• The Conference
  • Home
  • Programme
  • Venue & directions
  • Organizing Committee
  • Scientific Committee
  • Exhibitors & sponsors
  • Satellite events
  • Conference Party
• Past & future
  • Previous symposia
  • Finland 2014
  • Spain 2016
• About FU Berlin
  • University homepage
  • Humanities at FU

Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 361

Part of Session 122: In the Shadow of Empire (Other abstracts in this session)

Celtic language legislation: norms, hierarchies, ideologies

Authors: McLeod, Wilson
Submitted by: McLeod, Wilson (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom)

This paper will consider the ways in which legislative enactments that aim to secure and promote the Irish, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic languages attempt to establish or destabilise hierarchies between languages, and the norms and concepts adopted to achieve these policy ends. The paper will also seek to unpack a number of problematic terms used in these enactments and other European language acts, including ‘official language’, ‘national language’, ‘language of the state/republic’ and ‘working language’.

A particularly difficult concept in relation to language legislation – as in many other contexts – is that of equality. As far back as the Hughes Parry report of 1965 the principle of ‘equal validity’ became a conventional concept in debates concerning the status of the Welsh language, although this phrase was not used in the language act of 1967 or in that of 1993. The 1993 act instead required that Welsh and English ‘be treated on a basis of equality’. The counterpart Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 deliberately avoided the phrase ‘equal validity’ and seeks to establish a slightly different norm of ‘equal respect’ between Gaelic and English. The newly adopted Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, however, has abandoned the chase of the chimera of ‘equality’ and instead uses a formula familiar from a variety of anti-discrimination enactments, that Welsh must be treated ‘no less favourably than the English language’. The Irish framework is entirely different: here, Irish, ‘as the national language’ (a term that is not explained), is ascribed unambiguous primacy, with English in a clearly inferior position as ‘a second official language’, despite the overwhelming dominance of English as the working language of the state.

In contrast to earlier Welsh legislation, which did not explicitly grant official status to Welsh, or to Irish and Scottish enactments which announce official status for Irish and Gaelic but do not explain its nature or significance, the Welsh Language Measure also gives a functional statement of what the official status of the language consists in. This practical presentation in this enactment highlights the extent to which the concept of official status is typically blurred or obfuscated.