OUR LANGUAGE, OURSELVES
by Kathleen Dupree
I was in a bookstore recently in a small Appalachian city, perusing the language section as I usually do for new resources on the Irish Language. I had begun studying Irish several years before with a group of other interested individuals. Resources on Irish are very difficult to find in a bookstore unless you happen to be in New York, Chicago or Boston. So, I was quite excited to find a selection of audio tapes which included several more "obscure" languages. That is, languages other than French, Spanish, German, Italian and Japanese. One of the tapes was on Irish. Pleased at finding a new source I picked up the Irish tape and proceeded to the cash register.
The cashier was a young man, about 20ish. He looked at the tape and with a puzzled expression, looked back at me. "What's this?" he said.
"It's a tape for learning Irish." I replied, surprised at his need to question something so obvious. He looked at me with curiosity and said, "Why do you need a tape for learning Irish? It's just a funny accent isn't?"
For a second I couldn't believe his naiveté. Then, it occurred to me that he most likely didn't know any better. He only knew what he had been exposed to. Most people in America, even those who are of Irish descent probably do not really know much about Ireland or Her history and culture. In America we have been homogenized for so many generations that many of the details of our cultural history have been mislaid and forgotten about.
I took the opportunity to explain to him that Irish is not a funny accent. It is indeed a real language all to itself, a branch of the Celtic group of Indo-European languages. As I left with my tape in hand I was pleased that I had educated one more person, who since he lived in southern Appalachia, probably had a few drops of Celtic blood in his veins.
I didn't tell the young man the rest of the story, the reason that I wanted to learn Irish or why I was so interested in it that I was willing to drive 150 miles once a week to attend classes. I am of Celtic and Cherokee descent. My ancestors brought with them much of their Celtic traditions and the roots of my family tree reach deep into all of the modern day Celtic nations. When they arrived in North America they were faced with the struggle of survival in an unknown land. It was more important to them that they assimilate well and create a place for their children to prosper than it was to focus their attention on maintaining their customs and language intact. So, as each generation passed the old language grew farther and farther out of memory. Some of it stayed with them, however, and found its way into the English dialects of the Appalachians..
I grew up in this Appalachian culture. My grandparents spoke in ways that were strange to my ears compared with what I heard on TV, yet their words were filled with an instinctive familiarity. I wanted from an early age to understand my culture and where I came from and it was clear to me that part of this understanding needed to derive from the native languages of my ancestors. I chose Irish because I found classes available in it, not because it was easier or because I had a preference for it over any of the others.
Soon after beginning my studies I became aware of the fact that one must think differently in the Celtic languages than one thinks in English. In order for the grammar to make sense it is necessary for one to have a different mindset, a different way of seeing the world. I discovered that the way one thinks in Irish seems to be very close to what I have come to understand as the "Celtic temperament", that difficult to describe proud and visionary demeanor that I saw in my grandparents and that I could feel in myself as well.
Through my studies of the Irish language I came to realize that language is the soul of a culture. Although anything can be translated from one language to another so that the words can be understood, there is really not a good way to translate feeling and emotion. Irish is one of those languages that is full of emotion. It truly is the language of poetry.
Sadly, in this age of global communication the Celtic languages are in danger of disappearing. The famine in the 1840s in Ireland sounded a death knell for the Irish language when millions of native speakers died or immigrated. Manx and Cornish have no native speakers left. Breton is dying from memory as the older generations fades. In most of Scotland, Gaelic is more of a curiosity than a living language. Only Welsh has begun to gain momentum among the people of Wales as something important to hold on to and pass on.
My embrace of the Irish language is my way of holding on to something that my ancestors were forced by circumstance to let go. It is my way of keeping our language and thus our unique culture alive in the world a little longer.
If Irish and the remaining Celtic languages were to pass into obscurity a part of the world's soul would die. It is important to me not to let that happen.
If you are interested in helping to preserve Celtic culture through language, check out the following resources: