No time to die: the resurrection of Manx Gaelic
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
- The Manx Gaelic language died in 1974, together with its last native speaker, 97-years-old fisherman Ned Maddrell. At least, that is what UNESCO believed when they declared the language extinct in 2009.
Until a letter, written in perfect Manx by primary school children, reached UNESCO headquarters: dozens of kids from the Isle of Man were asking the organisation to reverse its decision. This prompted UNESCO to create a new category: revitalised languages.
Here’s how a movement anchored in education and music brought a language back from the dead.
*ERRATUM*
While our team had multiple sources confirming Brian Stowell was responsible for the recordings, we were contacted by Mr Stowell's daughter who gave us more insight into the revitalisation movement. Rather than Mr Stowell, it's the Irish Folklore Commission (IFC) and representative Kevin Danaher that, in 1948 and with the help of other activists, recorded conversations and hymn readings by over a dozen native speakers
Chapters:
00:00 - 00:46 Intro
00:46 - 01:19 What is the Isle of Man?
01:19 - 03:04 A record-setting primary school
03:04 - 04:10 Children become teachers
04:10 - 04:50 Basics of Manx Gaelic
04:50 - 05:51 A pub for Manx speakers
05:51 - 06:40 UNESCO's mistake
06:40 - 08:40 Music matters
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There are more than 7,000 languages in the world, and around 40% of them are disappearing. Unesco estimates show that every two weeks, a language disappears. Raising voices is ENTR's series about Europe's disappearing languages and the people fighting to save them.
We can't let our lovely Goidelic dialects vanish from our heritage. I raise my pint to all the Manx speakers. Slaynt!
Sláinte ó Éireannach chomh maith.
@@xotan I'm from Galicia, mo chara
@@xotanslàinte mhath bho Alba
@@Alexander-vo4gv tapadh leibh
Wedi dweud yn dda. Fideo gwych. Cadwch yr ieithoedd Celtaidd yn fyw.
Well said. Great video. Keep the Celtic languages alive. 👍🏴🇮🇲🇮🇪🏴
these kids are so much more inspiring than the cynical adults who let their languages die out of shame
It's not one or the other! Back when islanders stopped speaking the language, it was out of need. These kids are very inspiring, but so are the parents supporting them!
These children did it because they could. People don't become cynical out of nowhere, in order to get a job you had to speak English, so if you speak Manx, you're poor. So shame about speaking the language spreads, and adults don't pass it on to their children. Language policy and people in power can do much more than we can imagine, and can do more than the speakers themselves, I believe. You have to put the speakers in a position where they can speak, and now's the time, thank god.
In short, these children are doing it because they can. Every language that dies out is lost because of a lack of respect and of appropriate institutional support. People are not going to do what they fear hurts their possibilities or their children's. Certainly personal initiative helps, but it's a small part of a way bigger puzzle.
Languages die when parents stop using it to communicate with their children. School lessons cannot teach a language and won't keep it alive.
@odas a professional linguist, I actually agree with you. I understand that people's linguistic decisions cannot be understood without understanding the context in which they are made. However, I also believe that political mobilisation plays a huge role in shaping language attitudes (this is actually the core idea behind my PhD). As someone who is aware of the political and social history of their community, if you choose to give up everything that makes you you, and pretend to be someone else (typically from a dominant culture), you are not only dooming yourself to feeling insecure and lost but also passing down a form of generational trauma to your descendants. The scars of the abuse that Irish Gaelic speakers faced in the early/mid 1900s, for instance, continue to affect their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That's why it's important to resist and not be beaten down by the forces around you.
You are absolutely right in saying that individual efforts cannot solve bigger problems. What we need is mobilisation on a societal scale. However, that mobilisation often begins with calling out individual defeatism and asking people to reflect more deeply about their shame and fear.
@@enentrabsolutely! I really hope they succeed in bringing back their language - and this doesn't need to mean they give up English. It could just mean they become bilinguals!
Very inspiring video for small languages👍When you speak the language you get also the culture and mindset attached to it👍
I bow to the Manx Gaelic fighters. The real living beings.
Comhghairdeachas! Tá súil agam gigr féidir libh mé a thuiscint sa Ghaeilge!
Congrats to you. I hope you can understand my Irish.
Tá athbheochaint an Ghaelg an tabhachtach. Go n-éirií libh!
Thanks for such a wonderful video, I was luckily to meet one of the islanders. I'm definitely so drawn to the Manx culture that I, as an islander as wll, feel so blessed to have the same beautiful places on earth.
Taiwan is also facing the same thing which is the Formosan Languages are no longer widely used, it has various difficulties in surviving, even though I was lucky enough to be educated in the era when our original language was revived by the government, however the result is still not obvious enough. In the past 5 years, under the trend of transformational justice, there have been many cultural revival activities so let these ancient languages can be added to popular music, films or literature, which will further gain people's attention and attract more people to committed.
Shout out to all those who have contributed to the languages and culture! They are truly the best!
What an insightful video. Been to the IOM a number of times growing up. And as a child looked forward to my grandparents bringing home the kippers. Coming from Belfast, they spent every holiday they had in Douglas as they loved the way of life and the traditions. Both passed in the 1980s but I loved them telling me all about their time there, in fact I still have a t-shirt with the Manx cat & my name on it that they'd bought me. To think it's over 40 years old is like wow lol. To anyone who's never been, I suggest you give it a go. The island is beautiful as are the people. You don't know what you're missing x
This is great! Please cover Kernowek next (another revived Celtic language related to Breton)
Thank you for making this film.
I had no idea Manx went extinct in 2009!
As a kid in school in the 80's, I was aware of the language - and the cat. It's like ive turned my back for 5 mins and the world has changed. Why on earth did they stop speaking it? What on earth were they speaking in their parliament all this time then?!
It was extinct long before that.
Ma taves aral a veu dasserhys: Kernowek!
The other Celtic languages need to learn from this. If there's no passage of the language from adults to children, the language will not survive!
We Scottish Gaelic learners exist, and most of us are young! 🏴🇮🇲
We in Wales know this too. In Great Britain we have the largest amount of Celtic language speakers. This is due to Welsh never getting to the extinction threat level, the government insisting that Welsh be recognised officially, that we have Welsh language media, that Welsh is taught in all schools until the age of 16 and that the rise in welsh medium education is going from strength to strength. May all the Celtic languages continue to exist and prosper!
very close to Ulster & Scots Gaelic
Fascinating!
rhis is amazing, I have to go there some day
I'm doing the same for Scouse!
Beau et enthousiasmant
as the Irish proverb or seanfhocail says "Beatha teanga í a labhairt' - the life of the language is in the speaking"
I love Celtic people, lovely persona and nations 🌻🌻🌻🌻😘. Its time to Man's Island, ireland , Scotland working together in restoration of cumbrian, pictish, protogoidelic and protoceltic, and convert theses last idioms in hodiern goidelic in hodiern panceltic.
Don't stop continue the job of Celtic restoration ever til the end.❤❤❤❤🥂🥂🥂😍😍😍🎁🎇🎇🥂💋🌹🏠🏡🥇🥇🥇🤗🤗🤗
♡ World is your home ;)
I think if it's taught in school and has a Co official status, it will last for centuries to come
It will last if people use it to communicate rather than English. Parents will have to teach it to their children. Schools won't keep it alive.
I wonder how they get learning materials for the Manx primary school. I know from experience that it's tough enough to get textbooks and other learning materials in Irish, and that's even with dozens of Irish-medium schools. It must be almost impossible when there's only one school
Excellent point. The teachers had to make most of the textbooks, some of it is still a work in progress!
No mention of kevin danaher?
Cha bee mayd jarrood Kevin Danaher er son dy bragh. As, dy jarroo Eamon de Valera.
Interesting. In east ulster dialect (unfortunately extinct) there is coinfheasgar which is similar to their word for afternoon. We also use cha instead of ní in certain places of ulster just as they use cha in both manx and scottish gaelic
Where is the host's accent from?
Not British that's for certain.
She's French.
That's the spirit! It's not over!
To counter those downers that have orgasms when declaring some language or dialect as extinct.
The course of events can change, even in the opposite direction, no language process is necessarily monodirectional.
👍👍👍👍
Na Gaeil abú! Físeán den scoth!
Who is the presenter?
Is she talking on Manx language?
sorry i don't understand
fine, I'll do it myself.
21
Prince
The federation promises to revive the language. Wait for the new protector. He is coming
Feer vie! Ta mee feer vaynrey dy vel mee gynsagh Gaelg! (Feel free to correct any mistakes I made in that sentence!)
Cha noddym fakin marranyn erbee ayns shoh. Caid t'ou er ve gynsaghey?
Goidelic languages mustn't die!!!
All in favor of obscure languages and people speaking whatever dialect works best for them.
willie revillame law 🤪😂😂😂😂
This is just Scottish Gàidhlig spelt phonetically.
No.
Three sevens in a cross symbol. A known supremacist HATE symbol.
They are not 7's, they are legs and are known as the Three Legs of Man. If you are trying to compare them to the Swastika, you do know that the swastika was used by many ancient civilisations before the Nazis misappropriated it don't you? Please do not try to diss my heritage because of something you don't understand and know nothing about.
Those are not three sevens, rather three legs, forming a "triskelion" symbol. Both the flag of the Isle of Man and that of the Sicily region, in Italy, display it, albeit for different reasons.
The lady doth protest too much.
The symbol in use today is in no way connected to you legitimately it is however still used today by other hate groups and obviously both you and them wouldn't have anything in common at all. I'm quite sure you're completely innocent and have been been historically oppressed by the British. People usurping your symbols is another example of this. Sad to say that good traditional people are getting maligned with bad. I'm aware of the issue that's why I mentioned it.
@@notinterested8452 The three legs of Mann has been a symbol of the Island since the 1300s, long before any "hate groups" you're referencing ever existed.