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[Illustration: CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

FOURTH SERIES

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

NO. 723.      SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1877.      PRICE 1½_d._]




THE GAELIC NUISANCE.


It is not a very creditable fact that after centuries of national
consolidation, there should be communities within the British Islands
who use different vernacular tongues and are ignorant of English. In
other words, there are large numbers of persons who cannot in ordinary
circumstances be directly communicated with. They can neither send
nor intelligibly receive letters through the post-office. Summoned as
witnesses on civil or criminal trials, they are in the position of
foreigners, and stand in need of interpreters. Cut off from English
books and newspapers, a correct knowledge of history, of science and
art, and of passing events is scarcely possible. They necessarily
vegetate amidst vague legends and superstitions. Theirs is a life of
stagnation and impoverishment, in the spot where they were born; for
anything like voluntary emigration to improve circumstances is only
exceptional. And all this has been complacently tolerated, if not
pampered, for hundreds of years by a nation full of enterprise, and
which, with no injustice, aspires to be in the front rank of general
civilisation.

We are quite aware that much the same thing can be said of most of
the continental nations. All are a little behind in this respect. The
ancient Breton language survives in France, as does the Basque in
Spain. Switzerland, Germany, and Russia are respectively a jumble of
spoken tongues. In Holland and Belgium, we have the Dutch, French,
Flemish, and Walloon. To accommodate the inhabitants of Brussels, the
names of the streets are stuck up in two languages. These continental
diversities do not greatly surprise us. In frequent wars, revolutions,
conquests, annexations, along with want of means, and a host of
inveterate prejudices to be encountered, we have an explanation of
the strange mixture of languages and dialects which still prevails in
continental Europe.

The case is somewhat different in the United Kingdom, where everything
but old prejudices would seem to favour a uniform native language
which all can use and understand. Yet, as we have said, there exist
communities who are still less or more ignorant of English. Centuries
have rolled on, and notwithstanding all appliances, groups of people
are yet found speaking a language which was common a thousand years
ago, but now occupies an obscure and fragmentary position. We do not
say that matters have not been advancing towards uniformity. Little
by little, outlying communities have been satisfactorily Anglicised,
not by anything like legal compulsion, but by what might be termed a
natural process of assimilation. We may speak of two important cases.
In the Shetland and Orkney Islands the Norwegian language existed
until within the last two centuries. It is now totally gone, and the
vernacular is a pure English; vastly to the advantage of the natives,
who besides being open to common civilising influences, are prepared
for pushing their fortunes in any part of the British dominions;
some of them indeed making no mean figure in current literature. The
other case is that of Galloway, a district embracing two counties in
the south-west of Scotland, where the Gaelic prevailed longest in
any part of the Lowlands. 'The wild Scots of Galloway' was once a
well-known phrase. It has passed away along with the Gaelic speech.
The Gallowegians--abounding in men of genius--are now a lively and
prosperous English-speaking and English-writing people. For them the
change has been a very happy one.

With a knowledge of these two instances of social improvement, there
is the more reason to regret the protracted existence of non-English
speaking races. No one will say that any good has come of the continued
prevalence of Erse, the old Irish tongue; nor of Manx in the Isle of
Man; nor of Welsh, though that, as regards literature, is considerably
ahead of any branch of the once universal Celtic tongue. Considering
what spirit is demonstrated in the way of books, newspapers, and
otherwise, Welsh rises to a comparatively prominent position; but there
always remains the unpleasant reflection, that interesting as the
Welsh tongue may be, it distinctly mars national unity, and must be a
drawback on those adhering to it alone, and reared in ignorance of
English. To this cause is doubtless attributable the lingering of many
whimsical superstitions in the Principality.

Should any one desire to see what mischiefs are effected by adherence
to a language long since out of date, he should visit some parts of the
Highlands and the Western Islands of Scotland, where, by a well-meant
but mistaken policy, Gaelic is still perseveringly maintained. Some
years since, it was our fortune to pay a visit to Barra, one of the
Outer Hebrides; and the feeling which rose in our mind was that what we
beheld was a specimen of Scotland as it existed in the sixth century,
when St Columba spread a knowledge of Christianity in the western
Caledonian regions. We seemed to step back twelve hundred years. It
was a marvellous kind of look into antiquity. In their language, in
their rude dwellings of stone and turf, in their religious forms, and
in their dress, the people belonged to a far-back age. Their existence
was an anachronism. And the curious thing was to find this condition of
affairs within four-and-twenty hours of Glasgow, with its enterprise
and prodigiously busy population. We have seen the Micmacs living in
a way little better than dogs in the wilds of Nova Scotia, but one is
not greatly astonished to