if you aren't 'on the ground' with these issues so to speak, you aren't in the firing line if your comments go sideways and enable/provoke the Far Right in this country.

If you have an interest in Celtic languages, countries and politics- you have a duty to be responsible with what you do and say. This isn't to say that you cannot engage with these topics- but that you should exercise caution lest you accidentally worsen an already delicate situation.

This has been your regularly scheduled Celtic anti-fascist tedtalk. Please reblog to make sure more people become aware of how delicate things can be and how to prevent fascists from getting a foothold in this field. Thank you.

#cymraeg #Welsh #Gaelige #Irish #Luke's originals #antifascist #pleass reblog

[ajarofpickledtears]

I love Duolingo

#cylas speaks #duolingo #irish #gaelige #irish gaelic

[coldandfoggy]

Love learning Irish. This is 3 syllables and means deep fried

#Irish #gaelic #gaelige #language #langblr

[kingdom-of-ire]

Words for LGBTQ+ as gaelige

Lesbian -> Leispiach

Gay -> Aerach

Bisexual -> déghnéasach

Transgender -> tras inscne

Queer -> aiteach

Inter sex -> cuirim-genas

Asexual -> éighnéasach

Aromantic -> cumhramach

Demi boy -> buachiall -demi

Demi girl -> cailín -demi

Non-binary -> Ní dhénártha [quite literally translates to not binary]

LGBTQ+ -> LADTQ+

Pride parade -> pharáid broduil

Pride month -> mí ná bród

Small note about pronouns

Irish as language is a bit weird with pronouns

you can use whatever. Use mé, sé, sí, sibh, siad, you can even use the plural version of a verb/pronoun as long as it makes you happy!

Let me know your identity and ill find the irish translation of it.

#queer pride #pride #pride 2022 #bróduil #gaelige #irish language #irish #learn gaelige #pride as gaelige #pride in your language #lgbtq #lgbtqiia+ #bròd #bród

[earth2eden]

Teastaíonn níos mó cairde uaim a labhraíonn Gaeilge LE DO THOIL LE DE THOIL LE DO THOIL LE DO THOIL

#gaelige #irish

[aiteanngaelach]

when i watch something as gaeilge at normal speed im like níl aon teanga agam. is duine amaideach mé agus ní labhróidh mé ach béarla go deo. then i put it to 0.5 speed agus ansin is mise AN gaeilgeoir, labhróidh mé gaeilge agus gaeilge amháin feasta choíche.

#sorry if my irish isnt great ní labhraím Gaeilge go maith faraor #Gaelige #Irish #Ireland #language

[dougielombax]

No language is useless.

Berate and scorn any moron who says otherwise. Harshly!

*yes this is about the Irish language, which many loyalists, unionist politicians and useful IDIOTS in the Republic of Ireland (all because they’re bitter about having to learn it at school, in their 40s! I say move on! For fuck’s sake!) want to see DESTROYED!*

*among MANY other languages*

#dougie rambles #personal stuff #languages #language revival #language revitalization #revitalization #vent post #political crap #language #irish language #gaelige #ireland #indigenous languages #syriac #Adyghe #basque #Talysh #navajo #Chuvash #breton #breizh #hawaiian #mixtec #nahuatl #rapa nui #coptic #Ainu #te reo māori