Language, Policy and Territory: A Festschrift for Colin H. Williams 3030943453, 9783030943455

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Language, Policy and Territory A Festschrift for Colin H. Williams Edited by Wilson McLeod · Robert Dunbar Kathryn Jones · John Walsh

Language, Policy and Territory

Wilson McLeod · Robert Dunbar · Kathryn Jones · John Walsh Editors

Language, Policy and Territory A Festschrift for Colin H. Williams

Editors Wilson McLeod Celtic and Scottish Studies University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, Scotland Kathryn Jones IAITH: Y Ganolfan Cynllunio Iaith / Welsh Centre for Language Planning Newcastle Emlyn, Wales

Robert Dunbar Celtic and Scottish Studies University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, Scotland John Walsh School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures National University of Ireland, Galway Galway, Ireland

ISBN 978-3-030-94345-5 ISBN 978-3-030-94346-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: National Eisteddfod of Wales This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Anadl Enwau

(Er anrhydedd i Colin Williams, a wyr) ˆ Beth yw iaith? Peirianwaith rhad annynol, dieneiniad. Enaid? Nid oes dim yno ond gwynt a thamaid o go’ a cheg yn agor a chau yn dymestl sain a ’stumiau. Hyn yw iaith: gobaith a gwae; chwerwedd a phlant yn chwarae; ein cof hir a’n cyfeiriad ymlaen; hi yw’n hamlhad a’n hedwino; cadwynau mawr o ddur, ac ymryddhau; tir hawdd yr anturio rhwydd a thir egr ei lithrigrwydd; ein gorawen yn griwiau a’n swildod ir fesul dau.

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Anadl Enwau

Hyn yw iaith: y gyfraith gudd a lunia’n byw aflonydd, ein crëwr trefn anhrefnus mewn canu mawl, mewn brawl brys; ein dawn hud, a dynodydd ein byd oll a’n bod bob dydd; y chwa a’n dynoda ni ein hunain, a rydd inni ein pwer ˆ oes, ein parhau drwy ddadl; ein hanadl enwau. —Emyr Lewis

Contents

Introduction Wilson McLeod, Robert Dunbar, Kathryn Jones, and John Walsh

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Theorising Language Policy and Regulation Examining the Political Origins of Language Policies Huw Lewis and Elin Royles

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Language Rights, Human Rights and the Right to Chat Emyr Lewis

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Language and Space: A New Research Agenda in Minority Language Sociolinguistics Bernadette O’Rourke Reflections on Language as a Vehicle of Economic Value François Grin

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Contents

Language Policy Challenges in Wales Language Planning in Action: Joining up the Dots in Wales Meirion Prys Jones Recent Legal Developments in Wales: Moving Beyond Individual to Group Rights? Robert Dunbar Networked Territories of Language and Nation Rhys Jones

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Placemaking: Towards Rethinking Land-Use Planning and Language Planning for a Thriving Welsh Language Kathryn Jones

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Signs of the Times: Onomastics and Language Policy in Wales Eleri Hedd James

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Canolfannau Cymraeg: A Top-Down or Bottom-Up Approach to Language Planning? Steve Morris

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Language Policy Challenges in Canada Best Practices and Language Policy Designs: Lessons from Canada and Wales Linda Cardinal and Anastasia Llewellyn

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F.R. Scott and the Origins of Language Policy in Canada Graham Fraser

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French in Canada: An Uncertain Future Charles Castonguay

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Group Vitality, Language Policies and the French and English-Speaking Communities of Quebec Richard Y. Bourhis

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Language Policy Challenges in Ireland, Scotland and Catalonia Changing Spatial Understandings of Minority Language Contexts: New Geographies of Irish John Walsh

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Lessons Learned, Lessons Ignored: The Continuing Road to an Irish Language Act in Northern Ireland Janet Muller

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The Influence of Wales on Gaelic Development Policy in Scotland Wilson McLeod

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Voluntariat Per La Llengua: Building Social Cohesion Through Language Maite Puigdevall

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Afterword: Conviction, Advocacy and Resilience Colin H. Williams

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Index

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Contributors

Richard Y. Bourhis Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada Linda Cardinal School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada Charles Castonguay Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada Robert Dunbar Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland Graham Fraser Ottawa, ON, Canada François Grin University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland Eleri Hedd James Office of the Welsh Language Commissioner, Cardiff, Wales Kathryn Jones IAITH: Y Ganolfan Cynllunio Iaith/Welsh Centre for Language Planning, Newcastle Emlyn, Wales

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Meirion Prys Jones Welsh Language Board and Network To Promote Linguistic Diversity, Carmarthen, Wales Rhys Jones Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales Emyr Lewis Department of Law and Criminology, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales Huw Lewis Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales Anastasia Llewellyn School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada Wilson McLeod Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland Steve Morris Department of Applied Linguistics, Swansea University, Swansea, Wales Janet Muller POBAL, Belfast, Northern Ireland Bernadette O’Rourke School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland Maite Puigdevall Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain Elin Royles Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales John Walsh School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Galway, Galway, Ireland Colin H. Williams School of Welsh, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales

List of Figures

Networked Territories of Language and Nation Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3

Bowen’s (1959) vision of ‘Le Pays de Galles’ The decline in Welsh speakers and in the Welsh-speaking ‘heartland’ 1961–1991 Map of the daily mobilities of Welsh speakers

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Placemaking: Towards Rethinking Land-Use Planning and Language Planning for a Thriving Welsh Language Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Maps of the proportion and number of people (aged 3 and over) able to speak Welsh in 2011 Welsh Language Resilience (WLR) in Wales according to Local Authority and in Carmarthenshire according to electoral ward

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Group Vitality, Language Policies and the French and English-Speaking Communities of Quebec Fig. 1

Number and percentage of Quebec population by mother tongue (L1)

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Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

List of Figures

French–English bilingualism in Quebec by mother tongue (L1) of Quebec Francophones, Anglophones and Allophones Number and percentage of pupils in primary and secondary French and English school systems in Quebec (public and private), 1971–2018 Number and percentage of pupils in English primary and secondary schools in Quebec (public and private) by mother tongue of pupils (L1): French, English, Allophone, 1971 to 2018

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Changing Spatial Understandings of Minority Language Contexts: New Geographies of Irish Fig. 1

Map of Irish language planning process with three different spatial categories

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List of Tables

French in Canada: An Uncertain Future Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

Language shift, Canada, 1971–2016 Language shift, Quebec, 1971–2016 Language shift, Canada minus Quebec, 1971–2016

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Voluntariat Per La Llengua: Building Social Cohesion Through Language Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4

Table 5

Origin of learners in 2019 Origin of learners from outside Spain in 2019 Appraisal of VxL in virtual and face-to-face modalities, 2020 Population that speaks Catalan according to their response when addressing someone in Catalan get a reply in Spanish (%) Population that speaks Catalan according to their response when addressing someone in Spanish and get a reply in Catalan (%)

373 373 378

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Introduction Wilson McLeod, Robert Dunbar, Kathryn Jones, and John Walsh

It is with great pleasure that we present this Festschrift honouring the work of Professor Colin Williams throughout his distinguished career as an academic and a committed advocate for minority language rights in his native Wales and in other bilingual jurisdictions. The volume aims to do justice to the many strands of his work, both in terms of its theoretical and philosophical foundations and its application to W. McLeod (B) · R. Dunbar Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland e-mail: [email protected] K. Jones IAITH: Y Ganolfan Cynllunio Iaith/Welsh Centre for Language Planning, Newcastle Emlyn, Wales J. Walsh School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Galway, Galway, Ireland

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_1

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language policy on the ground. There is hardly an aspect of the broad canvas of the social sciences that has not influenced Colin’s perspective on language, from nationalism, political science and geography to public policy, governance and sociolinguistics itself. Colin’s mastery of connecting language to so many other fields of study gives his work a unique depth and breadth of perspective, crucial requirements for our contemporary understanding of language policy and its application across society. His enduring legacy is his multidisciplinary approach that has so enriched the fields of sociolinguistics and language policy both academically and practically. While Professor Williams’s huge contribution to scholarship and to public policy in relation to minoritised languages, and particularly Welsh, forms a large part of his remarkable legacy, a no less important part of that legacy is the personal impact that he has had on students, colleagues and friends. He has been an outstanding mentor and friend to many, including most of those who have contributed to this collection of essays. His willingness to comment on work, his advice on the many challenges and opportunities that are thrown up in the course of a career and by life more generally, his ready encouragement, and his support for career and personal development have all been of great benefit to many. In spite of his talents and accomplishments, Professor Williams is a man of great humility. In whatever circumstances, he is a calm and composed presence, generous to and forgiving of the foibles of others, and he always maintains his focus on ‘the bigger picture’, providing a sense of perspective when such is most needed. He is a person of great personal warmth and charm, and his gentle, playful sense of humour has always made time spent in his company a great pleasure. It is with an enormous sense of gratitude to him that we offer Colin Williams this collection of essays. Following his initial appointments in England and Canada, and his long career at Cardiff University where he developed various aspects of the teaching of Welsh and research into sociolinguistics, Colin has also served as a visiting fellow in the University of Oxford and more recently, the University of Cambridge. His exceptional national and international standing is reflected in the periods spent at universities abroad, including South Africa, Slovenia, Romania and especially

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Canada. Colin’s lifelong interest in language policy in Canada dates from the 1970s and over the decades he has held research roles at the University of Toronto, the University of Western Ontario and the University of Ottawa. While in Canada, he worked closely with the former Commissioner for Official Languages, Graham Fraser, one of the contributors to this Festschrift. Both were founding members of the International Association of Language Commissioners, a contribution of which Colin is particularly proud. Beyond the academy, Colin’s career has been characterised by distinguished public outreach and dedicated service for state and voluntary organisations promoting minority languages. These include the Welsh Language Board, where he served as a member for many years, the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, Linguamon and the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity. He has been an associate consultant with IAITH: Welsh Centre for Language Planning since 2015. He has also contributed to the resolution of conflict in various parts of the world by advising international organisations such as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe. In particular, policy in relation to the Irish language on both sides of the border has benefitted from Colin’s input over the past twenty-five years. He advised on the language provisions of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, contributed to a draft Irish Language Act for Northern Ireland, and advised the Republic’s government on its Irish language strategy. The range of contributions to this Festschrift—both in terms of geographical provenance and disciplinary or theoretical orientation— shows the extent of Colin’s influence and reflects the multidisciplinary perspective that has guided his work for the past five decades. Demonstrating this broad impact, the 18 essays presented here have been written by academics from a variety of fields and by practitioners engaged with the practical application of language policy in a range of contexts. We divide the Festschrift into four broad themes spanning theories of language policy and regulation and the challenges specific to the countries with which Colin is most familiar: Wales, Canada, Ireland, Scotland and Catalonia. We are particularly pleased that Colin himself

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has provided a characteristically insightful Afterword to complete the volume. * Part I presents four chapters concerning the theorising of language policy and regulation. Huw Lewis and Elin Royles set out to analyse the political origins of specific language policies and trace their development over time, focusing on two examples related to the Welsh language in Wales. They argue that the existing literature on language policy fails to identify how and why particular choices emerge and how these are related to political factors. In order to provide a conceptual framework to guide analysis of this question, Lewis and Royles examine historical institutionalism and its focus on how political institutions influence policy decisions and interact with other institutions. They introduce the concepts of ‘path dependence’ and ‘critical juncture’ and consider their usefulness for understanding language policy formation. The authors then apply a neo-institutionalist approach to their analysis of two key policy milestones for the Welsh language: the Iaith Pawb national language strategy of 2003 and the Welsh Language Measure (Wales) 2011. In the case of Iaith Pawb, Lewis and Royles argue that the Welsh party system allowed the nationalist party Plaid Cymru to exercise key influence over a minority Labour government and in the case of the Measure, they highlight the importance of the United Kingdom’s legal and constitutional position as an institutional factor. They conclude that the neo-institutionalist approach facilitates a greater understanding of how policy is formed but is only one such theory that can be used to this end. Emyr Lewis considers what he refers to as ‘the right to chat’, arguing that the simple right of speakers of minority languages to talk to whomever they want to is not as clearly, effectively or universally guaranteed in law as it should be. He argues that although there is some debate about the concept of ‘linguistic human rights’, this ‘right to chat’ is rooted in universal human experience and should therefore be considered a basic human right. In spite of this, he demonstrates that the right is frequently limited, for example, by restrictions placed on employees and their customers to converse in their language or the frequent request not to converse in a minority language when there are non-speakers of

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that language present. He then considers domestic and international law to show that the ‘right to chat’ is not as clearly guaranteed as it might be. He then provides an analysis of Part 6 of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, now the single most important piece of language legislation in Wales, which was intended in part to address cases of limitations which had been imposed on the right to chat in Welsh. He concludes by noting that although Part 6 is in some respects inadequate to guarantee a ‘right to chat’—it does not create a fully justiciable right, and in any case only seeks to protect Welsh, and not all languages—it does have features which could be adopted more generally, and it is therefore a signpost towards an explicitly recognised right to chat which could benefit not only speakers of indigenous minority languages but of all languages. Bernadette O’Rourke argues that disciplines such as human geography, sociology and political science have marginalised questions of linguistic diversity and failed to recognise links between language, identity and ethnicity. She reminds us that Colin Williams urged geographers more than thirty years ago to resolve this problem, calling for greater attention to the relevance of language to a range of geographical issues including population, communications, the physical environment and the urban context. O’Rourke also contrasts the Anglocentric nature of much of geography with the bilingualism of Williams and other geographers in countries such as Wales, which gives them greater understanding of the social context of speakers of Welsh and other minoritised languages. The chapter proceeds to analyse the ways in which minority language sociolinguistics has in recent years engaged with geographical concepts such as space, place, territory and community. Williams has shown that such ideas have been fundamental to past activism related to language revitalisation, but the territorial principle has been criticised as promoting bounded notions of language within delimited spaces and is linked to nineteenth-century notions such as ‘one language, one nation’. Supporting calls for a more speaker-centred approach, O’Rourke analyses the geographical dimensions of the ‘new speaker’ framework that she has developed over the past decade through the European COST Action on ‘New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe’ in which Colin Williams and other sociolinguists participated.

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In his reflections on language as a vehicle of economic value, François Grin reviews public and academic discourses concerning linguistic diversity and the concept of language as a ‘public good’ or ‘hyper-public good’. Despite the proliferation of discourses using economic metaphors to describe multilingualism as a ‘treasure’, ‘asset’ or ‘wealth’, Grin argues that the suggestion of a connection between language and economics as a discipline was rejected until about three decades ago. Advancing the concept of ‘linguistic environment’, he maintains that language can be conceived as a ‘public good’ as it shares the characteristics of ‘non-rival consumption’ and ‘impossibility of exclusion’. By these he means that a given language will not deplete even if more and more people use it, and cannot be avoided by people in the linguistic environment where it is situated. The notion of language as a ‘hyper-public good’ refers to the fact that a given language may increase its status and dynamism according to the numbers of people who learn and use it. However, Grin cautions against over-emphasising the ‘hyper-public good’ argument in the case of minority languages, because of the disproportionate amount of resources required even to maintain their current position. He maintains that it is necessary to clarify concepts such as ‘linguistic environment’, ‘public good’ and ‘hyper-public good’ in order to assist language policymakers to devise more effective interventions in favour of particular languages. Part II consists of five papers that consider a variety of language policy challenges and possibilities in Colin Williams’s native Wales. Drawing upon his experience working for the Welsh Language Board between 1994 and 2012, firstly as its Education Officer, then with responsibility for language planning in general and latterly as its Chief Executive, Meirion Prys Jones provides a personal account of the way in which the Board played a key role in developing the scope of language policy and planning in Wales following the enactment of the Welsh Language Act 1993, with input from key Welsh academics, including Colin Williams. Jones describes how the Board interpreted its remits (i) to agree Welsh language schemes with public bodies and (ii) to promote and facilitate the use of the Welsh language, which included agreeing Welsh Education Schemes with all local education authorities and other educational bodies and investing in interventions to promote

Introduction

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the use of Welsh through, for example, the Twf (transmission within families) project, the Mentrau Iaith (community language initiatives) and Area Development Plans in key areas of Wales. Jones also provides an account of the circumstances that led to the end of the Welsh Language Board and the division of its work between the Welsh Government and the Welsh Language Commissioner. He argues that there has been an over-emphasis on regulation since the enactment of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 and concludes by emphasising the importance of a multifaceted approach to language planning that involves the speakers themselves and the communities in which they live as well as positive encouragement by local, regional and national authorities. Colin Williams has written of the ‘legislative turn’ in minority language policy, by which he means the securing in law of certain basic rights as a means of allowing for the use of minority languages in important domains (Williams 2013: 101). Robert Dunbar reviews key elements of this legislative turn in both domestic and international law, noting that such rights as have been secured through this legislative turn tend to be rights held by the individual against the state. Against this backdrop, he analyses three recent pieces of legislation in Wales, the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the Planning (Wales) Act 2015, all of which impose obligations on government to consider the impact of a potentially very wide range of policy decisions on the language itself. He argues that this is an important development in minority language legislation, as it recognises that policymaking in areas which are not obviously related to language, such as economic development, transport, communications, health and social care, housing and spatial land-use planning, can have a significant impact on the vitality of a language. As such, these enactments move beyond the focus on the individual rights of speakers and recognise a broader communal interest in the language which needs to be considered by policymakers. Rhys Jones takes inspiration for his consideration of networked territories of language and nation from a seminal article that Colin Williams wrote with Anthony Smith in 1983 in which they examined ‘the national construction of social space’ (Williams and Smith 1983). Jones reminds us that this publication inspired geographers and others to chart different

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approaches to nations and nationalism, marking a shift from an academic focus on the histories and times of a nation to a geographical attention on landscapes, the importance of specific sites and places, and the significance of territory as the fundamental spatial manifestation of nations and national distinctiveness. For Jones, the most innovative aspect of Williams and Smith’s argument was that national territories are not uniform but consist of a series of infrastructures and nodes. Jones uses this more networked interpretation of national territories to examine the territorial extent of a sense of Welshness that is defined according to Welsh language ability as this is imagined in Wales. He proceeds by detailing the dominant geographical imaginations that exist in relation to Welsh linguistic territory, which tend to conceive uncritically of a ‘homogenous and definable territorial entity’ (p. 141). He then highlights some of the ways in which these visions of a homogenous and uniform linguistic territory can be complicated by drawing on more networked understandings of social and spatial relations, signalling as he does so the significance of such alternative conceptions of the Welsh linguistic territory for language policy in Wales. Kathryn Jones’s contribution focusses on current developments in land-use planning and language planning within the current trajectory of a devolved Wales. She argues that the concept of ‘placemaking’ provides an opportunity for collaboration that pushes the boundaries of both disciplines to respond to the challenges of planning for the Welsh language to thrive in times of intense social change. Her chapter reminds us of Colin Williams’s contribution over four decades to forging closer links between land-use planning and language planning and how he played a key role in securing the principle that the Welsh language be a material consideration in formulating land-use policies in local development plans. Based on her work with colleagues at IAITH: Welsh Centre for Language Planning, Jones argues that placemaking for a thriving Welsh language requires a spatial plan for Welsh language growth as well as more and better use of land planning tools for assessing impact and maximising benefits. Eleri James considers how place-names and the maps and signage that depict them are indicative of key developments in Welsh language

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policy. Her chapter begins with examples to illustrate the range of languages and cultures that are reflected in the place-names of Wales. James goes on to provide an account of the early protests by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) in the 1960s against the widespread use of English-only road signs, which led to acknowledgement that Welsh language forms of place-names had a legitimate place in the linguistic landscape of Wales. She then charts the way in which various committees, firstly under the auspices of the Welsh Office, then the Welsh Language Board and now the Welsh Language Commissioner have approached and developed policy in relation to place-naming. James discusses how the Welsh Language Standards introduced by the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 are influencing local authorities to undertake standardisation projects and to ensure that the Welsh language form of place-names are being used. She concludes with a discussion of the rising concern over the Anglicisation of private property, business and topographical names which are not covered by existing legislation. Steve Morris is concerned with language planning in relation to adults who acquire a minoritised language in areas where that language is not widely used. Morris refers to studies of motivation among adult learners of Welsh over the past half-century, noting that the desire to integrate, the ‘integrative orientation’, is the prevailing impetus among these learners, who typically want to interact and become a part of the/a Welsh language community. This poses a particular challenge for those who live in areas where fewer than 20 per cent of the population speak Welsh—areas which Colin Williams terms ‘community without propinquity’ (e.g. James and Williams 1997: 295). Morris considers the role of Canolfannau Iaith (Language Centres) as inclusive and safe physical spaces where all users and speakers of Welsh can interact. He charts the ‘grassroots’ establishment of a number of Canolfannau Cymraeg in locations across Wales and then how, with Welsh Government funding, there developed a more ‘top-down’ approach to their establishment and funding. He concludes by emphasising the importance of embedding bottom-up approaches in government policy initiatives designed to encourage speakers of Welsh to become confident users of the language.

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Part III presents four chapters that offer different perspectives on language policy challenges in Canada, especially the relationship between French and English. Linda Cardinal and Anastasia Llewellyn consider the ways in which language policy and planning in Canada have informed Colin Williams’s work. Firstly, they assess ethnolinguistic nationalism in Quebec, which was a particular focus of Professor Williams’s work in the earlier part of his career. Sccondly, they look at the ways in which minority language rights and regulation, and in particular Canada’s regime of official bilingualism at the federal level, have influenced his thinking. Of particular importance has been the question of language in the provision of public services, and the territorial application of measures to ensure service delivery through the medium of minority languages. Such questions were of particular importance in Professor Williams’s work in the 1990s and the early 2000s, in which he considered the application of these ideas in a Welsh context. Finally, the authors focus on Professor Williams’s work on Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages, which provides a model for the office of the Welsh Language Commissioner, created under the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, a development which was in part inspired by his work. In assessing certain key themes in Professor Williams’s work, the authors are able to identify the very significant contribution that his interest in the Canadian experience has made. Graham Fraser explores the pioneering impact of F.R. Scott (1899– 1985) on the development of language policy in Canada. Scott was one of Canada’s foremost constitutional law scholars, a founder of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (the predecessor to Canada’s social democratic New Democratic Party) and an accomplished poet. An anglophone Quebecer, he spoke French, was deeply interested in francophone culture and served as one of the commissioners on the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–1970), which laid the groundwork for Canada’s Official Languages Act, 1969. Scott recognised that language issues engaged both individual rights and group rights, and was passionately committed to the concept of official bilingualism and to the idea that language rights are human rights as a way of reconciling these two rights claims. However, his commitment to official bilingualism not only throughout Canada but also in his native Quebec

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resulted in his opposition in the 1970s to legislation that sought to make Quebec an officially unilingual French province. This, together with his support of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s use in 1970 of a draconian piece of legislation in response to political violence in Quebec, resulted in an irreparable breach with many Francophone writers and poets whom he had befriended. In spite of Scott’s fears that his vision for his province and country was a failure, Fraser traces the continuing influence of his thinking after his death, particularly in important court decisions on Canada’s language regime. Drawing on data from successive Canadian censuses, Charles Castonguay traces the continuing vulnerability of the French language, not only outside of Quebec, where language shift away from French has been particularly dramatic, but also within Quebec itself. He argues that the federal official language regime, first devised by the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, has contributed to both trends. In particular, the language rights created as a result of official bilingualism were insufficient to withstand the assimilative pressures on French speakers outside Quebec. At the same time, official bilingualism, he argues, diluted the efforts of successive Quebec governments to protect the French language in Quebec through legislation such as the Charter of the French Language, which sought to replace English as the default language of public discourse in the province. He concludes that if Canada’s English–French linguistic duality is truly a fundamental trait to be cherished, the federal government must radically change its policy, which, he argues, has been more focussed on countering Quebec nationalism than on effectively bolstering French. Richard Bourhis also examines the linguistic situation in Quebec, employing the concept of ‘linguistic vitality’, a concept he helped to develop, which seeks to assess the degree to which the existence of a linguistic minority is threatened. The concept employs three variables, demographics, levels of institutional support and status—the level of prestige associated with the language—as well as an assessment of subjective vitality, how the minority and majority perceive the relative strength of the language. Bourhis provides an overview of the main legislative changes introduced by Quebec governments in the 1970s to strengthen the position of the French language, and in particular the Charter of the

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French Language of 1977, before discussing mobilisation in the Anglophone community in response to these changes. In spite of this response, he argues that, while the English language is not threatened in Quebec, its vitality has been weakening in the province, focusing in particular on evidence of the declining demographic position of English and on challenges to its institutional support. With regard to demographics, he notes in particular the out-migration of Anglophones, particularly highly educated ones. He also notes that increasing percentages of Anglophones and Allophones—those with neither English nor French as a mother tongue—are bilingual in French and English, which he attributes to the language policies largely introduced in the 1970s. With regard to institutional support, he focusses particular attention on the increasing challenges faced by the English school system in Quebec. Part IV addresses a range of language policy challenges in Ireland, Scotland and Catalonia, raising issues of territory and mobility, among others. Analysing the position of Irish in the Republic of Ireland, John Walsh traces the changing geographies of the language since the foundation of the state a century ago and considers how the discipline of linguistics could learn from conceptual developments in relation to ‘space’ and ‘place’ in geography. Although sociolinguistics and language policy have long had a strong territorial dimension, overt conceptual engagement between these disciplines and geography has historically been weak. Walsh reviews the contributions of Colin Williams to reinforcing this connection and argues that concepts such as ‘relational space’ are appropriate frameworks for understanding the current dynamism of the geographies inhabited by minority languages such as Irish. He then turns to the geography of the Irish language since the foundation of the state, focusing first on the development of the concept of ‘Gaeltacht’ and the emergence of new spatial categories as part of the ‘language planning process’ launched by the Irish government in 2012. For the first time, this process creates the statutory spatial categories of Irish Language Network and Gaeltacht Service Town to underpin language planning outside the Gaeltacht. Although the Irish Language Network concept in particular appears more fluid and dynamic than the static spatial conceptualisation of the past, Walsh criticises the new process for failing to engage with the

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possibilities offered by ‘relational space’ as a way of analysing minority language use in the diffused networked society of late modernity. Janet Muller examines language policy measures in relation to Irish in Northern Ireland since the late 1990s, a period when vigorous debates about the future legal status of the language took centre stage in the context of political devolution following the Good Friday Agreement. Muller bookends this period with, on the one hand, the formation in 1998 of the non-governmental organisation POBAL, which she led, and on the other by the announcement of the New Decade, New Approach (NDNA) agreement in 2020, which proposed new policy measures relating to Irish. Colin Williams was among the international experts who advised POBAL on legislative proposals for Irish in Northern Ireland published in 2004. In this chapter, Muller traces the development of the campaign for language rights from the early POBAL proposals to the present day, including the failed commitment to legislation for Irish in 2006, other policy proposals and consultation exercises and the damaging restructuring of core funding of Irish language organisations by the cross-border body Foras na Gaeilge in 2014, a move that saw funding withdrawn from POBAL and other Northern language bodies. The link between political disputes over Irish and the collapse of the Stormont Assembly is also analysed, as is the Draft Agreement on language in 2018, criticised by POBAL as too weak. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the position of Irish in NDNA, which falls far short of the stand-alone rights-based Irish language act promised by Sinn Féin and demanded by campaigners. Muller concludes that the proposals are deeply flawed as they increase the dependence of the Irish language voluntary sector on governmental structures and have failed to deliver fundamental change. The focus of Wilson McLeod’s contribution is the influence of Wales on Gaelic policy development in Scotland and, as such, continues a comparative approach to language policy of the kind that has been central to Colin Williams’s own work. McLeod’s chapter begins by considering the cases of Welsh and Gaelic to emphasise the considerable differences between the situation of the two languages, despite their shared commonalities. The density of Welsh speakers in the population

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of Wales is roughly eighteen times that of Gaelic speakers in the Scottish population, and the sense of Welsh as a national language is much clearer than is the case for Gaelic. McLeod then assesses the influence of Wales on Gaelic language policy from the late nineteenth century onwards, paying particular attention to official status, signage, education and broadcasting. He also discusses issues concerning the design and implementation of language legislation, including the more recent move in Wales to create a Welsh Language Commissioner and enforce general language standards upon public bodies. In conclusion, McLeod argues that the challenges that face Gaelic policymakers must be understood as distinct to the context of Gaelic in Scotland and therefore, require particularised and specifically tailored approaches. Maite Puigdevall examines the work of the Catalan organisation Voluntariat per la Llengua (VxL), which she describes as an example of a best practice intervention in favour of minoritised linguistic groups. VxL was established by the Catalan government in 2002 as a scheme to promote the Catalan language, by facilitating partnerships between learners and speakers of the language. The first iteration of VxL took place in Cornellà del Llobregat, a Spanish-dominant city south of Barcelona, and it has since been extended throughout Catalonia. Most learner participants are migrants from outside Spain, particularly South America. Puigdevall reviews earlier quantitative data that underline the success of VxL, with large majorities reporting satisfaction with the programme, greater competence in Catalan and increased use of the language. These data are complemented by recent qualitative research by Puigdevall and others, showing that VxL goes beyond facilitating the learning of Catalan by giving participants symbolic resources such as deeper knowledge of Catalan culture and the ability to convert these into material resources such as employment, training and education. The book comes to a close with an insightful Afterword by Colin Williams himself. He begins by highlighting important aspects of his personal background and professional career, then moves on to address salient points arising from the individual chapter contributions, connecting these to the wider concerns and aims he has addressed over the course of his career. These include the importance of disciplinary

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pluralism and evidence-based analysis; the value of studying the interaction between space, place, context, networks and territory; the ways in which language legislation can function as a key mechanism in language policy; ways to effect the transfer of good practice from one jurisdiction to another and the challenge of ensuring that careful policy design is followed by effective implementation. In the final part, he presents a wider overview, giving ‘a brief reflection on some of the outstanding challenges which remain’ (p. 413). He emphasises the need to develop a ‘complex, multidimensional analysis’ of the context that minority language speakers find themselves in, placing particular emphasis on the transformative role of artificial intelligence and information technology (p. 413). Promoting minority languages, he argues, requires the ‘intelligent application of mutual respect, dignity and hard-headed realism’ (p. 417). * As editors, we wish to pay tribute to Colin’s unstinting kindness, courtesy and generosity in our long friendships with him and extend our warmest wishes to him for the future. No doubt, he will continue to enrich our understandings of the topics covered in the pages that follow, but it is our hope that we have done justice to his ground-breaking and hugely influential contribution to research and scholarship about minority languages and to their promotion and regulation.

References James, C., and C.H. Williams. 1997. Language and Planning in Scotland and Wales. In Nationality and Planning: The Cases of Scotland and Wales, ed. R. Macdonald and H. Thomas, 264–302. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Williams, C.H. 2013. Perfidious Hope: The Legislative Turn in Official Minority Language Regimes. Regional & Federal Studies 23 (1): 101–122. Williams, C.H., and A.D. Smith. 1983. The National Construction of Social Space. Progress in Human Geography 7: 502–518.

Theorising Language Policy and Regulation

Examining the Political Origins of Language Policies Huw Lewis and Elin Royles

1

Introduction

This brief contribution has three key objectives. First, it will argue that, traditionally, the academic literature focusing on language policy has not grappled in great detail with the task of examining the political factors that underpin particular language policy choices—in other words, the how and why of language policy. Second, it will highlight how recent contributions by political scientists have begun to address this important gap in the language policy literature by drawing on neoinstitutionalist approaches to examine the political origins of distinctive language policies. Third, it will demonstrate the explanatory value of such institutionalist approaches by means of two brief examples that focus on recent episodes of policy development in relation to the Welsh H. Lewis (B) · E. Royles Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_2

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language in Wales. The chapter will then conclude by calling for further research that focuses on seeking to explain which factors influence the adoption of particular language policies and for such research to draw on a broader range of theoretical perspectives in order to develop a fuller understanding of the political dynamics that drive language policy-making.

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Language Policy Research

In the academic literature, language policy is often understood as a diffuse mechanism that guides language use patterns in different social contexts (Johnson 2013). On these terms, language policy can encompass deliberate efforts to influence linguistic behaviours, general social attitudes regarding different languages and/or longstanding patterns of linguistic interaction. For example, in his influential account Spolsky (2004: 5) argued that language policy is comprised of three distinct elements: first, general attitudes regarding different languages (beliefs); second, habitual patterns of linguistic interaction (practices); and third, deliberate efforts to influence either these beliefs or practices (management). However, as Grin (2003: 30) has argued, language policy can also be conceived of in a more limited sense: as a particular form of public policy. It is this more specific notion of language policy that this chapter will focus upon. In general, public policy can be understood as ‘the set of activities that governments engage in for the purpose of changing their economy and society’ (Peters 2015: 1). Therefore, when viewed as a form of public policy, language policy can be understood as any intervention by government (state, regional or local) aimed at influencing the nature of a society’s linguistic environment, and thus steering the language practices of individual citizens. The exact objective of the intervention can vary significantly, spanning goals such as the linguistic integration of immigrants, the promotion of foreign language learning or the maintenance and revitalisation of a regional or minority language; it can also take different forms, often encompassing a mixture of regulatory, distributive and constituent measures (Lowi 1972). Language policy can be viewed

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as a distinct policy sector to ‘be approached in the same way as health, transport or energy policy’ (Grin 2003: 38). However, as with environmental policy (McCormick 2001), it is also important to acknowledge its cross-cutting nature, as pursuing language policy objectives usually involves interventions that overlap with, and are in some cases wholly contingent on, action in other policy fields, particularly those such as education, immigration and employment (Sonntag and Cardinal 2015: 9). Over recent decades, a series of trends, including immigration, substate nationalism and cultural globalisation, have increased awareness of the political, economic and cultural significance of language policy decisions taken by governments (Williams 2007). However, as demonstrated by Sonntag and Cardinal (2015), despite this growing salience, there is a surprising lack of research that seeks to interrogate and uncover the origins of different language policies by examining the often complex and contested processes that lead to the emergence of different language policy initiatives (although Loughlin and Williams 2007 is an important exception). This does not imply that language policy is a subject that has not been the focus of a substantial amount of scholarly research, in particular by scholars working in the broad field of sociolinguistics. Yet, much of this work has focused on the task of analysing the consequences of different language policies—for example their impact on levels of language acquisition and language use, or on broader social issues such equality, inclusion or discrimination (e.g. Fishman 1991; Schiffman 1996; Spolsky 2004; Tollefson 1991; May 2011)—rather than the political dynamics that influence the process of formulating those policies. It should be acknowledged that a number of those who identify as ‘critical sociolinguists’ do seek to discuss the underlying politics of language policy development (e.g. Phillipson 1992). However, in such cases, explanatory power tends to be ascribed to large macro socio-political or economic factors, such as globalisation, imperialism or ‘neoliberalism’ without closely analysing the potential influence of a state or region’s institutional structures or other key political institutions or procedures, such as party systems, electoral systems, public bureaucracies or policy networks (Sonntag and Cardinal 2015: 12).

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It should also be acknowledged that social scientists working in other fields, particularly economics, have sought to draw on insights from public policy analysis in order to inform research on language policy (e.g. Gazzola 2014; Gazzola and Grin 2017; Gazzola et al. 2020). Yet, much of this work has focused on either comparing the features of different language policy regimes or on evaluating the value or impact of certain language policy interventions. More recently, a body of literature has developed in the field of political theory that focuses on notions such as language rights, language equality and linguistic justice (e.g. Patten 2001, 2003; Van Parijs 2011; see also Kymlicka and Patten 2003 and Léger and Lewis 2017). Yet, given its detailed discussions of issues such as the moral basis of language rights claims and the ethical merits of various language policy regimes, it is primarily concerned with evaluating the normative implications of different language policies. In summary, despite the existence of a relatively broad and multidisciplinary body of literature that engages with the subject of language policy, a detailed and sustained examination of the complex political factors that influence the formulation of such policies in the first place has been lacking. Indeed, this is a particularly significant gap when we consider research focusing specifically on the maintenance and revitalisation of regional or minority languages. As has been argued elsewhere (Williams 2013a; Lewis and McLeod 2021), reviving the prospects of such languages through initiatives seeking to increase the overall number of speakers or increase levels of daily use has become the focus of greater policy activity on the part of governments and associated public agencies in several parts of the world, and in particular across western Europe. However, to date, the research literature focusing on these public policy-led revitalisation efforts has tended to follow the general trend of language policy research described above, by focusing primarily on comparing the institutional features of different language promotion regimes or on evaluating the value or impact of certain policy interventions (e.g. Grin 2003; Grin and Vaillancourt 1999; Flatharta et al. 2014; Williams 2012, 2013a, b). This is in no way intended as a criticism of such research as assessing the success or impact of policy interventions is clearly important in any field of public policy (Cairney 2012) and it is arguably of particular significance in the area of minority language

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promotion given the long-term and irreversible consequences of continuing to pursue ineffective policies. Yet, prioritising such research has meant that we remain in a position where, overall, relatively little is known regarding the political dynamics that drive public policy-making with regard to regional and minority languages. That is, our understanding of the factors that explain why particular policy decisions are taken, why those decisions are taken at particular points in time and why particular methods of pursuing the policy goal are selected—in other words, the political how and why of language revitalisation policy.

3

Language Policy and Historical Institutionalism

Significantly, there have been recent efforts by certain scholars working within the field of political science to respond to this gap in the literature. An important development in this regard was the publication of the edited volume State Traditions and Language Regimes (Cardinal and Sonntag 2015). In this volume, a neo-institutionalist approach to the study of public policy is utilised in order to develop an explanatory framework, based on the twin concepts of ‘state traditions’ and ‘language regimes’, to inform analysis of the political dynamics that lead to the adoption of different language policies across a broad range of state contexts. A neo-institutional approach has also been adopted in more recent work by Royles and Lewis (see, e.g. Royles and Lewis 2019), which focuses on examining the multi-level institutional factors that influence policy choices in relation to European regional and minority languages as well as its potential to inform analysis of other types of language policies (Lewis and Royles, forthcoming). What therefore are some of the main features of the institutional theoretical approach employed by such contributions? Institutionalism is an approach to the study of governance and policymaking that emphasises the fundamental importance of political institutions. While a focus on institutions was central to political analysis during the first half of the twentieth century, the behavioural revolution of the 1950s and 1960s prompted political scientists to place greater

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emphasis on the actions and interests of individuals. Yet, during the 1980s political science witnessed a renewed interest in the study of political institutions, leading to the development of a series of distinctive ‘new’ institutionalist approaches (see Peters 2012). The recent work focusing on language policy, cited above, has tended to draw on a particular strand of this new institutionalism—historical institutionalism. The theoretical core of historical institutionalism is the notion that political institutions possess a relative degree of autonomy, which, potentially, enables them to play a crucial role in shaping policy outcomes. From this perspective, institutions are more than simply aggregations of individual or group interests. Moreover, they should be viewed as being more than merely tools for managing policy solutions (as has arguably been the case to date in the field of language policy and planning). As Lecours (2000: 517) argues, political institutions should be viewed in their own right as ‘critical intervening variables’ and therefore accorded ‘theoretical importance’. The precise definition of what constitutes an institution has been debated among advocates of historical institutionalism (Peters 2012: 74). For many, institutions are understood as ‘formal organizations, rules and procedures’ (Lecours 2000: 513), such as constitutions, the formal powers available to governments, the structure of party systems, relations among different branches of government, state-interest group relations and policy networks. Yet, importantly, certain advocates of historical institutionalism adhere to an understanding of institutions that also encompasses more informal aspects such as ‘norms and conventions’ which are ‘embedded in the organizational structure of the polity’ and consequently can be ‘promulgated by formal organizations’ (Hall and Taylor 1996: 938). Despite its clear emphasis on the ability of political institutions to shape policy decisions, historical institutionalism does not claim that institutions are always the sole determinant of political outcomes. It also allows for possible interaction between institutions and other causal factors and this is one of the theory’s primary strengths. Two particular aspects are worth mentioning here. First, historical institutionalism acknowledges the interactions between actors and institutions and encourages a focus ‘not only on the ways in which institutions shape

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the behaviour of political actors, but also on how institutions are shaped and re-shaped by these actors’ (Lecours 2000: 516). Indeed, as Hay and Wincott (1998: 956) argue, one of the potential strengths of historical institutionalism is the ‘dynamic’ understanding it offers ‘of the relationship between institutions on the one hand, and the individuals and groups who comprise them on the other’. This allows for the relationship between structure and agency to be conceived of as ‘comprising not a dualism but a complex duality linked in a creative relationship’ (Hay and Wincott 1998: 956). Second, historical institutionalism allows for the causal role of norms, ideas or beliefs (Hall and Taylor 1996: 942). It acknowledges that institutions, and through this, actors can be influenced and shaped in important ways by particular ‘paradigms’ or ‘worldviews’. This interaction can also play an important role in determining political outcomes by guiding ‘perceptions about what is feasible, legitimate, possible and desirable’ (Hay and Wincott 1998: 956). A further feature of historical institutionalism is the emphasis on the influence of historical background, and in particular the contingencies and irregularities of that background, on the nature of institutional development. This emphasis on the contingency of history leads historical institutionalists to argue that different political outcomes can be path dependent, meaning that once certain institutions or policies are in place they can take on ‘a life of their own’ and may set in train unforeseen processes that strongly influence subsequent decisions (Peters 2012: 72–73). Therefore, path dependence entails the establishment of particular trajectories that can exert an enduring influence and can impede diversion from a set policy direction. This can be disrupted by the intervention of a significant force, or episodes of critical juncture, understood as crucial moments of institutional change that can spur historical development towards different paths (Thelen 1999). In sum, based on its perspective on history, historical institutionalism offers the linked explanatory concepts of path dependence and critical juncture. Originally, scholars who employed historical institutionalism used the framework to explain the factors that influence socio-economic policy choices in areas such as health, welfare or industrial development. Yet more recently, this perspective has also been used to examine state

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approaches to issues associated with identity and diversity (Fioretos et al. 2016). In this context, certain researchers have argued that the perspective encompasses a number of theoretical and conceptual tools that could prove valuable for those keen to examine the processes leading to public policy choices regarding different languages.

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Two Illustrative Examples

The discussion now turns to consider two brief illustrative examples that demonstrate how adopting a historical institutionalist perspective which foregrounds the significance of distinct institutional configurations can help to inform an assessment of the political factors that drive particular language policy choices. Both examples focus on the case of the Welsh language and on two significant instances of language policy development during the two decades following the introduction of Welsh regional government and the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales in 1999: first, the adoption of the Welsh Government’s first official language strategy Iaith Pawb (Everyone’s Language) in 2003; and second, the passing of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. Together the two examples highlight how important institutional variables such as the formal powers of regional government, the internal structure of governance arrangements and the nature of the party system can play a significant role in shaping policy outcomes with regard to regional or minority languages such as Welsh. The examples also underline the value of core historical institutionalist concepts such as path dependence to the analysis of particular language policy trajectories, as well as the significance of the theory’s emphasis on how individual agency can serve important functions within given institutional contexts.

4.1

Official Language Strategy Development

Following the establishment of regional government in 1999, the Welsh Government has followed the lead of several other European administrations by adopting a series of official strategy documents that outline

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its approach to the protection and promotion of the Welsh language. They provide an overarching framework for all other language promotion activity (Williams 2013b). The preparation of the first of these key strategy documents, Iaith Pawb (Welsh Assembly Government 2003), was the main language policy activity to take place during the National Assembly’s first term (1999–2003). Indeed, the publication of this document can be seen as an important milestone in the evolution of the Welsh language revitalisation effort. It was the first time that the government had declared unambiguously that its official policy objective was to see an increase in both the number and percentage of Welsh speakers and also an increase in its everyday use. In addition, despite the numerous language initiatives undertaken in support of the Welsh language since the 1960s, and in particular, despite the contribution of the Welsh Language Board from the early 1990s onwards, none of this activity could be described as constituting a comprehensive ‘national plan’ designed to coordinate the revitalisation of the Welsh language (Williams 2004: 2). In terms of the factors that influenced the process which led to the development and eventual adoption of the strategy, it is clear that the nature of the Welsh party system as well as the particular institutional structure of Wales’s governance arrangements at the time played a particularly significant role. With Labour running a minority administration after the first devolved elections in 1999, Plaid Cymru, the main Welsh nationalist party, was able to use its influence as the main opposition to ensure that a plenary debate was held during July 2000 that considered the position of the Welsh language. The outcome of this was the approval of a motion that committed the National Assembly1 to the ambitious objective of creating ‘a bilingual Wales’ (Dafis 2005: 236). The motion also called for the development of a ‘coordinated strategy’ and for ‘comprehensive policy reviews’ to be undertaken by the culture and education committees (Dafis 2005: 36). Subsequently, due to the National Assembly’s then-corporate structure, these committee-led reviews, which were both chaired by Plaid Assembly Members, and the detailed joint report which they produced fed directly into the process of formulating what eventually became Iaith Pawb (Welsh Assembly Government 2003). Moreover, this episode underlines the relevance of

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path dependence as an analytical concept. In the case of Iaith Pawb, it seems that Plaid Cymru’s interventions early during the Assembly’s first term—insisting on a plenary debate focusing on the Welsh language and influencing the wording of the motion that was passed—set in train a particular policy trajectory. Thus, decisions taken very early in the process seem to have set the parameters for discussions that followed and even served to undermine later efforts by certain Labour ministers to slow the process by questioning whether language policy needed to be treated as such a priority (Dafis 2005: 261–262). Indeed, the path-dependent influence of these early interventions by Plaid Cymru arguably extend well beyond simply the development of Iaith Pawb. After all, since that point two successor strategies have also been adopted (Welsh Government 2012, 2017) and the need for an official strategy setting out the Welsh Government’s objectives with regard to the Welsh language has come to be accepted across the political spectrum in Wales as an essential element in its approach to language policy. A final point to highlight is how the process leading to the adoption of Iaith Pawb evidences a dynamic interaction between institutional structure and agency. While the nature of the Welsh party system at the time allowed Plaid Cymru to exert influence over a minority Labour administration, the role of key individuals within the party, such as Cynog Dafis, was also highly significant in ensuring that the Welsh language was treated as a political priority.

4.2

New Language Legislation

With the process that led to enacting the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, the institutional structure of governance arrangements, along with the nature of the Welsh party system, emerge again as key institutional features driving language policy developments. By early 2006, calls to revise and strengthen the existing Welsh Language Act 1993 were gaining increasing political traction, with an important catalyst being a Welsh Government’s decision to abolish a series of arm’s-length public bodies, including the Welsh Language Board. This context prompted renewed

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public debate regarding the adequacy of the existing language legislation. Further impetus was then provided by the fact that the National Assembly’s formal powers were extended in 2007 to include limited primary legislative powers. Consequently, a broad consensus developed regarding the need to introduce new legislation that encompassed all of the main Welsh language civil society groups, each opposition party, and, significantly given its previous opposition, the Welsh Language Board. Meanwhile, Labour remained consistent in its opposition to the need to substantially revise and strengthen the 1993 act. However, at this point, the impact of the party system comes to the fore. After failing to secure a governing majority during the 2007 election under the Welsh semi-proportional electoral system, Labour entered coalition negotiations with Plaid Cymru. The outcome was a formal coalition deal that featured several language policy commitments, the most significant being the agreement to use the National Assembly’s newly extended powers to introduce a new Welsh language measure. Indeed, such developments highlight how coalition agreements can act alongside the party system as an important institutional factor that can shape language policy trajectories. When we turn to consider the process of formulating the new legislation, we see how the nature of the UK’s legal and constitutional tradition acted as a significant institutional influence that structured which types of provisions could be included and how they could be framed. The original intention, as set out in the One Wales coalition deal agreed between Labour and Plaid Cymru, was to introduce ‘a new Assembly Measure to confirm official status for both Welsh and English, linguistic rights in the provision of services and the establishment of the post of Language Commissioner’ (Labour Party and Plaid Cymru 2007: 34). However, in the case of the first two policy objectives, the nature of the UK’s legal and constitutional order posed a number of challenges. This stems from the fact that it is not the norm within common law jurisdictions for legislation to include explicit declaratory statements such as that pertaining to the official status of a language or for individual rights to be recognised de jure. Consequently, settling on the exact wording of the ‘official status clause’ that was included in the final measure proved to be a much more challenging and controversial undertaking than had originally been

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expected. Moreover, the measure did not specify a list of explicit legal language rights as had been expected, giving rise to public disagreement among elected politicians, language activists and legal commentators regarding the degree to which it achieved the original policy aim of establishing rights for Welsh speakers in relation to the provision of public services (for further discussion on both of these issues see Mac Giolla Chríost 2016). Indeed, the points in the previous paragraph regarding the significance of the UK’s constitutional and legal tradition also serve to underline the relevance of another key claim advanced by Royles and Lewis (2019)—that when considering the institutional factors that may influence particular language policy outcomes there is value in adopting a multi-level perspective that recognises that policy deliberations can be influenced by institutional configurations and agency-structure dynamics located at various territorial levels. Hence, in the context of regional or minority languages such as Welsh, while regional-level actors and institutions may have been responsible for leading on most policy activity over recent years, these regional-level initiatives have rarely been conceived and developed in isolation. Rather, as in many other policy domains, initiatives seeking to promote such languages are likely to be influenced by political and institutional factors across several territorial levels—local, regional, state, continental and global (see Royles and Lewis 2019; Lewis and Royles, forthcoming for further discussion).

5

Conclusion

At the start of this chapter, it was argued that, traditionally, the academic literature focusing on language policy has not grappled in great detail with the task of examining the political factors that underpin particular language policy choices. Rather, it was suggested that the general trend has been to focus on issues such as comparing the features of different language policy regimes or analysing the social or linguistic consequences of particular language policy interventions. In light of this, the chapter sought to highlight how recent contributions by political scientists have begun to address this important gap in the general language policy

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literature by drawing on historical institutionalist approaches, which foreground the significance of distinct institutional configurations, in order to examine the political origins of distinctive language policies. The explanatory value of such institutionalist approaches was then demonstrated by way of two brief examples that focused on recent episodes of policy development in relation to the Welsh language in Wales. Together the two examples highlighted how important institutional variables such as the formal powers of regional government, the internal structure of governance arrangements and the nature of the party system can play a significant role in shaping policy choices with regard to regional or minority languages such as Welsh. The Iaith Pawb example also underlined the value of core historical institutionalist concepts such as path dependence to the analysis of particular language policy trajectories, as well as the significance of the theory’s emphasis on how individual agency can serve important functions within given institutional contexts. Finally, in highlighting the significance of the UK’s legal and constitutional tradition and another important institutional influence, the case of the 2011 Welsh Language Measure illustrated the value of adopting a multi-level perspective that can take account of how institutional configurations associated with different territorial levels of governance can interact with each other to shape policy outcomes. However, in highlighting the insights that can be gleaned by adopting a historical institutionalist perspective when examining the political factors that influence particular language policy choices, there is no intention to suggest that this is the only available perspective that should be considered. Indeed, as Cairney (2012: 2) explains, theories of public policy can be used to analyse the policy process from number of different perspectives: We can focus on individual policymakers, examining how they analyse and understand policy problems. We can consider their beliefs and how receptive they are to particular ideas and approaches to the problem. We can focus on institutions and the rules that policy-makers follow. We can identify the powerful groups that influence how policies are made. We can focus on the socio-economic context and consider the pressures that governments face when making policy.

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Furthermore, Cairney (2012: 2) stresses that we need not focus on just one of these approaches at the expense of all others. Rather, it is possible to combine the insights afforded by a series of different theories in order to develop a fuller understanding of the policy process in a particular field. Such an eclectic approach would certainly help to take forward our understanding of the political dynamics that influence policy-making with regard to languages, not only in the case of policies that seek to promote regional or minority languages, as discussed here, but also the development of other types of language policies, for example those relating to the promotion of foreign language learning or the linguistic integration of immigrants. As has been established, the type of neo-institutionalist approach to language policy development outlined in this contribution encourages us to focus on the nature of the policy-making environment and specifically the type of institutional structures that shape the policymaking processes—constitutions, relations among different branches of government, the structure of public bureaucracies, the structure of party systems or state-interest group relations. Yet, as has been the case with the study of many other areas of public policy, there is scope to combine and compare the insights afforded by such approaches with those provided by alternative perspectives. For example, by drawing on rationalist approaches such as rational choice theory (see, e.g. Dowding 2010 and Parsons 2005) to study different language policy decisions we would be drawn to focus more on the role of key individuals, such as government ministers or civil servants, and we would be able to draw on conceptual tools that can help us to gauge what proportion of the policy outcomes under consideration can be explained with reference to the choices made by these individuals under particular conditions (Cairney 2012: 10). Alternatively, perspectives such as the advocacy coalition framework (see, e.g. Jenkins-Smith et al. 2014) would prompt us to think more systematically about the nature of the policy sector or sub-system under consideration by focusing our attention on how language policy change may result from coalitions of stakeholders or interest groups competing against each other in order to shape how policy-makers understand and interpret policy challenges.

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Clearly the options mentioned above only represent a small sample of possible approaches (see Cairney 2012; Sabatier and Weible 2014 for further discussion), yet the basic point still stands: that the general field of language policy research stands to benefit from a broader engagement with concepts, theories and approaches developed in the field of policy research. This would help us to develop a more detailed and more systematic understanding of the factors that explain why particular language policy decisions are taken, why those decisions are taken at particular points in time and why particular methods of pursuing the policy goal are selected—what has been described here as the political how and why of language policy.

Note 1. In its original formulation, under the terms of the Government of Wales Act 1998, the Welsh devolution settlement was based on a rather complex corporate body structure. While this settlement allowed for the appointment of a First Minister and Cabinet (that, over time, came to be known as the Welsh Assembly Government), it did not feature a formal legal separation between the executive and the legislature. This meant that, formally, all decisions were taken in the name of the National Assembly as a whole. Furthermore, in the early years of devolved government, policy development took place within cross-party subject committees in which ministers sat as members—an arrangement that was viewed as a mechanism for allowing all parties to influence policy-making. This structure was subjected to sustained criticism (see, e.g., Rawlings 2003; Richard Commission 2004) and there was a gradual shift to a more parliamentary style of government. Such changes were eventually confirmed by the Government of Wales Act 2006 , which established a formal separation between the executive and legislature.

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References Cairney, P. 2012. Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Cardinal, L., and S.K. Sonntag (eds.). 2015. State Traditions and Language Regimes. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Dafis, C. 2005. Mab y Pregethwr. Talybont: Y Lolfa. Dowding, K. 2010. Rational Choice Theory. In The Sage Handbook of Governance, ed. M. Bevir, 36–50. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Fioretos, O., T.G. Falleti, and A. Sheingate. 2016. European Politics. In The Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism, ed. O. Fioretos, T.G. Falleti, and A. Sheingate, 387–390. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fishman, J.A. 1991. Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gazzola, M. 2014. The Evaluation of Language Regimes: Theory and Application to Multilingual Patent Organisations. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gazzola, M., and F. Grin. 2017. Comparative Language Policy and Evaluation: Concepts, Indicators and Implications for Translation Policy. In Translation and Public Policy: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Case Studies, ed. R. Meylaerts and G. González Nuñez, 83–112. Abingdon: Routledge. Gazzola, M., F. Grin, and F. Vaillancourt. 2020. Evaluating Language Policy and Planning: An Introduction to the Economic Approach. In Bridging Linguistics and Economics, ed. C.B. Vigouroux and S.S. Mufwene, 109–130. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Government of Wales Act 1998. 1998 c. 38. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ ukpga/1998/38/contents. Accessed 12 June 2021. Government of Wales Act 2006 . 2006 c. 32. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ ukpga/2006/32/contents. Accessed 12 June 2021. Grin, F. 2003. Language Policy Evaluation and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Grin, F., and F. Vaillancourt. 1999. The Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation of Minority Language Policies: Case Studies on Wales, Ireland and the Basque Country. Flensburg: European Centre for Minority Issues. Hall, P.A., and R. Taylor. 1996. Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms. Political Studies 44 (5): 936–957. Hay, C., and D. Wincott. 1998. Structure, Agency and Historical Institutionalism. Political Studies 46 (5): 951–957.

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Jenkins-Smith, H.C., D. Nohrstedt, C.M. Weible, and P.A. Sabatier. 2014. The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Foundations, Evolution, and Ongoing Research. In Theories of the Policy Process, ed. P.A. Sabatier and C.M. Weible, 183–223. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Johnson, D.C. 2013. Language Policy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kymlicka, W., and A. Patten (eds.). 2003. Language Rights and Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Labour Party and Plaid Cymru. 2007. One Wales: A Progressive Agenda for the Government of Wales. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/27_ 06_07_onewales.pdf. Accessed 29 Apr 2021. Lecours, A. 2000. Theorizing Cultural Identities: Historical Institutionalism as a Challenge to the Culturalists. Canadian Journal of Political Science 33 (3): 499–522. Léger, R., and H. Lewis. 2017. Normative Approaches to Language Policy and Planning. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 38 (7): 577–583. Lewis, H., and W. McLeod. 2021. Introduction: Language Revitalisation and Social Transformation. In Language Revitalisation and Social Transformation, ed. H. Lewis and W. McLeod, 1–34. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Lewis, H., and E. Royles. Forthcoming. Governance, Complexity and MultiLevel LPP. In The Routledge Handbook of Language Policy and Planning, ed. M. Gazzola et al. Abingdon, Routledge. Loughlin, J., and C.H. Williams. 2007. Governance and Language: The Intellectual Foundations. In Language and Governance, ed. C.H. Williams, 57–103. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Lowi, T. 1972. Four Systems of Policy Politics and Choice. Public Administration Review 32 (4): 298–310. Mac Giolla Chríost, D. 2016. The Welsh Language Commissioner in Context: Roles, Methods, Relationships. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. May, S. 2011. Language and Minority Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language, 2nd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education. McCormick, J. 2001. Environmental Policy in the European Union. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ó Flatharta, P., S. Sandberg, and C.H. Williams. 2014. From Act to Action: Language Legislation in Finland, Ireland and Wales. Dublin: Fiontar. Parsons, S. 2005. Rational Choice and Politics: A Critical Introduction. London: Continuum. Patten, A. 2001. Political Theory and Language Policy. Political Theory 29 (5): 683–707.

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Patten, A. 2003. Liberal Neutrality and Language Policy. Philosophy and Public Affairs 31 (4): 356–386. Peters, B.G. 2012. Institutional Theory in Political Science: The New Institutionalism. London: Continuum. Peters, B.G. 2015. Advanced Introduction to Public Policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rawlings, R. 2003. Delineating Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Richard Commission. 2004. Commission on the Powers and Electoral Arrangements of the National Assembly for Wales. https://webarchive.nationalarch ives.gov.uk/20100404200945/http:/www.richardcommission.gov.uk/con tent/finalreport/report-e.pdf. Accessed 12 June 2021. Royles, E., and H. Lewis. 2019. Language Policy in Multi-Level Systems. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 21 (4): 709–727. Sabatier, P.A., and C.M. Weible (eds.). 2014. Theories of the Policy Process. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Schiffman, H. 1996. Linguistic Culture and Language Policy. London: Routledge. Sonntag, S.K., and L. Cardinal. 2015. Introduction: State Traditions and Language Regimes: Conceptualizing Language Policy Choices. In State Traditions and Language Regimes, ed. S.K. Sonntag and L. Cardinal, 3–28. Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Spolsky, B. 2004. Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thelen, K. 1999. A Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics. Annual Review of Political Science 2: 369–404. Tollefson, J. 1991. Planning Language, Planning Inequality. London: Longman. Van Parijs, P. 2011. Linguistic Justice for Europe and the World . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Welsh Assembly Government. 2003. Iaith Pawb—A National Action Plan for a Bilingual Wales. Cardiff: Welsh Assembly Government. Welsh Government. 2012. A Living Language: A Language for Living—Welsh Language Strategy 2012–2017 . Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Government. 2017. Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Language Act 1993. 1993 c. 38. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/ 1993/38/contents. Accessed 6 Mar 2021. Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. 2011 nawm 1. https://www.legislation. gov.uk/mwa/2011/1/contents/enacted. Accessed 6 Mar 2021.

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Williams, C.H. 2004. Iaith Pawb: The Doctrine of Plenary Inclusion. Contemporary Wales 19: 1–27. Williams, C.H. (ed.). 2007. Language and Governance. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Williams, C.H. 2012. Language Policy, Territorialism and Regional Autonomy. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Policy, ed. B. Spolsky, 174–202. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, C.H. 2013a. Minority Language Promotion, Protection and Regulation: The Mask of Piety. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Williams, C.H. 2013b. Official Language Strategies in Comparative Perspective. Cardiff: Network for the Promotion of Linguistic Diversity.

Language Rights, Human Rights and the Right to Chat Emyr Lewis

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Introduction

For people wishing to use a language other than an official language of the state, the right to talk to whomever we want whenever we want (the right to chat) is not as clearly, effectively and universally guaranteed in law as it should be. This essay looks at why that right matters, the extent to which it is protected (not enough) and how a rather weak regime for its protection in relation to Welsh in Wales nevertheless possesses features that should be more widely adopted. The first section considers language rights generally, and so-called ‘linguistic human rights’ (LHR) in particular, arguing that the right to chat merits consideration as a fundamental human right. Its classification as a freedom or ‘toleranceoriented right’ is discussed, as is the relationship between denying the E. Lewis (B) Department of Law and Criminology, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_3

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right and asymmetry of power, especially between the individual and the state. It is further argued that its significance has tended to be downplayed by supporters and opponents of LHR alike, in contrast to the claim rights which tend to dominate academic discourse. Furthermore (contrary to this approach) the universal nature of this right is considered a potentially useful point of departure for minority language activists seeking to argue more generally for language rights. The second section assesses to what extent the right to chat is protected by law. It concludes that in international law and UK anti-discrimination law, the right is recognised only in certain contexts and/or in favour of certain groups or individuals defined by reference to their indigenous minority status or racial group. This section then considers the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 and in particular its provisions relating to the freedom to use Welsh. It concludes that, while these do not establish a justiciable right to chat in Welsh, they possess certain valuable features for establishing a broader right to chat, namely recognising linguistic freedom as a right in itself, not contingent on anything else, and as a universal right extending to all wishing to exercise it. In his 2007 essay ‘Articulating the Horizons of Welsh’, Colin Williams considered the future potential direction for legislation relating to the Welsh language. The National Assembly (as Senedd Cymru was then known) had only recently emerged from the ashes of its predecessor (a corporate body with executive powers only) as an institution able to make laws, with executive functions exercised by a separate government (see Watkin and Greenberg 2018: paras. 1–61 to 1–70). The scope of the law-making powers was severely restricted, however, and the new institution would need, in most cases, to ask Westminster for consent to legislate about a topic. One of those topics was the Welsh language. It would be 2010 before consent was forthcoming in the shape of The National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Welsh Language) Order 2010 (‘the 2010 LCO’), and 2011 before the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 (‘the 2011 Measure’) became law. Williams’s essay is an early and important contribution to the extensive and energetic discussion between 2007 and 2010 about what should be in these enactments.

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Among the central issues considered by Williams was what he called ‘Linguistic Rights’. Indeed, first in a list of reasons given for supporting legislation in relation to Welsh was that ‘it is time that elements of Welsh linguistic rights be put on a statutory footing’ (Williams 2007: 408). This call for rights, which echoed those of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) and other activists, arose from general dissatisfaction at the system of language schemes overseen by the Welsh Language Board which had been in operation since the creation of that body by the Welsh Language Act 1993 (see M.P. Jones, this volume). Under these schemes, public bodies set out what they would do in relation to the use of Welsh in providing services. The schemes were monitored by the Board, which had powers to investigate failures to comply, to make recommendations and to publish findings, but had no other regulatory or enforcement powers. It was the softest of soft law. While there were duties, of sorts, by reason of the expectation that public bodies would comply with their schemes, these were not in any meaningful sense justiciable, certainly not by those citizens who were the intended beneficiaries of the schemes. Summing up the position, Williams said ‘I believe it is important to mirror the duty to provide the service with the right to receive it’ (Williams 2007: 411). For practising lawyers, rights are relatively straightforward things. Rights guarantee primacy to certain interests of certain persons in certain circumstances.1 They may be absolute or subject to conditions. Lawyers may argue about whether they exist, for example whether a particular statutory provision properly construed confers a justiciable right, but tend to avoid the question of whether they ought to exist. Once established as being ordained by law, the desirability of their existence is not in doubt. In most real-world legal contexts, they are a given, a starting point for an examination of whether they have been infringed in any particular circumstances, and if so what remedies or other legal consequences might follow. That is as true of rights that relate to language and its use as it is of any other type of rights. For those engaged with language policy, however (whether in the context of minority languages or otherwise), prior questions need to be addressed: Which rights? Who has them? In what circumstances do they apply? And, crucially, Why rights? How do we justify resorting to rights

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in terms of linguistic, philosophical, political and practical considerations, or as Kymlicka and Patten put it (2003: 1), how do we arrive at a ‘normative theory of language rights’? One of the ways in which the last of these questions has been addressed is by characterising certain rights relating to language as human rights. Certain aspects of language and its use, it is contended, are so fundamentally linked to the human condition that they ought to be protected by rights. LHR has been a consistent component of discourse surrounding minority languages and other languages which have been marginalised or excluded from the official or public sphere within states (see, e.g. De Varennes 2001; Skutnabb-Kangas 2002; Grin 2005; Paz 2014). Such languages frequently are, or have historically been, the targets of official suppression or prohibition, whether expressly or by necessary implication through requiring the exclusive use of official language(s). In this context, characterising language rights as human rights is at first blush an attractive, almost intuitive, approach. Linguistic suppression is and has been part of a wider pattern of oppression, from silencing the voice of dissent to being an instrument of imperialist assimilation. The following passage by Tove Skutnabb-Kangas illustrates one LHR approach: The most important LHR needed to maintain the world’s linguistic diversity is the unconditional right to MTM [mother-tongue medium] education. I also assert that the denial of this right is the most important pedagogical reason for the lack of literacy in the world—of course, there are economic and other reasons, too. The maintenance of linguistic and cultural diversity on earth presupposes that parents can transfer their languages to their children . . . if indigenous or minority children are mainly educated through the medium of a dominant (often official) language, it is unlikely that they will continue to speak their own language to their own children once they are adults . . . Thus, their language is not transferred, and the children are ‘forcibly transferred to another group.’2 (Skutnabb-Kangas 2002: 180)

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It is interesting to note that the justification for characterising the right to MTM education as a human right is broader than that of safeguarding the interests of individual speakers of the language concerned. While the individual’s direct interests (literacy) are relevant, a significant express purpose of guaranteeing the right appears to be in order to maintain intergenerational transmission and thereby linguistic and cultural diversity. Founding a fundamental human right on the broad policy purpose of preventing languages from disappearing seems unusual to those not familiar with, or not sympathetic to, the wider arguments linking the well-being of individuals to the vitality of language communities of which they form a part. Framed in terms of maintaining that individual well-being, it is easier to see how a right to MTM education could be characterised as a human right, and indeed in the article cited Skutnabb-Kangas elaborates her argument in that direction. The concept of LHRs has been the subject of much debate and criticism, a detailed account of which is beyond the scope of this essay. Two arguments are nevertheless worth mentioning. The first is that rights founded on the concept of an ‘inalienable’ mother tongue derive from an essentialist perspective, which does not allow for shifting linguistic practice and identities (e.g. Wee 2011: 56–60). The second is the difficulty in deriving universal norms from the interests or claims of speakers, given the diversity and complexity of the situations of languages and the relationships between them within any given state (e.g. Arzoz 2009). A common thread appears to be the difficulty inherent in conceiving of language rights as rights which are universal in nature, as opposed to rights which are contingent on the specific circumstances of specific languages (and their speakers) within the social, political or cultural dynamics of the states where they are used.3 There is a danger that this discussion ends up as a rather sterile argument about how the rights claimed should be classified, rather than about their usefulness or value. Nevertheless, the underlying issue is salient. Resisting the categorisation of language rights as human rights (whether because of lack of universality, essentialism or otherwise) risks dismissing the concerns of minority language speakers outright. The minority language baby is thrown out with the LHR bathwater.

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There is nevertheless a category of language rights that seems to be accepted as being universal in nature, even though the way in which it is manifested in significant legal instruments suggests that it is not. That is the right of people to converse. To take the simplest of examples, if A and B wish to speak to each other, then under normal circumstances, there is no reason why they should not do so. They should be free to do so. This is the basic right to chat. It is difficult to conceive of a language right that is more rooted in universal human experience, and more deserving of being called a human right. A reasonable extension of the basic right to chat is that it is a right to chat in whatever language or languages the participants in the conversation choose. If A and B’s basic right to chat is established, then their right to do so in Gaelic or English (or a mixture of both) is also established. They are free to chat in the language(s) which they choose. It is in this extended sense that the phrase ‘the right to chat’ is used in this essay. Such a right is, of course, different in nature from a right to MTM education, and indeed from other types of rights most vocally claimed on behalf of speakers of minority languages in modern societies, such as the right to use their language in official contexts, to receive correspondence and services in their language or to adequate funding for broadcasting, media and cultural activities. These latter rights can be categorised as claim rights or positive rights, in relation to which there is a corresponding obligation (usually but not exclusively on the state or public authority) ‘to provide positive measures of support to speakers’ (Dunbar 2001: 107). These rights are not capable of being enjoyed by speakers without positive action on the part of the public authorities concerned. For instance, there can only be a right to public MTM education if the state invests in schools, teachers, educational materials, training etc. Furthermore, from the practising lawyer’s perspective, these rights will only exist to the extent that the law obliges such authorities to guarantee the outcome (in this case MTM education) and (as with all rights) enables individuals to obtain redress through the courts if the rights are denied. The right to chat is not a claim right, at least not in the same way. It is a freedom right. The corollary of such a right is not a positive obligation on others to provide anything, but rather an obligation not to interfere

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with the freedom (cf. freedom of religion or freedom of speech), and not to discriminate against people on the basis of their exercise of that right. For this reason, rights of this sort are sometimes called ‘negative rights’. They are also called ‘liberties’, ‘privileges’ and ‘tolerance rights’ or ‘tolerance-oriented rights’ (see, for instance, in the context of the right to chat Dunbar 2001: 91; Wee 2011: 48).4 The expression ‘tolerance-oriented right’ is telling, especially in the context of minority languages, since it implies a position of superiority or power from which tolerance happens. That position is itself defined by, occupied by and maintained by a language that is both a marker of superiority and a means of exercising and reinforcing power. It suggests that allowing linguistic freedom is a departure from a normal state of affairs which otherwise applies (and which may be restored at any time). The asymmetry of power is of course evident where the power is that of the state exercised through its official language(s). The limits of the right are the limits of the state’s tolerance, the point at which it insists on the primacy of the official language and requires its exclusive use, even between individuals who can speak another language, and who would, but for the state’s injunction, choose to do so. Examples include requirements to conduct official business only in the official language. The extent to which this impinges on the right to chat will depend on what is classified as official business. An interesting example is given by the first report of the Committee of Experts on the implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (‘Charter’) in Slovakia (Council of Europe 2007: 36–37). It cites section 8, para. 4 of Slovakia’s Act No. 270/1995 on the State Language: The communication between healthcare professionals and patients shall be usually conducted in the official language; if the patient is a citizen or foreigner who does not have a command of the official language, it can be conducted in a language that makes communication with the patient possible.

This provision effectively required (for example) a doctor and patient from Slovakia’s large Hungarian-speaking community to speak to each other in Slovak, unless either of them was unable to do so. The provision was subsequently amended to provide that:

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staff shall communicate with their patients or clients usually in Slovak, but communication with a patient or a client whose mother tongue is not Slovak may take place in a language in which the patient or client can communicate. (Council of Europe 2013: 44)

This type of example is unusual, but instances of power asymmetry where restrictions or prohibitions are placed on the right to chat are regrettably not uncommon. Examples include restricting the freedom of prisoners to use their own language, requiring employees to converse with each other and with customers in a particular language and banning the use of certain languages in certain places. In each of these examples the restrictions are imposed by people who are in a position of legally conferred power relative to the persons affected, be that executive power (prisons), economic power (the contract of employment) or proprietorship (the right of the owner to control activities on his/her land). In addition, many speakers of a minority language will be familiar with the peremptory request not to use that language together in conversation when there are people present who cannot understand it. The power asymmetry is transferred from the official, economic and public spheres to the social and private. In academic discussions of minority language rights, the right to chat and other freedom rights such as the freedom to perform plays, send emails, give public lectures about particle physics or sing songs do not tend to command the same degree of attention as claim rights. One reason for this may be that they are considered to be a ‘given’, since they do not require any proactive official action: language rights include the freedom freely to choose and to use one’s language and to be free of interference in one’s linguistic affairs and identity. This freedom of language does not require State intervention to be effectively enjoyed since it is immediately applicable. (Arzoz 2009: 547)

In other words, the authorities do not need to take any positive steps in order to allow people to enjoy these rights. They are (at least in the context of modern liberal democracies) automatically guaranteed because there is nothing which prohibits their exercise. They are not like a right

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(for instance) to take a driving test in Welsh, which requires a positive obligation on the state to provide it. This exoneration of the state from any responsibility other than tolerance is a rather limited view, however. At the very least the state needs to foster a public environment of tolerance towards linguistic diversity so that the freedom can be enjoyed as much as possible without interference (see for instance Article 7(3) of the Charter). Another reason why freedom rights tend not to command the same degree of attention as claim rights follows on from this, namely that they are considered to be inadequate on their own in the context of preserving and promoting minority languages and the needs of their speakers (e.g. Dunbar 2001; Kymlicka and Patten 2003; Réaume 2003), a perspective which is reflected in the Explanatory Report to the Charter (Council of Europe 1992), for instance in paragraph 27: Having regard to the present weakness of some of the historical regional or minority languages of Europe, however, the mere prohibition of discrimination against their users is not a sufficient safeguard.

Despite this relative sidelining, it is nevertheless worth dwelling on the right to chat, since its denial or restriction is the most fundamental and intrusive aspect of language rights infringement. It is also a potentially useful point of departure for minority language activists seeking to argue for language rights. In the first place, this is because it is not necessarily linked to a minority language context. It could apply to English-speaking prisoners in a Turkish jail, or to Spanish speakers employed in a British restaurant. Since it is potentially universally applicable to all speakers of any language, it could be a useful starting point for moving from hostility towards acceptance. Furthermore, it is a base from which it may be possible to construct, or at least lend weight to, claim rights. The right to chat can be seen as an instance of a broader right for people to speak together in their language of choice in any medium or domain. For instance, for that right to be effectively enjoyed in the context of pupilteacher communications in state-provided education, then education through the medium of that language needs to be provided.

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2

The Right to Chat and the Law

To what extent is the right to chat protected by law? This section examines this question in three contexts: international human rights instruments, UK anti-discrimination law and the special position of the right to chat in Welsh under the 2011 Measure. The international instruments considered here are the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), since they set out concrete rights intended to be guaranteed by law, and contain mechanisms enabling individual cases to be adjudicated. Instruments such as the Charter and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities are not considered. While those particular instruments do of course reference the ECHR and human rights more generally, they are frameworks for state implementation which do not purport to give people concrete rights nor contain any method of adjudicating individual cases beyond their monitoring and reporting mechanisms.

2.1

ECHR and ICCPR

In the 2014 case of Kaya and others v Turkey, prisoners were denied the right to speak to their relatives in Kurdish. The European Court of Human Rights said (at para. 49): The possibility for a prisoner to communicate orally on the telephone in his mother tongue constitutes a specific aspect not only of his right to respect for his correspondence but above all of his right to respect for his family life, within the meaning of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention.

Nevertheless, the Court went on to explain that there was no protection for linguistic freedom as such (at para. 53): As the Court has also found in previous cases, in a number of different contexts, linguistic freedom as such is not amongst the rights and freedoms governed by the Convention, with the exception of the specific rights stated in Article 5 § 2 (a person’s right to be informed promptly, in

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a language which he understands, of the reasons for his arrest and of any charge against him) and in Article 6 § 3 (a) and (e) (a person’s right to be informed promptly of the nature and cause of the accusation against him and right to have the assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court).

and as if to emphasise the point (at para. 54): In the present case the Court would again point out that the matter in issue relates not to the applicants’ linguistic freedom as such but to their right to maintain meaningful contact with their families.

Article 10 of the ECHR protects freedom of expression, but the court in Kaya did not consider freedom of expression, nor even whether Article 10 of ECHR was engaged at all.5 Indeed, there do not appear to be any decided cases under Article 10 which consider whether restrictions on the ‘possibility to communicate . . . in [one’s] mother tongue’ (or indeed any other chosen tongue) amount to an infringement of the right to freedom of expression. It seems, therefore (subject to the qualification on anti-discrimination provisions below), that the right to chat is confined within European human rights jurisprudence to being an aspect of the right to respect for family life, limited to the use of one’s mother tongue in conversation with members of one’s own family. This is problematic, for instance, for people who want to speak to each other in a mutually understood lingua franca, people from multilingual households who want to switch languages, learners of a minority language (including parent learners of children educated in a minority language) and unrelated friends who want to talk to each other in their mother tongue. All would appear to be excluded from the protection of the Convention. The right to chat, being a language right, is quite simply ‘not amongst the rights and freedoms governed by the Convention’. The Court in Kaya did not consider the applicant’s argument under Article 14 of the Convention, prohibiting discrimination in relation to the enjoyment of Convention rights inter alia on the grounds of language. Had it done so, it might have been more circumspect in its generalisations.6

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The applicant in Kaya won his case under Article 8, and it is arguable that the observations of the Court in Kaya about language rights under ECHR were unnecessary and overstated. It may be that in future the court will have to deal properly with a case of language choice under Article 10 or Article 14.7 For the time being, however, the state of the law under the ECHR appears to be that the right to chat is not recognised other than as an aspect of respect for family life. Turning to the ICCPR, the right to chat is expressly recognised in Article 27, but it is limited to persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities that ‘exist’ in the State concerned. It is further confined to being a right ‘in community with other members of their group . . . to use their own language’. This formulation therefore excludes, as well as most of the examples excluded from ECHR protection, persons from outside the minority group and those wishing to use languages other than those which ‘exist’ in the state as minority languages. It is therefore far from being a universal right to chat. Again, the ICCPR contains anti-discrimination provisions (Articles 2.1 and 26) which might in conjunction with other rights give broader protection of the right to chat, but the extent of that protection is unclear, especially since the substantive right is made explicit only in the context of Article 27, where its restriction to speakers of minority languages in certain circumstances can be seen as reinforcing the unfortunate characterisation of language rights as ‘essentialist’ rather than universal.8

2.2

UK Anti-discrimination Law

A similar observation can be made about the way in which antidiscrimination legislation in the UK approaches the issue. The protection given under this legislation differs from that afforded under the international instruments discussed above. Those instruments deal with the rights of individuals vis-à-vis states and public authorities, whereas anti-discrimination legislation extends also into the sphere of relations between individuals and non-state actors in certain specific contexts.

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Under the Equality Act 2010 , for discrimination and other prohibited conduct to be unlawful, it must happen by reference to a protected characteristic of the victim. The protected characteristics are age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation (s. 4). Language is not a protected characteristic. Consequently, cases involving language prohibitions at work (for instance) tend to relate to race, which includes colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins. In some cases, such prohibitions are tantamount to direct race discrimination (see e.g. Dziedziak v Future Electronics Ltd ); in others, a requirement to speak or not to speak a particular language can amount to indirect discrimination through applying ‘a provision, criterion or practice which is discriminatory in relation to a protected characteristic’ (s. 9(1)). In a case of alleged indirect discrimination, the alleged discriminator has a defence available, namely that the requirement amounts to a ‘proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’ (s. 9(2)(d)); see, for example, in relation to the right to chat Kelly v Covance Laboratories. As with Article 27 of the ICCPR, protection of the right to chat under the EA is extended only to certain people, namely those for whom the language in which they choose to converse is related to a protected characteristic of theirs, usually their race. What about situations where the language in question is not an aspect of someone’s race, as with the immigrant learner of a minority language? For such a person to be afforded the right not be discriminated against for chatting in their new language, it would be necessary to make ‘choice of language’ a protected characteristic (which would have implications beyond only the right to chat), or to step outside the framework of the EA to establish the right to chat as a sui generis right.

2.3

Part 6 of the 2011 Measure

To return to Wales, instances of denying the right to chat in Welsh have been among the more significant causes célèbres for the language movement. In 2007, when Williams’s essay was published, there was a particularly high-profile case involving the travel company Thomas

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Cook, which had prohibited its employees from speaking Welsh to each other in their shop in Bangor, Gwynedd. The case did not end up in a tribunal or court; rather it was resolved following an intervention by the Welsh Government, the Welsh Language Board and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. Thomas Cook agreed to introduce a plan to promote use of the Welsh language and to recognise that individual staff members have the right to use their chosen language in the workplace where that is reasonable, appropriate and practical (BBC Cymru Newyddion 2007). Since the Thomas Cook case coincided with the National Assembly acquiring the potential to make laws in relation to Welsh, the right to chat (at least in Welsh) became the focus of attention, such that one of the areas in which the 2010 LCO permitted the National Assembly to legislate was to make ‘Provision about or in connection with the freedom of persons wishing to use the Welsh language to do so with one another (including any limitations upon it)’ (Matter 20.2, inserted into Part 1 of Schedule 5 to the Government of Wales Act 2006 by para. 3(1) of the 2010 LCO). The 2011 Measure had been envisaged by politicians as conferring ‘linguistic rights in the provision of services’ (in the words of the 2007 One Wales programme for government of the Labour / Plaid Cymru coalition [Welsh Assembly Government 2007: 34]). When passed, however, from the perspective of lawyers at least, it fell short. Rather than giving justiciable rights to individuals, it established an elaborate regulatory system, with a new regulator (the Welsh Language Commissioner) largely targeted at the provision of public services.9 Public bodies and others subject to the regime must comply with standards as to the use of Welsh. The standards applicable to various sectors are set out in lengthy statutory instruments, and made binding on individual bodies through detailed compliance notices given to them by the Commissioner, who also has power to investigate breaches of standards and to apply sanctions if a breach is proven. A dedicated Tribunal resolves disputes. As for the right to chat, the 2011 Measure included a whole part, Part 6, dedicated to ‘The Freedom to Use Welsh’, which takes a similar approach. Part 6 establishes a rather elaborate soft law regulatory mechanism for investigating alleged interferences with the freedom to use

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Welsh. The contexts in which an investigated interference can happen are not limited. They could in theory include everyday social interactions, which seems an unduly intrusive extension of the reach of regulatory powers. Under section 111(1): An individual (P) may apply to the Commissioner for the Commissioner to investigate whether a person (D) has interfered with P’s freedom to undertake a Welsh communication with another individual (R) (the ‘alleged interference’).

In section 112(1) ‘Welsh communication’ is defined as a communication in Welsh between two individuals, both of whom— (a) are in Wales, and (b) wish to use the Welsh language with one another in undertaking the communication.

Section 113 contains an elaborate definition of what amounts to interference, which boils down to D indicating to P that P should not engage in Welsh communication, or D subjecting P to, or threatening P with, detriment for doing so. If the Commissioner proceeds with an investigation, he or she must determine whether there has been an interference with P’s freedom to undertake the Welsh communication (s. 117(2)) and also give his or her views on the interference (including views on whether the interference was justified (s. 117(3)). The Commissioner may also give advice to P or D or other person about the alleged interference, or any related matter (s. 117(7)). The Commissioner may prepare a report on the investigation, which he or she must give to the Welsh Ministers, P and D. The Commissioner may publish the report, or a version or parts of it, if P and D agree or if the Commissioner considers it to be in the public interest. The eight annual reports published so far by the Commissioner (2014/15–2019/20) indicate that 32 new cases were received during the period covered.10 Many did not result in formal investigations because they did not meet the requirements of section 111 of the 2011

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Measure, frequently because the complainant was not directly affected by the alleged interference. In some cases involving the use of Welsh at work, the Commissioner has engaged with the employers concerned even though the requirements of s. 111 were not met, given them advice and asked them to take steps to ensure that their staff were aware that they could use Welsh in the workplace (Welsh Language Commissioner 2018a: 44, 45). Of those cases that have met the s. 111 requirements, four have resulted in full investigations and published reports. Some have not proceeded because the complainants have specifically requested that there be no formal investigation. In a few cases, investigations have been avoided or discontinued because those complained against took early steps to apologise and/or change their policy. Of the four concluded cases where reports have been published, three related to employers who were alleged to have prohibited workers from speaking to each other in Welsh.11 The other case concerned a locum doctor at a hospital who had required a mother to stop speaking Welsh to her child (the patient).12 In each case, the Commissioner found that there had been interference with the right to use Welsh and that it was not justified. The Commissioner’s reports end with advice addressed to the entity complained of. As in the Thomas Cook case, a soft law, litigation-free approach involving an official regulator, allowing for repentance and rapprochement, seems to have paid dividends in some cases, doubtless enhanced by the fear of adverse publicity resulting from an adverse report being published.13 Arguably, this approach can work for Welsh in Wales because it is a minority language which has considerable political and popular support among its speakers and non-speakers alike, and because one of the paradoxical consequences of increased political autonomy for Wales can be said to be a move away from essentialist concepts of what it means to be Welsh. In other words, formal recognition of the right to chat in Welsh as a universal right may be possible because of the particular social, political and linguistic situation in Wales. For instance, the Welsh Government’s 2020 strategy on the internal use of Welsh within Government emphasises the universality of Welsh for everyone in Wales. It is entitled Cymraeg. It belongs to us all and includes the following passage:

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We are proud of the Welsh language and want it to thrive. It is something that can unite us as a nation. Statistics show that 86% of people across Wales feel that the language is something to be proud of. But while some are comfortable speaking Welsh – more often than not as the language was passed on to them by their families – many are not. We need to establish a common understanding that the Welsh language belongs to us all whatever our linguistic background. The language is not exclusive to those who can speak it today. (Welsh Government 2020)

This passage both frames Welsh as a language which has explicit official support, and also adopts an inclusive approach to its ‘ownership’. Against that background, it is a small step to a universal right to chat in Welsh. This particular situation of Welsh may also account for the idiosyncratic way in which the right to chat in Welsh has been recognised. The regulatory and ultimately non-justiciable nature of Part 6 of the 2011 Measure, combined with the mediatory and largely nonconfrontational approach of the Commissioner, may be considered to be more conducive to achieving the type of ‘common understanding’ referred to in the above extract from Cymraeg. It belongs to us all. But it does not, when all is said and done, in reality confer a right.

3

Conclusion

As things stand, the right to chat is insufficiently recognised as a universal right in international law and in the UK. While there is some protection of the right to chat as a substantive justiciable right under international human rights law, it is explicitly recognised only in Article 27 of the ICCPR, where its scope is tightly restricted. The European Court of Human Rights also appears to have confined it to the context of protection of family life under the ECHR. The extent of its protection under anti-discrimination provisions of both instruments is unclear. Under UK anti-discrimination law, in practice, it exists only where the language in question is related to an individual’s race. Although they do not amount to justiciable rights, falling as they do under an elaborate and potentially over-intrusive soft law regulatory

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regime, and although they are restricted in their scope to one language (Welsh), the provisions in Part 6 of the 2011 Measure do have certain features which could valuably be adopted more widely in the context of a right to chat. Firstly, they explicitly recognise linguistic freedom as a stand-alone thing, not contingent on any other right or context or circumstances. Secondly, they extend to all people wishing to exercise that freedom. The only conditions are that those people must be in Wales and must want to communicate with one another in Welsh. There is no requirement that they should be Welsh nor resident in Wales, nor indeed that they should possess any other defining characteristic. These features are a signpost towards what is needed: an explicitly recognised universal right to chat, which can benefit speakers not only of indigenous minority languages but of all languages.

Notes 1. That is the practical consequence of a right, regardless of whether one prefers a ‘will’ or ‘interest’ theory of rights. 2. The reference is to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. For a discussion of the Convention in the context of language rights see Skuttnabb-Kangas and Dunbar (2010). 3. For a robust rebuttal of this perspective, see De Varennes (2001). 4. In 1971 Kloss, in the context of the language rights of immigrant groups, referred to ‘the distinction between those language rights that are promotion-oriented (in German: fördernd) and those that are just tolerance-oriented or acquiescent (in German: duldend)’ (emphasis added) (1971: 259). This distinction has become ‘one of the most influential ways of addressing language rights in the literature’ (Kymlicka and Patten 2003: 26). 5. In other jurisdictions, language restrictions have been held to infringe constitutional rights to freedom of expression. For a limited instance see Yniguez v Mofford (1990) and critical discussion in Puig-Lugo (1991). Contrast the Supreme Court of Canada in Ford v Quebec (1988): ‘there cannot be true freedom of expression by

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6.

7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

12. 13.

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means of language if one is prohibited from using the language of one’s choice’ (at para. 40). As for Article 1 of Protocol 12 (prohibiting discrimination generally including on language grounds) Turkey and most Council of Europe member states (the UK included) have not ratified it. In Bozkurt v Turkey, another case involving a Kurdish-speaking prisoner in Turkey, the applicant had relied on Article 10 but the European Court of Human Rights chose to examine it under Article 8. For a critique of how the United Nations Human Rights Committee as well as the European Court of Human Rights have approached minority language rights see Paz (2014). For a trenchant critique of the 2011 Measure from this standpoint, see Huws (2017). For a different perspective, see Mac Giolla Chríost (2016: 41–69), which also includes a discussion of the history of the 2011 Measure during its passage through the National Assembly (as it then was). The figure is not certain. Commentary in the 2017/18 report suggests that the number may be greater. These cases involved Swinton Group Limited (2014), 2 Sisters Food Group (2018) and Leggett and Platt Automotive (2019). In each case, the Commissioner issued a Determination and Report. My thanks to Gwenith Price, Deputy Commissioner, for supplying me with copies of these decisions. Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (Determination and Report 14 October 2014). The Commissioner has also addressed the right to chat outside the Part 6 process as part of an investigation into Welsh in prisons, which mentioned alleged bans on prisoners using Welsh in HMP Berwyn, and threatened review of privileges (Welsh Language Commissioner 2018b). These allegations were also mentioned in the Annual Report of the Independent Monitoring Board at HMP Berwyn for 2019–2020, referencing discrimination incident report forms (DIRFs). They have been denied by HM Prison Service.

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References Cases European Court of Human Rights Bozkurt v Turkey (Application no. 38674/07) (2015). Kaya and others v Turkey (Applications nos. 43750/06, 43752/06, 32054/08, 37753/08 and 60915/08) (2014). Employment Appeal Tribunal Dziedziak v Future Electronics Ltd (UKEAT/0270/11/ZT) (2012). Kelly v Covance Laboratories (UKEAT/0186/15/LA) (2015). Supreme Court of Canada Ford v Quebec 1988 CanLII 19. United States District Court, District of Arizona Yniguez v Mofford , 730 F. Supp. 309 (1990).

International Instruments Council of Europe European Convention of Human Rights, ETS 5. European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, ETS 148. Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, ETS 157. United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78 UNTS 977. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 999 UNTS 171. Legislation Act No. 270/1995 on the State Language of the Slovak Republic. Equality Act 2010, 2010 c. 15. Government of Wales Act 2006 , 2006 c. 32. The National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Welsh Language) Order 2010, 2010 no. 245. Welsh Language Act 1993, 1993 c. 38. Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, 2001 nawm 1.

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Books, Articles and Other Publications Annual Report of the Independent Monitoring Board at HMP Berwyn for reporting Year 1 March 2019 to 29 February 2020. https://s3-eu-west-2.ama zonaws.com/imb-prod-storage-1ocod6bqky0vo/uploads/2020/09/AR-Ber wyn-2019-20-for-circulation.pdf. Accessed 10 July 2021. Arzoz, X. 2009. Language Rights as Legal Norms. European Public Law 15 (4): 541–574. BBC Cymru Newyddion. 2007. Cwmni teithio: Cytundeb iaith. http:// news.bbc.co.uk/welsh/hi/newsid_7010000/newsid_7018600/7018697.stm. Accessed 20 May 2021. Council of Europe. 1992. Explanatory Report to the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Council of Europe. 2007. Application of the Charter in Slovakia: Initial Monitoring Cycle. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Council of Europe. 2013. Application of the Charter in Slovakia: 3rd Monitoring Cycle. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. De Varennes, F. 2001. Language Rights as an Integral Part of Human Rights. International Journal on Multicultural Societies 3 (1): 15–26. Dunbar, R. 2001. Minority Rights in International Law. International and Comparative Law Quarterly 50 (1): 90–120. Grin, F. 2005. Linguistic Human Rights as a Source of Policy Guidelines: A Critical Assessment. Journal of Sociolinguistics 9 (3): 448–460. Huws, C.Ff. 2017. Administrative Justice and the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. In Administrative Justice in Wales and Comparative Perspectives, ed. S. Nason, 83–104. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Kloss, H. 1971. Language Rights of Immigrant Groups. International Migration Review 5 (2): 250–268. Kymlicka, W., and A. Patten. 2003. Introduction: Language Rights and Political Theory: Context, Issues and Approaches. In Language Rights and Political Theory, ed. A. Patten and W. Kymlicka, 1–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mac Giolla Chríost, D. 2016. The Welsh Language Commissioner in Context: Roles, Methods and Relationships. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Paz, M. 2014. The Tower of Babel: Human Rights and the Paradox of Language. European Journal of International Law 25 (2): 473–496.

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Puig-Lugo, H. 1991. Freedom to Speak One Language: Free Speech and the English Language Amendment. Chicana/o-Latina/o Law Review 11 (1): 35– 52. Réaume, D.G. 2003. Beyond Personality: The Territorial and Personal Principles of Language Policy Reconsidered. In Language Rights and Political Theory, ed. A. Patten and W. Kymlicka, 271–295. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 2002. Marvellous Human Rights Rhetoric and Grim Realities: Language Rights in Education. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 1 (3): 179–205. Skuttnabb-Kangas, T., and R. Dunbar. 2010. Indigenous Children’s Education as Linguistic Genocide and a Crime Against Humanity? A Global View. ˇ Gáldu Cála—Journal of Indigenous Peoples Rights 1. Watkin, T., and D. Greenberg. 2018. Legislating for Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Wee, L. 2011. Language Without Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Welsh Assembly Government. 2007. One Wales: A Progressive Agenda for The Government of Wales. Cardiff: Welsh Assembly Government. Welsh Government. 2020. Cymraeg: It Belongs To Us All. https://gov.wales/cym raeg-it-belongs-to-us-all-html. Accessed 10 July 2021. Welsh Language Commissioner. 2018a. Annual Report 2017 –18. Cardiff: Welsh Language Commissioner. Welsh Language Commissioner. 2018b. The Welsh Language in Prisons. Cardiff: Welsh Language Commissioner. Williams, C.H. 2007. Articulating the Horizons of Welsh. In Language and Governance, ed. C.H. Williams, 387–433. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Language and Space: A New Research Agenda in Minority Language Sociolinguistics Bernadette O’Rourke

1

Introduction

In the 1980s, Colin Williams called on human geographers to devote time to understanding prospective patterns of language, not just on a world scale but also in selected countries and smaller communities. In a review paper in Progress in Human Geography with Wilbur Zelinsky (1988), he highlighted the regrettable fact that language was a subject that had seriously concerned only a small number of English-speaking geographers. The Anglocentric research agenda which has tended to characterise the field of Human Geography more broadly may in part explain this trend. As his fellow Welsh scholars Jones and Lewis (2019) more recently suggest, the lack of bilingual and multilingual skills among many B. O’Rourke (B) School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_4

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Anglo-American geographers potentially reduces their personal appreciation of how significant the use of a particular language is for individual and group identity, along with how multilinguals interact with different kinds of institutions. The fields of geography, sociology and political science have tended to downplay the importance of linguistic diversity and multilingualism and have not paid sufficient attention to the links between identity, ethnicity and language (King and Carson 2017). The Encyclopedia of Urban Studies (Hutchinson 2010), for example, has no entries for ‘multilingualism’ or ‘language’. Colin Williams has advocated for the need to address this gap, arguing that the geography of language is intimately interwoven with political, ethnic, religious and other social phenomena, with the geography of population and communications, and certain aspects of the physical habitat. While geographers have challenged power relationships linked to gender and race, for example, they have tended not to pay the same attention to power relations between different language groups and how these processes play out amongst minority language speakers. Throughout his career, Williams has argued convincingly that we cannot fully understand any of the non-linguistic topics which human geographers have been interested in exploring without giving the linguistic its due. In a most fundamental sense, he has highlighted that ‘we cannot begin to understand the nature and dynamics of human society without coming to terms with the central role of communications and, more immediately, the ways in which our minds, singly and collectively, dwell within a fearfully complex enveloping cocoon of language’ (Zelinsky and Williams 1988: 337). In a later paper in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development with Zak Van der Merwe (1997), Williams advocated for a research agenda for urban geolinguistics, calling for greater attention to the analysis of languages in their spatial context. He urged geographers and linguists to take up the opportunities of interdisciplinary cooperation on the geolinguistics of urban environments. Colin Williams’s professional training as a geographer, combined with his appreciation of the use of languages as a bilingual speaker of Welsh and English, no doubt imbued him with a deep understanding of the dynamics of bilingualism in Wales and the importance of understanding

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the social context of Welsh speakers and other multilingual communities worldwide. His work on language minority spaces and their political status crosses disciplinary boundaries into the field of sociolinguistics, in particular minority language sociolinguistics and the sociolinguistics of revitalisation. From very early on, Williams’s work has been underpinned by the principles and methods of geolinguistics and the translation of these principles into government action and policy. He has had a keen interest not only in the geographies of the Welsh language but has also undertaken cross-national comparative work across a broad range of minority language contexts in other parts of the Celtic realm as well as Scandinavia, France, Canada and further afield. Like other strands of linguistics, minority language sociolinguistics has engaged with some of the core areas of the geography of language, with a focus on the spaces in which minority languages such as Welsh, Irish and Catalan are used and their relationship to a dominant or national language space (e.g. English in the case of Welsh; Spanish in the case of Catalan). While scholars working in this field have been very successful in dealing with the linguistic side of geolinguistics, the geo-side (although often implicitly touched upon), has not always been explicitly explored. In the same way that Williams has advocated for greater attention to language and linguistics by human geographers, a similar plea could be made to sociolinguists to give the geographic its due. In this chapter, I will reflect on how minority language sociolinguistics in particular has engaged with the field of geography as well as key concepts such as territory, space, place and community. I begin with an examination of the principle of territoriality and how it has shaped understandings of geographies of language in minority language contexts, very often as fixed and bounded entities. This is followed by an examination of some of the more recent re-thinking and critical engagement in minority language sociolinguistics with the principle of territoriality. Here I will focus in particular on new speakers, a term used by some scholars, in minority language sociolinguistics, to refer to people who do not acquire the local language through conventional family transmission in the home, but more typically outside of the home through formal education or adult language courses. I examine how work on new speakers of minority languages has in recent years begun to

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engage with the ways in which different speakers adapt their linguistic practices as they cross spatial configurations and boundaries. Drawing on broader discussions with Williams and others, the chapter concludes with a reflection on geospatial and territorial perspectives on language revitalisation and how the new speaker framework might be used to sharpen our thinking on new geographies of minority language sociolinguistics.

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New Geographies of Language in Minority Language Sociolinguistics

Minority language sociolinguistics is a field that has been concerned with language rights, the local spaces in which these languages are used and how such spaces relate to the dominant national language space. In much of the research in the field, the principle of territoriality has shaped geographies of language and understandings of language, place and space, based on the idea that a language should have official status in a territory in which it is spoken. As Williams (1988) highlights, territory and space have always been fundamental to the ideologies of many language revitalisation movements linked to these languages. Some scholars (e.g. Heller 2011) have been critical of the territorial principle in relation to language spaces, however, as it is seen to be based on a bounded notion of language within a delimited geographical space. This bounded notion of language and place can of course be traced back to European nation-building, in which the one-language one-nation ideology became firmly ingrained. Within this context, many of Europe’s languages became minoritised and pushed to the peripheries. The territorial principle was subsequently used as a political argument by many of these same minoritised language groups to establish themselves as nations. This led to a rather ironic situation in which, as Woolard (1998: 17) points out, language revitalisation movements adopted the same monolingual ideologies around language and place which had led to their subordination in the first place. Linguistics and its related strands (including minority language sociolinguistics) adopted unquestioningly these notions of European nation-state nationalism which in turn formed the basis for many of the foundational concepts which have shaped

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linguistics as a field (O’Rourke and Pujolar 2013a, b). These include taken-for-granted but now contested notions such as mother tongue, native speaker and the very understanding of language itself as something bounded and discrete (Makoni and Pennycook 2007).

3

From Language to Speakers

In a 2013 paper entitled ‘Geography of language: steps towards a new approach’, linguist Peter Auer proposed a paradigm shift in the way linguistics and sociolinguistics conceptualise language, space and place. In particular, he questioned the principle of territoriality, which he argued assumes certain geographic spaces to be the ‘natural habitat’ of a language, and a given language assumed to ‘have’ its own space. Languages, he argued, cannot be located in geographical space in the same way as other geographical features such as lakes or mountains. The only link to a particular territory, Auer suggested, is that the languages are spoken by people who inhabit this territorial space. As such it is the speakers and not the languages that make up the space and who are able to shape language practices within those spaces as active agents in the process. He thus recommended that speakers be moved centre stage in any new approach to the geography of language(s). Auer’s call for a more speaker-centred approach has to some degree been taken up in recent re-thinking in minority language sociolinguistics through the ‘new speaker’ framework and explored by scholars participating in a European COST Action on ‘New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe’. The underlying focus of the network, of which Colin Williams has been an integral part, has been to understand how individuals and groups ‘adopt and use a language variety other than their native language and […] who, by engaging with languages other than their “native” or “national” language(s), need to cross existing social boundaries, re-evaluate their own levels of linguistic competence and creatively (re)structure their social practices to adapt to new and overlapping linguistic spaces’ (O’Rourke and Pujolar COST Action IS1306 MoU, p. 3). New speakers encompass a broad range of speaker profiles, from those who adopt and become speakers of a minority language

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such as Irish, Welsh or Galician to those who adopt languages such as English or Spanish in the context of migration or transnationalism. What is important to our discussion here is the focus on ‘speakers’ and how social actors adapt their linguistic practices as they cross different spatial configurations and boundaries. Focusing on the speaker allows us to examine how people perform social actions through the language varieties in their lives and how they negotiate legitimacy and belonging and acquire social capital (O’Rourke et al. 2019). This moves us closer to understanding the political economy of speaker categorisation in specific contexts, and in doing so can provide new insights into the ways in which language is implicated in struggles over access to resources. The speaker perspective and more specifically a sociolinguistics of the speaker can, it could be suggested, also allow us to identify who has access to which linguistic codes, how and where they are able to use them, and with what social and economic consequences, across a wide range of settings in today’s multilingual and globalised world. There is sometimes a tendency in sociolinguistics and related fields to view languages as objects that certain groups of people are understood to legitimately and authentically possess. However, this view displaces the idea of language as a means of intersubjective, communicative and embodied relation, where language becomes a proxy for understanding the social conditions governing language use. Such understanding, it can be argued, is best achieved by focusing on the social actors themselves. The ‘new speaker’ concept was thus mobilised as a lens through which to focus on speakers as social actors, their trajectories and experiences (O’Rourke et al. 2017).

4

New Speakers and New Spaces

The new speaker concept has its origins in minority language sociolinguistics. The term was used in contexts such as Wales, Ireland, the Basque Country and Brittany to refer to people who did not learn the local language through conventional family transmission in the home, but more typically through education, such as bilingual or immersion schools or adult language courses (O’Rourke et al. 2015). In some of these contexts, terms such as euskaldun berria (new Basque speaker)

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and neofalante (new speaker in the Galician context) already existed as folk terms and were used amongst speakers themselves as a way of distinguishing between different categories of speakers as well as a way for speakers to self-define their own speaker identity. While the new speaker is not in itself a new phenomenon (as such profiles of speakers have always existed), their numbers have become large enough to distinguish them as a distinct social category. The ways new speakers acquire and speak these minority languages differ from what made up these linguistic communities in the past. As such, their presence can be seen to in many ways unsettle the inherited ideological repertoires that articulated language, identity, authenticity and national belonging in the modern period (Pujolar and O’Rourke 2016). Thus, they point to one of the many dissonances that contemporary sociolinguistics has identified in the received notions of languages as bounded entities inscribed in communities and territories (Pujolar and O’Rourke in press 2022). The scholarly use of the term sought to challenge monolingual ideologies about language, and bounded notions of language and place, which, as highlighted earlier, had emerged with the development of European nation-states and were often uncritically incorporated into linguistics and related strands, including minority language sociolinguistics. As discussed in an earlier paper on the new speaker concept (O’Rourke and Pujolar 2013a, b), minority language sociolinguistics and in particular the sociolinguistics of revitalisation has, like other strands of linguistics, tended to focus on language as an object of study. In much of the earlier work on language revitalisation and endangerment, the focus was on exploring ways of ‘saving’ the language from dying out. These include seminal works such as Joshua Fishman’s 2001 book Can Threatened Languages Be Saved? and Lenore Grenoble and Lindsay Whaley’s 2005 book Saving Languages. This prompts the question, of course, around what it is that is being saved and how that reflects the lived experiences of the social actors in the community. The focus on language as opposed to speakers has also, it could be argued, led to an over-emphasis on the past, with a static view of how language (as an object) evolves over time and across space. The ‘salvaging’ leanings in certain strands of linguistics and linguistic anthropology sought to preserve indigenous languages in the same way that salvage anthropologists had done with indigenous cultures

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(Bucholtz 2003). Interest in linguistic minorities by salvage linguistics had been driven by a commitment in minority language sociolinguistics to study groups which were seen to be pushed to the margins, whose future existence was seen to be threatened and who as a result were seen as being in most need of protection. Traditional dialectology has tended to be based on the documentation of a narrow selection of speech samples, drawing on those speakers perceived to be the most authentic, traditional and untainted by interference from the contact language. For this, it frequently drew on a small pool of rural, elderly, male individuals (Chambers and Trudgill 1998). The documentation of endangered languages more broadly has therefore been concerned with collecting ‘authentic’ speech from the last surviving native speakers of a language (see for example, Hale et al. 1992; Harrison 2010). This reassembling of the past is yet again a residue of Romanticism, where rural peasant populations, supposedly untouched by urbanity, often came to be valorised as authentic sources of cultural and linguistic knowledge (Bucholtz 2003).

5

Re-Thinking the Trivialisation of Language, Space and Place

Behind a lot of the thinking outlined above are of course certain underlying assumptions about language which, as Auer (2013) suggests, have led to what he refers to as the ‘trivialisation’ of or lack of serious engagement with its relationship with space and place in linguistics and related strands, including the sociolinguistics of minority languages. Firstly, as highlighted earlier, such thinking draws predominantly on monolingual ideologies about language which assume that speakers only speak one language and are monolingual. Secondly, it assumes that speakers are bound to places and are immobile. Thirdly, it is based on the idea that space is a container that includes languages (see also Walsh, this volume). In traditional linguistic conceptions of language and space, the container view of space has underpinned a lot of Western thinking and is based on an absolute conception of space in which spaces exist prior to and independently of the objects they contain. Applying this to language spaces means that speakers are constrained by the language space in which they

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happen to find themselves rather than language spaces being created by speakers themselves (Auer et al. 2013). Therefore, these underlying assumptions in linguistics and related strands, Auer (2013) suggests, failed to take account of speakers’ multilingualism, their mobility and the idea that space is produced relationally through the speakers themselves. Any new model for the geography of language therefore requires us to take greater account of new socio- and geolinguistic realities of contemporary societies where mobility as opposed to stability has become the norm.

6

Minority Language Sociolinguistics and Mobilities

While mobility has always been a feature of society, its significance has intensified all the more in the age of globalisation. Blommaert (2010) and others have called for a new paradigm which takes account of the spatial and temporal features that define meaning of language in real social life and which recognise language as mobile, through space as well as time, and made for mobility. Over recent decades, there has indeed been a very purposeful move towards reconceptualising the field of sociolinguistics, drawing on new vocabularies and metaphors to reflect such mobility and to capture the multiplicity of languages, social groups and urban communities of practice that now exist in contemporary societies (e.g. Blommaert 2010; Martin-Jones et al. 2012). This has in turn prompted what May (2014) refers to as the ‘multilingual turn’ in the field, with a move away from a sociolinguistics of distribution typical of the variationist paradigm to sociolinguistics of mobility (Blommaert 2010). This has given rise to new metadiscourses which draw our attention to the in-between spaces of language use brought about by this new sociolinguistic order, spaces which had often been ignored in previous linguistic and sociolinguistic discussion and which embrace and recognise new forms of language being created in such spaces. This is also reflected in the range of new terminologies, concepts and labels which have been developed to capture and describe these spaces and to examine

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the processes and practices displayed by multilingual individuals. These include translingualism (Canagarajah 2013), translanguaging (García and Wei 2014) and metrolingualism (Pennycook and Otsuji 2010), with the new speaker concept also included in this list. In sociolinguistics of minority languages, a new approach to the geographies of language emphasises the relevance of mobility (instead of stability) for language variation and change in these contexts. This allows us to reframe the view of minority languages as stable settlements to take account of mobility, particularly in the context of globalisation. Such an approach therefore allows us to go beyond the geographical confines of stable communities of place tied to a specific territory and to look at other types of spaces, communities of practice and networks. The geographically isolated nature of minority language communities was often used in sociolinguistic accounts to explain why languages such as Irish, Galician, Breton, Basque, etc. continued to survive in those areas while declining in less isolated places. A move to the city was frequently seen to mark a shift to the more socially and politically dominant contact language. However, such sociohistorical accounts of language loss and decline have sometimes ignored the untidy nature of language shift, with calls for more heteroglossic approaches (see del Valle 2000) to the changing linguistic and cultural environment. Such an approach takes account of the blending of linguistic repertoires, showing the dynamic and complex patterns of multilingualism which have indeed always existed in society. Studies on the historical fortunes of these languages tended to be framed as monoglossic discourses, moving from states of monolingualism to transitionary bilingualism and finally leading to language death (O’Rourke and Walsh 2020). Such accounts describe how these languages changed from being vernacular, to co-existing in an unstable diglossic relationship with the dominant contact language, to a progressively subordinate position. These approaches tended to underline the structural and functional separation of the contact languages, with one of the languages becoming dominant and the other eventually ceasing to be used (see Coupland 2010 for a critique). While it is unlikely that isolated rural-based groups were ever really culturally and linguistically homogenous in the first place, contemporary mobilities have nonetheless further blurred these lines. As such, the

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stereotypical notion of rural and village life as stable and traditional compared with the changing and modern representations of the city potentially misrepresents what contemporary rural life and its sociolinguistic make up look and sound like. As highly frequented touristic areas, the so-called traditional heartlands often take on new meanings, with language becoming a unique selling point (see, for example, Coupland 2010; Pietikäinen and Kelly-Holmes 2011). While the commodification of languages (Jaworski and Thurlow 2010) opens questions around who is benefitting from that commodification and who is not, tourism in minority language-speaking rural areas has the potential to open up new spaces of interaction and opportunities for both existing speakers of the language as well as newcomers. As Heller (2003) notes, minority languages in the context of tourism can gain new and unexpected forms of prestige.

7

Urban Dynamics and New Breathing Spaces for Minority Languages

In minority language sociolinguistics, there has been a strong focus on the rural-small town nexus, with somewhat less attention given to the dynamics of language revitalisation in urban contexts. New spaces of interaction in large towns and cities are providing opportunities for language use as a result of language revitalisation projects and language policies, particularly in education. Colin Williams has highlighted the effect of an urban context on the ability to Welsh-speaking communities to maintain and reproduce themselves, and called for more research in this area given the increasingly urban composition of the Welshspeaking population (Williams 2010). This trend can be seen in many other European minority language contexts, with growing momentum for urban-based communities and networks. Within the broader field of sociolinguistics there has been a growing body of work on the dynamics of multilingualism and multilingual repertoires in urban spaces (e.g. Extra and Ya˘gmur 2004; Blackledge and Creese 2010; Kraus 2011; Ya˘gmur and Extra 2011; Building on these broader sociolinguistic frameworks, recent work on new speakers of minority languages has also been

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interested in examining new spaces of interaction and use in urban contexts. This includes an emerging body of work on new speaker dynamics in cities (McLeod and O’Rourke 2015 on Gaelic; Hornsby 2015 on Breton; Ortega et al. 2015 on Basque; O’Rourke and Walsh 2020 on Irish). Lack of opportunities to use minority languages in urban contexts, in the absence of services and provision, means that new speakers often find the need to create and construct new spaces or seek out any existing ones (McLeod and O’Rourke 2015; O’Rourke and Walsh 2020). In the absence of physical spaces for language use, Fishman (1991) has talked about the importance of creating ‘breathing spaces’ for a minority language—spaces in which there is less pressure for speakers (who are also speakers of the dominant contact language) to switch. As Colin Williams (2019) has highlighted, the concept of new spaces for new speaker integration is already one which exists in some European contexts (for example, the Tˆy Tawe Welsh Centre in the city of Swansea [see Morris, this volume]). However, much more systematic analysis of the dynamics of these spaces is required to help us understand how such spaces emerge, who creates them and the degree to which newcomers have access and are recognised as legitimate speakers within these spaces. Emerging work in the area has begun to examine how different minority language spaces are created for the purpose of language revitalisation efforts. In Galicia, for example, my own ethnographic work in cities such as Vigo and Santiago de Compostela has allowed me to explore how urban Galician speakers are carving out new spaces of interaction both symbolically as well as more concretely through permanent places including alternative bars, social centres and immersion schools (see O’Rourke 2019). These and other such studies can move us towards a phenomenological version of relational space which introduces the human experiencer (specifically, the speaker) as the reference point from which spatial relations originate (see Walsh, this volume). Such studies allow us to understand how space is actively construed by speakers themselves, be it as fleeting interactional spaces or as more permanent places and socially meaningful spaces that are relevant because of the activities taking place in them, the values ascribed to them or the social conventions that are associated with them.

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Beyond Territorial Language Spaces and Speakers

New geographies of minority languages also highlight the need to move beyond territory. Such an approach prompts us to ask questions about the effect of international migration on historical minorities and the role played by newcomers from outside the local area (see for example, Higham 2014 on Welsh; Bermingham and O’Rourke 2018 on Cape Verdian new speakers of Galician; Lamarre 2013 on newcomers to French-speaking Canada). Unencumbered by some of the local politics of language associated with historical minorities, newcomers to the community may on the one hand feel less inhibited to learn the language while on the other may find it difficult to access these spaces and be given legitimacy as authentic speakers of the language. Traditional distinctions can become blurred between autochthonous minorities which are said to live in ‘their’ language space and are considered to have a right to defend it against the majority language and new minorities of recent immigration origin. Globalisation therefore focuses our attention on how we define ‘linguistic minority’ in the first place, moving us beyond the rights of autochthonous minorities and pointing to the need to include transnational migrants and their language rights (Hogan-Brun and O’Rourke 2019: 14). Similarly, a new geography of language can also allow us to take account of the dynamics of minority language revitalisation in diaspora contexts which fall outside autochthonous minority language spaces and where new communities of practice are emerging globally. It allows us to examine how new momentum for these languages can be generated, with investment in their use often surpassing that of what is in place back home in the local community. Moving the focus away from the territorial language space and towards new, highly mobile speakers allows us to explore how diasporic groups construct new spaces and new identities.

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Online Communities and Moving Beyond Geographical Spaces

In the age of technology, where boundaries are pushed beyond their geographical spaces and communities of practice emerge through social media and online communities, greater engagement with language and space opens up opportunities to examine new virtual spaces. Drawing on his work on Welsh, Cunliffe (2019: 452) highlights that social media and virtual spaces provide new domains in which the minority language can be used, as well as providing a means of connecting speakers with each other. This can be key where speaker density is low. Indeed, the opportunities which new virtual spaces provide have become clear in the context of the current global pandemic. Face-to-face community-based activities promoting language acquisition and use have been restricted, with repercussions for language revitalisation efforts. In response to these changes, different individuals and organisations have developed innovative ways of maintaining their communities. The number of people taking online lessons in minority languages surged to a record high at the start of the coronavirus lockdown in March 2020. The work of Irish language planning officers in the Irish Gaeltacht has also been continuing online throughout the pandemic. Research on Gaelic online communities in Scotland, for example, is showing that through the global reach of these online fora, geographical space disappears and rural–urban dichotomies become blurred (O’Rourke et al. 2021).

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Concluding Remarks

Like other strands of linguistics, minority language sociolinguistics has engaged with some of the core areas of the geography of language. While there has sometimes been a tendency to trivialise the relationship between language and space, minority language sociolinguistics has nonetheless produced an enormous amount of valuable research on the geographical distribution of linguistic minorities. Minority language sociolinguistics has given the geography its due but some of the underlying assumptions in linguistics and related strands about language and

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space have as, Auer et al. (2013) suggest, often failed to take account of speakers’ multilingualism, their mobility and the idea that space is produced relationally through the speakers themselves (see Walsh, this volume). Any new model for the geography of language needs to be set against new socio- and geolinguistic realities of contemporary societies where mobility as opposed to stability has become the norm. Work on new speakers of minority languages has in recent years begun to engage with the ways in which different speakers adapt their linguistic practices as they cross spatial configurations and boundaries. In his recent launch of the book New Speakers of Irish: New Revival? (O’Rourke and Walsh 2020), Colin Williams explicitly called for a reflection on geospatial and territorial perspectives on minority language revitalisation and how the new speaker framework might be used to sharpen our thinking on new geographies of minority language sociolinguistics. As Williams noted, many new speakers of minority languages are in fact very exercised by the conventional link between language and territory, either in the form of predominantly rural homelands or safe spaces in urban contexts. At the same time, however, he noted that in many cases new speakers and learners are socialised into believing that periods spent in historical homelands were likely to strengthen their appreciation of the language and help them identify with native speakers through some form of communal solidarity. In his concluding comments, Williams asked a number of very pertinent open questions about whether or not this will necessarily lead to such solidarity and if so, what the consequences would be for policy and intervention. If on the other hand, it does not hold true, Williams asks if we can then sustain a viable language network without recourse to spatial and geographical referents, drawing instead on digital resources within what can perhaps now be described as the era of deterritorialisation. He asks if this is the post-modern expression of the territorial imperative, where the same virtues of security, stimulation and identity could be enjoyed. These questions are of course timely and come at a very pertinent moment in social history as we live through the current pandemic and where territory, space and place are being reimagined and re-shaped.

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Acknowledgments Research connected to this chapter has been supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for the project entitled ‘Re-thinking language revitalisation: New dynamics in Europe’s minority languages’ (RF2021-274). The chapter also benefitted from ongoing discussion on the ‘new speaker’ theme as part of the EU COST Action IS1306 network entitled ‘New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges’.

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Reflections on Language as a Vehicle of Economic Value François Grin

Much of the political, media and even academic discourse about multilingualism describes (almost interchangeably) language, languages or linguistic diversity as an ‘asset’, a ‘treasure’ or a form of ‘wealth’. Beyond morally satisfying metaphors, such parallels suggest that language is a ‘good’ that is ‘valuable’ in an economic sense. In fact, this connection between language and economics, which into the early 1990s was often considered as bordering on profanity, has gained respectability, not least because it is expected to provide arguments justifying support, through public policies, for linguistic diversity. This welcome evolution, however, only makes economic sense if we clarify the specific ways in which economics proposes to approach the value of a language and linguistic diversity. Of particular interest, in this context, are the concepts of ‘public good’ and ‘hyper-public good’, which are associated with a specific type F. Grin (B) University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_5

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of dynamics that set language apart from most other complex goods whose value needs to be assessed as a prerequisite for public policy. I use the concept of ‘linguistic environment’ to clarify the sense in which language may be seen as a public or even a hyper-public good. Such conceptual clarification may help language planners and activists make the most of economics, which is ultimately a tool that can help citizens make better-informed choices and select more effective strategies.

1

By Way of Introduction

Economic perspectives on language, also known as ‘language economics’, have been around for some sixty years, and at the time of writing, number several hundred scientific publications. However, it is only since 2018 that it has received recognition as a field of specialty within the discipline by being bestowed the dignity of inclusion under a ‘JEL code’. The highly influential American Economic Association (AEA) runs several academic journals, including the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL). The JEL codes constitute the most broadly used and internationally recognised classification system of topics in economic research. Language economics is one of the occupants of the unassuming ‘Z13’ code, all the way at the bottom of the list; it is therefore placed among ‘other special topics’ (Z), where subcategory Z13 is shared with economic sociology, economic anthropology and social and economic stratification.1 This recent promotion notwithstanding, language economics is unlikely to receive the type of institutional acceptance now enjoyed by other fields of specialisation that also address some traditionally ‘non-economic’ topics such as education (education economics), health (health economics), culture (cultural economics) or the environment (environmental economics). These fields of specialisation have their own journals, and some dedicated academic positions in those areas are advertised in economics departments. Not so with language economics. The reason may be that in the case of language, there is relatively little of relevance that economists can say on their own, that is, without unstinting and sincere interdisciplinary openness, which at some point requires

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sustained cooperation with practitioners of other disciplines. Almost by definition, good language economics is interdisciplinary, a feature emphasised in recent reviews of the field (Gazzola et al. 2016, 2020). Unfortunately, this fact alone is liable to estrange much of language economics from mainstream economics, since the latter has a bit of a patchy record when it comes to embracing interdisciplinary openness. This problem, admittedly, is not uncommon in the social sciences and humanities (Bromham et al. 2016; Lyall 2019), but economics may well be a little more particular (if not finicky) than other disciplines in this respect. Attention to interdisciplinarity raises several epistemological challenges, not least that of building conceptual bridges between disciplines and spelling out the ways in which the tools and methods favoured in one discipline (in this case, economics) can be fruitfully applied to the topics and concepts developed in another (in this case, this primarily, but not only, means linguistics and sociolinguistics). Of course, there is no a priori reason why the challenge cannot be approached from a reciprocal perspective, as illustrated, for example, by insightful linguistic analyses of economic discourse (Henderson et al. 1993); but in the main, the problem confronting language economics is to reason economically about phenomena involving language, languages and multilingualism. Language economics has been defined as a field of specialty that ‘refers to the paradigm of mainstream theoretical economics and uses the concepts and tools of economics in the study of relationships featuring linguistic variables. It focuses principally, but not exclusively, on those relationships in which economic variables also play a part’ (Grin 2003a: 16). The core of language economics, therefore, is the application, to the examination of language questions, of a certain mode of reasoning. Doing so, however, requires an appropriate way of integrating language in economic analysis. Given the extraordinary complexity of language, as well as its inherent pervasiveness (since language is present in all facets of human experience), this is no easy task, and it is best tackled by combining linguistic and economic expertise. Language economists must therefore be wary of adopting simplistic notions of language; hence, it is wise to import suitable concepts from linguistics. Of course, some parsing and simplification is welcome and even necessary (Pool 1991),

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but to paraphrase an aphorism attributed (among others) to Einstein, the principle remains ‘simplify as much as possible, but no further’. Reciprocally, sociolinguists working on language questions but invoking economic processes are on much firmer ground when they reach out to economic research using analytically robust economic variables. Although the foregoing may sound obvious, current developments in research suggest that these points bear repeating, which is why I begin, in this chapter, by revisiting the basic question of whether language can be approached as a good in the sense that this term has for economists (Sect. 2). We shall see that that it can be, but not necessarily in the perspective that sociolinguists often appear tempted to assume. Section 3 proposes to clarify the distinction between the individual and the collective perspective on the benefits and costs of linguistic diversity. In Section 4, I use the concept of linguistic environment to establish an analytical connection between ‘language’ and ‘public good’. Section 5 discusses the merits of the interpretation of language as a hyper-public good. Section 6 concludes.

2

Language as an Economic Good

Obviously, language is not a commodity that can be bought or sold like food, a car, a haircut, or insurance coverage, and economists would be the last to claim otherwise. This is also why they view with some diffidence the essentially sociolinguistic notion (in fact, a mere metaphor) of ‘ownership’ of language. No private or collective actor ever ‘owns’ a language. In addition, since language is not produced (using inputs that have a certain cost), the very notion of ‘commodification’ of language makes little economic sense, despite its current popularity in critical sociolinguistics (see Grin 2021 for a more extensive discussion). However, although the language is not a good or service that can be bought and sold like a normal good or service, perhaps language is akin to something else, namely, ‘something that we use to buy and sell things’—that is, money. The language-as-currency analogy has often proved tempting in some quarters of applied linguistics. The idea goes more or less as follows: ‘words’ and ‘sentences’ are exchanged, and this is

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possible because language is the accepted medium for such exchange, just like currency has a legal tender and must be accepted ; therefore language can be seen as a form of currency, or even as a form of money. What is more, the fact that words and sentences are exchanged demonstrates (according to this line of reasoning) that language has ‘exchange value’. Although ‘exchange value’ is a crucial concept in economic theory, the fact that words and sentences are exchanged by means of a certain language has nothing to do with it. The economic concept of value is based on the subjective valuation of a given item (say, a pen), by the person who wants the pen and by the person who is ready to sell it. If they can agree on a price, the pen will be exchanged, against another good or service, or against money. Economic exchange implies both the provision of a good or service and a corresponding payment in money or in kind, for a subjectively equivalent value. This subjectivity does establish a (rather tenuous) link with structural linguistics, in the sense that convention appears in linguistics in different ways. Convention rules the Saussurean notion of equivalence between signifier and signified, as well as the generally shared consensus that parting with an intrinsically worthless piece of paper known as a banknote is a proper way of extinguishing debt. Nevertheless, the respective nature of market and conversational exchange remains fundamentally different. To clinch the point somewhat informally, let us recall that while there is no such thing as a free (but real) lunch, words are cheap and generally do not cost the speaker anything. Some variants of the same parallel turn up here and there, but they usually rest on a misleading analogy, like the one used to suggest the existence of some kind of correlation between exchange rates and language spread. This connection first confuses the ‘strength’ of a given currency with its nominal price on currency markets,2 and goes on to claim that there is a likeness between the ‘convertibility’ of currencies (oddly assumed to be lower when the foreign value of a currency declines on currency markets) and the ‘currency’ (in the sense of prestige, usefulness and similarly positive attributes) of a language. At best, this claim may amount to a convoluted way of saying that some languages (like Spanish or Japanese) are easier to use for communication than others (like Kalmyk or Ladin), but the reference to currency markets hardly advances our understanding of this difference in respective situations.

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Summing up, if languages can be seen as ‘goods’ in an economic sense, it is neither because they resemble standard goods and services, nor because they bear any particular likeness to money. The connection between language and economics, rather, has to do with the fact that language is often a characteristic or a feature of something else that we may deem valuable. To see this more clearly, let us think about the environment, combining natural biophysical features and human intervention. We can all tell the difference between a pleasant and an unpleasant environment and express preferences in this regard, but it is clear that individual preferences do not necessarily overlap. The distribution of preferences does not preclude the identification, by aggregation, of a social preference ranking between different environments. Let us consider, by way of example, one environment offering clean air, limpid streams, and harmonious landscapes and another that is grimy, polluted, and dotted with dilapidated warehouses. Generally, people will not just express a preference for the former relative to the latter, but they will also be ready to give something up in order to avoid having to reside in the unpleasant environment and in order to secure housing in the more pleasant one. For example, they will pay a premium for a home in the more attractive environment. More generally, voters agree for some of their taxes to go towards the maintenance of national parks; they support environmental regulation that restricts industry’s right to dump sewage in streams, even if this imposes additional operating costs that are ultimately reflected in higher product prices. The existence of such dispositions, which embody what economists call ‘preference revelation’, is what indicates that a pleasant environment is a ‘good’ in an economic sense. But the main point here is that economics, ultimately, is not about money; it is about people’s willingness to give up a certain amount of material or symbolic resources in order to get something they want. This amount is often called the ‘opportunity cost’, because the real cost of devoting resources to a given pursuit is that they will no longer be available for the next best goal that the actor would have pursued otherwise. To assess whether language is a good in an economic sense, therefore, we have to ascertain whether people are ready to give up something (time, money, etc.) in return for something of which language is a feature.

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Plurilingualism, Multilingualism, and the ‘Linguistic Environment’

In a typology of the forms of value that may be associated with language, a distinction must be made between two aspects: the value of individual plurilingualism and the value of societal multilingualism. This distinction is helpful not only for analytical clarity, but also for pragmatic reasons, because they have different policy implications. Individual plurilingualism refers to the fact that a person has more than one language in his or her repertoire. For the sake of brevity, I shall avoid entering the discussion of the level of the skills expected for an individual to be considered ‘plurilingual’; in this chapter, being functional in more than one language for the purposes that a speaker is pursuing constitutes an adequate characterisation. To a large extent, the benefits of individual plurilingualism accrue to the person (let us call her ‘person A’) who possesses those skills. For example, learning language X may give her access to more stimulating or more lucrative employment. Hence, the cost of acquiring and developing skills in language X is something that can, at first sight, be left to the individual—as in the case of a standard private good: prima facie, the person is the best possible judge of how much of a good she wants and—given the rewards she expects from having access to this good—how much she should spend on it, whether in terms of money, time, attention or any other limited resource. As we shall see later, this conclusion needs to be qualified, because by learning language X , person A also creates benefits for other people, and this point is crucial in establishing the legitimacy of language policy as a form of public policy. Although the existence of such external effects apparently lends a collective dimension to the value of X -language skills, this does not capture the value of societal multilingualism, which refers to the fact that a society, considered at a macro level, operates with more than one language. Since language (a language, any language) is indispensable to social life the question is not whether people are ready to put up some resources for having one. The actual question is whether people are ready to devote some resources to secure the presence and use of one or

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more specific languages, whether instead of or in addition to some other language(s). This is best explained by referring to the concept of linguistic environment , which in addition to its intrinsic analytical usefulness, helps highlight important conceptual parallels between language and the natural environment. A linguistic environment is the sum total of a society’s demolinguistic and sociolinguistic features (Grin 2003b: 178), including the distribution of language skills among residents, patterns of language use in the statal, public, and private spheres, as well as people’s attitudes and representations towards specific languages and linguistic diversity in general. Although reasoning in terms of linguistic environments is an epistemological shortcut, it often proves helpful for language policy selection and design. Let us first observe that we can live in more or less diverse linguistic environments. At one end of the scale, a ‘zero-diversity’ linguistic environment is a monolingual one. There is, however, no theoretical upper limit to diversity (that is, it would not make sense to talk of a ‘100% diverse’ linguistic environment). However, we can always tell ‘more’ from ‘less’, and a country may be very diverse because it has, for example, two or three official languages, and further languages may be present in society, even without official status, possibly because of the presence of immigrant communities—or, in the context of the European Union, because of the presence of citizens of other member states. Diversity carries both benefits and costs, which both go up as diversity increases, and assessing the value of societal multilingualism requires us to treat society as a whole as the beneficiary of advantages and the bearer of costs associated with linguistic diversity.3 One crucial feature of benefits and costs is that they do not go up in the same way. Under the very general assumption that the benefits of diversity rise at a decreasing rate and its costs rise at an increasing rate, there is such a thing as socially optimal diversity (D* ), where D* > 0, meaning that societal monolingualism (that is, zero linguistic diversity) is very unlikely to be socially optimal (Grin 2003b). Uniformity is optimal only under the improbable assumption that when everybody’s preferences are aggregated, citizens on average see no benefits whatsoever in linguistic diversity but are only

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keenly aware of its costs, whether material or symbolic. Only in this extreme case is optimal diversity equal to zero; in all other cases, optimal diversity is positive, even if modestly so.

4

Language as a Public Good

Let us now move on to the next question, that is, whether language is a member of that very specific category of goods known as public goods.4 Recent advances in research considerably increase the precision with which this notion may be applied to language policies (see in particular Wickström et al. 2018), but for the purposes of this chapter, two essential points will be sufficient. Public goods, in their purest form, present two characteristics, known as ‘non-rival consumption’ and ‘impossibility of exclusion’. Let us examine each of them in turn. ‘Non-rival consumption’ refers to the fact that if one person enjoys the good or service, this will not reduce the amount of that good or service that is available to another person. A standard textbook example is public (street) lighting: if two people are ambling down the street together at night, the fact that lampposts give light to one does not mean that there will be no light left for the other (or for a third party walking down the street right behind them). This is a case of non-rival consumption. By contrast, if one of the two friends walking down the street together eats an apple, the other cannot also eat it. The apple, being a private good, offers an example of rival consumption.5 Let us now turn to ‘impossibility of exclusion’. There again, the example of public lighting is helpful: there is no relationship between the fact that a person enjoys public lighting and the fact that she pays for it. As before, a contrast can be made with a private good like an apple: one cannot eat the apple unless one buys it, receives it as a gift, or grows it oneself. (And if I receive it as a gift, the person who gives it to me will have had to pay for it or to grow it himself.) Ultimately, a person who does not make the effort to produce, to steal or to buy a private good (possibly at one remove if the good was given as a gift) can be excluded from consuming it. However, there is no way to exclude this person from

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consuming a public good, even if she does not pay for it. For example, if she takes a walk in a foreign city after dusk, she will benefit from public lighting even though she does not pay the local taxes that finance this service. A linguistic environment, just like our natural environment, is a public good because it is characterised by non-rival consumption and by impossibility of exclusion. One cannot escape from the features, linguistic or other, of the environment in which one lives—whether these features are considered pleasant or unpleasant, and whether they have to do with language or with ecology; therefore, we have non-rival consumption. In the same way, an ‘outsider’ (for example, a non-taxpayer) arriving in a country with cleaner air or a more diverse linguistic environment cannot be insulated from these characteristics; therefore, we have impossibility of exclusion. This has major implications for public policy, first and foremost because public goods cannot be supplied by the market. In economics, this situation is called ‘market failure’. Market failure arises largely from impossibility of exclusion: a private producer will have no possibility to bill users of the good or service, and therefore to cover production costs. Therefore, the good or service will be produced only if the state steps in, possibly by delegating actual production to a private company. If there is no state, the good or service will generally not be produced, even if everybody agrees that it would be useful to have it. This is why public lighting is financed through taxes, why things as diverse as national defence or environmental protection are possible only with state intervention, and also why the state must intervene to steer society, through language policy, towards a socially optimal level of diversity: it is because linguistic diversity displays the crucial features of non-rival consumption and impossibility of exclusion.6 The issue of state responsibility in language policy raises a number of fundamental issues, not least those that are linked to the evaluation of the degree of justice of different language policies (see, e.g. Shorten 2017), which for lack of space cannot be addressed here; let us move on to our next question, namely, whether language is a ‘hyper-public good’.

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Language as a Hyper-Public Good

The concept of hyper-public good turns up in the literature at regular intervals, and has found its way into the economic analysis of language via the related notions of ‘club goods’ and ‘externalities’. The latter have already been encountered and defined in the preceding section. The core point here is that language does not merely offer non-rival consumption, but goes beyond it. Reverting to our earlier example, the learning of language X by person A gives rise to benefits and costs beyond those that accrue to person A. Such learning engenders what is known as positive externalities. By learning language X , person A gains access to advantages that only she will enjoy (again, the example of more attractive employment prospects come to mind), but she also creates benefits for other people, in particular those who already speak X and have one more person to speak language X with. Or, even if they have no reason to meet, the mere fact that person A has learned language X reinforces, even if modestly, the importance and influence of the language, something that pre-existing X -speakers will generally benefit from. Thus, by learning X and using it, person A does not rob of their language the pre-existing speakers of X ; the fact that these pre-existing speakers lose nothing proceeds from the phenomenon of non-rival consumption, which establishes the public good character of language X and of the linguistic environment of which language X is a feature. But in addition, person A creates additional value for others through her language learning by generating the positive externalities described earlier. This feature of language has inspired a number of analytical models in language economics (e.g. Church and King 1993; Iriberri and Uriarte 2012; Wickström 2014). The main implication of the hyper-public good nature of language may be seen as a snowball effect. The more people learn a certain language X, the more additional people will be led to do the same, maintaining or even accelerating this momentum. The latter’s autonomous dynamics undoubtedly play a part in language learning and language spread (as a result of what Van Parijs [2011] calls ‘probabilitysensitive learning’), even though the driving forces behind it are tied to geopolitical influence and economic weight. Hence, other things being equal, a large language exerts a much stronger pull than a small minority

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language, and the snowball effect places added pressure on minority language survival. This dovetails with a comment by Joshua Fishman in relation to language shift and reverse language shift, who observed that ‘the social meaning of being a minority is that one is forced to spend almost all of one’s resources on damage control’ (Fishman 1990: 31). One limitation of the hyper-public good perspective on language, however, is that it rests heavily (though not entirely) on a relatively limited vision of language as a tool for communication. Emphasising the hyper-public character of language amounts to insisting on the overriding importance of its communicative range. However, it is well-known that language does not only serve communication goals, and also fulfils other functions such as that of the marker of identity; if this were not the case, most people would have no preference between using, in any given domain, Irish, English, Mandarin or even some computer language, if perceived as equally expressive. The fact that people are generally not indifferent, and that languages are not interchangeable, immediately puts paid to the idea that languages are only communication codes. However, they are also communication codes, which is why the hyper-public good approach deserves to be treated as an ingredient in the selection and design of language policies; they simply must not be the sole ingredient in the prescription, lest an excessive emphasis on the hyper-public good nature of one dimension of language (that is, its function as a tool for communication and the corresponding hyper-public implications) leads citizens and decision-makers to neglect language as a public good that serves various other functions as well. Summing up, if the multiple functions of language are borne in mind, it is perfectly relevant for the state to intervene, through language policy, in order to secure adequate linguistic diversity; this holds even if its hyper-public good character creates dynamics that cause our overall ‘linguistic ecology’, if left unattended, to gravitate towards rising uniformity.

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Concluding Remarks

It would be regrettable not to take this opportunity to point out that the conclusions reached here illustrate the deficiencies of tiresome claims to the effect that any economic approach to language is intrinsically guilty of ‘neoliberalism’. Let us, therefore, point out that the points made in these few pages, which at all times avoid confusing ‘value’ with ‘financial gain’, contains none of the prescriptions of neoliberalism, and in fact use economics to make genuinely economic, but in no way ‘neoliberal’ recommendations. We have examined whether language is a good, whether it is a public good, and whether it is a hyper-public good. All three questions can be answered positively, but with a number of caveats and qualifications: 1. Yes, language is a ‘good’ in an economic sense, but not directly— rather, because it is a feature of something that we can consider to be a good. 2. Yes, language is a ‘public good’, but for a specific set of reasons, namely because it is a defining feature of linguistic environments that are, like standard public goods, characterised by ‘non-rival consumption’ and ‘impossibility of exclusion’. 3. Yes, language is a ‘hyper-public good’, but this applies only to one function of language, namely, its role as a tool for communication. Therefore, language cannot be analysed as if it were only a public good. Apart from providing, within limits, a modest clarification of some aspects of language, this examination has important policy implications: because language is a good, because it is a public good, and despite the fact that it is a hyper-public good, language policy in favour of linguistic diversity, including in favour of minority languages, is, from an economic standpoint, a perfectly reasonable proposition.

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Notes 1. See https://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide/jel.php. 2. The British pound is not a ‘stronger’ currency than the Canadian dollar just because, as of mid-November 2020, one British pound bought 1.71 (that is, more than one) Canadian dollars on the currency markets. Imagine a purely cosmetic replacement of the pound by a ‘new pound’ worth twice the current pound (something similar to, though less spectacular than the shaving off of six zeros in denominations in Turkish Lira in January 2005). This new pound would then be worth 3.42 Canadian dollars, but this would say absolutely nothing about the relative ‘strength’ of the two currencies. 3. Whether ‘society’s’ preferences regarding diversity can be seen as the product of the (possibly complex) aggregation of individual preferences, or as something that radically transcends them and ought to be approached from a radically different angle is another question, which will not be addressed here. 4. Economics textbooks generally talk of public ‘services’, but I use the term ‘good’ to encompass both types of commodities. It is important to note that ‘public services’ does not mean ‘public utilities’; this term refers to a set of commodities with specific characteristics discussed in this section. 5. The literature sometimes uses the ad hoc adjective ‘non-rivalrous’ to describe the case of collective services such as street lighting. 6. Wherever this optimum is located, it implies costs and benefits. Citizens differ in their evaluation of the costs and benefits. However, since public policy applies to all residents in a jurisdiction, preferences will have to be aggregated in order to identify the benefits and costs at the level of society as a whole, and the optimal provision of each commodity defined on this basis. Some citizens will consider the socially determined optimal level of linguistic diversity too high (some of them may even consider that linguistic diversity is not a public good, but a public bad, and would prefer a policy of zero diversity). Those who consider the socially determined optimum to be excessive will grudgingly pay the taxes required to implement the

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corresponding policy, which generates effects that, in their eyes, are not really ‘benefits’. Others, on the contrary, will deem this optimum too low; in their eyes, society needlessly forfeits some benefits by not supporting diversity enough. The aggregation of citizens’ evaluation of benefits and costs is a classic problem of public economics and policy analysis, which will not be discussed further here; see Weimer and Vining (2017).

References Bromham, L., R. Dinnage, and X. Hua. 2016. Interdisciplinary Research Has Consistently Lower Funding Success. Nature 534: 684–687. Church, J., and I. King. 1993. Bilingualism and Network Externalities. Canadian Journal of Economics 26: 337–345. Fishman, J.A. 1990. What Is Reversing Language Shift (RLS) and How Can It Succeed? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 11: 5–36. Gazzola, M., F. Grin, and B.-A. Wickström. 2016. A Concise Bibliography of Language Economics. In The Economics of Language Policy, ed. M. Gazzola and B.-A. Wickström, 53–92. CESifo Series. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Gazzola, M., F. Grin, and F. Vaillancourt. 2020. The Economic Evaluation of Language Policy and Planning: An Introduction to Existing Work. In Bridging Linguistics and Economics, ed. S.S. Mufwene and C. Vigouroux, 109–139. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grin, F. 2003a. Economics and Language Planning. Current Issues in Language Planning 4 (1): 1–66. Grin, F. 2003b. Diversity as Paradigm, Analytical Device, and Policy Goal. In Language Rights and Political Theory, ed. W. Kymlicka and A. Patten, 169–188. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grin, F. 2021. Misconceptions of Economics and Political Economy in Sociolinguistic Research. In The Commodification of Language: Conceptual Concerns and Empirical Manifestations, ed. J. Petrovic and B. Yazan, 56–70. New York: Routledge. Henderson, W., T. Dudley-Evans, and R. Backhouse, eds. 1993. Economics and Language. London: Routledge.

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Iriberri, N., and J.R. Uriarte. 2012. Minority Language and the Stability of Bilingual Equilibria. Rationality and Society 24: 442–462. Lyall, C. 2019. Being an Interdisciplinary Academic: How Institutions Shape University Careers. New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pool, J. 1991. A Tale of Two Tongues. Unpublished manuscript. Department of Political Science, University of Washington Seattle. Shorten, A. 2017. Four Conceptions of Linguistic Disadvantage. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 38: 607–662. Van Parijs, P. 2011. Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weimer, D.L., and A.R. Vining. 2017. Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice, 6th ed. New York: Routledge. Wickström, B.-A. 2014. Nachhaltiges Überleben von Minderheitensprachen: eine Übersicht einiger Modelle. In Dogma und Evolution: Beiträge zum 60. Geburtstag von Dietmar Meyer, ed. J. Dötsch, 101–126. Marburg: Metropolis-Verlag. Wickström, B.-A., T. Templin, and M. Gazzola. 2018. An Economics Approach to Language Policy and Linguistic Justice. In Language Policy and Linguistic Justice: Economic, Philosophical and Sociolinguistic Approaches, ed. M. Gazzola, B.-A. Wickström, and T. Templin, 3–64. New York and Berlin: Springer.

Language Policy Challenges in Wales

Language Planning in Action: Joining up the Dots in Wales Meirion Prys Jones

1

The Revitalisation of the Welsh Language

The Welsh language and its revitalisation has been on a roller-coaster ride for more than half a century, with its ups and downs and some quite drastic, if not scary, turns. The language and its speakers are clinging on next to one of the most powerful and influential languages in the world. But as the number one song by Dafydd Iwan on iTunes and Amazon UK charts in January 2020 says, we are ‘Yma o hyd’, or its loose translation ‘We’re still here’. Welsh, undoubtedly, is a tenacious language, which has survived in one of the poorest parts of the UK. Until the past twenty to thirty years, the language had little political and civic support despite a M. P. Jones (B) Welsh Language Board and Network To Promote Linguistic Diversity, Carmarthen, Wales e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_6

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growing interest in Welsh-medium and immersion education and flourishing Welsh-medium pre-school provision throughout Wales. On an international level, however, Welsh is regarded as a success story, with its speakers being regarded as being innovative and progressive in terms of language planning and promotion. Cymraeg 2050 , the Welsh Government’s current Welsh Language Strategy, has recently set an impressive target of having a million speakers by 2050, up from the present base of fewer than 600,000 speakers (Welsh Government 2017). But could Welsh be in a better position in terms of its survival, and could its language planning processes be more robust? Who, by now, formulates language policy and planning in Wales and are we on the right track? This chapter gives a detailed assessment of the structural changes that have taken place in the field of language planning in Wales over the past thirty years. Consideration is given to the strengths and weaknesses of the Welsh Language Act 1993 and the work of the Welsh Language Board established by the Act, and the subsequent decision of the Welsh Assembly Government to abolish the Board. It also considers whether establishing the new role of Welsh Language Commissioner in 2011 was too impulsive a departure, and whether the civil service in Wales is equipped to take on many of the complex tasks which are required to effectively promote the use of a lesserused language. The final issue addressed is whether the language planning process in Wales, which traditionally has been a bottomup process, has now become too centralised and too top-down. Is too much emphasis being placed on issues relating to legislation and rules and regulations—which are easy tasks for politicians—and too little on how to actually persuade people in Wales to use Welsh on a daily basis? Maybe, now, I should note my vested interest. I was for eight years the Chief Executive of the Welsh Language Board (WLB), having joined the WLB as its Education Officer when it was established in 1994. Prior to this, I had worked as a teacher and a local authority Welsh Language Adviser. From 1999 onwards, I became responsible for language planning in general at the WLB before becoming its Chief Executive in 2004. During my period as Chief Executive, I also chaired the language strand of the British-Irish Council from 2005 until 2012 and in 2006/7

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I established and chaired the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity (NPLD), the new pan-European network for lesser-used languages. In 2012, following the demise of the WLB (discussed below), I became Chief Executive of NPLD. I have therefore been fortunate enough to have a well-informed overview of the developments that were taking place in Wales and across Europe and further afield during a period when language planning was going through a process of substantial change. However, my observations in this article are made in a personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation, past or present.

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The Welsh Language Act 1993

Just over a century ago, according to the 1901 census, around half of the population of two million in Wales spoke Welsh (Davies 2014: 87). The vision recently outlined by the Government in its most recent Welsh language strategy Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers (Welsh Government 2017) would take the number of speakers back to this level in terms of numbers, albeit not in terms of the percentage of the population. Wales by now has a population of 3.1 million and, according to the 2011 census, more than a quarter of the population was born outside Wales (Office for National Statistics 2012). The number of Welsh speakers fell significantly as a result of two World Wars, economic depression and mass outmigration (Davies 2014). The impact of religion, which had ensured that half the population in Wales in the eighteenth century had been literate in Welsh, started to lose its grip and influence (Chambers 2004). Saunders Lewis’s lecture Tynged yr Iaith (The Fate of the Language) (Lewis 1962) and the establishment of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) in the 1960s drew attention to the decline in the number of speakers and called for civil action to ameliorate such language loss (Davies 2014: 120–121). For the following twenty years, language planning was largely practised through a mixture of protest and the actions of some key political players. The 1980s saw some major developments because of this pressure, such as grant funding for Welsh education and cultural activities in the Education Act 1980,

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the establishment of S4C (the Welsh language television channel) and the inclusion of Welsh within the new National Curriculum for Wales (Williams 2014). The current context in terms of language planning changed substantially with the passage of the Welsh Language Act 1993 by the Westminster Parliament. This followed a long period of lobbying and witnessed the creation of a non-statutory Welsh Language Board in 1988. The 1993 legislation established a statutory Welsh Language Board (WLB) with ‘the function of promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language’ (s. (3(1)). The WLB’s main task was to agree language schemes with public bodies throughout Wales, together with public bodies that provide services in Wales even though based outside Wales. These schemes had the purpose of ‘giving effect . . . to the principle that in the conduct of public business and the administration of justice in Wales the English and Welsh languages should be treated on a basis of equality’ (s. 5(2)). At the time, language schemes were a new mechanism for developing bilingual practices in organisations by setting out the level and nature of the services that public bodies would provide for Welsh speakers. Similar mechanisms were later adopted in Ireland and Scotland in Irish and Gaelic language legislation (see McLeod, this volume).

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The Welsh Language Board

The statutory Welsh Language Board was established in early 1994. The WLB’s principal task was to agree Welsh language schemes but it was also given an additional and extremely broad ‘function of promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language’. What exactly did this mean, and how was it to be accomplished with its relatively small number of staff? Developing fair and balanced guidance for language schemes by public bodies took some time (Welsh Language Board 1996a). The guidelines were robust and formed the basis for the 552 schemes agreed over the lifetime of the WLB. There is no doubt that these schemes changed the linguistic landscape in Wales, a fact which, by now, is easy to forget. The guidance specified that the schemes were the organisations’ own plans;

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they had to be agreed by the Board, but each organisation was required to have an internal discussion about the provision of their services in Welsh. This meant that many organisations, for the first time in their history, had to discuss and decide upon which services they would provide for Welsh speakers. When they had finalised their plans, organisations had to undertake a public consultation and respond to any comments. One of the main strengths built into this new requirement to agree schemes was that the WLB did not leave the organisations to get on with the task. Support was available. Board staff provided guidance, training, and assistance to organisations, many of which did not have an idea where to start on the planning process. This was a major strength within the system, a strength that was sadly withdrawn following the demise of the WLB in 2012. However, one of the main weaknesses of the Welsh Language Act 1993 was that it did not include any financial penalties for non-compliance and there would be no recompense for any breach in an agreed service (Jones et al. 2007). A more formal and more direct way of dealing with non-compliance than that outlined in the Act would certainly have strengthened the hand of the WLB. However, it is possible to argue that having such a provision in place would have made it much more difficult to have constructive and positive discussions with many organisations as they developed their schemes and that there might have been a greater reticence to sign up to some innovative plans if there were penalties for non-compliance. In practice, organisations were generally only too happy to discuss and plan the new schemes, and many innovative and interesting Welsh language schemes were devised and agreed. At an early stage in the development of the WLB’s role, one of the major achievements was the decision to require Local Education Authorities and other educational bodies such as Higher Education and Further Education institutions to develop their own specific Welsh Education Schemes (Welsh Government 2021). The Act did not address the issue of education at all, despite it being one of the major concerns when the content of the 1993 legislation was debated in Parliament. Even so, it was decided that the WLB should have an education section.

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In 1994, only six of the eight local authorities in Wales had a policy statement concerning Welsh-medium education. Therefore, the WLB decided to require all the local authorities to develop their own Welsh language education scheme. A minor sub-section in the 1993 Act, which stated that ‘different notices may be given to a public body under this section in respect of different services’ (s. 7(4)) was used to justify this demand. The first education scheme was agreed with Carmarthenshire County Council in 1998. All the local authorities (22 in number from 1996 onwards) produced and agreed to schemes which, in effect, ensured that every parent in Wales who wished to access a Welsh-medium education for their child was able to do so. Every local authority had to plan to ensure that there was provision to meet this demand. Over twenty years later these education schemes live on, albeit under another title, as the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013 now requires local authorities to prepare a Welsh in Education Strategic Plan (WESP). Such plans are now seen as the main driver for Welshmedium education, with local authorities being given specific percentage targets in terms of numbers of pupils receiving such an education over the next ten years. These numerical targets are set in line with the projected numbers of pupils being able to speak Welsh by 2050 as part of the Welsh Government’s target of ensuring that there are a million Welsh speakers by 2050. The non-statutory elements of the WLB’s work were to promote and facilitate the use of the Welsh language in any way it could. To add to this challenging remit, the Welsh Office (pre-devolution) also decided in 1995/6 that the WLB would manage and administer all the grant funding the government provided for Welsh language activities. This was certainly a challenge, as no additional staffing was provided to administer this extra responsibility. But it was also a great opportunity to develop and frame a more holistic approach to language planning for the Welsh language and to fund targeted interventions based on international best practice, which was evolving quickly at that time. In 1996, following a period of open consultation, and in order to bring an element of clarity to the way ahead, the WLB published its first strategic vision, Strategaeth ar gyfer yr Iaith Gymraeg/ A Strategy for the Welsh Language. It noted ‘the following four main challenges’:

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• increasing the number of people who are able to speak Welsh; • providing opportunities to use the language; • changing habits of language use and encouraging people to take advantage of the opportunities provided; • strengthening Welsh as a community language (Welsh Language Board 1996b: 8). The WLB’s strategy also listed twenty objectives for the coming years. These included: • To ensure that every child has experience of the language before commencing statutory education • To increase the number of 3 year olds who speak Welsh in the family • To strengthen the provision for improving language skills and training in the workplace • To increase the opportunities provided by voluntary sector bodies for using the Welsh language • To increase opportunities to use the Welsh language in dealing with private companies • To ensure that software is developed to meet the needs of users who work with the Welsh language (Welsh Language Board 1996b: 10– 36). For the first time in the history of language planning in Wales, these objectives outlined a structured and strategic plan for the Welsh language which were then echoed in the range of strategic documents that the WLB produced during its eighteen years of existence. The WLB’s vision is retained and developed in Iaith Byw, Iaith Fyw (Welsh Government 2013) and Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers (Welsh Government 2017), the Welsh Government’s latest strategic documents. An ad hoc group of experts commissioned by UNESCO in 2003 noted nine factors in their report Language Vitality and Endangerment for characterising a language’s overall sociolinguistic situation: • Intergenerational language transmission • Absolute number of speakers

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• • • • •

Proportion of speakers within the total population Trends in existing language domains Response to new domains and media Materials for language education and literacy Governmental and institutional language attitudes and policies, including official status and use • Community members’ attitudes toward their own language • Amount and quality of documentation (UNESCO 2003: 7–17). All these issues had been anticipated and identified by the WLB, based on the work already undertaken by many researchers both in Wales and internationally (e.g. Fishman 1991) and included in their discussion document and planning processes nearly ten years earlier. In this respect, the WLB was extremely fortunate in that it had many Board members who were very well versed in the research that was being undertaken internationally, especially the two Colins, Professor Colin Baker and Professor Colin Williams.

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Combining Academic Excellence with Practical Language Planning

During the same period, discussions had been taking place between the Chair and Chief Executive of WLB and Professor Glyn Jones at Cardiff University regarding the possibility of attracting to the university one of the most promising Welsh academics in the field of international language planning. The understanding was that the WLB would initially contribute to the cost of the post and that language planning would be developed as a field of expertise within the University. The WLB and the University were extremely fortunate to be able to persuade Professor Colin Williams, then working in Toronto, to join the staff as a Research Professor. This development immediately set down a marker that the new WLB wanted to be an organisation that could innovate and evolve and be a world leader in language planning, which was exactly what it did. Professor Williams made an immediate contribution with an evidencebased review of language-related initiatives in several areas in Wales,

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primarily through the Cynllun Ymchwil Cymunedol/The Community Research Plan (Williams and Evas 1997). The report produced recommendations that had a major impact on the WLB’s thinking over the following years. Subsequently, Professor Williams became a WLB Board member in 2000 when the positions were open to public competition. Its Board members brought a variety of skills, knowledge and experience to the work of the WLB. The influence of the Board members who worked in academia was very substantial and their vision and understanding prompted many of the discussions relating to developments outside Wales in terms of language planning. Three members of the Board who had a significant influence were Professor Medwin Hughes, Professor Colin Baker and Professor Colin Williams. Professor Hughes’s influence was mainly in terms of developing strategic plans in the early years of the WLB’s activities. The two Colins brought in a great deal of knowledge and expertise on how language planning was developing at an international level. Professor Baker tracked developments across the world in bilingualism and bilingual education as articulated in his seminal publications Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (1996) and the Encyclopaedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education (1998). Baker also had a great interest in the importance of language transmission within the family and played an important part in the WLB’s innovative TWF project, which provided support and assistance for new parents in bilingual families. Professor Colin Williams is renowned as a world-leading expert in language planning. He has an interest in all aspects of the discipline, but his interest in language and governance in democratic contexts was of particular use. From the 1970s onwards, he has been a strong proponent of the role of commissioners within the legal structures of language promotion, based on his research work in Canada. Colin Williams has undertaken a wide variety of roles over the past thirty years in the context of language planning in Wales. He has been an arm’s length observer and assessor, and, maybe more importantly, a challenger of preconceptions, and has interpreted what is happening in Wales on a larger international stage. This relationship between academic knowledge and critical analysis and the ability of the Board’s staff to be able to experiment with new initiatives based on the ideas being discussed was a perfect combination

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and one that benefitted both sides. Indeed, this ability to innovate and to plan and action activities at a macro, meso and micro planning level was a feature of the WLB’s work throughout its existence. This is one aspect of the language planning process in Wales that has received little attention since the WLB’s demise. From the outset the WLB understood that it could not work in isolation. From 1999 to 2012, the WLB moved increasingly to a position where it attempted to work in partnership with organisations and with the public in general. In the latter years, when the Board scheduled a meeting, it also held a meeting which was open to the public on the night prior to its official meeting.

5

International Networking

The WLB extended the concept of working in partnership to an international level by establishing a new, pan-European network of governments and major NGOs which were responsible for policy development and implementation for lesser-used languages within their own jurisdictions. The Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity (NPLD), which was chaired and managed by the WLB during the early years of its existence, received substantial grant funding from the European Union and was recognised by the EU as the network which represented lesserused language communities. One of the major strands of its activities was the highlighting of innovation and the sharing of good practice. This was reflected in a study undertaken by Colin Williams, ‘Language Strategies in Comparative Perspective’ (Williams 2013a), which considered the strategies which were being developed across the members of the network. This provided the network with invaluable insights into some of the common practices and exciting developments taking place internationally as well as those areas that required further attention.

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Iaith Pawb (Everyone’s Language)

Following the review of all the Government’s strategies regarding the Welsh language undertaken in 2003, which produced the new strategic plan for the Welsh language, Iaith Pawb (Welsh Assembly Government 2003), the WLB’s budget for staffing was doubled. The Iaith Pawb report in 2003 noted that: The Welsh Language Board will continue to be the national language planning body for Wales and will have a central role in delivering the Assembly Government’s Action Plan.

As a measure of the importance we attach to the Welsh Language Board’s role in delivering key aspects of the Action Plan, the Assembly Government has allocated an additional £16 million . . . to the Board over the next three years. (Welsh Assembly Government 2003: 14)

However, this declaration in 2003 that the WLB would ‘continue to be the national planning body for Wales’ would soon be swept away. Less than a year following the publication of the Iaith Pawb report, it became the policy of the Welsh Government to abolish the Welsh Language Board as part of a ‘bonfire of the quangos’. This was announced by the then First Minister Rhodri Morgan in 2004, when he stated that this change would bring the functions undertaken by many of the quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations (quangos) to be part of the in-house work of the Government and ‘it will give us more firepower, more critical mass, more ability to generate distinct Walesoriented policies, more opportunities for staff to specialise in policy areas in their careers and less of a distinction between making policy and implementing it’ (WalesOnline 2004). One of the main criticisms that the WLB faced during the final years of its existence from the small group of politicians and advisers who lobbied hard for the creation of the role of Language Commissioner was that the WLB could not be a regulator and a promoter of the language at the same time. By now this argument has been seen to be rather

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spurious. At no point during my period as Chief Executive of the WLB did the Welsh Government suggest undertaking a full evaluation of the WLB’s language planning work in this context. During that time, the WLB succeeded in achieving every target set by the Government, which encompassed a wide range of activities, and which were reported on quarterly to the Government in documents that sometimes exceeded 100 pages in length. These documents outlined in detail all aspects of the Board’s work and how it had performed against the targets set. Indeed, between the internal and external auditors and the extensive quarterly review of the Board’s work, the Government was highly informed by the WLB with regard to everything it was undertaking at any point in time.

7

Governance? Where Does It Reside?

In terms of developing the science of language planning, one of the important questions has been where does the power to change really reside? How do you change human behaviour in the context of language use, and especially so with lesser-used languages? Over the past fifty years, the emphasis on what actions need to be taken has changed and evolved constantly. The trajectory may be described as a series of foci moving from the initial importance of language standardisation and corpus planning, through to the concept of language normalisation, to strategic planning and to developing regulatory frameworks. There is now a much more mature approach being developed which includes looking at the status of languages within different aspects of life. We have become more innovative and the process of setting targets for ensuring that aspirations are met is much more refined. One of the major developments in Wales in terms of language planning was the recognition that qualitative as well as quantitative evaluation processes are equally legitimate in terms of assessing progress. Many projects developed in Wales such as the TWF project, which dealt with those areas which language planners find quite difficult, have shown a high level of innovation and have been replicated in several other communities such as the Friulian language community in Italy.

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Increasing Numbers of Speaks or Increasing Language Use?

For the WLB, increasing the number of speakers was an important issue. The substantial increase in funding provided for Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin (now rebranded Mudiad Meithrin), for example, demonstrated the WLB’s commitment to supporting parents who wished their children to have an opportunity to learn and speak Welsh. Between 1999 and 2001 the grant for Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin nearly doubled, allowing the organisation to open new cylchoedd (groups) and to target areas of financial deprivation. This emphasis on increasing the number of speakers was also reflected in the targets agreed in the Welsh Education Schemes. However, the Board was very aware that increasing the numbers of speakers of Welsh was not the only or indeed main concern. In the 1996 WLB language strategy, great emphasis was placed on language use. The first aim in the Strategy deals directly with increasing the number of speakers, while the following three aims focus on language use. Funding was provided for initiatives or projects to provide opportunities to speak Welsh, such as Mentrau Iaith (area language initiatives), Cynlluniau Datblygu Ardal/Area Development Plans and the TWF project, in areas where the Welsh language was losing ground, such as areas of Anglesey and the Vale of Clwyd in North Wales and the Amman Valley and North Pembrokeshire in South Wales. The WLB realised from the outset that increasing the numbers of speakers did not necessarily lead to increase in use. Professor Colin Baker advised consistently that even keeping the numbers of Welsh speakers at a static level would be an accomplishment, especially if the emphasis was on making sure that people used the language regularly. Naturally, politicians find increasing the numbers of speakers a much more acceptable, attractive and accessible target than the more difficult to measure and attain target of increasing language use. In my experience, politically in Wales, creating new speakers has always been more attractive than supporting people who already speak the language. The WLB, however, was always focused on giving people opportunities to use the language and to make the language attractive to latent or ‘rusty’ speakers and for

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this impetus to come from the speakers and from within the communities themselves. Despite the fact that the current target set by the Welsh Government of producing a million speakers by 2050 is a great target in terms of PR and in getting some elements of the planning processes to move forward, it is the second of the three targets in Cymraeg 2050 listed below that is really important in terms of the future of the language: 1. Increasing the number of Welsh speakers 2. Increasing the use of Welsh 3. Creating favourable conditions—infrastructure and context (Welsh Government 2017: 4).

9

Political Developments Over the Past Twenty years in Wales

In Wales, two developments over the past twenty years have had a marked influence on the opportunities to innovate and have changed the nature of language planning in Wales. The first was the devolution of power to the National Assembly for Wales (now the Welsh Parliament). With authority over the Welsh language being a devolved matter, politicians in Wales understandably wished to have a more direct influence on the language planning process. The first major step was a full review in 2002/3 of provision for the Welsh language, which resulted in the national action plan for a bilingual Wales, Iaith Pawb (2003). As discussed above, the announcement to end all quangos, including the WLB, was made less than a year later, by the then First Minister. In the case of the WLB, however, it took more than eight years and two successive governments to implement this change. During this period, Wales had its first coalition government, formed by Plaid Cymru, The Party of Wales, and the Welsh Labour Party. Plaid Cymru, which was in government for the first time, had as one of its strategic goals the establishment of the role of Welsh Language Commissioner ‘to ensure that the interests of Welsh are proactively safeguarded and promoted’ (Plaid Cymru 2007: 32).

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This policy was developed without a review of the work of the WLB or indeed without any discussion with the WLB about any perceived deficiencies or strengths within the structures that were in place at the time. No cognisance was given to the fact that the WLB was, at that time, one of the most innovative and progressive language planning agencies in the world. As Colin Williams noted, ‘[d]oubtless in international comparative terms the WLB will be hailed as one of the few genuine innovative language planning agencies’ (2015: 88). The WLB believed this radical departure was too premature and that much more preparatory work needed to be undertaken before governmental structures could take on the extremely sensitive and complex role of promoting the Welsh language. Following the enactment of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, the role of developing policies and strategic plans and of promoting and increasing language use was allocated to the Welsh Government. In terms of Welsh within the education sector, this made complete sense. For many years, the Government had opted out of their responsibilities for developing the Welsh-medium education sector by giving the role of having a ‘strategic overview’ of the Welsh-medium sector to the WLB. This role remained undefined and unfunded for over a decade, despite requests for clarification from the WLB. The Welsh Government produced their first ‘Strategic Plan for Welsh-medium education’ in 2010 (Welsh Government 2010). In this plan, five specific developmental goals were agreed for the period 2010–2015. None of the targets linked to these goals, however, were achieved by 2015. One of the main challenges of giving politicians the role of developing language policy directly is that they use the tools with which they are most familiar. These are the development of strategies, policies and legislation. Of course, these are vital elements within a holistic and robust overarching language strategy. However, over the past decades we have witnessed a reduction in the influence of the state (see Lewis and Royles, this volume). The public sector is less significant for people’s daily lives than the private sector, for example. Governments also find it difficult to have an influence on those areas that are within the private lives of people and communities. And, of course, languages are very personal issues on an everyday level and increasingly in bilingual communities

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deciding which language to use can become a matter of choice for the individual and not something which can be decided by statutory instruments. One of the first actions the Welsh Government took when it became responsible for promoting language use was to withdraw all funding for successful projects developed by the WLB, such as the TWF project, which had supported and encouraged Welsh language use and transmission within families. This project worked closely with parents to discuss with them the advantages of raising their children bilingually in Wales and provided guidance when issues arose, especially in mixed language families. Indeed, the vast majority, if not all, of the WLB’s innovative projects were undone over a short period of time. Since 2012, very few new and previously unthought-of and innovative projects have been developed by the Welsh Government.

10

The Welsh Government and the Welsh Language Commissioner

In 2012, with the demise of the WLB and the establishment of the Welsh Language Commissioner under the terms of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, the role previously undertaken by the WLB was divided between the civil service and the Language Commissioner in a somewhat arbitrary manner. It appeared that the main political rationale for the division of responsibilities was that the new office of the Welsh Language Commissioner should be seen to be having more staff than the numbers being transferred to the Welsh Government. Of the 80 members of staff in the WLB, two-thirds were allocated to the new Commissioner with the remaining staff being allocated to the Government. If one compares these numbers to the staffing levels of language commissioners in other jurisdictions, they are far more than the staffing levels of these similar organisations. For example, An Coimisinéir Teanga, the Commissioner for the Irish language in Ireland, in 2020 had nine members of staff (An Coimisinéir Teanga 2021: 46). The 2011 Measure sets out in detail the remit of the Welsh Language Commissioner and the new mechanism for requiring public bodies to

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comply with specified language standards rather than develop individual language schemes. One of the main arguments put forward in favour of language standards was that they would remove some of the inconsistencies and lack of clarity associated with the language scheme system (Williams 2019). However, the 2011 Measure is very long and complex (157 clauses and 12 additional schedules, compared to 37 clauses and 2 schedules in the 1993 Act) and five separate sets of standards have been promulgated. As Thomas Glyn Watkins notes (2019: 140–141), ‘the fact that not all kinds of standards can apply to all persons does not make for a regime which the public is likely to find easy to understand’. Much of the general description of the role of the Welsh Language Commissioner was taken from the Welsh Language Act 1993. As well as the regulatory role, it also included the responsibility to ‘promote’ and ‘facilitate the use of the Welsh language’ (Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, s. 4(1)(a) and (b)). Therefore, the role of promotion was embedded in the role of the Welsh Language Commissioner, despite it being allocated, in the division of tasks, to the Government’s civil servants. The main problem of allocating the task of promotional work to the civil service is that, traditionally, this is not one of their areas of expertise. Discussing and working in partnership to persuade people and organisations to use the Welsh language calls for specialised skills, skills which were in short supply in the civil service in 2012. The role of the Welsh Language Commissioner and the role of the Welsh Government continue to be ill-defined (Welsh Government/Welsh Language Commissioner 2014). Even with the appointment of the second Commissioner in 2019, there appears to be some confusion regarding who does what. Colin Williams has consistently argued that the role of language commissioners needs to be linked to a prior specification of a suite of language rights, otherwise there is a lack of clarity both for speakers and for the providers of services (Williams 2007: 400– 401, 419–423; 2013b: 288–291). As the 2011 Measure did not actually create any rights beyond the mere right to complain,1 this reform may well be the next step in terms of language legislation in Wales. Proposals to increase the language rights of Welsh speakers were presented by the WLB to the Minister during the passage of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. The Board staff argued that, as there

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were elements of commonality across the 552 Welsh language schemes agreed under the Welsh Language Act 1993 (Jones et al. 2007), these could be introduced as language rights. Doing so would set a good precedent for the future, and the work of the Welsh Language Commissioner could build on this, albeit initially limited, set of rights. This idea was rejected. Experience shows that minority language speakers are not the best at complaining about the lack of use of their languages, especially when there is a lack of clarity regarding what services are available in one’s language of choice. Putting oneself in an embarrassing situation is not something most people want to do. Establishing statutory language rights in a clear and concise manner regarding the provision of services in Welsh, even if it were within a restricted number of service areas, would therefore greatly boost the confidence of Welsh speakers to make use of these services. Despite all the developments, the only true test for any language planning process is whether it can pass the test of time. As Colin Williams and John Walsh note, in many cases the supportive infrastructure for language promotion, protection, and regulation may be in place, the acid test of the adequacy of such developments is their implementation within the relevant jurisdiction and their full incorporation into the machinery of government. (Williams and Walsh 2019: 122)

11

Do We Need Regulations, or Do We Need Confidence?

Colin Williams and I have spent many hours over the past 25 years discussing all aspects of language planning in Wales and in other jurisdictions. In general, we are very much in agreement regarding what appears to be good practice and which areas are given insufficient attention. In the matter of governance, Colin has shown a great deal of interest in the work of language commissioners and has advised several governments

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who have considered the inclusion of language commissioners within their structures for language planning. Certainly, Colin and I wouldn’t disagree that having robust structures in place underpinned by legislation is vital if non-state languages are to survive and prosper. In terms of governance, my belief is that governance in terms of supporting any lesser-used language is a matter of a partnership between civic society, which includes speakers of the language and those who do not speak the language, and the local, regional and national authorities. Languages which are lesser-used within any state need support in all aspects of their use. People need to feel that they belong to a community of speakers in which their language is cherished. It needs to be a positive, empowering feeling. Setting in place a structure where the main attention is on a barge of rules and regulations regarding dealing with non-compliance seems to me to be nonsensical. Also, when one person is appointed as a Language Commissioner, it places too much emphasis and responsibility on the opinion of that one person, who, as experience in Wales shows, is very often appointed without any specific expertise in language planning. Supporting speakers of lesser-used languages calls for a multifaceted approach, a process that includes the speakers themselves, the communities in which they live as well as positive encouragement by local, regional and national authorities. This process, in my opinion, should be first and foremost about support and encouragement, with more emphasis on the carrot than the stick. I posed the question at the beginning regarding whether we are on the right track. Obviously, introducing a more legally robust system that requires bodies in Wales to provide services in Welsh is a logical step forward. Many of the major public bodies here are more aware that they need to consider the Welsh language in their forward planning processes. We have many of the right systems in place to promote a language, but systems by themselves do not persuade people to choose to speak a lesser-used language. Now we need to concentrate on hearts and minds and make Welsh a ‘must choose to speak’ language.

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Note 1. This was confirmed by the President of the Welsh Language Tribunal in response to a question posed during the Language Planners Wales annual lecture at the National Eisteddfod in Y Fenni, 4 August 2016.

References Baker, C. 1996. Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1st ed. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Baker, C., and S.P. Jones. 1998. Encyclopaedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Chambers, P. 2004. Religion, Identity and Change in Contemporary Wales. In Religion, Identity and Change: Perspectives on Global Transformations, ed. S. Coleman and P. Collins, 69–83. London: Taylor & Francis. An Coimisinéir Teanga. 2021. Tuarascáil Bhliantúil / Annual Report. An Spidéal: An Coimisinéir Teanga. Davies, J. 2014. The Welsh Language: A History. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Education Act 1980, 1980 c. 20. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/ 20/contents/enacted. Accessed 3 April 2020. Fishman, J.A. 1991. Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Jones, K., S. Eaves, and G. Ioan. 2007. Creating a Truly Bilingual Wales: Opportunities for Legislating and Implementing Policy. Newcastle Emlyn: Cwmni Iaith. Lewis, S. 1962. Darlith Radio 1962 Saunders Lewis: Tynged yr Iaith / Fate of the Language (Cymraeg / Welsh). https://books.apple.com/us/book/darlithradio-1962-saunders-lewis-tynged-yr-iaith-fate/id1448154566. Accessed 26 June 2021. Office for National Statistics. 2012. 2011 Census: Key Statistics for Wales, March 2011. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/pop ulationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/2011censuskeystatisticsf orwales/2012-12-11. Accessed 26 June 2021.

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Plaid Cymru. 2007. Make a Difference! National Assembly Government Election Maniffesto 2007 . Cardiff: Plaid Cymru. http://www.maniffesto.com/ wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Plaid-2007-Manifesto-ENG.pdf. Accessed 27 June 2021. School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013, 2013 anaw1. https://www. legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2013/1/contents/enacted. Accessed 3 April 2021. Thomas, H.S., and C.H. Williams, eds. 2013. Parents, Personalities and Power: Welsh Medium Schools in South-East Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Thomas, P.W., and J. Mathias (eds). 2000. Developing Minority Languages: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Minority Languages. Cardiff: Department of Welsh, Cardiff University and Gomer Press. UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages. 2003. Language Vitality and Endangerment. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MUL TIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/pdf/Language_vitality_and_endangerment_EN.pdf. Accessed 25 June 2021. WalesOnline. 2004. Bonfire of the quangos. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/ news/wales-news/bonfire-of-the-quangos-2429989. Accessed 25 June 2021. Watkins, T.G. 2019. Competence and Complexity: The Role of the Welsh Language Commissioner. In Constitutional Pioneers: Language Commissioners and the Protection of Official, Minority and Indigenous Languages, ed. J. Amon and E. James, 125–146. Montreal, QC: Éditions Yvon Blais. Welsh Assembly Government. 2003. Iaith Pawb /A National Action Plan for a Bilingual Wales. Cardiff: Welsh Assembly Government. Welsh Government. 2010. Welsh-medium Education Strategy. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Government. 2013. Iaith Fyw: Iaith Byw. A Living Language: A Language for Living. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Government. 2017. Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Government. 2021. Guidance on Welsh in Education Strategic Plans. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Government/Welsh Language Commissioner. 2014. Framework Agreement between Welsh Government and the Welsh Language Commissioner. https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2018-12/frameworkagreement-for-the-welsh-language-commissioner.pdf. Accessed 25 June 2021. Welsh Language Act 1993. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1993/38/con tents. Accessed 3 April 2021.

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Welsh Language Board. 1996a. Welsh Language Schemes: Their Preparation and Approval in Accordance with the Welsh Language Act 1993. Cardiff: Welsh Language Board. Welsh Language Board. 1996b. A Strategy for the Welsh Language. Cardiff: Welsh Language Board. Accessed 25 June 2021. Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, 2011 nawm 1. https://www.legislation. gov.uk/mwa/2011/1/contents/enacted. Accessed 6 March 2021. Williams, L. 2019. Dyfal Donc a Dyr y Garreg: The Welsh Language Commissioner’s Work in Ensuring the Rights of Welsh Speakers in the Field of Health and Social Care 2012–19. In Constitutional Pioneers: Language Commissioners and the Protection of Official, Minority and Indigenous Languages, ed. J. Amon and E. James, 205–222. Montreal, QC: Éditions Yvon Blais. Williams, C.H. 2007. Articulating the Horizons of Welsh. In Language and Governance, ed. C.H. Williams, 387–433. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Williams, C.H. 2013a. Language Strategies in Comparative Perspective. Cardiff: Network for the Promotion of Linguistic Diversity. Williams, C.H. 2013b. Minority Language Promotion, Protection and Regulation: The Mask of Piety. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Williams, C.H. 2014. The Lightening Veil: Language Revitalization in Wales. Review of Research in Education 38: 242–272. Williams, C.H. 2015. Legislative Devolution and the Enactment of the Official Status of Welsh in Wales. In Droits Culturels et Democratisation: Cultural Rights and Democratisation, ed. I. Urrutia, J.-P. Massia, and X. Iruio, 183– 203. Clermont-Ferrand: Institut Universitaire Varenne. Williams, C.H. 2017. Wake me up in 2050. The Formulation of Language Policy in Wales. Journal of Languages, Society & Policy. https://www.meits. org/policy-papers/paper/wake-me-up-in-2050-formulating-language-policyin-wales. Accessed 27 June 2021. Williams, C.H., and J. Evas. 1997. Y Cynllun Ymchwil Cymunedol/ The Community Research Plan. Cardiff: Welsh Language Board. Williams, C.H., and J. Walsh. 2019. Minority Language Governance and Regulation. In The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Community, ed. G. Hogan-Brun and B. O’Rourke, 101–129. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Recent Legal Developments in Wales: Moving Beyond Individual to Group Rights? Robert Dunbar

In recent decades, there has been in minority-language promotional efforts what Professor Colin Williams has referred to as a ‘legislative turn’: […] a recognition that unless the rights of individuals and communities to be free to speak their own chosen language in the widest possible domains is recognized in law, then the potential to speak a minority language would always be limited by the weight of the prevailing hegemonic language. In consequence a great deal of attention has been paid to securing minimum rights for minority languages in a raft of new laws at European, state and sub-state level – what we may term the legislative turn. (Williams 2013: 101)

R. Dunbar (B) Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_7

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Professor Williams has had an abiding interest in this ‘legislative turn’, has made a very important scholarly contribution to our understanding of it, and has, through his work on Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Board) and his many contributions to the public policy process, not only in Wales but also in Ireland and other jurisdictions, helped shape its development. In this chapter, I argue that any rights that have been secured through the ‘legislative turn’ in minority-language policy have tended to be rights held by the individual against the state. The chapter begins with an overview of relevant enactments from different jurisdictions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, before considering the significant measures of recent decades, notably the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on National Minorities. In the second half of the chapter, I consider the case of Wales in detail, analysing three recent pieces of legislation which impose obligations on government to consider the impact of a wide range of policy decisions on the language itself. I argue that this is an important development in the nature of language legislation, as it recognises that policy-making in areas that are not obviously related to language, such as economic development and land-use planning, can have a significant impact on a language. As such, these enactments can be understood as moving beyond the individual rights of speakers and recognising a broader communal interest in the language. It is certainly the case that there has been a great deal of legislative activity in relation to minority languages and the rights of their speakers over the last forty years or so, but legislation for language and the provision of rights for speakers of languages has a longer pedigree. Professor Williams has a long-standing interest in language policy and legislation in Canada, and rudimentary language rights were included in Canada’s founding constitutional document, the Constitution Act, 1867 ,1 Section 133 of which provided that either English or French could be used in debates of both houses of the Canadian Parliament and the legislature of Quebec, and that either of those languages could be used in any federal or Quebec court. Finland, another jurisdiction on which Professor Williams has done valuable work (Ó Flatharta et al. 2014), was even more ambitious. Section 14(2) of its constitution of 1919 stated that the right of everyone to use their own language (Finnish

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or Swedish) in courts and tribunals was to be guaranteed by an act of the Finnish parliament, and that public authorities must ‘take care to provide for the educational, cultural and social needs of the Finnish-speaking and the Swedish-speaking populations of the country according to similar principles’.2 Section 14(3) provided that the Sami ‘as an indigenous people as well as the Romanies and other groups shall have the right to maintain and develop their own languages and cultures’, and that provisions governing the right of the Sami to use the Sami language before the public authorities must be prescribed by an act of the Finnish parliament. The section also provided that the rights of those who use sign language and of those who require interpretation or translation because of a disability must be guaranteed by an act of the Finnish parliament. Legislation implementing these constitutional language rights guarantees was enacted in 1922.3 Similarly, minority-language rights have a long pedigree in international law, as evidenced, for example, in the so-called ‘League of Nations System’ of minority protection, set out in a series of treaties and unilateral declarations binding on a number of newly created or reconstituted states, mainly in central and eastern Europe, as well as Turkey and Iraq, following the end of the First World War. Most of these international obligations included a requirement that the states bound by these obligations would grant ‘adequate facilities’ to citizens whose mother tongue was not the official language to use their own language in the courts. They also provided that in towns and districts in which there is a ‘considerable proportion’ of citizens whose mother tongue is not the official language, provision would be made for ‘adequate facilities’ for ensuring that, in primary schools, instruction would be given to children of such citizens in their own language—essentially, a rudimentary right to minority-language primary education (Capotorti 1979: 19). In Canada, the relatively brief provisions of the 1867 constitution were considerably expanded by the Official Languages Act, 1969. In addition to providing that English and French were the official languages of Canada, the act contained two elements which have become quite common in the enactments of the ‘legislative turn’ discussed by Professor Williams: the creation of obligations to provide certain public services in particular languages, and of a means of addressing failures by public

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bodies to honour these obligations. With regard to this second element, the act created a mechanism for overseeing the system, the office of a language commissioner, a mechanism about which Professor Williams is the leading international scholar and for which he has become an important advocate. Many of the provisions of this first act were translated into explicit constitutionally recognised rights in Sections 16–20 of the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the ‘Canadian Charter’), and the 1969 act was itself significantly modified by the Official Languages Act, 1988, in part to reflect these constitutional changes. In addition to creating a right to services from the federal government in French or English, the Canadian Charter also created a right to French-medium education in all the provinces and territories in which Francophones are a minority, and to English-medium education in Quebec, where Anglophones are a minority (s. 23). The 1980s was also a period of significant legislative activity in other jurisdictions, most notably Spain, where after the return to democracy under the 1978 Spanish constitution—which under Article 3(2) allowed for official status of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the Autonomous Communities in which they are spoken4 — language legislation was passed to create rights to use those languages in dealing with the administrative authorities, among other things. The legislative turn in international law was particularly evident in the early 1990s, a period of standard-setting in relation to the protection of minorities which arose out of concerns about the inter-ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia and in parts of the former Soviet Union during the early 1990s, following the collapse of Communism. Of particular note is the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (the ‘Framework Convention’), which was completed in 1995, came into force in 1998, and created a variety of language rights. Unlike other important international instruments of this period, such as the 1990 Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE ,5 on which the Framework Convention was built, or the 1992 United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, the Framework Convention created binding legal obligations for states which have ratified it.

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It is useful to consider briefly the language rights regime created by the Framework Convention, as it illustrates the general approach taken in many of the enactments of Professor Williams’s ‘legislative turn’. First, the language rights created tend to be individual rights rather than group or collective rights; that is, the holder of a right is the individual, rather than the group or collectivity as a whole. These rights are sometimes contingent on the rights holder being a member of a group; such rights are generally referred to as ‘group-differentiated rights’ (Kymlicka 1995: 45–48; Patten and Kymlicka 2003: 30; see generally Mitnick 2006). For example, Article 14(1) of the Framework Convention provides that ‘every person belonging to a national minority has the right to learn his or her minority language’. The holder of the right is clearly an individual—‘every person’—but the right is only available if the individual is a member of a group—the person must ‘belong to a national minority’. Such rights raise potentially challenging questions, such as determining the nature and identity of the group—in this case, the ‘national minority’—and whether the person is in fact a member of the group and therefore entitled to exercise the right. Space does not permit an examination of these important questions. And, of course, some language rights are not contingent on group membership at all. For example, Section 17 of the Canadian Charter provides that ‘everyone’ has the right to use English or French in proceedings of the federal parliament, and Section 19 provides that either English or French may be used by ‘any person’ in the federal courts of Canada. In both cases, the right is not limited by membership in any particular linguistic group. The key point here is, however, that even with a group-differentiated right, the right holder remains the individual, rather than the group as a whole. Guaranteeing the rights of the individual speaker of the language can be expected to contribute to the maintenance of the linguistic group, but the rights regime does not explicitly address the maintenance of the group as a whole. As we shall see, recent legislative enactments have begun to do precisely this, which is why these enactments are of significance. A second feature of the sorts of language rights created by instruments such as the Framework Convention is that they are also contingent on the existence of certain other conditions before they can be claimed.

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In many instruments and enactments, we see the application of the ‘territoriality principle’ (Patten and Kymlicka 2003: 29–30; Dunbar 2016). In the Framework Convention, for example, the right to services from the administrative authorities or the right to receive minority-language education is available only in certain areas, namely ‘[i]n areas inhabited by persons belonging to national minorities traditionally or in substantial numbers’ (Article 10(2), Article 14(2)). They are also available in those areas where there is ‘sufficient demand’. Note, however, that the right remains an individual one. A third feature of many language rights regimes established in international or domestic law is that the individual rights which they create are generally limited to those relating to public institutions and public services: the right to use a minority language in parliaments and other elective bodies, the right to use the language in the courts, the right to certain public services through the minority language, the right to education in the language, and so forth. Only rarely do rights regimes create rights in relation to the private or voluntary sectors; perhaps the most notable example of a regime which does do so is Quebec’s Charter of the French Language, first enacted in 1977 and colloquially known as ‘Bill 101’ (see Bourhis, this volume; Castonguay, this volume).6 Frequently, legal instruments of the sort being described here have been developed as a means of managing ethnic diversity within states, often in response to political tensions. The League of Nations System was created expressly for this purpose. The Canadian Official Languages Act, 1969 and the language-related provisions of the Canadian Charter were likewise a response to linguistic and related political tensions within the Canadian federation, and as noted, the more recent minorities instruments developed in a European context, and in particular the Framework Convention, were all inspired by ethnic tensions which exploded following the collapse of Communism in central and eastern Europe. A notable aspect of many of the enactments associated with Professor Williams’s ‘legislative turn’, however—and one highlighted by him in his seminal article from which I quoted at the start—is a more or less explicit concern with the perceived vulnerability of minority-language communities, and the associated goal of maintaining and revitalising the language. This was a central objective of Quebec’s Charter of the French

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Language, for example. It is also the raison d’être of another important Council of Europe treaty, the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (the ‘Languages Charter’). Unlike the Framework Convention, work on the Languages Charter had begun before the eruption of inter-ethnic violence, and was motivated by concerns that were being expressed from the early 1980s about the fragile state of Europe’s minority languages. The Explanatory Report to the Languages Charter makes these concerns explicit: ‘[T]he charter’s overriding purpose is cultural. It is designed to protect and promote regional or minority languages as a threatened aspect of Europe’s cultural heritage’ (Council of Europe 1992: para. 10). Although the Languages Charter does not create any explicit rights, it does impose obligations on states, including a range of detailed obligations, where states agree to apply them, in relation to education, judicial authorities, the administrative authorities and public services, the media, cultural activities and facilities, and economic and social life. As under other instruments, however, essentially only the state sector is regulated (Nogueira López et al. 2012; Woehrling 2006). The ‘legislative turn’ is particularly evident in Wales, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland, in which there have been major legislative enactments on Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic over the last generation, the most notable being the Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, the Irish Official Languages Act 2003 and the Gaeltacht Act 2012, and the Scottish Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 . While there are significant differences between the models that have been developed in these jurisdictions, there are also some significant similarities—unsurprisingly, as there has been considerable cross-fertilisation of ideas between policy-makers, activists, and academics from each jurisdiction. The most important similarities have been the relative absence of explicit language rights, as opposed to the imposition of limited duties through state administrative mechanisms, and the almost exclusive focus on the regulation of public bodies. And, perhaps most significantly of all, the overriding policy goal of all of these enactments is to support the maintenance and revitalisation of the respective languages. The ways in which language legislation, and in particular language rights of the varying sorts discussed earlier in this article, contribute

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to minority-language maintenance and revitalisation is not particularly well understood. The very fact of the ‘legislative turn’ suggests that policy-makers are of the view that such legislation has a role to play. It can be hypothesised that the sorts of measures introduced by language legislation can have positive impacts on the perceived status and utility of minority languages, and can create greater opportunities to use the language, in a manner described by the Catalan sociolinguist Miquel Strubell in his ‘Catherine Wheel’ model (Strubell 2001). There has, however, for some time been an awareness that the vitality of a minority language can be affected, often adversely, by policies and practices in a wide range of policy areas that are not directly related to language (Dunbar 2013). In Ireland, for example, there has been a long-standing recognition that job creation and economic development more generally are essential to sustaining communities in the Gaeltacht (Ó hAoláin 2011), and with them the Irish language in such communities, but there is now a growing realisation that certain types of economic development can actually have a deleterious impact on the language in these areas (Walsh 2006; Ó hAoláin 2009). Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society, a voluntary body) has long made the connection between various socio-economic policy areas and the vitality of the language. Most recently, for example, it has highlighted the negative impact of the housing market in many parts of rural Wales on the vitality of the Welsh language (Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg 2021). Transport links and the communication infrastructure are other fields in which the impact of policy on minority languages is often most keenly felt, especially the failure to address deficiencies in provision in rural areas in which the densest communities of speakers are often found. There has been some recognition of these issues in some legal instruments which could be considered to be part of the relatively recent ‘legislative turn’. In the revised Canadian Official Languages Act, 1988, Part VII, entitled ‘Advancement of English and French’, was added. Section 41(1) provides that the Government of Canada is committed to ‘(a) enhancing the vitality of the English and French linguistic minority communities in Canada and supporting and assisting their development’ and ‘(b) fostering the full recognition and use of both English and French in Canadian society’, and Section 41(2) provides that ‘[e]very federal

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institution has the duty to ensure that positive measures are taken for the implementation of the commitments under subsection (1)’. A discussion of the full meaning and implications of these provisions is beyond the scope of this paper (see Eastaugh 2017–2020), but it clearly suggests that all departments of the federal government, and not simply those which have direct responsibility for official language issues, have a role to play in supporting the development of minority-language communities. The Languages Charter also has the potential to require consideration of the impact of a broad range of policy areas on the vitality of minority linguistic communities and the development of policies to address such impact (Dunbar 2012, 2013). For example, Article 7(1) provides that states which are parties to the Languages Charter shall base ‘their policies, legislation and practice’ on a range of objectives and principles, including ‘(c) the need for resolute action to promote regional or minority languages in order to safeguard them’. It is important to note that the reference to ‘policies, legislation and practice’ is not limited in any way, and therefore the need for resolute action to promote such languages could potentially apply to any policy area. This provision could therefore be interpreted in such a way as to invite scrutiny of policymaking in areas such as economic policy, regional development policy, agriculture, fishing, transport, communications, local land-use planning and so on, to ensure that such policy-making, and also legislation relating to those policy areas, are informed by the objective of promoting regional languages. The potential reach of this provision in the Languages Charter has not, however, been developed. The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 conferred upon the Welsh language ‘official status in Wales’ (Part 1, s. 1(1)), established the office of the Welsh Language Commissioner and gave the office some enforcement powers (Part 2), created mechanisms for the enforcement of obligations created under the Measure (Part 5), and created a freedom for Welsh speakers to communicate with each other in Welsh (Part 6). Crucially, it established an innovative but very complex framework for the regulation of the use of Welsh by the public sector and, to a limited extent, elements of the private sector: ‘language standards’ (Part 4). Specifically, the Measure contemplates five different types of standards: (1) service delivery standards (s. 28); (2) policy-making standards

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(s. 29); (3) operational standards (s. 30); (4) promotion standards (s. 31); and (5) record keeping standards (s. 32), all of which are to be specified by the Welsh Government (s. 26) (see, generally, Mac Giolla Chríost 2016). A service delivery standard is a standard which is ‘intended to promote or facilitate the use of the Welsh language, or to work towards ensuring that the Welsh language is treated no less favourably than the English language’, in the delivery of services to the public. Essentially, these standards specify which services organisations will be required to provide to the public through the medium of Welsh, and they cover the sorts of things that are usually dealt with in language rights regimes. The Welsh Language Commissioner, among others, has suggested that these service delivery standards effectively create language ‘rights’. It is not clear how these entitlements could be understood as ‘rights’ in any established sense, but a discussion of this important issue is beyond the scope of this article. Of particular interest for our purposes are the policy-making standards. These are standards which relate to potentially any policy decision taken by a regulated body, and are intended to secure one or more of three results. The first is that the person making the policy decision must consider ‘what effects, if any, (whether positive or adverse) the policy decision would have on (a) opportunities for other persons to use the Welsh language, or (b) treating the Welsh language no less favourably than the English language’ (s. 29(2)). The second is that the person making the policy decision must consider ‘how the decision could be made so that the decision has positive effects, or increased positive effects [whether direct or indirect], on (a) opportunities for other persons to use the Welsh language, or (b) treating the Welsh language no less favourably than the English language’ (s. 29(3)). The third is that the person making the policy decision must consider ‘how the decision could be made so that the decision does not have adverse effects, or has decreased adverse effects [direct or indirect], on (a) opportunities for other persons to use the Welsh language, or (b) treating the Welsh language no less favourably than the English language’ (s. 29(4)). In effect, these standards seek to impose on regulated bodies the duty to conduct a linguistic impact assessment in relation to potentially all policy decisions, and to act on

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that assessment by changing policy to reduce adverse impacts or enhance positive ones. To date, the Welsh Government has issued six sets of standards, covering a wide range of bodies, primarily in the public sector. Each set contains policy-making standards. The standards included in the first set (The Welsh Language Standards (No. 1) Regulations 2015 ), which applied to the Welsh Government itself, as well as county and county borough councils, and National Parks Authorities, clarified somewhat the actual content of policy-making standards. ‘Policy decisions’ to which the standards apply are defined very broadly as ‘any decision made by a body about the exercise of its functions or the conduct of its business’, and specifically include decisions about the content of legislation, the exercise of statutory powers, the content of policy statements, strategies or strategic plans, and internal structures (Schedule 2, Part 2, s. 2). The standard effectively repeats the provisions in the 2011 Measure itself—again, this imposes an obligation to undertake what is in effect a linguistic impact assessment—but adds to them. For example, the standard makes specific reference to the formulation of a new policy, the review or revision of an existing policy, and to publication of a consultation document which relates to a policy decision (Part 1, Section 1, Standards 88–93). Two other pieces of recent non-language specific legislation should also be mentioned, as they demonstrate some of the same features as the policy-making standards. The first is the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 . This act requires each public body in Wales to carry out ‘sustainable development’ (s. 3(1)), which is defined as ‘the process of improving the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being of Wales by taking action, in accordance with the sustainable development principle [...], aimed at achieving the well-being goals’ (s. 2). Each public body must set out and publish ‘well-being objectives’ that are designed to maximise its contribution to achieving each of the well-being goals, and to take all reasonable means to meet those objectives (s. 3(2)). One of the seven well-being goals focuses on the protection and promotion of the Welsh language (s. 4).

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In its statutory guidance on this act, the Welsh Government states that the purpose of the act is to ensure that public bodies take into consideration the long-term impacts of policy and to promote an integrated and collaborative approach to policy-making (Welsh Government 2016a: 3, para. 2). In its guidance to individual public bodies, the Welsh Government indicates that in setting and delivering their well-being objectives, public bodies have to abide by any duties placed on them by the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 and its subordinate legislation, such as Welsh Language Standards (para. 64). The guidance also specifies that these objectives should reflect the status of Welsh as an official language of Wales and the national well-being goal of ‘a thriving Welsh language’ (para. 65) (Welsh Government 2016b: 12–13). It is quite clear, therefore, that the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 both supports and complements the policy-making standards created under the Measure, and may help to ensure that a holistic approach is taken to planning for the Welsh language, and that consideration of the language is mainstreamed in other areas of policy-making. The other piece of legislation which is of relevance here is the Planning (Wales) Act 2015 . The act amends the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (the PCPA 2004), the main land-use planning legislation for England and Wales, to require the Welsh Government to prepare and publish a National Development Framework for Wales, which must set out the policies of the Welsh Government in relation to the development and use of land in Wales (s. 3, amended s. 60(1) and (2)). The Welsh Government must first prepare a draft of this framework and carry out an appraisal of the sustainability of the policies set out therein, and one of the things that the government has to assess as part of this appraisal is the ‘likely effects of the policies in the draft Framework on the use of the Welsh language’ (s. 3, amended s. 60B(1) and (2)). Under the PCPA 2004, local planning authorities are also required to prepare a local development plan for their area. Such plans must set out the authority’s objectives in relation to the development and use of land in their area, and their general policies for the implementation of those objectives (s. 62(1) and (2)). These plans must generally conform to the National Development Framework for Wales (s. 62(3A)) and in preparing them, local planning authorities must have regard to that

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framework (s. 62(5)). Such authorities must also carry out an appraisal of the sustainability of their local development plan, and as a result of the Planning (Wales) Act 2015 , this appraisal must include an assessment of the likely effects of the plan on the use of the Welsh language in the area of the authority (s. 3, creating new s. 62(6A)). Under the PCPA 2004, the local planning authority must also keep under review a variety of matters that may be expected to affect the development of their area or the planning of its development. As a result of the Planning (Wales) Act 2015, one such matter is the extent to which the Welsh language is used in the area (s. 3, amending s. 61(2)(a)). Finally, with regard to the determination of particular planning applications (which is regulated by another piece of legislation, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 ), among the things the local planning authority must now—again, as a result of the Planning (Wales) Act 2015 —have regard to are ‘any considerations relating to the use of the Welsh language, so far as material to the application’ (s. 31, creating a new s. 70(2)(aa)). Although a fuller analysis of these provisions is beyond the scope of this article, it can be said that, taken together, the changes introduced by the Planning (Wales) Act 2015 have made consideration of the impact of various planning policies and decisions on the Welsh language an important part of land-use planning law in Wales. Given that all of the foregoing—the Measure, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the Planning (Wales) Act 2015 —are relatively recent developments (for example, the first Welsh language standards only took effect in 2016), it is perhaps too early to draw any conclusions on their impact.7 However, these legislative developments are nonetheless notable. As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, to the extent that legal instruments of the ‘legislative turn’—or indeed legal instruments in earlier efforts to support linguistic minorities—create rights, these are almost always individual rights of some sort or other; all such instruments avoid group rights. The Welsh legislative enactments considered here do not expressly enumerate any rights conferred on any collectivity, and therefore do not create any group rights, per se. However, all of them require consideration by public institutions of the impact of various measures on the Welsh language itself or on users

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of the Welsh language. In doing so, they implicitly recognise the existence of a speech community, and an interest in the vitality and the well-being of that speech community. They therefore recognise that the Welsh language is not only a matter that is of interest to individual Welsh speakers, but represents a wider societal interest. Significantly, they create the possibility that this collective interest can impact upon, directly or indirectly, and in some cases trump other interests, both of the state and, in relation to land-use planning, the interests of non-state actors. In addition, these enactments create a range of legal obligations that are potentially justiciable, something which is also significant. Therefore, while they do not create a group right, they do recognise what could be described as a group interest in the Welsh language—an interest that goes beyond the individual and that involves a community of speakers—and this is a significant paradigm shift. As with any new development, however, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. These enactments require an assessment of the linguistic impact of public policy initiatives and decisions. There is a need, therefore, to develop methodologies for conducting such assessments, and this raises a number of issues relating to the theory or theories which underpin such assessments, what counts as evidence for use in such assessments, and how various sorts of evidence will be weighed. As there will be legal consequences flowing from the assessments, and those consequences may in some cases ultimately be tested in the courts, assessments will need to be rigorous. Finally, there is the danger that such assessments may too often become simply a box-ticking exercise. However, these considerations do not detract from the importance of the new paradigms which have been created by these recent enactments.

Notes 1. Originally enacted by the British Parliament as the British North America Act, 1867 , 30 & 31 Victoria, c. 3. 2. The text is available at https://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/fi01000_. html.

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3. Language Act, 148/1922, available at https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaa nnokset/1922/en19220148_19960201.pdf. 4. The text of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 is available at https:// www.boe.es/legislacion/documentos/ConstitucionINGLES.pdf. 5. The Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), first established in the 1970s, became the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE) on 1 January 1995. 6. As we shall see, recent Welsh language legislation, the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, has sought to regulate the non-state sector in a limited way. 7. This would, in any case, be beyond the scope of this article.

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Networked Territories of Language and Nation Rhys Jones

1

Introduction

Colin Williams has provided considerable inspiration over a number of years to academics and policy-makers alike working on a range of issues, not least on minority languages, national separatism and political geography broadly defined. One of his most influential contributions— at least from a personal perspective—was the article that he wrote in conjunction with Anthony Smith in 1983, which examined the ‘national construction of social space’ (Williams and Smith 1983). The article can be viewed as a corrective to the overwhelming attention that had been directed up to that point to understanding the histories and times of the nation: when was the nation formed, what were the historical processes R. Jones (B) Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_8

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that led to the emergence of nationalism as an ideology (Gellner 1983; Smith 1987), to what extent was nationalism connected with the development of alternative conceptions of time (Bhabha 1994). Williams and Smith (1983) highlighted, instead, the many ways in which nations and nationalism were infused with geographical aspects and themes, which were equally deserving of academic attention. The article acted as a source of inspiration for geographers and others to begin to chart different approaches to nations and nationalism, with numerous studies being conducted on, inter alia, rural landscapes and nationalism (e.g. Gruffudd 1995; Shields 1991), the importance of specific sites and places for nations (e.g. Whelan 2003) and the significance of territory as the fundamental spatial manifestation of nations and national ‘distinctiveness’ (Paasi 1996; Jones and Fowler 2007). The most innovative, perceptive and prescient aspect of Williams and Smith’s (1983) article, arguably, is the section that deals with national infrastructures. The territorial nature of the nation is highlighted here and this is, indeed, something that has been discussed by a range of authors, as noted above. What was most innovative about Williams and Smith’s (1983) work, in this respect, is the way in which it showed how national territories are not uniform, homogeneous or ‘flat’ in nature but rather comprise a series of infrastructures and nodes; ones that bring symbolic meaning to the national territory as well as providing material and practical means of knitting together different parts of a national territory. One can think here of the role played by rail and road infrastructures in acting as the material and symbolic ‘connective tissue’ for different nations (Merriman and Jones 2009; Mukerji 2009). And in more conceptual terms, Williams and Smith’s (1983) work has led some to question the dualism that is often said to exist between territorial or bounded, and more networked and connected ways of viewing the world (e.g. Massey 1994). Authors increasingly argue that territories influence more networked ways of living. At the same time, networked infrastructures play a key role in creating those self-same territories (Jones and Merriman 2012; Merriman and Jones 2017). My aim in this chapter is to use this more networked interpretation of national territories in order to interrogate the way in which the Welsh linguistic territory—or, in other words, the territorial extent of a sense of

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Welshness that is defined according to Welsh-language ability—is imagined in Wales. I begin in Sect. 2 by detailing the dominant geographical imaginations that exist in relation to the Welsh linguistic territory; one that is characterised by a relatively uncritical conception of a homogeneous and definable territorial entity. I then proceed in Sect. 3 to highlight some of the ways in which one might complicate this interpretation of a homogeneous and uniform linguistic territory, drawing on more networked understandings of social and spatial relations. As well as discussing these academic concerns, I seek, throughout, to signal the significance of these alternative conceptions of the Welsh linguistic territory for language policy in Wales. Brief conclusions follow in Sect. 4, where I discuss the significance of these ideas for nations and minority languages more broadly.

2

The Welsh-Speaking ‘heartland’ as a Linguistic Territory

There have been long-running attempts to understand the territory of Wales and to recognise that there are different ways of portraying Wales, Welshness and the Welsh language. Bowen (1959), in his famous article on ‘Le Pays de Galles’, drew on a geographical tradition called regional geography to understand the connection between a variety of geomorphic, climatic, social, economic and cultural themes, with the express aim of delineating a coherent Welsh region or territory (see Fig. 1). At one level, Wales was a straightforward political entity, delineated by the political boundaries with which we are familiar today. And yet Wales was also constituted as a region characterised by specific ‘physical or cultural endowments’ (Bowen 1959: 1). It was this second Wales—the Wales of the Welsh-speaking ‘heartland’—that was most ‘authentic’ for Bowen since it was the one that reflected Wales’s more distinctive characteristics, particularly the cultural endowment of the Welsh language. The Welsh ‘heartland’, defined predominantly in terms of those areas of Wales possessing the highest percentages of Welsh speakers, has since entered into mainstream academic and policy work on Wales and the Welsh language. In academic terms, geographers such as Aitchison and

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Fig. 1 Bowen’s (1959) vision of ‘Le Pays de Galles’ (adapted from Bowen 1959)

Carter (2000) have attempted to map the changing fortunes of the Welsh language and, in particular, its gradual retreat as a dominant language. As the maps in Fig. 2 aptly portray, the story of the Welsh language within the ‘heartland’ has been one of dilution and fragmentation, which ‘could be likened to the drying up of a lake, where the main body of water gave way to a series of isolated pools, with the implication that these, too would in turn disappear’ (Aitchison and Carter 2000: 55). As a result of this downward trend, the connection between Welsh language, culture and identity and the so-called Welsh ‘heartland’ became politicised over the course of the twentieth century. Gruffudd (1995), for instance, has shown how Welsh nationalist discourses during the 1920s and 1930s emphasised the need for Welsh speakers to ‘return to the land’; in effect to renew the ‘core’ of the Welsh national and linguistic territory in the ‘heartland’, along with the Welsh-speaking communities that lay within it. The symbolic value of the Welsh-speaking ‘heartland’ has been affirmed beyond academia in the realms of public policy and public debate in Wales. For instance, the pressure group Cymuned (literally Community) was formed in 2001 with the aim of maintaining the

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Fig. 2 The decline in Welsh speakers and in the Welsh-speaking ‘heartland’ 1961–1991

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vitality of the Welsh language as a community language within its traditional ‘heartland’. A strong territorial dimension existed in relation to Cymuned’s policies, with a clear distinction being drawn between the ‘heartland’, as a territory possessing considerable linguistic significance for the Welsh nation, and the rest of Wales (Jones and Fowler 2007). What is equally significant is the extent to which such a vision of the significance of a Welsh-speaking heartland has entered public policy discourse in Wales. Each of the national language strategies published by the Welsh Government (e.g. Welsh Government 2012, 2017) since the advent of devolution in 1999 has included sections that emphasise the significance of ‘Welsh-speaking communities’. For instance, with the most recent of these strategies, while much is made of the need to ensure that the Welsh language is something that is relevant for all of the people of Wales, wherever they live, it is stated that ‘we need to ensure the future vitality of Welsh-speaking communities as places that facilitate the use of the language in every aspect of life’ (Welsh Government 2017: 7). Once again, the ‘heartland’ in the north and west of the country takes on a special significance in terms of the reproduction of the Welsh language and, by extension, as a way of marking out the distinctiveness of Wales and the Welsh people (see also the discussion of the Gaeltacht in Walsh, this volume). The Welsh ‘heartland’ takes on additional significance when one considers the attempts that have been made to reinforce its territorial integrity, or, in Paasi’s (1991) terms, to further ‘institutionalise’ it as a region. During the 1970s, some campaigners advocated the creation of a distinct region in the north and west of the country which could act as the basis of the development of a series of far more extensive and radical policies to support and promote the Welsh language (Llywelyn 1976). Such ideas re-emerged periodically over the past forty or so years and finally bore their fruit in relation to the creation of ‘Arfor’ as a new region for West Wales. Originally proposed by Adam Price (2017), the current leader of Plaid Cymru (the national party of Wales), Arfor’s aim has been to develop a more strategic approach to economic, land use and language planning in the area covered by the local authorities of Anglesey, Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire. £2 million have been allocated to the region by the Welsh Government, with a view to developing

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a workable strategy for supporting the economy, communities and ways of life practised within this newly designated region. We witness here in Wales the attempt to define a Welsh linguistic territory, one that exists as a ‘core’ region of Wales and the Welsh nation in terms of its linguistic and cultural distinctiveness. And yet, one is able to criticise this conception of a territorially defined Welsh linguistic nation on a number of fronts. First, there is a clear danger that discourses surrounding the Welsh-speaking ‘heartland’ essentialise Welshness, equating it with: (1) the ability to speak Welsh, and (2) communities located within particular parts of Wales. Such arguments run counter to the majority view in Wales at present, in which definitions of Welshness are purposively broad. Many authors contend that there are many, equally valid, ways of being Welsh and, furthermore, that these can be practised in many different parts of Wales (Bowie 1993; Cloke et al. 1998). Second, and allied to the first concern, there is a danger the idea of the ‘heartland’ can create an impression that those areas lying outside of it do not matter or, at least, do not matter as much for Wales or for understandings of Welshness. For instance, some commentators have critiqued Cymuned’s arguments, stating that they create an impression of territorial exclusivity. People speaking Welsh beyond the ‘heartland’ do not count, or do not count as much, in terms of some of the dominant narratives connected to the Welsh language and nation (Jones and Fowler 2007). Detailed ethnographic work illustrates the saliency of such claims. Evans (2007), for instance, has noted how the inhabitants of north-east Wales bemoan the fact that they live beyond those places and regions that are deemed to be most significant for Welsh identity. Similar work has been undertaken more recently by another Evans (2019) in the south Wales coastal town of Porthcawl, which once again is disconnected from dominant imaginations about the location and character of Welsh identity and culture. Third, there is a danger that the idea of the Welsh ‘heartland’ can give the impression of an essentially uniform territory, characterised by little internal variation. After all, Bowen’s (1959) aim was to define ‘Le Pays de Galles’, that distinctive part of Wales that was different— and presumably, consistently different—from the rest of the country.

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The new administrative region of Arfor is, similarly, based on the assumption that there exists a territory in the west of Wales that possesses a series of common linguistic, social and economic characteristics and challenges; one that the putative administrative region is supposed to grapple with. And yet, it is possible to complicate such a narrative by demonstrating the variations that exist within the ‘heartland’. For instance, the percentages of Welsh speakers within Arfor local authorities range from around 30% to over 70% in some areas. Evidently, there are marked linguistic variations between different parts of the Welsh-speaking ‘heartland’. Even when linguistic patterns are similar, socio-economic circumstances may vary markedly. To pick one example, even though parts of eastern Carmarthenshire and parts of Gwynedd both have a Welsh-speaking density between 50 and 70%, they are characterised by totally different socio-economic conditions. The former is a post-industrial area with good connectivity to urban and transport systems in south Wales, whereas the latter is relatively rural, agricultural and remote. Given these differences, how can one view the ‘heartland’ as a coherent and distinct linguistic territory? The above discussion shows the significance of a particular kind of linguistic territory for understanding Welsh identity and the Welsh language. It also begins to illustrate some of the more problematic aspects of this linguistic territory. A series of additional critiques—deriving from a more networked understanding of the Welsh linguistic territory—are developed in the following section.

3

Networking the Welsh Linguistic Territory

To recap, Williams and Smith (1983) maintained that an important feature of national territories is its infrastructural quality. Infrastructures of different kinds knit together the different parts of a national territory in material and symbolic ways. It is these infrastructures that give meaning to a national territory and, by extension, to the nation as a whole. Numerous authors have taken forward these ideas by examining how a range of infrastructures help promote the ‘group-making project’

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of the nation (Brubaker 2004) or can act as sources of contestation for those seeking to promote alternative forms of territorial identity (Jones and Merriman 2009). In a broadly similar vein, others have examined how networks of different kinds can either support or subvert linguistic territories. In this latter context, it is increasingly argued that networked and more territorial ways of understanding the world can complement each other, rather than existing in opposition to each other (Jones and Merriman 2012). Instead of viewing networks as things that necessarily ‘combat localist or nationalist claims to place based on eternal essentialist, and in consequence exclusive, characteristics of belonging’ (Massey 2004: 6), authors now seek to examine the creative tensions between networks and territories of different kinds. In certain circumstances, networks can reproduce territories while, in others, networks can problematise preexisting territories and can lead, potentially, to the creation of alternative ones. I examine two brief contrasting case studies of the link between networks and territories below.

3.1

Reproducing Territories Through Networks

First of all, we need to consider how networks and infrastructures help to bring meaning to linguistic territories in somewhere like Wales. There is no better example of the significance of such infrastructures in Wales, arguably, than the bilingual road signs (in Welsh and English) that dot the country (see James, this volume). These are a product of a longrunning campaign against the previous monolingual English road signs, which began during the 1960s (Merriman and Jones 2009). The tone of the campaign varied from polite letter writing and petitions through to direct action, as monolingual English signs were either daubed with paint or pulled down (Williams 1977). The campaign had largely fizzled out by the late 1970s and early 1980s, partly as a result of the fact that Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg’s (the Welsh Language Society) energy and commitment towards the campaign had dissipated, and partly as a result of the partial accession to their demands by successive British governments (for more detail, see Merriman and Jones 2009).

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Monolingual English and bilingual road signs were understood by Welsh nationalists as material markers of Wales’s subservient status within a British state and of the existence of an Anglicised or British national territory. These were ‘symbols of oppression’ according to Welsh nationalists (quoted in The Times 1971) and were a ‘ubiquitous proclamation of the superiority of the English language and everything English’ (Davies 1974: 114) within Wales. These monolingual objects affirmed in a symbolic and material way the existence of a British national territory, within which the English language was to be afforded dominance. Monolingual road signs, furthermore, affirmed Wales’s status as one other region within an Anglicised British national territory. If monolingual English signs were deemed by Welsh nationalists to be objects that represented a form of English linguistic colonialism, then bilingual signs—particularly if Welsh preceded English—were viewed as objects that had the potential to affirm the connection between the Welsh language and a Welsh national territory. The symbolic significance of bilingual road signs was justified by members of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg through reference to the work of Swansea philosopher Professor J. R. Jones, who actively supported the society until his death in 1970. Jones’s nationalist and religious philosophy had a great influence on Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg in the late 1960s, particularly his arguments surrounding the cydymdreiddiad (interpenetration) of language and land (Jones 1966; see also Gruffudd 2000). Land and language, territory and language, should, according to Jones, be closely related, and bilingual road signs were viewed as crucial objects which could restore the connection, acting as ‘a highly effective means of defining the national territory’ (Davies 2007: 703). The saliency of such arguments was further emphasised in the following quote from an interview conducted with the historian John Davies, who was one of the founder members of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg. It recounts his sense of pride in witnessing bilingual road signs in Wales and, in particular, their role in defining a Welsh linguistic territory: But by now, as a result of the victories of the [Welsh Language] Society, I feel a certain exhilaration as I cross the Severn Bridge near to Cas-Gwent [Chepstow], and it’s ‘Cas-gwent’ that the signs say. And ‘Casnewydd’

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[Newport] and ‘Dim Parcio’ [No Parking] and so on. From the very boundary [of Wales]. To compare that with what existed fifty years ago, it’s nigh-on miraculous (John Davies, Welsh-language campaigner and academic historian (Davies 2004, emphasis in original)).

The above quote can give the impression of bilingual road signs helping to define a Welsh linguistic territory and that that territory is a uniform and homogeneous entity. But of course, the significance of the road sign campaign was the way in which it was centred on road networks and the road signs that acted as significant nodes within those networks. It was those networks and nodes, in effect, that brought meaning to the emerging Welsh linguistic territory. In removing monolingual road signs, campaigners sought to obliterate nodes that were deemed to be stains on the Welsh national territory. In seeing them being replaced by bilingual road signs, the self-same campaigners witnessed new nodes bringing a new Welsh linguistic territory—or, at least, a bilingual linguistic territory—into being. Admittedly, and as demonstrated in James’s chapter in this volume, this linguistic territory was ‘textured’ in character, most notably in relation to the ability of local authorities to determine the order of the two languages on road signs. And yet, there is clearly a sense here of a successful campaign that brought about a marked shift in the nature of the linguistic territories in existence in Wales. As well as being themes of considerable academic interest—or so I would argue at least—they are matters that also possess policy significance. When seeking to create or reproduce a Welsh linguistic territory, there is a need to consider the significance of those networks, infrastructures and objects that can help to bring meaning to that linguistic territory. The attempts being made currently to define a new administrative region of Arfor—to correspond with and help support the Welsh-speaking ‘heartland’—provides an apposite example of the importance of such issues. Defining Arfor as an abstract territory on a map may well be important but if Arfor is to take on any kind of real meaning in the lives of the people of north and west Wales, then there is also a need for it to create material markers of the territory that it seeks to support and promote; ones that individuals navigating their way through that territory can encounter on a daily basis. It is such objects, helping to

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materialise a series of networks and infrastructures, that have the potential to create a meaningful linguistic territory for the Welsh language. Achieving such a goal might be challenging, given the fact that the funding allocated to Arfor has been disbursed through the four local authorities that comprise the region. I would suggest that there is a danger that channelling spend in such a way will hamper attempts to devise and promote effective networks and infrastructures which might help to shape a new linguistic territory for north and west Wales.

3.2

Networks Problematising Linguistic Territories

The campaign in favour of bilingual road signs in Wales demonstrates the close interrelationship between networked and territorial ways of understanding society and space. In the above example, territories helped to frame certain networks, while those same networks also helped to bring particular territories into being. Yet, there is also a need to consider how networks of different kinds might problematise linguistic territories. In this second context, networks might encourage us to re-think our conceptualisations of linguistic territories; not necessarily by jettisoning them altogether but by making us understand them differently. One clear way of demonstrating the saliency of such claims is by examining the networks that exist in relation to the mobile flows of people (and potentially things) within and across territories. The map in Fig. 3 provides a good example of the connections between mobility (as networked movements of people), territories and the Welsh language. The map focuses on the eastern parts of Carmarthenshire and West Glamorgan in south Wales, an area that has traditionally been deemed to be very important for the Welsh language due to the combination of high percentages and high absolute numbers of speakers that reside within it (Bowen and Carter 1974: 436). The map clearly shows the mobility of Welsh speakers in this area as they commute from different communities (areas in pink, which lose Welsh speakers during the day) to work and study in Carmarthen, Llanelli, Swansea and beyond (the areas in yellow, green and cyan on the map).1 As well as being an interesting map that demonstrates the mobility of Welsh speakers in this part of Wales, I

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Fig. 3 Map of the daily mobilities of Welsh speakers, reproduced by kind permission of Statiaith; see http://statiaith.com/cymraeg/demograffig/cyfrifiad/ 2011/WD207/map_WD207Cymraegpoblogaethdiwrnodgwaith.html

would suggest that it also encourages us to re-think our understanding of the nature of the Welsh linguistic territory (see also Walsh, this volume). When viewing the map in Fig. 3, one is confronted with a series of questions. What is the extent of the linguistic territory of the Welshspeaking ‘heartland’ in this part of Wales? Is the presence of Welsh speakers in their night-time dwellings—in other words, in those communities that are usually conceived of as lying within the ‘heartland’—more important than their presence in places like Llanelli or Swansea during the day? Alternatively, should we think of a conventionally defined ‘heartland’ that is, as a result of daily commuting patterns, ‘diluted’ during the day, only to be augmented in towns and cities that lie beyond it? Rather than being a lake that is slowly drying out, should we view the Welsh ‘heartland’, as this map suggests, as something that is akin to a lung that swells and shrinks on a daily basis (Jones and Lewis 2019)? There are, moreover, significant policy implications to the map that appears in Fig. 3. Where would be the most appropriate place to locate Welsh-medium services in this part of Wales? For example, would Welshmedium childcare be best sited in the communities located within the

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conventionally defined ‘heartland’ or, alternatively, in those towns and cities that lie outside of it but which receive large numbers of Welsh speakers during the day? What kinds of criteria should be used to decide such questions? Should they revolve around the presumed practical benefits accruing to parents as a result of taking their children to Welsh-medium childcare providers located, say, close to their place of work? Or should they revolve around, perhaps, a more politically driven desire to maintain the relatively high levels of Welsh spoken in the more rural or post-industrial communities of eastern Carmarthenshire and West Glamorgan? These are clearly practical and applied questions but they also feed back into the more academic questions that have underpinned the discussion in this chapter. To what extent do networked mobilities, such as the ones discussed in this brief case study, force us to reconsider our understanding of the relationship between networks and territories? Do these networks undermine the ‘integrity’ of the linguistic territory of the Welsh-speaking ‘heartland’? Does any conception of a uniform and relatively stable linguistic territory break down in this part of Wales? Or are we encouraged to expand our conceptualisations of territories, including linguistic territories, as a result of such data? Should we conceive of linguistic and national territories as spatial entities that are fluid, instead of being fixed and unmoving? Such a viewpoint would tally well with more recent writing in political geography, which has sought to recognise how territories can be expanded to suit political circumstances (Mountz 2011) and how the idea of sovereignty can be fluid in its interpretation (Ong 2006).

4

Conclusions

My aim in this chapter has been to illustrate the value of adopting a networked approach to territory, including linguistic territories. Colin Williams’s work in this area (Williams and Smith 1983) was especially prescient and has led to a flowering of academic interest in understanding the significance of networks, mobilities and infrastructures for territories of different kinds. His work has encouraged authors not to

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view networks and territories as conceptual categories that represent two totally different, almost incompatible, world views. Instead, authors now try to examine the creative tensions between territories and networks and infrastructures. Networks and infrastructures may be influenced by pre-existing territories but they also play an important role in bringing meaning to those territories. Alternatively, networks, infrastructures and mobilities may well encourage us to revisit our understandings of territories, in both conceptual and more empirical and applied contexts. Doing so does not mean forgoing territory. Rather, it behoves us to approach territories in more creative and imaginative ways. And this leads me on to a much bigger issue; one that signals the pertinence of the themes discussed in this chapter for all minority languages across the world. To what extent can one begin to quantify and show causality with respect to the relationship between networks and infrastructures and the reproduction of linguistic territories and, potentially, languages and cultures? For instance, while social scientists may be able to demonstrate in qualitative terms the significance of road signs as markers of either English/British or Welsh linguistic territories, to what extent can we begin to demonstrate their significance in more quantitative ways? In other words, how much of a difference has the erection of bilingual road signs in Wales made to the reproduction of a Welsh linguistic territory and, by extension, to the reproduction of the Welsh language? Would it be possible to conduct, say, a cost–benefit analysis in order to show the value of such signs for the reproduction of the Welsh language or for the ‘group-making project’ (Brubaker 2004) associated with Welsh nationalism (cf. Grin and Vaillancourt 1999)? Doing so might be viewed as being difficult, perhaps unrealistic, but it is important to discuss nonetheless. In an age when minority languages are facing challenges across the world, academics and policy-makers alike need to develop a greater understanding of ‘what works’: within the whole panoply of public policy interventions that might be used in relation to the promotion of minority languages, which are likely to be most effective? How might one measure effectiveness? How might one determine causality? What are the relative merits, for instance, of ensuring that there are linguistic infrastructures in place, which help to materialise a linguistic territory, and which might help, presumably, to

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normalise a minority language, as opposed to a strong education system that promotes the acquisition of that same language? I may be wrong but these kinds of questions, which relate to our ability to evaluate the effectiveness of different kinds of policy intervention, are only beginning to be asked and are rarely answered satisfactorily. And of course, in an age of continued austerity, the need for governments and civil society actors to prioritise spending and effort on the most effective interventions with respect to their support of minority languages is only set to continue. Admittedly, these are much bigger questions than the ones originally posed in this chapter but they signal potential future directions for work on networks, infrastructures and linguistic territories. While Colin Williams’s work first alerted our attention to the need to understand territories in infrastructural ways, and while many academics and activists assert that the link between infrastructures and (linguistic) territories is an important one, there is still much that we do not understand about the nature of this link. And as I have begun to suggest above, these are not merely academic questions. They are important issues that go to the heart of statecraft, particularly in relation to the promotion of state territoriality and sovereignty, and the support (or otherwise) afforded to minority languages.

Note 1. This map has been produced from a Welsh-medium website, which explains why the legend is in Welsh. The legend translates as ‘[Daily] changes in the number of [Welsh] speakers’.

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Placemaking: Towards Rethinking Land-Use Planning and Language Planning for a Thriving Welsh Language Kathryn Jones

1

Introduction

This chapter focuses on current developments in land-use planning and language planning within the current trajectory of a devolved Wales. My aim is to argue that ‘placemaking’ provides an opportunity for collaboration that pushes the boundaries of both disciplines in order to respond to the challenges of planning for the Welsh language to thrive in times of intense social change. In so doing, I contribute to a discussion about the need to reconsider approaches to minoritised language maintenance and revitalisation in relation to social transformation, a focus which is currently under-addressed in the academic literature and the work of minoritised language policy-makers (Lewis and Royles 2018; Lewis and McLeod 2021). I conclude that placemaking for a thriving Welsh K. Jones (B) IAITH: Y Ganolfan Cynllunio Iaith/Welsh Centre for Language Planning, Newcastle Emlyn, Wales e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_9

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language requires a spatial plan for Welsh language growth as well as more and better use of land-use planning tools for assessing the linguistic impact of proposed developments and maximising the possible benefits for growing the number of Welsh speakers and their social use of the language. The interplay between land-use planning and language planning has been a theme to which Colin Williams has turned on numerous occasions since the late 1970s (Williams 1977a, b), when reflecting, for example, upon the dynamics of cultural reproduction and economic development (Williams 1990); the responsiveness of the Scottish and Welsh planning systems to sociolinguistic diversity (James and Williams 1997) and the interconnection between community vitality, bilingual socialisation and environmental sustainability (Williams 2005). Minority cultures are faced with overwhelming odds against their survival (Williams 1990: 227). This truism is increasingly pertinent in our current times. Over the past forty years, exponential growth in the use of information and communication technology and the intensity of globalisation processes have radically altered forms of social interaction (Castells 2010; Greenfield 2019) and the characteristics of social, cultural and linguistic diversity worldwide (Blommaert and Rampton 2012). These shifts are now being further intensified post-Brexit and post-Covid. Before COVID-19, the population of Wales was predicted to grow from 3.139 million people in 2018 to a total of 3.25 million by 2036 and 3.26 million by 2043 (Welsh Government 2020). As death rates become increasingly higher than birth rates over the next twenty-five years, net international immigration (+5%) is projected to make the largest contribution to population change in Wales between 2018 and 2043 (The Migration Observatory 2019). With an aging population, the number of households in Wales is projected to grow faster than the population between 2016 and 2039, as more people want to live alone or in smaller family groups (Future Generations Commissioner for Wales 2020: 31). To meet this increased demand for housing, the Welsh Government predicts that Wales will need an average of 8300 new homes every year until 2023 and then 4000 a year until the mid2030s (ibid.). During 2020, there was an urban population ‘flight to

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second homes’ in Snowdonia and on the Welsh coastline (Gallant 2020) and a marked increase in house prices and house sales in Wales in a counter-urbanisation response to the COVID-19 pandemic, facilitated by the ability to work from home (BBC 2020). Post-Brexit, further socio-economic and societal restructuring is expected on an extensive scale, particularly in rural Wales where the proportions of Welsh speakers are highest, as a consequence of losing regional European funding, a weakening of the agricultural economy, further austerity cuts within the public sector, and the British middle-class practice of buying retirement and second home property in continental Europe changing to purchasing properties in Wales and other areas of Britain (Brooks 2021: 23–24). Within this context, the continuing geographical fragmentation of ‘Welsh-speaking communities’ is an ongoing concern among language planners, activists and policy-makers. The reduction in the number of primarily Welsh-speaking communities as evidenced by successive decennial census data is considered ‘one of the most serious threats to the future of the Welsh language’ (Welsh Assembly Government 2002: 11). More recently, research on the number of second homes in some parts of Wales calls for action to protect, stabilise and nurture the future of Welsh as a community language in the face of anticipated socio-economic and social restructuring following Brexit and Covid (Brooks 2021: 74). Census data also indicate continued growth in the number of communities where the percentage of Welsh speakers is low but where the numbers of speakers are significant and growing (see Fig. 1). This trend for further growth in urban areas is likely to be confirmed by the 2021 census. The challenge for both language planners and land-use planners is how to grow the number of people who can and do use Welsh as a routine part of their everyday lives, whether they live in predominantly Welsh-speaking areas or in densely populated urban spaces where Welsh speakers form ‘nodes within a more fluid and plural socio-linguistic context’ (James and Williams 1997: 295). In this chapter, I argue that one of the ways to meet this challenge is for land-use and language planners to adopt an interdisciplinary approach, centring on the concept of ‘placemaking’, that pushes the boundaries of their current approaches to land-use and language planning.

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Fig. 1 Maps of the proportion and number of people (aged 3 and over) able to speak Welsh in 2011 (Welsh Government 2017a: 8,10) (by permission of the Welsh Government)

In the remainder of this chapter, I begin by setting out the current legislative and policy context in relation to land-use and language planning. In a short, historically focused section, I give an overview of how the connection between the two disciplines began in Wales and has culminated in the current requirement for all development plans to support a national ‘thriving Welsh language well-being goal’. I then refer to Cymraeg 2050 , the current national language strategy published in 2017 (Welsh Government 2017a), for a definition of ‘a thriving Welsh language’ and to explain the trajectory this policy presents for growing the number of Welsh speakers and their use of the language over the next thirty years. Next, I reference the origins and meanings of ‘placemaking’ as an approach to creating sustainable communities where the Welsh language thrives and its implications for collaboration between land-use and language planners. In the final two sections, I argue that placemaking for a thriving Welsh language requires a spatial plan for Welsh language growth as well as more and better use

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of land planning tools for assessing impact and maximising benefits. These two sections are informed by a number of recent projects1 that I have been involved in which include: developing a framework and guidelines for evaluating the impact of large-scale infrastructure developments funded by the Welsh Government; working with colleagues at Kings College London and Aberystwyth University on exploring ways of measuring and mapping language vitality2 ; advisory work for Isle of Anglesey County Council evaluating the Welsh language impact of Wylfa Newydd (the proposed new nuclear power plant); advisory work on the Maintaining and Creating Distinctive and Sustainable Communities Supplementary Planning Guidance (Anglesey and Gwynedd Councils 2019), which included developing a revised Welsh language impact assessment methodology; advisory Welsh language impact assessment work on the Carmarthenshire County Council Deposit Local Development Plan (Jones and Wyn 2019); and advisory work on behalf of the Welsh Language Commissioner to prepare its guidance for all local planning authorities on the evaluation of their current five-year Welsh Language Promotion Strategies and planning for the next iteration of those strategies.

2

Land-Use Planning and Language Planning—The Current Legislative and Policy Context

Since 1998, the Welsh devolution process has seen the development of a policy agenda distinct from Westminster (Deacon et al. 2018). A number of key pieces of legislation underpin the ongoing process of recasting the entire land planning system in Wales. These are: the Planning (Wales) Act 2015, the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 and the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, which establishes Corporate Joint Committees to operate specific government functions on a regional basis, including regional land-use planning (James 2021: 4). In February 2021, the Welsh Government published its first national development plan, Future Wales: The National Plan 2040 (Welsh Government 2021a) alongside an updated Planning Policy Wales Edition 11

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(Welsh Government 2021c). Future Wales sets out a national spatial strategy for developing key national priorities, including the economy, housing and environment, and a framework for a new level of regional planning in the form of Strategic Development Plans for North, Mid, South-West and South-East Wales (Welsh Government 2021a). Local planning authorities (county councils, county borough councils and national parks) will also have to review their local development plans to ensure conformity with the national plan. With respect to Welsh, key legislation includes the Government of Wales Act 2006, which places a duty on Welsh Ministers to adopt an all-Wales strategy for the Welsh language; the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, which grants official status to Welsh and requires public bodies to comply with statutory Welsh Language Standards and the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013, which requires education authorities to produce ten-year Welsh in Education Strategic Plans to meet targets agreed with the Welsh Government to increase the number of children in Welsh-medium education (Welsh Government 2021b). A key feature of the devolved Welsh legislative and policy landscape is the overarching Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 (henceforth, Well-being Act) (see Dunbar, this volume). The Well-being Act embodies the principle of sustainable development and places a legally binding common purpose upon national government, local government, local health boards and other specified public bodies to work together to improve economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being in the present and for the future (Welsh Government 2015a, 2016). A series of Public Service Boards (hereafter PSBs) have been created throughout Wales to facilitate this collaboration. Their common purpose is defined by the seven well-being goals of: a prosperous Wales; a resilient Wales, a healthier Wales; a more equal Wales; a Wales of cohesive communities; a Wales of vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language and a globally responsible Wales (Welsh Government 2016: 2). PSBs are responsible for producing local well-being assessments and plans to operationalise these national goals at the local planning authority level. ‘Placemaking’ is the means of realising the Well-being Act goals through the policies and

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practices of the land planning system: ‘[e]veryone engaged with or operating within the planning system in Wales must embrace the concept of placemaking in both plan making and development management decisions in order to achieve the creation of sustainable places and improve the well-being of communities’ (Welsh Government 2021c: 12).

3

Linking Land-Use Planning and Welsh Language Planning—From a Battle for Planning Status to a National Well-Being Goal

In Wales, the first steps towards acknowledging the connection between land-use planning and language planning in public policy began in the 1970s. Colin Williams was one of the founding members of Cymdeithas Cynllunio Cymru (the Welsh Planning Society), which was formed in 1977 to bring Welsh-speaking planners and other interested professionals together and ‘pressed for full planning status for the Welsh language so that the effect of any planning proposals on the long-term wellbeing of Welsh would be a material consideration’ (James and Williams 1997: 274). The ‘battle for planning status’ (ibid.) over the ensuing ten years culminated in the Welsh Office issuing Circular 53/88, The Welsh Language: Development Plans and Planning Control , which stated that ‘where the Welsh language is a component of the social fabric of a community, it should be considered in formulating land-use policies in development plans’ (Welsh Office 1988, cited in James and Williams 1997: 276). Despite being a material consideration in land-use planning, cases where planning permission was refused on the basis of the development being detrimental to the Welsh language have been very few (Welsh Language Board et al. 2005). With devolution to Wales, there has been a redefinition of land-use planning as an aspect of ‘spatial planning’ that encompasses a wider and more strategic set of activities, including the promotion of Welsh culture and identity through spatial planning instruments (Welsh Assembly Government 2004; Harris and Hooper 2006). To the frustration of

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language planners and language activists, however, spatial planning legislation, policy documents and planning instruments have been limited in their effectiveness for ensuring the ‘well-being’ of Welsh. The first Wales Spatial Plan (Welsh Assembly Government 2004) was criticised for doing little to adequately either address or promote the Welsh language and for limiting any consideration of Welsh as part of the ‘fabric of local communities’ to the north-west of Wales (e.g. Harris and Hooper 2006: 150). Successive iterations of the planning guidance Technical Advice Note 20 : Planning and the Welsh Language have been widely criticised for not giving enough weight to the Welsh language in local development plans or assessments of individual planning applications (Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg 2013; Lewis 2014) and not providing local authorities with a robust mechanism for predicting the Welsh language impact of a proposed development (Jones and Lewis 2019: 189). The Planning (Wales) Act 2015 rectifies some of these concerns by placing a statutory obligation on planning authorities to keep under review the extent to which the Welsh language is used in their area (Welsh Government 2015b: 22) and include an assessment of the likely effects of their plan on the use of Welsh as part of the plan’s Integrated Sustainability Appraisal (ibid.). In line with this legislation, Future Wales makes the Welsh language ‘an embedded consideration in the spatial strategy of all development plans’ (Welsh Government 2021a: 54, Outcome 4). This is significant because it means that it is now a statutory requirement for all national, regional and local development plans to have a spatial strategy to address the well-being goal of ‘a thriving Welsh language’.

4

Cymraeg 2050: A Future-Oriented Strategy for a Thriving Welsh Language

Published in June 2017, Cymraeg 2050 (Welsh Government 2017a) is the first national strategy for Welsh that sets out a long-term (33year) national language planning agenda. More significantly, it forms part of the Welsh Government’s commitment to the pursuit of sustainable development in order to realise the well-being of current and future generations as set out in the overarching Well-being Act.

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Imagining a future with a ‘thriving Welsh language’ represents a significant shift away from the ‘discourses of endangerment’ (Duchêne and Heller 2007) presented in previous national Welsh language strategies, where talk of ‘preservation’, ‘survival’, ‘promotion and protection’ proliferate (e.g. Welsh Government 2012: 2–5). Instead, Cymraeg 2050 presents a vision for a future Wales where, in the year 2050, ‘[t]he Welsh language is thriving, the number of speakers has reached a million, and it is used in every aspect of life’ (Welsh Government 2017a: 4). The definition of what is meant by ‘a thriving Welsh language’ and how government policy intends to work to support this is set out in relation to Cymraeg 2050’s three strategic themes which are, by 2050, (i) to grow the number of Welsh speakers in Wales to one million, (ii) double the percentage of the population who speak Welsh daily and can speak more than just a few words of Welsh and (iii) create suitable conditions and an environment where the Welsh language and its speakers can thrive (Welsh Government 2017a: 11, 59). Based on the approximately 560,000 Welsh speakers aged 3 and over in Wales recorded in the 2011 Census, approximately 440,000 additional speakers of Welsh who live in Wales will be needed in order to achieve the target of a million (Welsh Government 2017a: 20). Doubling the percentage of the population of Wales aged 3 and over who can speak more than just a few words of Welsh and use the language on a daily basis from 10% (as recorded in the Welsh Government and Welsh Language Commissioner 2015 survey) to 20% by 2050 requires an increase of around 300,000 individuals (Wyn 2020). The Welsh Government’s commitment to increasing the number of Welsh speakers is based upon a growth trajectory scenario developed to underpin Cymraeg 2050 (Welsh Government 2017b). This scenario makes assumptions about growing the number of Welsh speakers and their use of Welsh based on the potential outcome of the interventions outlined in Cymraeg 2050 in relation to: early language socialisation within the family; Welsh-medium early years provision; and substantially increasing the number of learners who develop Welsh language skills within the statutory education sector and in post-compulsory education and the teaching of Welsh to adults (Welsh Government 2017a, b).

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Cymraeg 2050 acknowledges the spatial and temporal complexity of contemporary social life in its definition of ‘a thriving language’ that is widely used throughout all of Wales. Cymraeg 2050 sets out three areas for increasing people’s use of Welsh in these different contexts by developing interventions to increase the use of Welsh within the workplace across all sectors, increasing the range of services offered to Welsh speakers and increasing people’s use of Welsh language services, and ‘embed[ding] positive language use practices supported by formal and informal opportunities to use Welsh socially’ (Welsh Government 2017a: 48). Cymraeg 2050’s third strategic focus on creating the conditions and environment where the Welsh language and its speakers can thrive relates directly to ‘placemaking’. This theme emphasises ‘supporting the socioeconomic infrastructure of Welsh-speaking communities’ and developing a ‘new regional focus to economic development to help all parts of Wales benefit from prosperity and support each area to develop its own distinctive identity’ (Welsh Government 2017a: 60). Cymraeg 2050 is explicit that ‘the land-use planning system should contribute to the vitality of the Welsh language by creating suitable conditions for thriving, sustainable communities, supported by an awareness of the relevant principles of language planning’ (Welsh Government 2017a: 63). No vision for how this can happen is presented. The text in the section ‘Community and economy’ focuses upon the importance of developing a thriving, sustainable economy in communities containing higher percentages of Welsh speakers. This is an important aim. Given that it is government policy to grow the use of Welsh throughout Wales, however, it is a marked omission that no attention is given to the role of land-use planning in those areas where the percentage of Welsh speakers is lower but where the numbers who can speak Welsh are significant and/or growing. As I will argue in the following and subsequent sections, a focus on placemaking for a thriving Welsh language creates an opportunity to make the most of the planning system and various land-use planning tools in all parts of Wales.

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Placemaking: A Place-Based, Community-Centred and Collaborative Approach to Land-Use and Language Planning

While it is unclear who first coined the term ‘placemaking’ (Relph 2016), its roots as an approach to urban planning are widely credited as dating back to the 1960s as a reaction against car-centric planning and the failings of cities in the United States (Jacobs 1961). Jacobs’s critique of the principles and aims that shaped the orthodox city planning of the time inspired the development of a place-based and community-centred approach to urban planning. In later decades, ‘placemaking’ expanded to include concerns about healthy living, social justice, community capacity-building, economic revitalisation, childhood development and a range of other issues that face residents, workers and visitors in towns and cities of all sizes (Silberg 2013: 10). Placemaking is, among other things, community-driven, visionary, adaptable, inclusive, context-specific, dynamic, trans-disciplinary, transformative, flexible, collaborative and sociable (Project for Public Spaces 2007). As mentioned above, the Well-being Act aims to maximise well-being and create sustainable places through placemaking, with the land-use planning system being the key mechanism for achieving this. It is also a requirement that ‘[t]he land-use planning system should take account of the conditions which are essential to the Welsh language and in so doing contribute to its use and the Thriving Welsh Language well-being goal’ (Welsh Government 2021c: 30). Placemaking, as an approach to creating sustainable places, therefore, provides an opportunity for land-use planners and language planners to collaborate on developing an approach to language planning that is rooted spatially in specific communities and across the broader, (technologically) interconnected local, regional, national and international geographies that shape people’s day-to-day lives. In the following two sections, I provide some examples of what a collaborative approach to placemaking for a thriving Welsh language requires.

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Placemaking: Developing a Spatial Plan for Growing the Number of Welsh Speakers and Their Social Use of Welsh

In this section, I argue that a focus on placemaking for a thriving Welsh language calls for collaboration between land-use and language planners on defining a strategic spatial plan that can be operationalised at national, regional, local and community levels for growing the number of Welsh speakers and their social use of Welsh over the next thirty years. Neither Future Wales nor Cymraeg 2050 provide a national spatial plan that identifies where and how the proposed growth in the number of people who speak and use Welsh as part of their everyday life is to be achieved by 2050. All 22 county councils and county borough councils and three National Park authorities have published a statutory five-year Welsh Language Promotion Strategy.3 Each of them references the aims of Cymraeg 2050 or its precursor Iaith Fyw: Iaith Byw (Welsh Government 2012) and are, in effect, the strategic documents that guide the collaboration between various public and voluntary sector organisations in language planning at local authority level (Welsh Language Commissioner, n.d.). Only four local authorities have set a Welsh language growth target for 2050. An additional eleven authorities have set a five-year target. However, none of these identify spatially where this growth will take place in line with the current Technical Advice Note 20 , Planning and the Welsh Language, which suggests that planning authorities identify ‘areas of linguistic sensitivity or significance’ to inform the strategic approaches that may support the Welsh language (Welsh Government 2017c: 8). The Future Wales national spatial strategy specifies how national and regional growth over the next twenty years is to be concentrated in the more urbanised south-east (Cardiff, Newport and the Valleys), south-west (Swansea Bay and Llanelli) and the north-east (Wrexham and Deeside) (Welsh Government 2021a). These are also the areas that are proposed to set the highest targets for increasing the number and percentage of children in Welsh-medium education (Welsh Government 2021b: 12). Within the context of projections for a static, if

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not declining, national population with significant in-migration by the mid-2030s, decisions about the preferred scale and location of development in all parts of Wales will have critical importance for language planning, making the need for a spatial Welsh language strategy that takes account of Cymraeg 2050 goals all the more necessary (Jones and Wyn 2020; Wyn 2021: 9). Indeed, I would argue that placemaking for a thriving Welsh language creates a need for land-use planners and language planners to collaborate on identifying a ‘Welsh language-led growth option’ as one of the reasonable alternative options that are considered when carrying out an Integrated Sustainability Appraisal of future development plans (Jones and Wyn 2020). Development plans are future oriented, typically spanning a future fifteen- or twenty-year time-frame. Cymraeg 2050 and its target for growing the number of Welsh speakers and their use of Welsh provides a future-oriented Welsh language growth strategy. Therefore, rather than taking their benchmark as the present or recent past, planning authorities need to understand how the various scale and location options in their development plans could impact the Welsh language, in terms of the future trajectory (Wyn 2020). For this, there is a need to define spatially the targets for language growth within local planning authority areas against which the impact of development plans on areas of linguistic sensitivity and significance can be evaluated. A spatial Welsh language plan needs to map a baseline as well as a trajectory for intended growth against which to measure the potential impact of a development plan or individual development proposals. Cymraeg 2050 uses 2011 census data as its baseline (see Fig. 1). Figure 2 presents one example of the baseline mapping of Welsh language resilience at local authority level in Wales and at electoral ward level in Carmarthenshire (Jones and Wyn 2019). Defining language ‘resilience’ or ‘vitality’ in a clear, measurable and stable way for risk-assessment purposes is not straightforward (for a detailed discussion on the value of different approaches and data sources, see Demeritt 2016; Jones and Hardy 2017). In this case, a baseline measure of Welsh language resilience (WLR) was defined as the sum of the number and percentage of Welsh speakers in a given area (NWS + PWS). The percentages of

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Fig. 2 Welsh Language Resilience (WLR) in Wales according to Local Authority and in Carmarthenshire according to electoral ward using f(WLR) = NWS normalised + PWS threshold weighted based on Census 2011 data (Jones and Wyn 2019 by permission of Carmarthenshire County Council)

Welsh speakers (PWS) were also threshold weighted, with a score of 0– 3 assigned to four categories with percentages of under 20%; 20–50%; 50–70% and over 70%, respectively (see Jones and Wyn 2019: 61–77). Basic GIS was also used in another project to predict the likelihood and scale of the impact of a large infrastructure development, the proposed nuclear power plant on Anglesey (see Jones and Hardy 2017 for details). Mapping the spatial decline in the speakers of minoritised languages has a long tradition in Wales and elsewhere, but as Jones and Lewis (2019: 147–199) discuss, there are many ways of mapping language abilities and language use which can be developed to be predictive and could, therefore, be used by land-use and language planners to develop a futureoriented, spatial approach to placemaking for a thriving Welsh language that also appreciates how people’s lives are not conducted solely within the geographical confines of the places where they live.

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Placemaking: Making More and Better Use of Tools for Assessing Impact and Maximising Benefit

In this section, I also argue that placemaking for a thriving Welsh language could make much more and better use of various land planning tools to maximise enhancements—in addition to mitigating risks—as it does in other fields such as biodiversity (Wyn 2020). For example, statutory Welsh language policy-making standards require planning authorities to consider how their policies could be formulated so that a policy decision would have positive effects on opportunities for people to use Welsh and would treat the Welsh language no less favourably than the English language (The Welsh Language Standards (No. 1) Regulations 2015, Standard 89). With robust strategic Welsh language and development policies in place, planning authorities can set planning conditions to secure a host of appropriate and proportionate mitigation and enhancement measures such as providing funding for Welsh language education, activities and facilities (Jones and Wyn 2019, 2020). A final point to make here is that Welsh language impact assessments are an essential tool in evaluating the risk and magnitude of potential negative and positive effects that a development plan or single development proposal poses to the spatial plan for a thriving Welsh language. The approach that is widely used by planning authorities and developers, Planning and the Welsh Language: A Way Forward (Welsh Language Board et al. 2005), is outdated (Jones and Wyn 2019) and there is a recognised need for an updated, unified approach (Dyfodol i’r Iaith 2017; Jones and Lewis 2019). An alternative approach that is aligned with current environmental risk assessment and management methodology (DEFRA 2011) and based on the ISO-31000 (2018) Risk Assessment and Management Quality Framework (ISO 2018) has been developed in work for the Gwynedd and Anglesey Joint Planning Unit and Carmarthenshire County Council (Jones and Wyn 2019; Anglesey and Gwynedd Councils 2019). Among other aspects, this approach to Welsh language impact assessment evaluates the anticipated impact of a development based upon the growth trajectory set out in Cymraeg

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2050 . It also places an emphasis on involving community members and organisations in understanding the impact of a development and agreeing upon strategies for mitigating any negative effects and creating opportunities for more people to learn and use Welsh (Jones and Wyn 2019; Anglesey and Gwynedd Councils 2019). This approach to Welsh language impact assessment, while still work in progress, provides a placemaking approach that can facilitate collaboration between land-use planners, language planners and community members in planning for sustainable communities with a thriving Welsh language.

8

Conclusion

In 1997, Colin Williams and Clive James commented that ‘[it] is significant that both conventional land-use planning and language planning are increasingly seen as inter-related for it is our conviction that only a close working relationship between practitioners from different disciplinary backgrounds can effect purposive change which will allow Welsh […] to flourish once again’ (James and Williams 1997: 265). As this chapter has demonstrated, it is a feature of the development of devolution in Wales that both disciplines have indeed become further inter-related over the past twenty-five years, at least within the discourse of public policy and legislation. At the local planning authority level, however, there is as yet less evidence of much integration between five-year Welsh Language Promotion Strategies, Welsh in Education Strategic Plans and PSB Wellbeing Plans. Of the 19 PSBs in Wales, only the Gwynedd and Anglesey PSB Well-being Plan makes an overt statement about the significance of the Welsh language for local understandings of well-being (Jones 2019: 19). Like other minoritised languages, Welsh will continue to face overwhelming odds against its continued use in the everyday social interaction of people who live their lives in an increasingly diverse, multilingual, technologically and digitally mediated, translocal world. Responding to and shaping people’s lived experiences of economic restructuring and social transformation, however, is the business of land-use planners and language planners. Moving forward, delivering high-quality sustainable

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places with a thriving Welsh language in all parts of Wales—including those urban areas designated for strategic economic growth—will require a more radical and trans-disciplinary approach to the interventions that language and land-use planners have hitherto engaged in. One of the ways of doing this, I have suggested, is to develop new forms of collaboration and innovation around the placemaking approach to creating sustainable communities. For this, there will be a need to define spatially the targets for growing the number of Welsh speakers and their use of Welsh against which development plans and proposals can be evaluated. There could also be much more and better use of land planning tools for assessing impact and maximising benefits. These and other forms of collaboration between land-use and language planners are crucial, for only a still closer working relationship between practitioners from different disciplinary backgrounds can effect purposive change that will allow Welsh to thrive all over Wales.

Notes 1. These projects have been carried out in collaboration with other colleagues at IAITH: the Welsh Centre for Language Planning— Owain Wyn, Steve Eaves, Gareth Ioan, Meirion Prys Jones and Colin Williams. 2. Exploratory mapping of Welsh Language Vitality was initially developed with David Demeritt, Kings College London (2016) and, building upon that, with Rhys Jones and Andy Hardy (2017) at Aberystwyth University. 3. The promotion standards (The Welsh Language Standards (No. 1) Regulations 2015 ), place a statutory responsibility on Welsh Ministers, county and county borough councils and National Park authorities to prepare a five-year strategy that sets out how they propose to promote the Welsh language and to facilitate the wider use of the language in their area. Each authority’s five-year strategy must include, (among other matters) a target for increasing or maintaining the number of Welsh speakers and a statement that sets out how this target will be achieved (Standard 145).

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Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. 2020. The Future Generations Report 2020. https://www.futuregenerations.wales/wp-content/upl oads/2020/06/Intro-Chap-1.pdf. Accessed 10 June 2021. Gallant, N. 2020. Covid-19 and the Flight to Second Homes. Town and Country Planning, April/May, 141–144. Government of Wales Act 1998. 1998 c. 38. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ ukpga/1998/38/introduction/enacted. Accessed 22 September 2021. Government of Wales Act 2006. 2006 c. 32. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ ukpga/2006/32/section/141. Accessed 22 September 2021. Greenfield, P.M. 2019. Communication Technologies and Social Transformation: Their Impact on Human Development. In Children in Changing Worlds: Sociocultural and Temporal Perspectives, ed. R.D. Parke and G.H. Elder, 235–273. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harris, N., and A. Hooper. 2006. Redefining ‘the Space that is Wales’: Place, Planning and the Wales Spatial Plan. In Territory, Identity and Spatial Planning: Spatial Governance in a Fragmented Nation, ed. M. Tewdwr-Jones and P. Allmendinger, 139–152. London: Routledge. ISO. 2018. ISO 31000:2018 Risk Management – Principles and Guidelines. https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:31000:ed-2:v1:en. Accessed 19 August 2021. Jacobs, J. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books. James, C., and C.H. Williams. 1997. Language and Planning in Scotland and Wales. In Nationality and Planning: The Cases of Scotland and Wales, ed. R. Macdonald and H. Thomas, 264–302. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. James, J. 2021. Future Wales: The National Plan. In Cynllunio: The Journal of RTPI [Royal Town Planning Institute] Cymru, Spring 2021: 4–5. https://www.rtpi.org.uk/media/7936/cynllunio-spring-2021.pdf. Accessed 21 September 2021. Jones, K., and Wyn, O. 2019. Carmarthenshire Draft Deposit LDP Welsh Language Impact Assessment, Commissioned by Carmarthenshire County Council. https://www.carmarthenshire.gov.wales/media/1221673/wlia-finalenglish.pdf. Accessed 10 June 2021. Jones, K., and Wyn, O. 2020. Placemaking as if a Thriving Welsh Language Mattered . Webinar organised by IAITH: Welsh Centre for Language Planning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzmGdBT2FGg. Accessed 9 July 2020. Jones, R. 2019. Governing the Future and the Search for Spatial Justice: Wales’ Well-Being of Future Generations Act. Fennia 197 (1): 8–24.

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Jones, R. and Hardy, A. 2017. Understanding and Mapping Welsh Language Vitality. Working Paper, Aberystwyth University. Copy available from the author. Jones, R., and H. Lewis. 2019. New Geographies of Language: Language, Culture and Politics in Wales. London: Palgrave Macmillian. Lewis, E. 2014. Planning and the Welsh Language. https://www.dyfodol.net/ 2014/06/02/cynllunio-ar-gymraeg-gan-emyr-lewis/?lang=en. Accessed 10 September 2021. Lewis, H., and E. Royles. 2018. Language Revitalisation and Social Transformation: Evaluating the Language Policy Frameworks of Sub-state Governments in Wales and Scotland. Policy & Politics 46 (3): 503–529. Lewis, H., and W. McLeod. 2021. Introduction: Language Revitalisation and Social Transformation. In Language Revitalisation and Social Transformation, ed. H. Lewis and W. McLeod, 1–34. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021. 2021 asc 1. https://www.leg islation.gov.uk/asc/2021/1/contents. Accessed 20 July 2021. Planning (Wales) Act 2015. 2015 anaw 4. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/ 2015/4/contents/enacted. Accessed 20 July 2021. Project for Public Spaces. 2007. What is Placemaking? Available at: https:// www.pps.org/article/what-is-placemaking. Accessed 15 August 2021. Relph, T. 2016. Placemaking (and the Production of Places): Origins. https:// www.placeness.com/placemaking-and-the-production-of-places-origins-andearly-development/. Accessed 23 September 2021. School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013. 2013 anaw 1. https://www. legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2013/1/section/92. Accessed 22 September 2021. Silberg, S. 2013. Places in the Making: How Placemaking Builds Places and Communities. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning. https://dusp.mit.edu/sites/dusp.mit.edu/ files/attachments/project/mit-dusp-places-in-the-making.pdf. Accessed 13 August 2021. The Migration Observatory. 2019. The Impact of Migration on Population Growth. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/theimpact-of-migration-on-uk-population-growth/. Accessed 23 September 2021. Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. 2015 anaw 2. https://www. legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2015/2/contents. Accessed 26 September 2021. Welsh Assembly Government. 2002. Dyfodol Dwyieithog: Datganiad Polisi gan Lywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru/A Bilingual Future: A Policy Statement by the Welsh Assembly Government. Cardiff: Welsh Assembly Government.

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Welsh Assembly Government. 2004. People, Places, Futures: The Wales Spatial Plan. Cardiff: Welsh Assembly Government. Welsh Government. 2012. Iaith Fyw: Iaith Byw /A living language: a language for living – Welsh Language Strategy 2012–2017. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Government. 2015a. Deddf Llesiant Cenedlaethau’r Dyfodol (Cymru) 2015a/ Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015a. https://www.fut uregenerations.wales/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/WFGAct-English.pdf. Accessed 2 May 2021. Welsh Government. 2015b. Planning (Wales) Act 2015b: Explanatory Memorandum. https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-06/planningwales-act-2015b-explanatory-memorandum.pdf. Accessed 5 August 2021. Welsh Government. 2016. Shared Purpose: Shared Future, Statutory guidance on the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. https://gov.wales/ sites/default/files/publications/2019-02/spsf-1-core-guidance.PDF. Accessed 2 May 2021. Welsh Government. 2017a. Cymraeg 2050: A million Welsh speakers. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Government. 2017b. Technical Report: Projection and Trajectory for the Number of Welsh Speakers Aged Three and Over, 2011 to 2050. https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2018-12/welsh-spe aker-estimates-2011-to-2050-technical-report.pdf. Accessed 2 May 2021. Welsh Government. 2017c. Technical Advice Note 20: Planning and the Welsh Language. https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2018-09/ tan20-welsh-language.pdf. Accessed 2 May 2021. Welsh Government. 2020. National Population Projections: 2018-Based . Updated 11 June 2020. https://gov.wales/national-population-projections2018-based. Accessed 23 September 2021. Welsh Government. 2021a. Future Wales: The National Plan 2040. https://gov. wales/sites/default/files/publications/2021a-02/future-wales-the-nationalplan-2040.pdf. Accessed 2 May 2021a. Welsh Government. 2021b. Guidance on Welsh in Education Strategic Plans. https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2021b-02/guidancewelsh-in-education-strategic-plan.pdf. Accessed 2 May 2021b. Welsh Government. 2021c. Planning Policy Wales Edition 11. https://gov.wales/ sites/default/files/publications/2021c-02/planning-policy-wales-edition-11_ 0.pdf. Accessed 2 May 2021c. Welsh Government and Welsh Language Commissioner. 2015. Welsh Language Use in Wales 2013 -15. Cardiff: Welsh Government.

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Welsh Language Board, Home Builders Federation and Welsh Assembly Government. 2005. Planning and the Welsh Language: The Way Ahead . Cardiff: Welsh Language Board. Welsh Language Commissioner. N.d. Welsh Language Promotion Standards: 5 year Strategies: A good practice guide for county councils, county borough councils and National Park authorities. Cardiff: Welsh Language Commissioner. The Welsh Language Standards (No. 1) Regulations 2015. 2015 No. 996 (W. 68) Explanatory Note. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/wsi/2015/996/note/made. Accessed 11 July 2021. Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. 2011 nawm 1. https://www.legislation. gov.uk/mwa/2011/1/contents/enacted. Accessed 6 March 2021. Welsh Office. 1988. The Welsh Language: Development Plans and Planning Control . Circular 53/88. London: HMSO. Williams, C.H. 1977a. Cynllunio Ar Gyfer Y Gymraeg, Cylchlythyr Cynllunio Cymraeg, 1977a (1) 1–6. Williams, C.H. 1977b. Cynllunio Ar Gyfer Yr Iaith yng Nghymru a’r Sefyllfa Mewn Gwledydd Eraill, Rhan 1, Barn 179; Rhan 2, Barn No. 180. Williams, C.H. 1990. Political Expressions of Underdevelopment in the West European Periphery. In Rural Development: Problems and Practices, ed. H. Buller and S. Wright, 227–247. Aldershot: Avebury. Williams, C.H. 2005. Threatened Environments, Atrophying Cultures and Lacklustre Policies. In Presenting and Representing Environments, ed. G. Humphrys and M. Williams, 153–167. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Wyn, O. 2020. Placemaking as if a Thriving Welsh Language Mattered. Cynllunio: The Journal of RTPI [Royal Town Planning Institute] Cymru, Spring 2020: 8–11. https://www.rtpi.org.uk/media/6462/cynllunio-autumn-2020. pdf. Accessed 22 September 2021. Wyn, O. 2021. Does Future Wales consider the Welsh language? Cynllunio: The Journal of RTPI [Royal Town Planning Institute] Cymru, Spring 2021: 9. https://www.rtpi.org.uk/media/7936/cynllunio-spring-2021.pdf. Accessed 22 September 2021.

Signs of the Times: Onomastics and Language Policy in Wales Eleri Hedd James

1

‘What’s in a Name?’

This Shakespearean line has often been over-quoted in recent public discourse on the significance of the place-names of Wales. It is easy to understand its convenient appeal: its literary familiarity catches the reader’s attention and is effective in emphasising the fundamental importance and cultural and linguistic significance of place-names. The underlying premise is that there must be something in a name; that names are far more than labels of convenience for distributing services or navigating our way through the world. This chapter takes for granted this position regarding the value of place-names. There will be no attempt to persuade the reader of their intrinsic value nor to outline how they link a language—or in the case of Wales, languages—to the land where it is spoken, revealing and safeguarding stories, customs and knowledge E. H. James (B) Welsh Language Commissioner, Cardiff, Wales e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_10

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which might otherwise be lost. These arguments have been made effectively by numerous scholars (e.g. Gelling 2010) and there is general international consensus and recognition of the linguistic, social and cultural value of place-names.1 Rather, this chapter will attempt to address a different question, namely how do place-names, and the maps and signage that depict them, point to significant developments in Welsh language policy? But before we proceed to investigate this question, we must pause to clarify our terminology and subject matter. The all-encompassing phrase ‘place-names of Wales’ was deliberately chosen in the opening paragraph, thus avoiding the more ambiguous ‘Welsh place-names’, which could suggest only those names which derive from the Welsh language. This chapter is concerned with all of Wales’s place-names, regardless of their linguistic origin. It acknowledges the role that a number of languages, and their respective cultures, have played in naming the landscape and is indeed concerned with the interplay between those languages. The richness and diversity of the place-names of Wales are summarised in the introduction to the Dictionary of the Place-Names of Wales: Various aspects of Welsh history can be traced in certain place-names. For example, Celtic or Brittonic river names (Alun, Dyfrdwy); settlements reflecting occupation by Romans (Gwent, Powys), Irish (Gwynedd, Llˆyn), English (Shotton, Newport), Scandinavians (Swansea, Fishguard) and Normans (Malpas, Grosmont); ‘new’ settlements (Newborough, Newcastle Emlyn); transferred names (Montgomery, Denbigh); names whose connotations are religious (Betws, Bethesda and the llan names), industrial (Porthmadog, Morriston), agricultural (Cynheidre, Talwrn) and vacational (Fairbourne, Builth Wells). (Owen and Morgan 2007: vii–viii)

However, there can be no doubt that the vast majority of the place-names of Wales are directly derived from the Welsh language and culture. It should be emphasised that this pattern is not exclusive to the current heartlands of the Welsh language: it is a pattern seen throughout Wales, even in those parts of the country where Welsh has not been spoken as a community language for several centuries. There is a sometimes complex interplay between the Welsh and English languages in the forms used in

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some of the more Anglicised areas: as complex as the interplay between those languages can be in other contexts. It is this fact which makes the place-names of Wales, and the discourse surrounding them, fascinating indicators of wider considerations regarding the Welsh language and bilingualism in Wales.

2

Placards, Protests and Green Paint

Road signs are visual reminders of the relationship between land and language(s). The destroying and defacing of these signs can also serve as observable reminders of discontent regarding aspects of that relationship. The iconic photographs of destroyed and discarded monolingual signs are themselves poignant reminders of the discontent that had been brewing amongst language-rights campaigners during the 1960s. Merriman and Jones (2009: 350) argued that it is the very nature of these physical reminders, namely the ‘ubiquity, functionality and materiality of road signs’, which led to the success of the campaigns against them. In the late 1960s Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) led a widespread campaign against English-only road signs, which were in their eyes ‘mundane, ubiquitous, and oppressive symbols of anglicisation and of British/English government authority in Wales’ (Merriman and Jones 2009: 350). A comprehensive account of this campaign, which captured the imagination of the Welsh ‘establishment’ as well as the protest movement, is given by Merriman and Jones (2009). Their archival research into the primary sources gives valuable insight into the political deliberations which led to the prolific use of green paint, immortalised in Dafydd Iwan’s anthem ‘Peintio’r byd yn wyrdd ’ (Painting the World Green).2 For the purposes of this chapter it will suffice to note the successful outcome of the campaign, namely that it compelled the central Westminster government of the day to take notice. In February 1971, a Committee of Inquiry into Bilingual Traffic Signs was established, chaired by Roderic Bowen QC. In August 1972, this Committee published a comprehensive report, Bilingual Traffic Signs, which finally acknowledged that Welsh-language forms of place-names did indeed have a legitimate right to a place in the linguistic landscape

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(Committee of Inquiry into Bilingual Traffic Signs 1972). The Bowen Committee made several far-reaching recommendations and not all were welcomed by the political establishment at the time or by the government of the day. The recommendation regarding language order, namely that the Welsh form should appear above or before the ‘English’, was particularly controversial and was left unresolved and unimplemented by local or central government. However, one recommendation that was both adopted and implemented was the establishment of a central body to offer expert advice on the correct or standard forms of placenames. Professor Melville Richards,3 the doyen of Welsh onomastics, was consulted on this proposal by the Bowen Committee and he clearly favoured a model whereby the advice would be simply that—advisory rather than carrying authority: Credaf mewn achosion o amheuaeth neu anghytuno mai’r drefn gywir fyddai i’r Corff Canolog berswadio ac argyhoeddi pobl leol drwy eglurhad rhesymegol yn hytrach na thrwy ddatganiad awdurdodol. (In such cases of doubt or dissension I think that the correct procedure would be for the Central Body to persuade and convince local people with a reasoned explanation rather than with an authoritative statement.) (Committee of Inquiry into Bilingual Traffic Signs 1972: 46, 47).

The onus would clearly be on the panel of experts to present their case engagingly and use the power of persuasion to win hearts and minds.

3

Committees and Quangos

This recommendation resulted in the establishment in 1974 of a permanent committee, the Place-Names Advisory Committee (PNAC), under the auspices of the Welsh Office to provide expert advice to local authorities, the Post Office, Ordnance Survey and others on the standard forms of Welsh place-names. The very existence of such a committee speaks volumes regarding the position and condition of the Welsh language in Wales. It reflects

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a Wales where names were recorded for administrative purposes over the centuries by people whose knowledge of Welsh and its orthographic conventions were either limited or simply lacking. It also speaks of a multifaceted Wales where the use of Welsh and English in place-names is neither uniform nor regular, as attested by its places with monolingual names (e.g. the neighbouring villages of Cross Hands and Gors-las in Carmarthenshire); places with bilingual names which derive from the same source but have developed differently in the respective languages (e.g. Caerdydd/Cardiff ); and places with bilingual names where the derivation and meaning are quite distinct (e.g. Abertawe/Swansea). Matters are further compounded by the fact that Modern Welsh orthography was not finally standardised until 1928. These ‘pre-standardisation’ forms are often well-established and quite literally ‘set in stone’ on modern and ancient road signs as visible records of ‘[p]rerevitalization and predevolution ideologies [...] textually sedimented into Welsh public spaces’ (Coupland 2012: 7). The resulting situation is a Wales where there may be several forms of particular place-names in circulation and in ‘official’ use by public bodies and/or the local community with a lack of consensus or consistency. This model of an advisory committee without statutory powers to enforce its advice or recommendations remains in place to this day. Its membership and methodology have evolved considerably over the decades, but its advisory status and the subsequent need to win hearts and minds remain unchanged. However, a factor which has undoubtedly changed is the legislative framework in which it sits.

4

A New Legislative Framework

Following a referendum in 1997, a devolution settlement was granted to Wales and the National Assembly for Wales, established in 1999, inherited the responsibilities of the PNAC and the disbanded Welsh Office. However, in practice, it was the Welsh Language Board (Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg ), the statutorily established public body charged under the Welsh Language Act 1993 with ‘promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language’ which would soon become the host of this advisory

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service in post-devolution Wales. The statutory Welsh Language Board had important advisory functions itself, including advising ‘on the ways in which effect may be given to the principle that, in the conduct of public business and the administration of justice in Wales, the English and Welsh languages should be treated on a basis of equality’ (s. 3(2)(b)). It is appropriate to emphasise in the context of the present volume that, in April 2000, Professor Colin H. Williams was appointed to the Welsh Language Board by what was at the time the National Assembly for Wales, a position that he held for over a decade. He was, therefore, already a member of the Board when, in October 2001, the Welsh Assembly Government decided to transfer the work of its PNAC to the Board. The Board was tasked with providing expert and reliable advice to public bodies and to anyone else that required it, on the ‘correct’ forms of settlement names in Wales, both Welsh and English. It was also invited to promote the use of these correct (or standardised) forms, and to extend its advisory service on place-names as it deemed appropriate. One of the first things that the Board saw fit to do was to convene its own expert committee, the Place-Names Standardisation Team. This Team married experts in onomastics with users in the field and consisted of academics, linguists and public servants, including representation from local and national government, Ordnance Survey and Cymdeithas Cyfieithwyr Cymru (the association of Welsh translators and interpreters). Under the strategic leadership of Gwyn Jones, Director of Policy and Terminology at the Welsh Language Board, the Team made its most original and long-lasting contribution to the standardisation of Welsh place-names by formulating the Guidelines for Standardising PlaceNames in Wales (Welsh Language Commissioner 2019a). This document contained the definitive guiding principles for the Team’s work and ensured that a consistent approach was applied to standardisation efforts in every corner of Wales. It also encapsulates the Team’s attitude and approach to the task, which Gwyn Jones aptly described as ‘sound scholarship, tempered by common sense’ (Jones 2010). The second significant development that the Board initiated regarding place-names was the systematic planning of standardisation projects at a county level. The first foray into this field was a pilot project in Montgomeryshire as part of an ambitious attempt by Powys County Council

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at the turn of the millennium to officially adopt standardised forms for every name in the local authority. It is no coincidence that much of the Board’s work on place-names was subsequently undertaken in partnership with local authorities. Firstly, in the absence of a national naming authority with statutory powers, local authorities are undoubtedly the most influential players in the field of Welsh place-names, as they have the final word on the forms of place-names which appear on signage within their boundaries and are uploaded to local and national addressing gazetteers. Secondly, the main mechanism which the Welsh Language Act 1993 provided to ensure that public bodies treated the English and Welsh languages on the basis of equality was the preparation of Welsh language schemes. These schemes outlined the measures that those public bodies would undertake in order to provide services in the Welsh language and were regularly revised and submitted for approval by the Board (see M. P. Jones, this volume). Whilst there is no specific mention of place-names in the statutory guidelines for the preparation of schemes (Welsh Language Board 1996), advice on the revision of schemes published by the Board in 2005 called on local authorities to adopt robust naming policies which gave due consideration to standardised forms. As a result, later schemes agreed with local authorities included clear commitments in relation to place-names together with intentions to cooperate with the Welsh Language Board on standardisation projects. In October 2006, the Board issued a public invitation to Welsh language officers in local authorities who were members of Rhwydiaith, a network administered by the Welsh Local Government Association, inviting them to work in partnership with the Board on standardisation projects. This kick-started annual work programmes whereby the Placenames Standardisation Team would consider lists of settlement names produced by local authorities and present recommendations to them, guided by current and historical usage and the principles laid out in the Guidelines. In general, these partnerships were highly productive and effective, with authorities prepared to take full account of the Board’s expert advice and, in some instances, enhancing it with local knowledge. The arrangements were not completely satisfactory, however, and the lack of statutory authority often resulted in contentious or disputed

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forms being left inconsistent and unresolved. One of the most prominent, and politically charged, cases of public dispute regarding the adoption of a standard Welsh form must surely be the case of Varteg (Y Farteg) in Torfaen. Torfaen County Borough Council in south-east Wales had previously cooperated with the Welsh Language Board on a standardisation project and the Place-Names Standardisation Team submitted its recommendations in 2009. The Team advised at the time, in accordance with its guidelines, that the Welsh standard form Y Farteg should be adopted by the local authority as the form for use in both languages. Torfaen Council subsequently held a public consultation as part of its review of place-names and the Welsh form Y Farteg was met with much opposition from residents, who found it to be unsavoury and feared ‘ridicule’ on its account (BBC News 2020). The basis of their fear was that non-Welsh speakers would interpret the Welsh form Y Farteg according to the rules of English orthography, pronouncing the initial F as English [f ] as opposed to [v] as in Welsh. Similar concerns and campaigns have raised their heads in the context of other names in southeast Wales, most notably in Brynbuga (Usk) and Sili (Sully), where newly erected signage raised fears that the standard and well-established Welsh names would cause confusion and ridicule amongst non-Welsh speakers (Barry and District News 2006). In the case of Y Farteg, the story reached the London-based papers. More significant perhaps is the attention that was given to the name on the floor of the Senedd chamber when the First Minister at the time, Carwyn Jones AM (Assembly Member), was asked by Lynne Neagle AM to comment on the ‘clumsy intervention [that had] served once again to drive a wedge between Welsh-speaking and non-Welsh-speaking communities’ (National Assembly for Wales 2013: 14:05; South Wales Argus 2013). The First Minister responded by saying that practicality and pragmatism was called for and that ‘as a bilingual nation, we have to be sensitive to the misinterpretations that can be put on certain spellings’ (National Assembly for Wales 2013: 14:05). Due to the strength of public opinion the council decided to abandon its plans to adopt the standard Welsh form—even alongside the ‘Varteg’ form as advised by the Welsh Language Commissioner—thereby effectively depriving a ‘bilingual nation’ of a ‘bilingual sign’.

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The case of Torfaen Council is useful to exemplify the polemical views which may be held within communities regarding the acceptability and desirability of adopting standardised Welsh-language names. It also serves to exemplify the impossibility that the recommendations of a committee of experts will please or appease everybody. As part of the same standardisation project with Torfaen, the Board received representations from local residents regarding Welsh versions of place-names. The correspondence clearly manifested the desire of those residents to adopt Welsh placenames for settlements in Torfaen in order to promote Welsh identity and support language revival efforts. The forms presented varied from the linguistically possible (Hen Ffwrnais for Old Furnace) to the improbable (Sain Derfel for St Dials), to the rather irreverent (Pentre Carlo for Charlesville). The Board’s Place-Names Standardisation Team was not able to support many of these proposals at the time as they had no evidence that the proposed forms were in common use and their Guidelines for Standardising Place-names in Wales clearly advised that ‘pedantic or revived antiquarian forms or literal and whimsical translations should be avoided’ (Welsh Language Commissioner 2019a: 3).4 Whilst acknowledging that toponomy is never a static field, the PlaceNames Standardisation Team was suspicious of any attempts to coin or translate names as they recognised that a coined, ‘artificial’ name might reflect the opinions and wishes of only a small faction in the community. Another consideration, of course, is that a policy of deliberately translating names and insisting on full bilingualism in toponomy could lead to people insisting on translations or coinages for settlements that only have Welsh names at present. Such discussions regarding coining Welsh names in order to reinforce ‘Welshness’ were not unique to areas with relatively low percentages of Welsh speakers, however. Despite the 2011 census reporting that 43.9% of the population of Carmarthenshire was able to speak Welsh, compared with 9.8% of the population of Torfaen, the absence of a Welsh-language name for Cross Hands inspired a campaign there too, most prominently seen on the pages of the Carmarthen Journal (2009) and on social media. The Team’s unequivocal advice to the local authority was that they should not coin a Welsh name as this is but one of many examples in Wales of a tavern eventually lending its name to a village and belongs to the stock of Welsh

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names which reflect Wales’s diverse internal history and to the important category of English names which represent a significant chapter in that history. This position was not universally popular, and some found it contradictory that an organisation with statutory responsibility for promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language did not advocate that every place in Wales should have a Welsh-language name. An example of this frustration was displayed clearly in Monmouthshire where residents and the parish council campaigned successfully in 2011 to remove the allegedly spurious Llanoronwy for Rockfield and Croes Onnen for Cross Ash (BBC News 2011). The Team conceded at the time that there was little evidence to show that the form Llanoronwy had been used as a modern equivalent to Rockfield, and they could find no historical evidence to support the Welsh form Croes Onnen. It is not surprising that this stance frustrated Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Golwg 360 2011). It also frustrated another faction of local residents, as exemplified by David Hancocks in his letter to the Monmouthshire Beacon in which he suggested that Welsh forms would never be adopted in Anglicised areas if frequency of use was a compulsory criterion (e.g. Ynysgynwraidd for Skenfrith), and emphasised the need to consult with residents before proceeding to obliterate the newly instated Welsh names (Hancocks 2011). This response further reveals the challenges involved in gleaning local opinion and deciding what constitutes being ‘wellestablished’ or ‘frequently used’ in areas where Welsh is not a community language or when written evidence is scarce. In a contrasting case, the Team’s decision to acknowledge the recent innovation Cil-y-coed, also in Monmouthshire, led some purists to criticise the Team for accepting this unhistorical Welsh version of Caldicot. However, there is no doubt that this Welsh form has now become well-established both locally and nationally, and it is significant that it has been adopted in the name of the local cylch meithrin (Welsh-medium nursery group). Despite disputes regarding individual forms, substantial progress in standardisation was made during the Welsh Language Board era, and not only in relation to the place-names of Wales. Another of the Welsh Language Board’s standardisation projects worth mentioning was in relation to Welsh names for places in England. The former Welsh Office

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had decided in the 1970s not to include Welsh-language forms for settlements in England which appeared on road signs in Wales, despite the fact that many of these were well-known and had been in wide circulation for centuries. The Team was consulted on this matter and it advised that they should be adopted, and subsequently prepared a comprehensive list of them in 2009 at the request of the Welsh Assembly Government. As the reasoning behind the Welsh Office’s original decision on this matter is unknown, it is impossible to offer a reliable analysis of this evolution in policy, but it may well hint at a new confidence in the language in a Wales where the legislative framework supports treating Welsh and English on the ‘basis of equality’.

5

Welsh Language Standards and Standardisation

April 2012 saw the dawn of a new legislative framework, when the Welsh Language Commissioner, an independent body with the chief aim of promoting and facilitating the use of Welsh, opened its doors following the abolition of the Welsh Language Board. This change was brought about by the Welsh Language Measure (Wales) 2011, the first piece of language legislation to be created in Wales for the people of Wales.5 This was also the first piece of legislation to declare unreservedly and unequivocally the official status of the language in Wales. In order to make real this declaration to those who wish to use the Welsh language in their daily lives, the Measure provides a series of mechanisms in order to promote and facilitate the use of Welsh. The most prominent—and far-reaching perhaps—of these is the introduction of statutory language duties on organisations in the form of Welsh Language Standards. The introduction of language duties was not in itself revolutionary, of course. The Welsh Language Act 1993 placed a duty on public bodies to prepare Welsh language schemes outlining the Welsh language services that they would commit to providing.6 The revolutionary nature of the Welsh Language Standards lies in the fact that they are drawn up by Welsh Ministers through regulations and imposed on individual organisations by the Welsh Language Commissioner, thereby taking the

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discretion around where and when to offer Welsh language services firmly out of the hands of individual bodies. These statutory Standards set out in detail how organisations must use Welsh in different situations: when providing services, making policy, operating internally, and keeping records. There is also a set of Standards that deal with supplementary matters such as publishing information on compliance and providing information to the Commissioner. Certain organisations, namely the Welsh Government, local authorities and the national parks, also have additional statutory duties to promote the language. The main aims of the Standards are to ensure that organisations understand their duties in relation to the language; to give clarity to Welsh speakers as to which services they can expect to receive in Welsh and to achieve greater consistency between Welsh language services offered by organisations across Wales and an improvement in their quality. These Standards sit within a legislative framework which gives them statutory powers, thereby ensuring rights for people to use Welsh in specific circumstances. The Welsh Language Commissioner is responsible for imposing these Welsh Language Standards on organisations and monitoring their compliance. The Commissioner’s mandate is set out in Part 2 of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 and includes raising awareness of the official status of the Welsh language in Wales (s. 3 (a)). The two main principles which underpin the Commissioner’s work may be summarised thus: in Wales, the Welsh language should be treated no less favourably than the English language; and persons in Wales should be able to live their lives through the medium of the Welsh language if they choose to do so. The Measure does not restrict how the Commissioner can set about achieving these aims. On the contrary, the Commissioner may do ‘anything that he or she thinks appropriate’ to promote and facilitate the use of Welsh and to work towards ensuring that the Welsh language is treated no less favourably than English (s. 4(1)). The Welsh Language Standards are therefore not the only means that the Commissioner has to influence the use that organisations make of the Welsh language, and the Measure clearly acknowledges that imposing statutory language duties on organisations is not the sole route to securing the position of the language. Details of the other strategies employed to realise the

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Commissioner’s overarching vision of ‘a Wales where people can use the Welsh language in their everyday lives’ are neatly summarised in the Commissioner’s strategic plans (e.g. Welsh Language Commissioner 2018a). It was the Welsh Language Commissioner’s office that inherited the responsibility to offer advice on the standard forms of Welsh place-names following the abolition of the Board in 2012. In essence, the Commissioner’s office has exercised this function in a very similar way to the former Board and its work in the field can broadly be defined as a natural extension and evolution of its predecessor’s work. Like the Board, the Commissioner has also convened a panel of experts and engaged with local authorities on standardisation projects for settlement names. This panel inherited its forerunner’s Guidelines for Standardising PlaceNames in Wales, which have since been expanded and enhanced under its care (Welsh Language Commissioner 2019a). The main factor that differentiates its efforts from those of the Board is the fact that the Commissioner’s office publishes and promotes its recommendations via the online List of Standardised Welsh Place-names (Welsh Language Commissioner 2018b). Since 2018, the Panel’s recommendations are no longer a private matter between its members and interested parties. Instead, recommendations are made public via the List and their adoption and usage is actively encouraged. There is evidence that this online resource is used extensively and is consistently amongst the most visited pages on the Commissioner’s website. If the Commissioner’s work in the field of place-names can be considered an evolution and natural progression of the Board’s work, it is fair to say that there has been something of a revolution in the way that public organisations have responded to these efforts. Over recent years, a new enthusiasm and determination has been witnessed amongst local authorities to undertake standardisation projects and to ensure that they are using Welsh-language forms for settlement names where they exist. Publishing the standardised forms is certainly an influential factor, but more influential still, it could be argued, is the legislative framework which provides context for the work. These new efforts from local authorities to ensure correct signage coincide with the general efforts to comply with the Standards which the Commissioner’s office has

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observed since the advent of the regime. By autumn 2020 there were over 120 organisations operating under Standards and the Commissioner publishes evidence in its annual assurance reports (e.g. Welsh Language Commissioner 2019b) which demonstrates that the Standards have contributed significantly to changing the linguistic landscape in Wales, and indeed continue to do so. It is notable, however, that there is no mention of place-names in any of the Standards regulations published to date. However, The Welsh Language Standards (No. 1) Regulations 2015 , the regulations that apply to local authorities, contain several relevant Standards that have had significant impact in this field. Firstly, Standard 62 instructs that when signs are erected and renewed the ‘Welsh language text must be positioned so that it is likely to be read first’, thereby definitively settling a question that had been contentious and unresolved since the 1970s. Secondly, Standard 63 decrees that the organisation ‘must ensure that the Welsh language text on signs is accurate in terms of meaning and expression’. It is clear to see how this requirement would motivate local authorities to ensure that the forms of Welsh place-names depicted by them on signage are ‘accurate’ in their orthography. However, the third class of Standards, not explicitly linked to signage, may have the most farreaching potential for promoting and protecting Welsh place-names. The Policy Making Standards create statutory requirements for organisations to consider the potential effect of policy decisions on the Welsh language. In fact, Standard 89 stipulates that the organisation must give consideration to how policy decisions can have ‘positive effects’ or even ‘increased positive effects’ on opportunities to use the Welsh language and ensuring that Welsh is treated no less favourably than English. It is these Standards that have empowered officers within local authorities to revisit the question of Welsh place-names with renewed vigour. The same vigour has been applied to displaying these standard forms on signage, with notable examples once again in Torfaen. The standard Welsh form Cwmbrân (with the required circumflex) is now the only form displayed on recent signage in the area. Another development worthy of comment in Torfaen is the use of Y Dafarn Newydd for New Inn. It is doubtless a modern and literal translation (Y Gwesty Newydd, Y Neuadd and Y Dafarn Fach have more pedigree) and was previously discounted by the Welsh Language

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Board’s Team, but official use by the local authority and prominence on road signs has led the Commissioner’s Panel to acknowledge that it is now sufficiently well-established to be included in its List. Ensuring the use of standardised place-names on road signage became more than just a way of avoiding complaints by the public and ensuing investigations by the Commissioner. There are many positive examples of local authorities using Welsh place-names as a means of introducing the language and local heritage to the communities they serve. Caerphilly County Council in south-east Wales is an example of a local authority where the percentage of Welsh settlement names within the authority boundaries far outweighs the percentage of Welsh speakers, and officers there have prepared a comprehensive booklet introducing the names and their stories to local residents (Caerphilly Council 2016). There have also been examples of local authorities introducing strategic and ambitious plans with regard to future naming needs, specifically in the context of new streets or developments. The Public Health Act 1925 makes provision for the control of street naming and numbering by local authorities. This provision allows local authorities to ensure that street-naming policies are developed in a consistent and strategic manner and empowers them to ensure that naming decisions are aligned with other legislative requirements and policy ambitions. These ambitions may often run contrary to those of many property developers whose socalled ‘marketing names’ for new developments are driven by the desire to sell properties rather than legislative commitments to protect language rights or achieve the well-being goal of ‘A Wales of vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language’ (Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, s. 4, Table 1). Whilst names that are deemed culturally or linguistically inappropriate are often the subject of complaints or negative publicity, it is essential to emphasise that local authorities have the final say on street names and resulting settlement names.7 It is notable in this respect that Cardiff Council has coined and adopted only a Welsh name, Plasdwr, ˆ for the new garden-city settlement in the north-west of the city, despite marketing names on individual developments in the area attracting significant attention (https://www.plasdwr.co.uk/; Hitt 2018). Cardiff Council also adopted a new street-naming policy in 2019 which outlines its commitment to ensure ‘parity’ between the number of Welsh

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and English street names across the city and its intention to only ‘adopt a Welsh name that is consistent with the local heritage and history of the area’ in the case of new streets (Cardiff Council 2019). This move was framed as an attempt to increase the status and use of Welsh in the capital and assist the council in its vision ‘of developing Cardiff as a truly bilingual capital city’ (The Guardian 2019). These examples demonstrate the potential successes of the continuation of an advisory model with the support of a more robust legislative framework.

6

The Need for a New Legislative Framework?

In the case of settlement names there is little doubt that we have travelled a long road since the protests of the late 1960s. Language legislation has dispelled the need for green paint in most instances, though defacing road signs in protest for and against non-standard forms has not completely disappeared (BBC News 2019). However, there have been growing concerns in recent years about those categories of place-names over which the Welsh Language Commissioner and local authorities have less power and influence, namely private property names, business names and topographical names. Despite notable efforts by many local authorities in Wales, and Anglesey, Gwynedd and Ceredigion in particular, to dissuade residents from changing traditional Welsh property names or to encourage developers to retain or readopt old Welsh names (Gwynedd Council and Isle of Anglesey County Council 2019: 25; Gwynedd Council n.d.), land and property owners have the final word. As a result, there is increasing concern that house names are being changed in the rural Welsh-speaking heartlands as a result of in-migration to those areas or through change of use to holiday rentals where brand may trump tradition. There are also concerns regarding the widespread use and adoption of new English names for topographical features, which are quickly recorded and popularised in this digital age (Owen 2018). It was these concerns which led to the formation of the Welsh PlaceName Society in 2011 with the general aims of promoting, studying and protecting the place-names of Wales.8 It was these concerns too which

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led to two prominent attempts to secure legislative protection for historic Welsh names: first in the context of the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016 , where Welsh Ministers responded to pressure by creating a statutory duty to create and maintain a List of Historic Place-Names (Royal Commission n.d.); and second in the failed attempt by Member of the Senedd Dai Lloyd in 2017 to introduce a Member’s Bill to protect historic names after securing the right to do so by ballot (National Assembly for Wales 2017). Finally, these concerns have also prompted prolific campaigns on traditional and social media, led by high-profile individuals such as Huw Edwards of the BBC and former First Minister Carwyn Jones MS (Member of the Senedd) (Nation.Cymru 2020). The anecdotal evidence which drives this debate is plentiful; however, the quantitative and qualitative evidence is neither comprehensive nor conclusive. One thing is certain, however; there is a widespread belief that traditional Welsh-language forms are being translated, forgotten or ignored. There is also an increasing cross-party political consensus that this is an issue which can no longer be ignored. At the time of writing this chapter the newly elected Welsh Labour Government have recently published their Programme for Government for 2021–2026 which includes a high-level commitment to ‘Work to protect Welsh place names’ (Welsh Government 2021: 11). We wait expectantly therefore to see what this ‘work’ will entail.

Notes 1. For example, the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) has a dedicated workgroup to consider placenames as part of cultural heritage, whose aim is ‘to oversee activities relating to the promotion of indigenous and minority geographical names as means of cultural retention/revitalization’: https://uns tats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/ungegn/wg10.html (accessed 23 October 2020). 2. See James (2005) for a critique of the singer-songwriter’s work, including a translation of the first verse and chorus of the iconic protest song.

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3. The Welsh scholar who single-handedly created an impressive archive of place-names in Wales with the ambition of producing a comprehensive Welsh onomasticon. The 328,788 paper slips on which he organised this material have been archived in the Archif Melville Richards place-names data base: http://www.e-gymraeg.co.uk/enwaul leoedd/amr/ (accessed 27 October 2020). For a concise biography see Roberts (2010). 4. The Guidelines (Welsh Language Commissioner 2019a) were adopted and developed by the Welsh Language Commissioner following the abolition of the Board in 2012. 5. A comprehensive and insightful account of the creation of the Measure and the constraints of the Legislative Competence Order in which it was created is given by the First Welsh Legislative Counsel at the time, Professor Thomas Glyn Watkin (2019). 6. It should be emphasised that many organisations—including UK government departments and town and community councils— continue to implement Welsh-language schemes under the Welsh Language Act 1993 and are also regulated by the Welsh Language Commissioner. 7. It should be noted in this context that the Welsh Language Commissioner only advises on the standard forms of settlement names, i.e. the names of cities, towns, villages and hamlets. Whilst the Commissioner seeks to support local authorities in their street naming duties by advising on matters of orthography on request, especially if a street name contains a settlement name, it is acknowledged that street naming requires detailed local and historical knowledge. 8. See https://www.cymdeithasenwaulleoedd.cymru/en/ (accessed 6 November 2020).

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References Barry and District News. 2006. What a Sili Idea. 20 July. BBC News. 2011. Rockfield and Cross Ash Signs have Welsh Names Removed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-13613007. Accessed 28 October 2020. BBC News. 2019. Powys Village Name Row is Down to a ‘T’. https://www. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48348141. Accessed 30 December 2020. BBC News. 2020. Varteg or Farteg: Stink Over Village Name Continues. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-25044888. Accessed 28 October 2020. Caerphilly Council. 2016. Place Names in Caerphilly County Borough 2016. https://www.caerphilly.gov.uk/CaerphillyDocs/Equalities/Place-Names-inCaerphilly-County-Borough-2014.aspx. Accessed 6 November 2020. Cardiff Council. 2019. Polisi Enw Strydoedd/Street Naming Policy. https:// www.cardiff.gov.uk/ENG/resident/Parking-roads-and-travel/transport-pol icies-plans/Street-naming/Documents/Street%20Naming%20Policy.pdf. Accessed 6 November 2020. Carmarthen Journal . 2009. Fingers crossed for Welsh name. January 21, 2. Committee of Inquiry into Bilingual Traffic Signs. 1972. Bilingual Traffic Signs/Arwyddion Ffyrdd Dwyieithog: Report of the Committee of Inquiry under the Chairmanship of Roderic Bowen, Esq., Q.C., M.A., LL.D, 1971–72. Cardiff: HMSO. Coupland, N. 2012. Bilingualism on Display: The Framing of Welsh and English in Welsh Public Spaces. Language in Society 41: 1–27. Gelling, M. 2010. Signposts to the Past: Place-names and the History of England , 3rd ed. Chichester: Phillimore & Co. Golwg 360. 2011. Pentrefi Sir Fynwy yn dileu enwau Cymraeg. https://golwg. 360.cymru/newyddion/cymru/39690-pentrefi-sir-fynwy-yn-dileu-enwaucymraeg. Accessed 30 December 2020. The Guardian. 2019. Cardiff Council Backs Plan to Give New Streets Welsh Names. 27 September. Gwynedd Council. N.d. Property Naming. https://www.gwynedd.llyw. cymru/en/Residents/Planning-and-building-control/Propertynaming.aspx. Accessed 7 January 2021. Gwynedd Council and Isle of Anglesey County Council. 2019. Maintaining and Creating Distinctive and Sustainable Communities: Supplementary

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Planning Guidance (July 2019). https://www.gwynedd.llyw.cymru/en/Cou ncil/Documents---Council/Strategies-and-policies/Environment-and-pla nning/Planning-policy/Supplementary-Planning-Guidance/2019/Mainta ining-and-Creating-Distinctive-and-Sustainable-Communities-July-2019. pdf. Accessed 7 January 2021. Hancocks, D. 2011. Consult Residents Before Blanking Out Name (letter to the editor). Monmouthshire Beacon, 5 January. Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016 . 2016 anaw 4. https://www.legislation. gov.uk/anaw/2016/4/contents. Accessed 12 June 2021. Hitt, C. 2018. Place Names in Wales Should Celebrate the Rich Stories of Our Past (and Regency Park Certainly Does Not). https://www.walesonline. co.uk/news/news-opinion/place-names-wales-should-celebrate-14792546. Accessed 12 June 2021. James, E.W. 2005. Painting the World Green: Dafydd Iwan and the Welsh Protest Ballad. Folk Music Journal 8 (5): 594–618. https://www.car diff.ac.uk/cy/special-collections/subject-guides/welsh-ballads/dafydd-iwan. Accessed 12 November 2020. Jones, G. 2010. Standardizing the Place-Names of Wales. Paper presented at the Trends in Toponomy 4 Conference, University of Edinburgh, 29 June. Merriman, P., and R. Jones. 2009. ‘Symbols of Justice’: The Welsh Language Society’s Campaign for Bilingual Road Signs in Wales, 1967–1980. Journal of Historical Geography 35: 350–375. Nation.Cymru. 2020. Huw Edwards and other BBC Broadcasters Bemoan Loss of Welsh Language Place Names. https://nation.cymru/news/huwedwards-and-other-bbc-broadcasters-bemoan-loss-of-welsh-language-placenames/. Accessed 30 December 2020. National Assembly for Wales. 2013. Cofnod y Trafodion/The Record of Proceedings, 01/10/2013. https://business.senedd.wales/documents/s10 7144/Transcript%20for%20the%20meeting.pdf. Accessed 12 June 2021. National Assembly for Wales. 2017. Explanatory Memorandum on the Protection of Historic Place Names (Wales) Bill. https://senedd.wales/media/2bk lt5ol/dailloyd_em1_eng.pdf. Accessed 12 June 2021. Owen, H.W., and R. Morgan. 2007. Dictionary of the Place-Names of Wales. Llandysul: Gomer Press. Owen, T. 2018. Fear ‘history is lost when Welsh place names are changed’. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-44481950. Accessed 30 December 2020. Public Health Act 1925. 1925 c. 71. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/ Geo5/15-16/71. Accessed 12 June 2021.

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Roberts, B.F. 2010. Richards, Grafton Melville (1910–1973), Welsh Scholar. Dictionary of Welsh Biography https://biography.wales/article/s7-RICHMEL-1910. Accessed 27 October 2020. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. N.d. List of Historic Place Names. https://rcahmw.gov.uk/discover/list-ofhistoric-place-names/. Accessed 6 November 2020. South Wales Argus. 2013. Y Farteg: First Minister Calls for Sensitivity Over Welsh place names. 1 October. Watkin, T.G. 2019. Competence and Complexity: The Role of the Welsh Language Commissioner. In Constitutional Pioneers: Language Commissioners and the Protection of Official, Minority and Indigenous Languages, ed. H. Amon and E.H. James, 125–146. Montréal: Éditions Yvons Blais. Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. 2015 anaw 2. https://www. legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2015/2/contents/enacted. Accessed 27 October 2020. Welsh Government. 2021. Programme for Government. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Language Act 1993. 1993 c. 38. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/ 1993/38/part/I/enacted. Accessed 27 October 2020. Welsh Language Board. 1996. Welsh Language Schemes: Their preparation and approval in accordance with the Welsh Language Act. Cardiff: Welsh Language Board. Welsh Language Commissioner. 2018a. Strategic Plan 2018a–2021. Cardiff: Welsh Language Commissioner. Welsh Language Commissioner. 2018b. List of Standardised Welsh Placenames. https://gov.wales/list-standardised-welsh-place-names. Accessed 12 June 2021. Welsh Language Commissioner. 2019a. Guidelines for Standardising Placenames in Wales. https://20160222-dg-s-guidelines-for-standardising-placenames-in-wales.pdf (welshlanguagecommissioner.wales). Accessed 21 September 2021. Welsh Language Commissioner. 2019b. Rights in Use – The Welsh Language Commissioners Assurance Report 2018–19. Cardiff: Welsh Language Commissioner. The Welsh Language Standards (No. 1) Regulations 2015. 2015 No. 996 (W. 68). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/wsi/2015/996/contents/made. Accessed 12 June 2021. Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. 2011 nawm 1. https://www.legislation. gov.uk/mwa/2011/1/contents/enacted. Accessed 6 March 2021.

Canolfannau Cymraeg: A Top-Down or Bottom-Up Approach to Language Planning? Steve Morris

A finding common to studies of motivation amongst adult learners of Welsh over the last half century has been that, overwhelmingly, an integrative motivation prevails (Williams 1965; HMI [Wales] 1984; Morris 2000; Pritchard Newcombe 2007). Gardner’s (1985) model of motivation argues that the integrative orientation suggests a positive inclination towards the community speaking the language being acquired, coupled with an aspiration to interact with it and become a part of it. This model is associated more specifically with the context of second language learning when it relates to a foreign language or frequently, English. Nevertheless, it is equally valid in the context of learning a second language which is a minority—or minoritised—language. The situation of many adult new speakers1 of Welsh is that they are engaging with a language which corresponds to a national territory, has been a part of S. Morris (B) Department of Applied Linguistics, Swansea University, Swansea, UK e-mail: [email protected]

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their own recent familial and/or community history and can be said to be a marker of their own particular identity and yet is not the main language of social interaction in all parts of this territory. Their engagement is fundamentally different in terms of realisation of motivational orientation from that observed in the second language (L2) learners of English or other major international languages. This chapter concerns itself, in particular, with adult new speakers’ use of Welsh in the social domain. It considers a ‘bottom-up’ language planning initiative designed to increase opportunities for these new speakers to use Welsh in areas where it is not the primary community language. Research commissioned by Welsh Government recommended this model as one which might be developed in similar communities across Wales. As a result of subsequent substantial Welsh Government funding, further initiatives were established. This example of a ‘top-down’ approach to language planning is discussed critically later in the chapter and it is argued that failure to embrace the holistic approach of the original ‘bottom-up’ initiative has limited the success of this subsequent intervention. The conclusion emphasises the need to embed a ‘bottom-up’ approach to ensure positive outcomes in future language policies in this area of language planning. Applying Fishman’s (1991) paradigm, Wales is predominantly Yish in speech but with a substantial Xish element. Moreover, its cultural orientation can be described as Xish (even if Yish is used to give voice to this orientation). New speakers of Welsh—the new Xish speakers—therefore face a challenge and a paradox when viewed through the lens of Gardner’s concept of integrative orientation: they are positively inclined towards Xish and what we might call Xish-ness and yet most live in areas where speakers or learners of Xish are comparatively few and any existing Xishspeaking community difficult to locate and access for those learning the language. Crowe’s (1988: 88) observation that for many Welsh learners, the problem is not drowning oneself in the Welsh language but finding a puddle in which to dip one’s feet is still as relevant today as it was in the last century. Historically, it has been argued (e.g. Morris 2003; Gruffudd and Morris 2012) that failure to ensure that those who acquire Xish as adults have opportunities to access Xish language networks as well as becoming

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a part of the process of language revitalisation in Wales would have a negative effect on Reversing Language Shift (RLS) efforts in Wales. Recent Welsh Government language policy, including Cymraeg 2050 : A Million Welsh Speakers (2017), envisage the Welsh for Adults sector having: an important contribution to make to our aim of achieving a million Welsh speakers. It will do so by enabling adults of all ages and abilities to improve their skills, resume their study of Welsh or learn afresh to give them the confidence to be able to use Welsh in the workplace, socially or within the family. (Welsh Government 2017: 41)

This section of the policy implies that the Welsh Government sees potential adult new speakers of Welsh as including not only those who wish to ‘learn afresh’ but also those who are already on the Welsh language continuum having acquired some knowledge of the language through their schooling. It is hoped that through acquisition planning in this way, this cohort will go on to use their Welsh in new domains (Welsh Government 2017: 41). The density of Welsh speakers is not uniform across Wales and planning to normalise the social use of Welsh in communities with percentages of Welsh speakers below 20 per cent is the primary focus here. This is not just a challenge when developing what Baker and Wright (2017: 48) call usage / opportunity planning but also for status planning, language normalisation and revitalisation efforts in the context of the aspiration to reach one million speakers of Welsh by 2050. One response to this challenge in Wales has been the development of what can be labelled generically as Canolfannau Cymraeg (sing. Canolfan Gymraeg). Baker and Wright (2017: 48) state that opportunity planning refers to: top-down and bottom-up language planning interventions that directly seek to increase the integrative use of the Welsh language and its attendant culture in areas such as leisure, sport and technology, to foster social networking through Welsh and to increase the instrumental use of the Welsh language in the economy.

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The original context in which Canolfannau Cymraeg were developed was strongly driven by ‘bottom-up’ language planning. Some Canolfannau can be traced back to the 1970s and a common driver for their establishment was a desire to offer greater social experiences to adult learners of Welsh in communities where daily opportunities to use the language were limited (Gruffudd 1991). These were very localised enterprises and arose very much in response to local needs. There was no central, national, or coordinated planning behind their development but an analysis (below) of the processes behind how some of them were set up gives an insight into the kind of ‘bottom-up’ interventions, often sustained over many years of effort, which brought them into existence: • Clwb y Bont, Pontypridd—local fundraising activities began from the late 1960s onwards and the Clwb was opened in September 1983 in a derelict warehouse by the river Taff. The trajectory of its establishment from the original idea, a nucleus of local enthusiasts—not dissimilar to Williams and Evas’s (1997) linguistic animateurs—who sustained fundraising efforts over a period of time, sourced an appropriate location/building and opening a Canolfan Gymraeg, is a familiar one. Enhancing opportunities for Welsh speakers to use the language in their community was the main motivation behind setting up the centre. • Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff—opened in 1983 after Cymdeithas Clwb Cymraeg Caerdydd (Welsh Language Society in Cardiff ) formed a group with the aim of opening a Welsh language club. The building is located in the centre of Cardiff and was set up as a members-only club. Cardiff—like other predominantly non-Welsh-speaking urban parts of Wales—was home to more established foci for Welsh speakers such as Tˆy’r Cymry (set up in 1936) but Clwb Ifor Bach became more orientated to a younger section of the city’s Welsh-speaking population. • Popeth Cymraeg, Denbigh (Canolfan Iaith Clwyd)—initially a language centre and still a centre for teaching Welsh to adults, is the only centre not located in a predominantly urban area. A building in the centre of the town was acquired with local authority assistance and opened in 1991. Although different from the first two examples in that

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this is principally a centre for learning the language, it nevertheless provides an important space where learners and the wider Welshspeaking community can interact, ensuring that teaching is delivered in a Welsh-speaking environment. • Tˆy Tawe, Swansea—provides an example of a Canolfan Gymraeg set up in the wake of initial local enthusiasm spurred on by the holding of a national (or Urdd) Eisteddfod in the area. Following detailed discussions and meetings between learners and language activists in the city, a decision was made to hold a public meeting during the National Eisteddfod held there in 1982. Since opening in 1987, Tˆy Tawe has been a focal point, not only as a centre where Welsh language classes and programmes (L2 and L1) are offered, but also a venue for Welsh language gigs, events and societies together with a bookshop, café and bar. The local Menter Iaith is based in the same building, thereby allowing for synergy of events and activities between itself and Tˆy Tawe under the same roof. • Canolfan Soar, Merthyr Tydfil—followed a similar trajectory to Tˆy Tawe after the Urdd Eisteddfod in 1987 served as a focus for efforts to establish a centre. These were realised in 1992 with the opening of a bookshop. This centre is now a social centre for Welsh language activities/classes in the area as well as encompassing a theatre, bookshop, café and the local Menter Iaith. An evaluation of the centre (Arad Research 2015) concluded that there are economic as well as linguistic benefits pertaining to Canolfannau Cymraeg. Canolfan Soar was shown to be worth around £608,000 to the local economy over one year, and the total economic impact within the greater South Wales region was £1.3 million. The report (2015: 6) noted that: Canolfan Soar and its tenants are contributing to developing the local economic infrastructure. They make a further positive impact by providing employment and using a range of local suppliers. The Centre has also become a community hub and is host to a cluster of like– minded businesses which is promoting knowledge exchange and creative partnerships.

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• Saith Seren, Wrexham—this final example is a more recent one but again one in which the campaign to create a Canolfan Gymraeg in an urban setting was given further impetus following the holding of the national Eisteddfod in Wrexham in 2011. In this case, shares were sold to purchase the lease of an historic building in the town. The centre opened in 2012, with a bar and kitchen facilities. There are a number of features which are common to these examples including: • a main motivation behind efforts to set up a Canolfan Gymraeg is the need for (adult) new speakers of Welsh to have a space and physical location in which they can expand the domains where they use Welsh and have access to them; • a ‘galvanising’ event such as the holding of a national or Urdd Eisteddfod in the region often acts as a catalyst in bringing community activists together to form a critical mass in order to launch a campaign; • the search for a suitable building and procuring the necessary finance to secure it involve significant input from the local committee. However, once opened, additional facilities such as bars, cafés, and shops enhance the offering of the centres. Sharing space with other language organisations e.g. the local Menter Iaith, Urdd (youth) and Learn Welsh2 provision, helps to emphasise and concentrate the impact of the Canolfan Gymraeg. This type of language planning at a community level can be seen as an example of micro-level, ‘bottom-up’ language planning (Kaplan and Baldauf 1997: 196–198) from a grassroots base which seeks to revitalise cultural autonomy (Fishman 2012) and contribute to reversing language shift in mainly non-Welsh-speaking areas of Wales. Gruffudd and Morris (2012) were the first to investigate the impact of Canolfannau Cymraeg on social networks of adult new speakers of Welsh. The research focused on those who had reached levels B1–B2 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe 2020) and included about a third of the total national cohort at this level, predominantly in areas of Wales where Welsh was not the main

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community language. A mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology (primarily questionnaires and focus groups) yielded a great deal of data which enabled a comparison of outcomes for adult learners of Welsh who had studied in a Canolfan Gymraeg and those who had not. The investigation centred on four main research questions: 1. What opportunities are available to maintain social networks in Welsh? 2. Are these opportunities greater or equal if learners study in a Canolfan Gymraeg? 3. Are there any strategies that could be implemented in order to extend and expand the Welsh-medium social networks of these new speakers of Welsh? 4. Do patterns or strategies exist in other language communities that could be adapted to the efforts to integrate adult who have learnt Welsh? Traditional domains such as, for example, the chapel, associated societies, and drama associations held little attraction for adult new speakers of Welsh and very few participated in them (fewer than one in ten). Most of them were attracted to social events which might be described as ‘linguistically safe’ i.e. sesiynau siarad or ‘talking sessions’ and Welsh language events held in locations such as Canolfannau Cymraeg where the step from ‘place of learning’ to ‘place of socialising’ was a small one. The existence of spaces where they would feel secure in attempting to use their linguistic resources to establish and consequently maintain their own social networks in Welsh was seen as essential. Extending these social networks within and beyond the Canolfan Gymraeg may require that agencies and organisations involved in Welsh language activities or RLS efforts engage with the centre more in order to achieve this goal. A key finding, therefore, was that the Canolfan Gymraeg model was a successful one in providing a space where new speakers and L1 speakers might interact in a ‘linguistically safe’ environment which would bolster confidence. This was of particular relevance to those areas of Wales where the density of Welsh speakers was low. The main recommendation was that there should be an expansion of these centres and a co-location

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within them of other Welsh-medium organisations e.g. the Mentrau Iaith, local Urdd activities, and the Welsh-medium pre-school providers Mudiad Meithrin. Strategies to effect an expansion of Welsh-medium social networks for new adult speakers in these areas of Wales would be dependent on their being in possession of the necessary linguistic resources to participate in new social domains. Equally important, the idea of raising linguistic awareness amongst both new speakers and other speakers of Welsh as to ways of communicating with each other confidently and without seeking recourse to English when problems arise is one which should be developed. An awareness of the sociolinguistic situation of the language within local communities was further recognised as an important aspect of managing new speakers’ integrative motivational orientations and could be embedded in higher-level provision. There was enthusiasm for initiatives similar to the Catalan Voluntaris per la llingua (see Puigdevall, this volume) as a way of pairing speakers with shared enthusiasms for particular areas, e.g. sports or pastimes, with the aim of enabling the extension of the use of Welsh in domains of relevance and direct interest to them. Considering the ‘bottom-up’ planning process which had given rise to all of the original Canolfannau Cymraeg, the recommendations of the research report (Gruffudd and Morris 2012: 52–60) could be criticised for not emphasising more how this aspect of development might be informed in the future. There is an assumption that the coordination of future planning would be managed through central Welsh Government agencies (namely the Department for Education and Skills and the Welsh Language Unit), although local authorities were also encouraged to help in the procurement of suitable buildings in which to locate the centres. The regionally based Welsh for Adults centres (which were in operation at the time of the study) and the current Learning Welsh providers were also viewed as drivers for the coordination of work to establish local committees to give direction to the work of setting up community Canolfannau Cymraeg in their areas. The findings were welcomed by some politicians, including Keith Davies, former Welsh Labour Llanelli Assembly Member (AM) and chair of the Cross-party group on the Welsh Language. The Senedd launch of the report was sponsored by another supportive AM, Mike Hedges (Swansea East).

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The announcement two years later by the First Minister of Wales at the time, Carwyn Jones, of a competitive £1.25 million capital investment fund to develop ‘Welsh language centres’3 can be seen as part of the Welsh Government’s wider response to the decline in the number of Welsh speakers exposed in the 2011 census, in particular in some of the language’s ‘stronghold’ areas in west and mid Wales. It grew from the discussions held as part of the Bwrw ’Mlaen policy statement (Jones 2014) to encourage the actual use of the Welsh language by those able to speak it, as well as offering opportunities to be ‘immersed’ in the language. The funding was designed to encourage local authorities, colleges and universities to develop Welsh language centres and learning spaces. These ‘dynamic language spaces’ would ‘enable people to engage and interact with the language and... act as community hubs’ (BBC News 2014). One of the principal differences between the government’s funding announcement and Gruffudd and Morris’s call for more Canolfannau Cymraeg was this emphasis on realising the development of centres through local authorities, colleges or universities. One reason for this shift might be that the funding was allocated through the Education and Skills department. However, it represented a change in direction from the hitherto ‘bottom-up’ approach as well as the targeting of funding for capital investment rather than the day-to-day activities undertaken by the centres. In essence, it was an opportunity for local authorities and educational institutions to bid for capital investment to open a centre before developing the critical mass of ground-level support which would be necessary to sustain activity within these ‘dynamic language spaces’. The announcement of the funding allocation in 2014 further illustrated that the model being pursued by the Welsh Government, together with the locations of the four centres announced, had shifted towards a ‘top-down’ language planning initiative which would offer a space for targeted activities but without the more holistic approach evident in the earlier Canolfannau Cymraeg: • Ynys Môn (Anglesey) Council: £138,723 to develop immersion centres for ‘latecomers to Welsh’ on the island;

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• The University of Wales Trinity St. David: £300,000 towards the purchase of a building in the centre of Carmarthen with the intention of creating a multi–purpose language centre; • Carmarthenshire County Council: £70,000 to develop a multi– purpose language centre (with third sector partners) in the town of Llanelli; • Coleg Cambria: £300,000 to develop a centre in Wrexham to teach Welsh language skills in the workplace. This would be located in the town centre, giving learning and networking opportunities to businesses in the area. The intention in each case was for these centres to develop as focal points for the Welsh language in their communities (as had the original Canolfannau Cymraeg). However, two of the new four centres were located in areas where social networks of Welsh speakers were still comparatively robust (Anglesey and Carmarthen) and two of them (Llanelli and Wrexham) could be described more accurately as centres of learning rather than Canolfannau Cymraeg. The decision to fund a location in Wrexham was even more surprising given that Saith Seren (discussed earlier in this chapter) had already been operating as a Canolfan Gymraeg in the town since 2012. In Llanelli, the centre Y Lle opened in 2014. Of the four, this came closest to the original Canolfan Gymraeg model discussed by Gruffudd and Morris (2012) and offered a range of activities through the medium of Welsh for differing interests, and particularly for younger people. However, during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Y Lle closed its doors permanently (BBC Cymru Fyw 2020) amidst controversy about the funding model applied, with Plaid Cymru AM Helen Mary Jones drawing attention to the fact that money was available to purchase a building and personal computers for use within it but not to support the day-to-day costs of running the centre. In the original Canolfannau Cymraeg, the acquisition of a building was the final stage in the process whereas the Bwrw ’Mlaen capital funding initiative allowed interested parties to move straight to the purchase of a building before the networks, fundraising and grassroots activities needed to sustain such a centre had been put in place.

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This initial tranche of government funding for Canolfannau Cymraeg—and it should be remembered that this was the first time that any central government funding for such centres had ever been available—was followed by a further £1 million capital fund call for 2015–2016. Once again, the model followed the same ‘top-down’ planning process, with only local authorities, colleges and universities able to apply for funding provided by the Education and Skills department to set up the centres. This investment was generally welcomed and supported, for example, by the language lobbying pressure group Dyfodol i’r Iaith, although they did draw attention to the way in which the funding was distributed following the struggles of Saith Seren in Wrexham in 2015 (Y Cymro 2015). At the 2016 National Eisteddfod, Dyfodol i’r Iaith held a colloquium to discuss the future development of Canolfannau Cymraeg as inclusive, safe physical spaces in which all speakers and users of Welsh could interact in an environment where confidence might be nurtured. This was seen as central to the vision of the kind of centres to be encouraged through partnerships and general community support which would be bolstered by capital funding but also, critically, further revenue support should it be needed. The second tranche of capital funding announced in June 2015 totalled £1.5 million and was distributed as follows: • Ynys Môn (Anglesey) Council: £58,843 to develop a communication centre for young people; • Cardiff City Council: £400,000 to transform the Old Library (Yr Hen Lyfrgell) into a multi–purpose Canolfan Gymraeg; • Ceredigion Council: £150,000 to develop an immersion centre for ‘latecomers to Welsh’ in Tregaron (with the intention of this also doubling up as a centre for the wider community); • Gwynedd Council: £300,000 to create a multi–purpose Canolfan Gymraeg in the centre of Bangor; • Coleg Ceredigion: £300,000 to develop a multi–purpose centre in Cardigan; • Swansea University (through Academi Hywel Teifi): £300,000 to develop a multi–purpose Canolfan Gymraeg in Pontardawe.

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First Minister Carwyn Jones was reported by Golwg (2015) as stating that the Government’s main vision was to increase the use of Welsh in everyday life and that the multi–purpose centres and learning areas announced would play a key role in realising this. Again, however, with the exception of Cardiff and arguably Pontardawe, the other four centres were located in areas where the density of Welsh speakers was higher than in areas such as Swansea, Merthyr Tydfil or Pontypridd. This represented a shift from the idea of a Canolfan Gymraeg as a Welsh language community space in low-density Welsh-speaking areas to a ‘multi-purpose’ centre in areas where the use of Welsh within the community was more normalised. As the number of centres that received funding increased, however, the planning for them and the policy which created them drew criticism, exemplified by a letter in Golwg (Evans 2017) which highlighted that this significant funding had been awarded to ‘large institutions which work from the top down’. Critical of one of the new Canolfannau Cymraeg, the writer noted that the centre felt like a ‘university building rather than a community building’. Whilst acknowledging in her work that she had found strong community support for the original Canolfannau Cymraeg concept (for example, 76 per cent of her respondents were of the opinion that more should be set up in all parts of Wales), James (2018a, b) expanded the criticism of the 2014 and 2015 schemes. In particular, she identified a lack of foresight and forward planning by the Welsh Government and echoed what Dyfodol i’r Iaith had argued about the need for ongoing revenue funding on top of initial capital investment, referring to a ‘flawed’ business model (James 2018a), particularly after the problems faced by the Cardiff centre in covering rent costs within its first year of operation. There is recognition here that ‘community-led support and demand’ already needs to be in place for potential new Canolfannau Cymraeg and that they should be ‘rooted in their communities rather than placed there by the government in a “top down” model’ (James 2018a). Ioan Talfryn, the chief executive of Popeth Cymraeg, suggested that opening a Canolfan Gymraeg just to be somewhere where Welsh language things happen is ‘a bit naïve’ (BBC Cymru Fyw 2017). He also felt that there should be more focus on the kind of centre needed to ensure it satisfied the specific linguistic demands within a particular community.

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In 2017, the Minister at the time, Alun Davies AM, said he was open to the idea of creating more Canolfannau Cymraeg. The idea has, however, quietly been left off the political agenda, with little mention of them in the context of Cymraeg 2050 : A Million Welsh Speakers (Welsh Government 2017). This does not mean that the linguistic and cultural reasons that favoured the setting up of Canolfannau Cymraeg have receded. Indeed, recent work (e.g. Higham 2020: 90 in the context of migrant learners of Welsh) and the impetus provided by the COST New Speakers network (https://www.nspk.org.uk) have underlined the increased need for safe social, community spaces where new speakers and other speakers of minoritised languages can interact more confidently (e.g. O’Rourke and Walsh 2020; Puigdevall et al. 2018). In its most recent manifesto, Dyfodol i’r Iaith (2020) continues to advocate the establishment of a network of Canolfannau Cymraeg as ‘powerhouses for the language’. The Arad Research (2015) evaluation shows that, given appropriate management and development, Canolfannau Cymraeg can also contribute to the economic wellbeing of the communities which they serve. It could be argued that their role should be—and often is— extended to bring together all three of the main cohorts which will ultimately be needed to expand to a million speakers of Welsh by 2050, namely L1 speakers of Welsh, adult new speakers of Welsh and today’s young people (who will be tomorrow’s adults) who acquire the language through Welsh-medium education rather than familial intergenerational transmission. Williams (2016: 14) talked of the Canolfannau Cymraeg as ‘a classic example of bottom-up language initiatives, which has been so characteristic of Welsh language revitalisation’ and concluded (2016: 15) that ‘the existence of Canolfannau Cymraeg—and their location in visible, multi-purpose buildings at the heart of their communities—is likely to continue to be an important policy arm in the realisation of [the goal of creating a million speakers of Welsh by 2050]’. Recent language planning experience in the context of Canolfannau Cymraeg has illustrated clearly the need to embed bottom-up approaches in government policy initiatives designed to encourage speakers of Welsh to become confident users of the language. It is clearly as unrealistic to imagine today that this can happen without careful language planning in the mainly non-Welsh-speaking areas of Wales as it was in 2012 when the

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Gruffudd and Morris report was published. Few new speakers of Welsh acquire the language in order to just use it within a language learning educational setting. The integrative orientation remains as strong as ever and yet to a large extent, it is left unrealised. One clear consequence of not addressing this can be the ultimate reversal from a new speaker to exspeaker. Bottom-up, grassroots, micro-level, community-based planning has shown that successful Canolfannau Cymraeg can be created, flourish and contribute in many linguistic, social, and economic ways to the life of their regions. Government investment will enable this to happen more quickly but to sustain their long-term viability, the bottom-up approach needs to be harnessed and embedded in the process of developing the Canolfannau Cymraeg of the future.

Notes 1. ‘Adult new speaker’ of Welsh reflects the description of O’Rourke et al. (2015) of ‘individuals with little or no home or community exposure to a minority language but who instead acquire it through immersion or bilingual educational programs, revitalization projects or as adult language learners’. 2. ‘Dysgu Cymraeg/Learn Welsh’ is the name of the sector responsible for the teaching and learning of Welsh for Adults. 3. The term ‘Welsh language centres’ was used in the English translation of the announcement. Gruffudd and Morris (2012: 8) had argued for sole use of the term Canolfan Gymraeg / Canolfannau Cymraeg to refer to the concept of a ‘language centre’ identified in their research in both languages. It could be argued, however, that the kind of centre announced by the government and subsequently developed does not conform completely with the model originally proposed.

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References Arad Research. 2015. Evaluation of the Economic and Cultural Impact of Canolfan Soar, Merthyr Tydfil . https://www.mentrauiaith.cymru/wp-con tent/uploads/2015/10/Economic-and-Cultural-Impact-Final.pdf. Accessed 7 June 2021. Baker, C., and W. E. Wright, eds. 2017. Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 6th ed. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. BBC Cymru Fyw. 2017. Y ‘ghettos’ Cymraeg? https://www.bbc.co.uk/cymrufyw/ 38555726 Accessed 8 June 2021. BBC Cymru Fyw. 2020. Canolfan Gymraeg Y Lle yn Llanelli wedi cau yn barhaol. https://www.bbc.co.uk/cymrufyw/53917353. Accessed 8 June 2021. BBC News. 2014. £1.25m for New Welsh Language Centres. https://www.bbc. co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-28662015. Accessed 30 Nov 2020. Council of Europe. 2020. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment—Companion Volume 2020. https://www.coe.int/en/web/common–european–framework–reference–lan guages. Accessed 26 Jan 2021. Crowe, R. 1988. Yr Wlpan yn Israel . Aberystwyth: Canolfan Ymchwil Cymraeg i Oedolion. Dyfodol I’r Iaith. 2020. Aspiration and Achievement: Dyfodol i’r Iaith proposals for Welsh Language Policy 2021–2026 . https://www.dyfodol.net/wp–con tent/uploads/2020/11/Aspiration_and_Achievement.pdf. Accessed 30 Nov 2020. Evans, I. 2017. Canolfannau Pwy? (letter to the editor). Golwg 30 (11): 13. Fishman, J.A. 1991. Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Fishman, J.A. 2012. Cultural Autonomy as an Approach to Sociolinguistic Power-Sharing: Some Preliminary Notions. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 213: 11–46. Gardner, R.C. 1985. Social Psychology and Second Language Learning: The Role of Attitudes and Motivation. London: Edward Arnold. Golwg360. 2015. Chwe Chanolfan Gymraeg i gael hwb o £1.5m. https://golwg. 360.cymru/newyddion/iaith/189047-chwe-chanolfan-gymraeg-i-gae-hwbo-1-5m. Accessed 8 June 2021. Gruffudd, H. 1991. Chwilio am Ganolfannau newydd i’r iaith. Barn 339: 3–6.

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Gruffudd, H., and S. Morris. 2012. Canolfannau Cymraeg and Social Networks of Adult Learners of Welsh: Efforts to Reverse Language Shift in Comparatively Non-Welsh-Speaking Communities. Swansea: South West Wales Welsh for Adults Centre. https://www.swansea.ac.uk/media/Canolfannau%20C ymraeg%20-%20Full%20Report.pdf. Accessed 8 June 2021. Higham, G. 2020. Creu Dinasyddiaeth i Gymru. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. HMI (Wales). 1984. The Teaching of Welsh as a Second Language to Adults: Education Survey 12. Cardiff: Welsh Office. James, M.E. 2018a. Welsh Language Centres: The Answer to Promoting the Welsh Language? https://nation.cymru/opinion/welsh-language-centres-theanswer-to-promoting-the-welsh-language/. Accessed 8 June 2021. James, M.E. 2018b. Astudiaeth ar Draweffaith Canolfannau Cymraeg. Unpublished MPhil dissertation, Aberystwyth University. Jones, C. 2014. Written Statement by the First Minister—Welsh Language Centres and Learning Spaces. https://gov.wales/written-statement-welsh-language-cen tres-and-learning-spaces. Accessed 8 June 2021. Kaplan, R.B., and R.B. Baldauf, eds. 1997. Language Planning: From Practice to Theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Morris, S. 2000. Adult education, language revival and language planning. In Language Revitalization: Policy and Planning in Wales, ed. C. H. Williams, 208–220. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Morris, S. 2003. Language Planning Strategies for Integrating Adult Learners: Crossing the Bridge Between Yish and Xish. In Actes del 2n Congrés Europeu sobre Planificació Lingüística, 204–216. Barcelona: Department de Cultura, Generalitat de Catalunya. O’Rourke, B., and J. Walsh. 2020. New Speakers of Irish in the Global Context: New Revival? London: Routledge. O’Rourke, B., J. Pujolar and F. Ramallo. 2015. New speakers of minority languages: The challenging opportunity—Foreword. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 231: 1–20. Pritchard Newcombe, L. 2007. Social Context and Fluency in L2 Learners: The Case of Wales. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Puigdevall, M., J. Walsh, E. Amorrortu and A. Ortega. 2018. ‘I’ll be one of them’: Linguistic mudes and new speakers in three minority language contexts. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 39 (4): 1–13. Welsh Government. 2017. Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers. Cardiff: Welsh Government.

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Williams, I.T. 1965. Oedolion yn dysgu Cymraeg (Astudiaeth o Gymhellion). Pamphlet 13. Aberystwyth: Education Faculty, University College of Wales. Williams, C.H. 2016. Recent language initiatives. Appendix to COST New Speakers Network report Supporting ‘new speakers’: Building Irish language networks and communities outside the Gaeltacht, Trinity College, Dublin, 14 October. https://www.nspk.org.uk/images/TCD_Stakeholders_ Final_Report.pdf. Accessed 30 November 2020. Williams, C.H., and J.C. Evas. 1997. Y Cynllun Ymchwil Cymunedol / The Community Research Project. Cardiff: Welsh Language Board. Y Cymro. 2015. Galw am ymchwiliad canolfannau Cymraeg. 17 April, 1.

Language Policy Challenges in Canada

Best Practices and Language Policy Designs: Lessons from Canada and Wales Linda Cardinal and Anastasia Llewellyn

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Introduction

Whether dealing with a single case study or comparing multiple regions, Colin H. Williams expertly weaves together consideration of cultural matters with issues concerning legislation, governance and service delivery (e.g. Williams 2007, 2018). Throughout his work, Williams’s concern for best practices at home and abroad has led him to seek out the most innovative and appropriate language policy designs in order to ascertain whether they can be generalised from one country to another (e.g. Ó Flatharta et al. 2014; Cardinal and Williams 2020). While his prime focus has been on his native Wales, several other geographical regions marked by ethnolinguistic movements come up time and time again, including other Celtic countries, along with Catalonia and the Basque Country. L. Cardinal (B) · A. Llewellyn School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_12

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In particular, Canada plays an important part in Williams’s discussions of language policy and planning. He has studied the politics of nationalism in Quebec, the impact of language rights on the protection and governance of official languages (English and French) in Canada and New Brunswick, and French in Ontario, as well as the status and powers of official language commissioners. Based on all these cases, Williams invites researchers and policymakers in Wales to pay particular attention to socio-economic and political factors which inform ethnolinguistic movements and policy choices by governments. More specifically, his work suggests that good language policy and planning should be informed by community participation and geolinguistic analysis, that is, it should account for spatiality through linguistic map-making. Therefore, best practices should be guided by this cardinal principle. This chapter will review Williams’s analysis of Canada’s experience in the area of language policy and planning. First, we have grouped his work on Canada into three themes: (1) ethnolinguistic nationalism in Quebec, and its significance for the development of Williams’s approach to language policy and planning; (2) minority language rights and regulation, in particular in the context of the Canadian federal public service and (3) Canada’s Official Language Commissioner. Secondly, the chapter will discuss how or what form the Canadian experience could be exportable to Wales. We also propose a general discussion of Williams’s contributions to the study of best practices in a comparative perspective.

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Ethnolinguistic Nationalism

In his earlier work, including his doctoral thesis, Williams focuses his discussion of ethnolinguistic nationalism on a key case study: that of Quebec. It sets the scene for his later research on language rights, language planning and service delivery. For example, his concern for the role of territory and cultural transmission in Canada was evidenced by his exploration of the question of ethnolinguistic separatism in Quebec (Williams 1977). Following his doctoral thesis on ‘Language Decline and Nationalist Resurgence in Wales’ (Williams 1978), Williams pursued his work on the movement for Quebec independence in a 1981 article

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about ethnic separatism in Quebec (Williams 1981a, b, c). Published a year after the province’s first referendum on sovereignty, it explored the Parti Québécois’s promotion of Francophone culture. Notions of identity and ethnolinguistic considerations were at the heart of this discussion of the politicisation of ethnic identity by what Williams calls ‘the ethnic intelligentsia’ (Williams 1981a: 403). He argues that ethnic relations are determined by important structural factors in Quebec such as ‘that the uneven spatial impact of modernization, coupled with the cultural division of labour’ (Williams 1981a: 416). Those factors explain the politicisation of identity in Quebec. In 1982, Williams edited a volume entitled National Separatism (Williams 1982), which featured a chapter on the Quebec independence movement. In 1995 (the year of the second Quebec referendum on independence), he published a chapter entitled ‘A Requiem for Canada?’ in which he focused on the place of Quebec within North America, the question of state unity and Canadian federalism (Williams 1995). For Williams, despite the Parti Québécois’s unsuccessful attempts to transform Quebec into an independent state, it served as a prominent example of an ethnolinguistic party gaining power and furthering its agenda of cultural promotion and linguistic pride. The 1980s saw continued output by Williams on the subject of ethnolinguistic movements (e.g. Williams 1984), which continued his examination of the interactions between language grievances and separatism, using Quebec but also Wales and the Basque Country as case studies. As well as investigating ethnic assertion and the development of autonomist sentiment, Williams argued that language promotion needs to be understood as more than a simple symbol of cultural attachment. It is also a tool for empowering minorities economically and politically: ‘the issue of language promotion should be viewed not only in terms of cultural reproduction, but also in terms of a struggle for political and economic control which can increase access to resources and occupational mobility in a bicultural society’ (Williams 1994: 228; see also Williams 1985). These arguments would guide his later work incorporating political, historical, territorial and economic factors in understanding language shift in Wales and the ensuing focus on language reproduction (Williams 2002).

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In 2008, in his monograph Linguistic Minorities in Democratic Context, Williams continued to draw significantly on Quebec by ‘examining the transition from a minority dependency situation to one of a more inclusive, if not quite deliberative, democracy’ (Williams 2008b: 162). Studying both economic and political factors guiding action in Quebec, Williams showed how language policy and planning in Canada as a whole is shaped by specific forces. Quebec plays a key role in determining Canada’s approach to language policy and planning, because of a political context characterised by territorially and historically defined groups. Quebec has long preserved its provincial autonomy, along with its ethnic particularities (Williams 2008b: 304). More generally, language policy and planning must rest on an understanding of those forces shaping the language regime.

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Language Rights and Regulation

Whereas his earlier work focused on political, historical, territorial and economic factors affecting ethnolinguistic movements and nationalism, Williams became increasingly attracted to the topics of language regulation and legislation, as well as language rights, in particular as relates to the language of service delivery. His attention shifted from ethnonationalism in Quebec to official minority communities (English in Quebec and French outside of Quebec). To his existing interest in ethnolinguistic politics, he added a review of specific policy instruments, such as Canada’s bilingual districts (see Williams 1981b). Since 1969, these areas have been central to the administration of the Canadian Official Languages Act . They determine where services will be offered in the official language of choice, in minority settings across the country. Williams, however, saw that those districts rest on a ‘gesture of faith’, or theoretical asymmetry between English and French. He called for a more concrete geolinguistic analysis of these flexible bilingual districts, i.e. an analysis ‘informed by socio-linguistic reality, greater emphasis on community participation and a more precise definition of the scope of federal services’ (Williams 1981b: 346; see also Cartwright and Williams 1982). Williams expressed concern that federally designated bilingual

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districts might in fact cause disharmony by prompting resentment towards minority communities. Williams argued that the concept of bilingual districts should interact with concerns for language maintenance. Conceiving of bilingual districts as geographical units could better help preserve minority identity, in particular if they are to become a valid policy instrument. For Williams, a core issue was that of whether Canada is composed of two nations or one (Williams 1981b: 346). Williams and Cartwright echo that question, and point out that bilingual districts in Canada began as a ‘sound concept of language planning’, but the changing makeup of Canadian society and poor definition of these districts led to the concept being overstretched (Cartwright and Williams 1982: 490). Williams’s profound concern for community participation and language maintenance in specific geographical and linguistic contexts has also guided his approach to language rights. He sees a clear distinction between state recognition of minority group rights and their actual implementation. For example, in 1981, he looked at language planning and language rights, considering the disjuncture between individual and group rights, and by extension between the acquired rights of Welsh speakers and English speakers. In modern days, the tradition of individual rights has been extended to multicultural societies, often eclipsing the question of minorities’ ability to withstand assimilation (Williams 1981c). Ten years later, he drew on Canada and Belgium, emphasising the importance of historical contexts in implementing language rights (Williams 1991). Williams and colleagues called ‘for a sustained investigation of the relationship between the modern state, its constituent citizens and the role of language planning’, in order to better understand today’s ‘more fluid, plural environment’ in which the state is sometimes too small, and sometimes too large to meet minority community needs (Nelde et al. 1992: 404). The 1990s and 2000s marked an increased focus on language rights and policy on Williams’s part. The mid-1990s saw him produce several more publications on the development of a bilingual Wales, a trend which continues to this day (e.g. Williams 2005). In two important recent contributions (Williams 2012, 2013b), Williams investigated how language transmission is no longer the purview of the family, but rather a

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legal affair—what he called the legislative turn (Williams 2013b). Much of this later work deals with language rights, and their implementation, a subject that is tackled head on.

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Canada’s Official Languages Commissioner

There are several considerations to be taken into account when drawing on work about Canada to inform language policy and planning in Wales. Whereas the focus in Wales may be to increase numbers of new speakers and strengthen language communities (i.e. expand), official minority language communities in Canada primarily seek to preserve (i.e. maintain) the language within existing minority communities. Furthermore, as highlighted by Williams’s three pillars of official language minorities in Canada (Williams 2012; see below), differences in legislative contexts must be taken into account, along with the role of the judiciary in ensuring the implementation of language policies, and the existence of a well-established Commissioner of Official Languages. As early as 1989, Williams was already making the case for a language commissioner in Wales (Williams 1989, 1998). In 2008, just three years before the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 gave Welsh official status in Wales, and established the role of the Welsh Language Commissioner, Williams contrasted these new measures which lacked legislative authority with alternative regulatory models, and looked at the constitutional implications of the National Assembly for Wales exercising legislative powers regarding language policy (2008a). The following year, Williams published a study contrasting Irish and Welsh language agencies, which highlighted the Welsh Language Board’s unclear position and future in the Welsh administrative system (2009a). In ‘Governance Without Conviction’ (2009b), Williams looked at the non-implementation of language policy in Northern Ireland, the Basque Country and Wales, arguing that these three jurisdictions have lacked conviction (i.e. failed to take meaningful action) when faced with the opportunity to support language engagement, which thwarts proper implementation. He additionally provided a checklist of reasons why

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policies are not properly translated into practice, notably reasons related to competence, organisational culture, attitudes, finances and questions of power. What difference might an Official Language Commissioner for Wales make? In ‘Cultural Rights and Democratization: Legislative Devolution and the Enactment of the Official Status of Welsh in Wales’ (2015), Williams scrutinised the evolution of legislation surrounding Welsh language rights, drawing on international precedents, including the relevance of Canadian federal and provincial language commissioners, to illustrate how the implementation of Welsh language schemes could have been modelled differently (and decried the fact that these were not thoroughly considered by the powers that be). Rather than follow an existing UK agency template, the configuration of language commissioners elsewhere could have been taken into account. Williams also assessed the weakness of the operation of the Welsh Language Commissioner. According to Williams, following the announcement of changes to Welsh language standards in early 2014: ‘Whilst commentators have been preoccupied by the debate over standards there remains the fundamental question: whither language rights in all this?’ (2015: 197). Williams further questioned the extent to which the Welsh Language Measure is concerned with language promotion as opposed to regulation. He stated that the Welsh Language Commissioner comes across as, first, ‘a very elementary form of the Canadian OCOL [Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages] model together with several strong elements of An Coimisinéir Teanga [the Irish language commissioner], but without the constitutional conventions, and a full suite of language rights’, adding that ‘this may be incidental as it appears that the domestic model of ombudsmen in the UK/Wales in general had a stronger influence in shaping the Commissioner’s remit than the specific comparative international best practice adaptation of other language commissioners per se’ (2015: 199). An opportunity was missed to integrate Canadian best practice into the Welsh system. Unlike in Canada, where the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages is deeply embedded, the Welsh Language Commissioner is a relatively new entity. As in Canada, the Commissioner is responsible for promoting and facilitating the use of the minority language, and

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also serves as an ombudsperson for language grievances. Yet, as the 2016 article ‘Translating y Cofnod’ which he co-wrote shows, implementing and enforcing official language legislation has not gone smoothly in Wales. Canadian models of language service delivery, while far from perfect, include significantly stronger judicial safeguards than in Wales. Moreover, the Welsh language gained its status much later than French in Canada, so legislation and implementation are far less entrenched (Mac Giolla Chríost et al. 2016). As Williams points out in a 2005 article about Iaith Pawb, the National Assembly for Wales’s 2002 language policy, despite a will on the part of the Welsh Government, there remains a disconnect between stated goals and attempts to achieve them, in part due to a preoccupation with language promotion over regulation and enforcement.

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Informing Research on Wales: Analysis

A champion of minority language rights, Williams has covered tremendous ground in his academic career. His work has evolved in several ways, from the choice of case studies, to the theoretical frameworks through which they are explored. A number of theoretical principles are visible throughout Williams’s work on language policy and planning, most notably the role of territory and territoriality. This should come as no surprise given his background in geography and his promotion of geolinguistics as a field. Other prominent themes include the role of language and ethnicity in identity construction, as well as language-based (ethnolinguistic) nationalist movements. Throughout his career, Williams has emphasised the importance of historical context in understanding contemporary language policy and planning, along with discussions of the social aspects of language shift and maintenance, such as education and domains of language use. Language rights and governance, in particular the devolution process as applied to Wales and other national minorities in Europe, figure prominently in his work as well, particularly later on. Canada comes across as a model for Wales in Williams’s work. However, he faces a significant challenge comparing a minority language

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that has an international scope with one whose geographical concentrations of speakers can only be found in Wales (except for a small Welsh community in Patagonia). It makes the comparison difficult, but Williams’s work does suggest that policy developers can and should borrow from other countries’ successes, though not indiscriminately. His comparative work over four decades has clearly shown that there are many variables at play in language policy and planning, and that best practices will vary from one jurisdiction to another. That said, it is also evident from Williams’s work that Wales should draw on the case of Canada to inform future policy. In his chapter for the Cambridge Handbook of Language Policy (Williams 2012), Williams even suggests that, ‘in comparative perspective the influence of government directives, a comprehensive bilingual infrastructure for federal services and an adherence to a philosophy of language equality all make Canada an exemplar for international best practice’ (p. 199). At the federal level, where French and English have been official languages since 1969, Williams (2012) identifies three pillars of official language policy: first, a constitutional guarantee of protection, coupled with the political will to perpetuate official language policy; second, a judiciary which responds and makes decisions which affect policy; and, third, an established and respected Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. In his work, Colin Williams has explored the difficulties in achieving all three of these factors in Wales. A fourth pillar has also preoccupied Williams in his discussions of Canada: the development of a comprehensive approach to the concept of active offer—that is, according to the Canadian Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, the clear and timely communication to the public that they will ‘receive services of comparable quality in either official language at designated offices or service points’ (cited in Cardinal and Williams 2020)—as well as delivery of bilingual services by the federal government, and how it could also be achieved in Wales. The conclusion to Williams’s 2013 article ‘Perfidious Hope: The Legislative Turn in Official Minority Language Regimes’ emphasises the relevance of studying Canada to inform work on other regions, but with a specific call for understanding language as a public good (see Grin, this volume). He writes:

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Following the Canadian precedent, there may yet be a new emphasis on the necessity of specifying and securing community language rights within public law. Perfidious hope may yet give way to public gain in matters of language legislation, but only if the respective minority language is treated as a public good and not seen as an outmoded expression of historical special pleading. (p. 119)

In other words, with his call for a more context-specific approach, another fundamental point for any discussion of best practices or search for models of service delivery needs to be the common understanding by practitioners that language demands are legitimate and benefit everyone. In ‘English in Wales’ (2017a), Colin Williams explores the relationship between English and Welsh in much the same way he previously studied English and French in Canada. Language shift and the role of language in identity building are investigated, as is multiculturalism. Published the same year, his article ‘Wake me up in 2050! Formulating Language Policy in Wales’ (Williams 2017b) looks into the mammoth task the Welsh Government has set itself of achieving one million Welsh speakers by 2050. Areas identified as requiring investment include formal education, teacher training, child care and economic development. Moreover, the resistance of certain government departments to integrating programmes hinders the possibility of holistic planning. Co-authored with John Walsh, ‘Minority Language Governance and Regulation’ (2019) has Ireland as its focus, but draws on Canada, Wales, Scotland and Catalonia as further examples. The section on Canada explores how Linda Cardinal’s research team, Les Savoirs de la gouvernance communautaire/Knowledge-based Community Governance, has shown how ‘community institutions and networks can have a lasting impact on governmental agencies and the delivery of services’ (p. 103). It also enlarges the definition of governance, with language roadmaps being used to regulate and push certain conceptions of official languages, allowing for them to be reframed. A recent article with Linda Cardinal (Cardinal and Williams 2020) delves deeper still into language service delivery for official language minorities. By providing a comparison of Wales and the province of Ontario, the authors assess how different institutional processes may

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yield different choices regarding service delivery, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. They also explore how the recognition of language rights differs among regions. Even though Wales and Ontario share several characteristics—not least that in Ontario, services in French have historically been offered ‘where reasonable and practical’, and that Welsh should be considered on an equal basis with English ‘so far as is both appropriate in the circumstances and reasonably practicable’— Williams and Cardinal point out that ‘it is not a one size fits all solution’ (p. 6). This point is a telling reminder that language policies should be based on what works in practice and not only on theoretical constructions.

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Conclusion

One can see several guiding threads throughout Colin Williams’s work. Upon closer inspection, the evolution of his research has been quite organic, with each project paving the way for the next. His work on ethnolinguistic nationalism and separatism flowed into work on language promotion, which in turn morphed into the exploration of language policy and planning. Even early on, Williams noted the dichotomy between recognition of language rights and implementation, i.e. service delivery. In discussing what works best, and what produces good results, Colin Williams has obliged students of language policy and planning to address what makes best practice, using other countries such as Canada as points of reference. Through his comparative work, Williams has shown that minoritised language communities stand to gain from learning from each other’s successes and failures. Williams’s work is highly relevant to policymakers and practitioners and also for theory-building. He reminds us that looking at good practice can also lead to substantial discussions on the best way to understand language. Williams’s work contributes to the wider debate on language as a public good. Minority languages are not minor languages. They constitute a fundamental part of a society’s historical experience everywhere. All languages play a part in defining one’s citizenship and their

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users call for distinct forms of governance in order to secure their way of life. Williams’s work provides much evidence of how this is important for furthering the dialogue between theory and practice in the field of language policy and planning.

References Cardinal, L., and C.H. Williams. 2020. Bridging the Gap Between the Politics of Recognition and the Politics of Language Service Delivery in Ontario and Wales. Treatises and Documents—Journal of Ethnic Studies 84: 5–29. Cartwright, D.G., and C.H. Williams. 1982. Bilingual Districts as an Instrument in Canadian Language Policy. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 7 (4): 474–493. Mac Giolla Chríost, D., P. Carlin and C.H. Williams. 2016. Translating y Cofnod : Translation Policy and the Official Status of the Welsh Language in Wales. Translation Studies 9 (2): 212–227. Nelde, P.H., N. Labrie, and C.H. Williams. 1992. The Principles of Territoriality and Personality in the Solution of Linguistic Conflicts. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 13 (5): 387–406. Ó Flatharta, P., S. Sandberg, and C.H. Williams. 2014. From Act to Action: Language Legislation in Finland, Ireland and Wales. Dublin: Fiontar. Official Languages Act [1969] (R.S.C., 1985, c. 31 (4th Supp.)). https://lawslois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/o-3.01/. Accessed 10 May 2021. Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. 2011. nawm 1. https://www.legislation. gov.uk/mwa/2011/1/contents/enacted. Accessed 6 Mar 2021. Williams, C.H. 1977. Ethnic Perceptions of Acadia. Cahiers de géographie du Québec 21 (53–54): 243–268. Williams, C.H. 1978. Language Decline and Nationalist Resurgence in Wales. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales. Williams, C.H. 1981a. Identity Through Autonomy: Ethnic Separatism in Quebec. In Political Studies from Spatial Perspectives, ed. A.D. Burnett and P.J. Taylor, 389–418. Chichester: Wiley. Williams, C.H. 1981b. Official-Language Districts: A Gesture of Faith in the Future of Canada. Ethnic and Racial Studies 4 (3): 334–347.

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Williams, C.H. 1981c. The Territorial Dimension in Language Planning: An Evaluation of Its Potential in Contemporary Wales. Language Problems & Language Planning 5 (1): 57–73. Williams, C.H. (ed.). 1982. National Separatism. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Williams, C.H. 1984. More than Tongue Can Tell: Linguistic Factors in Ethnic Separatism. In Linguistic Minorities, Policies and Pluralism, ed. J. Edwards, 179–219. London: Academic Press. Williams, C.H. 1985. When Nationalists Challenge: When Nationalists Rule. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 3 (1): 27–48. Williams, C.H. 1989. New Domains of the Welsh Language: Education, Planning and the Law. Contemporary Wales 3: 41–76. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Williams, C.H. 1991. The Cultural Rights of Minorities: Recognition and Implementation. Discussion Papers in Geolinguistics No. 18. Stafford: North Staffordshire Polytechnic. Williams, C.H. 1994. Called Unto Liberty: On Language and Nationalism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Williams, C.H. 1995. A Requiem for Canada? In Federalism: The Multiethnic Challenge, ed. G. Smith, 31–72. London: Longman. Williams, C.H. 1998. Legislation and Empowerment: A Welsh Drama in Three Acts. In Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge, Comhdháil Idirnáisiúnta ar Reachtaíocht Teanga: Tuarascáil ar Imeachtaí na Comhdhála/International Conference on Language Legislation: Conference Proceedings/Conférence internationale sur la législation de la langue: Compte-rendu de conference, 126–159. Dublin: Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge. Williams, C.H. 2002. Recognition and National Justice for Québec: A Canadian Conundrum. In Ethnonational Identities, ed. S. Fenton and S. May, 21–47. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Williams, C.H. 2005. Iaith Pawb: The Doctrine of Plenary Inclusion. Contemporary Wales 17 (1): 1–27. Williams, C.H. 2007. Language, Law and Governance in Comparative Perspective. In Language and Governance, ed. C.H. Williams, 3–42. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Williams, C.H. 2008a. Legislative Devolution and Language Regulation in the United Kingdom. Geolinguistics 32: 1–15. Williams, C.H. 2008b. Linguistic Minorities in Democratic Context. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Williams, C.H. 2009a. Foras na Gaeilge and Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg: Yoked but Not Yet Shackled. Irish Studies Review 17 (1): 55–88. Williams, C.H. 2009b. Governance Without Conviction. In Rights, Promotion and Integration Issues for Minority Languages in Europe, ed. S. Pertot, T.M.S. Priestly and C.H. Williams, 89–122. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Williams, C.H. 2012. In Defence of Language Rights: Language Commissioners in Canada, Ireland and Wales. In Law, Language and the Multilingual State: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of the International Academy of Linguistic Law, ed. C. Brohy et al., 45–71. Bloemfontein: SUN MeDIA. Williams, C.H. 2013a. Minority Language Promotion, Protection and Regulation: The Mask of Piety. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Williams, C.H. 2013b. Perfidious Hope: The Legislative Turn in Official Minority Language Regimes. Regional and Federal Studies 23 (1): 101–122. Williams, C.H. 2015. Cultural rights and democratization: Legislative devolution and the enactment of the official status of Welsh in Wales. In Droits culturels et démocratisation/Cultural Rights and Democratisation, ed. I. Urrutia, et al., 183–203. Clermont-Ferrand: Institut Universitaire Varenne. Williams, C.H. 2017a. English in Wales. In The History of English: Varieties of English, ed. A. Bergs and L. Brinton (eds.), Vol. 5, 265–288. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Williams, C.H. 2017b. Wake Me Up in 2050! Formulating Language Policy in Wales. MEITS Policy Papers. https://www.meits.org/policy-papers/ paper/wake-me-up-in-2050-formulating-language-policy-in-wales. Accessed 16 July 2021. Williams, C.H. 2018. Language Policy, Territorialism and Regional Autonomy. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Policy, ed. B. Spolsky, 174–202. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams C.H., and J. Walsh. 2019. Minority Languages, Governance and Regulation. In The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities, ed. G. Hogan-Brun and B. O’Rourke, 101–129. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

F.R. Scott and the Origins of Language Policy in Canada Graham Fraser

One of the pleasures I enjoyed as Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages was getting to know Colin Williams. Shortly after I was named to the position, I travelled to Wales, where he was then a member of the Welsh Language Board. But he had long had an interest in Canadian language policy, regularly returning to Canada and to the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages to pursue his research. At one point, I teased him saying that we should get a fold-out couch for the office so that he could move in. And during several of the annual meetings of the International Association of Language Commissioners, he did an extraordinary job of summarising all of the interventions at the end of the conference: a tour de force of candour, synthesis and analysis. One of the pioneers in developing Canada’s language policy was F.R. Scott (1899–1985). Like Colin Williams, he was an erudite, engaged G. Fraser (B) Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

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academic; like Colin, he used his academic freedom to speak blunt truths: he often told Roderick Macdonald, one of his former students who subsequently became Dean of Law at McGill, ‘The university exists to tell the truth to the powerful’ (Macdonald 1997: 24–25). However, Scott’s background was very different, and his interests were wider than language. A lawyer, a socialist and a poet, he was involved in the creation of Canada’s social democratic party, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the predecessor to today’s New Democratic Party (NDP). A diarist, he kept a journal during his years on the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which I edited; this essay is adapted from my introduction (Fraser 2021). Born in Quebec City, the son of an Anglican minister, Scott studied arts at Bishop’s College and, after winning a Rhodes Scholarship, he studied modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford and then returned to Canada to study law at McGill University in Montreal. After a very brief period in private practice, he taught constitutional law at McGill from 1928 until his retirement in 1964, but appeared before the Supreme Court on a number of key cases, successfully challenging the Quebec government of the day on censorship and human rights issues.1 Most memorably, he challenged Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis, the authoritarian conservative nationalist who dominated the province from 1936 to 1939 and from 1944 until his death in 1959 (Black 1977: 384–389). In 1937, Duplessis introduced an Act Respecting Communist Propaganda, known as the Padlock Act, which gave the Attorney-General the power to place a padlock on any building suspected of being used ‘to propagate communism or bolshevism’ (Djwa 1987: 169). Later, in 1946, irritated because he kept paying the bail of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Duplessis cancelled the liquor licence of a Montreal restaurateur, Frank Roncarelli. Scott played an important role in the legal challenges that reached the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled against the Duplessis government in both cases.2 As his biographer Sandra Djwa put it, they ‘were to prove to be two of the most important cases in Canadian civil rights to emerge in the post-war period’ (Djwa 1987: 240). Language in all its forms was a passion of Scott’s: as a poet, as a translator and as a legal scholar—and as an English-speaking Quebecer born and raised in Quebec City. ‘When I was eight years old, I watched the

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great pageant on the Plains of Abraham celebrating the tercentenary of the founding of Quebec by Samuel de Champlain in 1608’, he recalled later, in a phrase that was revealing in its self-absorption. ‘I grew up understanding the import of the nostalgic motto of Quebec – Je me souviens. Every St. Jean Baptiste parade on 24 June portrayed scenes from the ancien régime. French Canada and its history were all about me’ (Scott 1977: vii–viii). One of Scott’s early memories also included the conscription riot in Québec City during World War I—a memory that haunted him years later.3 Scott’s interest in language and the law came together when he was a summer student working in the law office of Lafleur, McDougall, Macfarlane and Barclay; he translated the Coutume de Paris, the source of Quebec’s civil law, and developed a deep understanding of the historic continuity that linked the civil code to pre-Napoleonic France and, before that, Ancient Rome. In 1927 he joined the firm where he had articled, and in 1928, he became a law professor at McGill—and, as he wrote, ‘the next year the whole North American economy collapsed. One could not live through the Great Depression and remain politically unaffected’ (Scott 1977: viii). In 1932, he was a founding member of the League for Social Reconstruction and subsequently joined the new Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, and spoke at the 1933 convention that endorsed the Regina Manifesto, a proclamation of socialist ideals and policies that guided the CCF, of which he was one of the authors. At that founding convention, he argued for bilingualism, saying ‘there is no reason why we might not come out with a bilingual currency’.4 At the same time, he began to reach out to French-speaking writers and artists. However, he had an ambiguous relationship with Frenchspeaking Quebec. The language and culture appealed to him; he was attracted to rebels and reformers, poets and intellectuals, and sympathetic to the economic discrimination suffered by French-speaking Canadians. However, Scott was repelled by the dominant ideology of clerical conservatism and cut off from much of what was going on in literary Quebec in the 1930s and 1940s. It was only later that Scott became one of the major translators of French-language poetry and, in particular, Anne Hébert’s work (Fraser 2013: 13–25).

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Scott saw French Canadians as prey to manipulation by what he called ‘the provincial trinity: the Liberal Party machine, the Roman Church and St. James Street … the theo-pluto-bureaucracy’.5 That was a shorthand formula for the political views he formed during the Depression: that corporations were given free rein by weak provincial governments, that French-Canadian nationalism could become proto-fascist through the manipulation of ‘the French masses’, and that the only way to protect minority and social rights from corporate exploitation was to have a strong federal government. In a formulation that echoes Sir John A. Macdonald’s famous suggestion that if French Canadians were treated as a nation they would act generously, and if they were called a faction they would be factious,6 in 1936 Scott wrote ‘[i]f (French-Canadian nationalists) are simply met with Imperialist ballyhoo, Orange cries, Protestant bigotry and Anglo-Saxon conceit, they will prevail. If they are met with sympathy, understanding and reasonable concessions, French Canadians may be satisfied with something less than the break-up of the Dominion’.7 Scott saw the position of the Catholic church and the nationalist movement as ‘teaching people to be content with poor and depressed living standards when they could enjoy the fuller and richer lives which greater economic security makes possible’, which he saw as ‘a form of enslavement’.8 Scott continued to see the Catholic Church as an oppressive force in Quebec. So ‘sympathy, understanding and reasonable concessions’ were not always easy for Scott to contemplate. Scott became a friend and political colleague of David Lewis, also a Rhodes Scholar a decade after Scott, and who had been President of the Oxford Union. He went on to be the leader of the New Democratic Party from 1971 to 1975. In the 1943 book Scott wrote with Lewis, Make This Your Canada, he could not understand progressives challenging the value of bilingualism. ‘Can anyone doubt that Canada is much richer because of the mixture of cultural traditions? Can anyone, who has a real appreciation of democratic equality, question the real value of bilingualism of two converging streams of literature, art, culture and traditions?’ (Lewis and Scott 1943: 106). The cause of language tensions, they argued, was capitalism; bigotry was a two-way street. ‘On the one

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hand, a small group of bigoted and intolerant English-speaking Canadians have always sought to deprive French Canada of its rights’, they wrote. ‘On the other, a small group of equally bigoted French-speaking Canadians have played on the genuine grievances of their compatriots to encourage a narrow and anti-social provincialism’ (Lewis and Scott 1943: 106). In the same period Scott began to explore the link between the rights of the individual and collective rights in Canada—and it is possible to see his view of language rights becoming clearer. In 1947, he challenged a British Columbia letter writer who had suggested that, while three million people spoke French as their mother tongue in Quebec, Canada was not a bilingual country: ‘English is the official language of the rest of Canada, and of 130 million people in the United States’ (Scott 1977: 197). Scott had no patience for this argument, two decades before the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. ‘British Columbia is already, in a very important respect, a bilingual province’, he wrote. ‘So are all the other common-law provinces […] Canada is a bilingual country, and British Columbia can truthfully be called a bilingual province’. Astonished at the need to clarify this, eight decades after the British North America Act, 1867 , Canada’s constitution, Scott pointed out that section 133 of the Act meant that every piece of federal legislation was published in the two official languages, and that each version had the force of law. ‘Thus, the actions, rights and duties of Canadians, in British Columbia as elsewhere, are just as much governed by the French version of the federal law as they are by the English’, he wrote (Scott 1977: 198). Scott always found it hard to grasp the resistance to the official recognition of French in many parts of Canada. But he recognised one issue: the differing perspectives on individual and collective rights. Those who supported individual civil liberties had trouble accepting collective rights, while the French-speaking minority was more concerned for minority rights than for individual liberties. ‘What is needed is a blending of the two correlative ideas’ (Scott 1977: 201). His support for blending—or compromise—between the two ideas was often overlooked by his French-speaking critics, and occasionally overlooked or forgotten himself.

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Scott spent much of his life trying to balance these two concepts of individual civil liberties and minority rights and to establish a dialogue between those who stressed one rather than the other. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms enshrined in the Constitution Act, 1982, 35 years later, represents the blending that Scott called for in 1947— even though Scott himself was unhappy with some of the compromises contained in the Charter. In 1949, in an article for the Canadian Bar Review, Scott pointed out that, traditionally, fundamental freedoms have been individual freedoms—but that there are certain group freedoms recognised by a democratic society. ‘Actually the Canadian constitution has more definite protection for groups – minorities –than it has for individuals’, he wrote. ‘The guarantee for the use of the two languages, for instance, and for denominational schools, are group freedoms’ (Scott 1977: 221). Once again, Scott was seeking to reconcile individual rights and group rights. It was a challenge for him, in light of the conservative, Catholic nationalist interpretation given to collective rights in Quebec—but he stressed that both were clearly part of the constitutional rights defined by the British North America Act . In 1947, Scott was attacked by McGill authorities for his public affiliation with the CCF and, not long after, passed over for the position of Dean of Law. In the years that followed, he devoted more energy to translation and poetry as well as to progressive organisations in Canada and Quebec, where he had a major influence on a young lawyer and lecturer, Pierre Trudeau. In addition, he would organize social evenings of English-speaking and French-speaking poets, which, while friendly enough, were apparently somewhat awkward. ‘We were glad to meet them. They were glad to meet us. That’s about it’, recalled Louis Dudek, years later (quoted in Godbout 1999: 85). In 1963, Prime Minister Lester Pearson asked Scott to be a member of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which would be co-chaired by André Laurendeau and Davidson Dunton. There had been a surge of nationalism in Quebec following the election of the Quebec Liberal Party in 1960. The terrorist group the Front de liberation du Québec had begun setting off bombs, terrorist activity which reached a climax in October 1970, as discussed below.

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In 1962, the federal Progressive Conservatives had lost their majority in part because of the election of 26 Social Credit Members of Parliament from Quebec. Largely unilingual Francophones from small-town Quebec—car salesmen, small business owners, farmers, in contrast with the members of the local elite who had traditionally been elected for the Liberals—they rose every day in the House of Commons to challenge the absence of French in Parliament, on menus, in announcements at the railway station, and on the state-owned airline. It was at the Commission that Scott’s views on language and bilingualism would be challenged, sharpened and, in some cases, rejected. While he had a national reputation, Scott was named as the only representative of the English minority in Quebec. It was a key to his identity in many ways: he knew all the Quebec members of the Commission and, with the exception of Dunton, none of the members from the rest of Canada. Bilingualism was a prerequisite for the members of the Commission, and finding bilingual English Canadians from outside Quebec was a challenge. Historian Ramsay Cook privately—and unfairly—dismissed the membership as ‘a disgrace’, top-heavy with Liberal hacks (quoted in Wright 2015: 261–262). Laurendeau and Dunton were co-chairs, but the real debate, intellectual and emotional, linguistic and national, was between Laurendeau and Scott. Both men had subtle minds, political idealism, personal charisma and a poet’s sensibility. As political scientist Guy Laforest puts it in his essay on the two men, both were ‘éminences grises’: intellectual leaders of Quebec and English-speaking Canada respectively (Laforest 1995: XX). Scott’s view was that, although French Canada could legitimately be considered a nation, Quebec was—or should be—a bilingual society. In 1964, he wrote ‘In further conversation about the two-nation theory, I said Quebec is a unilingual, unicultural society, while English Canada is a unilingual, multicultural society’. Laurendeau agreed (Fraser 2021: 85). His ideal was that this bilingual model should be extended to Canada as a whole, so that the limited rights defined in the British North America Act would be extended, and the language rights that had been extinguished in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta would be restored. While the British North America Act had guaranteed language rights in

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English and French in Quebec and the federal Parliament, it did not do so in the rest of the country. In 1890, the language rights that had existed in 1870 when Manitoba became a province were eliminated. In 1905, when Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces, the rights that had previously been respected were wiped out. Laurendeau’s view, eloquently expressed in the blue pages of the first volume of the Report of the Royal Commission, was that the survival of French in Canada and North America depended upon a strong Frenchspeaking society in Quebec. Scott, while acknowledging that French Canada was a nation, insisted that it was not limited to Quebec. ‘Quebec is the most important government factor in the picture, but not the only one’, he wrote in 1965, adding ‘I reject the two-nation theory without denying that French Canada can properly be called a nation’ (Fraser 2021: 124, 125). While he admired Laurendeau’s independence of thought and opposition to Duplessis,9 Scott occasionally fulminated at the myths he felt that Laurendeau perpetuated about the English community, arguing that ‘only in the economic area do the English have a privileged place. In […] other activities, as well as in politics, it is a handicap to belong to the English minority’ (Fraser 2021: 91). But both men were appalled by the ignorance and prejudice that they encountered towards French in Canada during the Commission’s visits to Western Canada; both were also taken aback by the degree to which separatists,10 as they both called them at the time, were dominating public discussion in Quebec. Scott defiantly defined himself as a Quebecer—part of an Englishspeaking community with deep roots in the society, and a community that was not going to disappear or pick up and leave. Over the years, he moved from optimism to becoming increasingly depressed and pessimistic: resentful of the increase in French unilingualism in Quebec, bitter about the exclusion of Anglophones from a number of Quebec institutions, and angry at what he saw as the passivity of the English-speaking community faced with the challenge of the rise of the independence movement. During that period, thousands of Anglophones left Quebec, something Scott never contemplated. ‘J’y suis, j’y reste’ (I’m here, I’m staying), he quipped at a public meeting in 1964,

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when a Francophone student said the English should leave Quebec (Fraser 2021: 48). In 1965, Scott wrote a memo for the Commission entitled ‘A View of Canada’. He began on an upbeat note, summarising Canada’s advantages as a prosperous, developed democracy with two international working languages (Fraser 2021: 126). However, as the Preliminary Report of the Commission had made clear, the country was passing through a crisis. It is interesting to note that Scott stresses the positive elements of French-Canadian nationalism—the increasing sense of identity and purpose—and the broader context of governance and American corporate dominance. In the memo, he rejected the idea that Quebec alone should assume responsibility for French-Canadian culture, calling it ‘historically false and morally reprehensible’. His view—‘which I trust is the view of this Commission’—was that every government in Canada had the function of defending both cultures. Quebec, he argued, remains the centre of French culture but would reject ‘unilingualism and any form of forcible francisation’, setting the model for other provinces to adopt more bilingualism (Fraser 2021: XX). As always, Scott saw the federal government as the crucial level for progressive change. But he was increasingly concerned that Quebec was moving away from bilingualism. ‘[In] Quebec, which inherited a bicultural society from before Confederation, this trend seems to be moving toward unilingualism (many examples could be cited)’, he observed. ‘The Quebec government does not have to introduce, but to preserve, biculturalism; it would be tragic, and comic, if it disappeared in Quebec just as it was appearing elsewhere’ (Fraser 2021: 131). He had difficulty resolving the paradox of official bilingualism: the institutions of the state becoming bilingual ensuring that government services were available in both official languages—so that individuals can remain unilingual. It was a paradox spelled out by one of the Commission’s researchers, William Mackey, who explained that bilingual countries were not created to promote bilingualism but to guarantee the maintenance and use of two or more languages. At first, Scott was a bit taken aback. ‘In regard to this idea of promoting unilingualism, I confess that, perhaps lacking French logic, I could not see how a Commission

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appointed to promote bilingualism could end up favouring the promotion of unilingualism’, he wrote, a bit sardonically. ‘Gradually it dawned on me, and I think on the others, that what Mackey meant was that unless there was a strong degree of unilingualism in the bilingual country for each language, one would eventually dominate and assimilate the other. Promoting unilingualism, and having two essentially unilingual groups, did not exclude the possibility that individual members of each group might be able to speak the other language as well’ (Fraser 2021: 159). That has been a key element in Canada’s language policy that is often misunderstood. Unlike Wales and Ireland, Canada comprises two largely unilingual language communities. Roughly 90% of English-speaking Canadians do not speak French, and roughly 60% of French-speaking Canadians do not speak English. There has always been a facile criticism about language policy in Canada that has assumed that its purpose was to make everyone bilingual: everyone is not bilingual, the argument goes, ergo the policy is a failure. The most memorable statement of this view was an article in the Calgary Sun written by Stephen Harper in 2001, before he became Prime Minister, in which he pointed out that only 17% of Canadians spoke both English and French. ‘As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed’, he wrote. ‘It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadians untold millions’ (quoted in Ibbitson 2016: 125–126). But if the policy is understood as ensuring governments can serve citizens in the official language of their choice so that citizens do not have to be bilingual, the policy becomes both more pragmatic and more achievable. It is also a policy that both assures the individual’s right to deal with the federal government in the official language that individual chooses—and one that protects, promotes and takes positive measures for minority-language communities. It is a policy that protects both individual rights and collective rights. In 1967, in a comment objecting to two paragraphs in a draft of the first volume of the report, Scott explicitly laid out his view of language as a human right. It is an eloquent defence of language as a right, and of the English-speaking minority. ‘The right to one’s language in all personal and private relations is a human right. It is as inherent in man as his

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freedom of speech or of conscience’, he wrote. ‘It starts with mother and child; it continues into wider social groupings. It is not granted by the State or by Constitutions. Laws may protect it and may prescribe conditions under which it may be reasonably exercised, particularly in dealing with state authorities’ (Fraser 2021: 189). He went on to dismiss the idea of establishing more than two official languages, to stress the importance of the English language in Quebec, the English-speaking community—then 800,000 strong and the largest language minority in Canada—and to underline the importance of the existing 1867 constitution. He argued, unsuccessfully, that the English minority’s relationship with the French-speaking majority in Quebec was a good example of equal partnership, and a model for other provinces to follow. In the discussions in the autumn of 1967, he found himself in a minority: as he put it, ‘the only voice for a bilingual Quebec’. He ultimately dissented from the recommendations in Volume 4, arguing that, by recommending the working language in Quebec be French, the Commission was contradicting its earlier rejection of a territorial solution to the language issue. The final note that Scott struck was a pessimistic one: a 10-page legalsized document poignantly entitled ‘The End of the Affair’. He noted that the Commission’s work was over, but the crisis in Quebec was not— but warned that the recommendations could not solve all the problems of national unity. ‘I will close on a personal note’, he wrote. ‘It is astonishing and also frightening for me to watch Quebec abandon so many of its ancient virtues and values in order to rush into the North American capitalist system with arms open for the embrace. The values of that system I learned to despise and reject in the 1930s. I had hoped that the Catholic tradition with its greater emphasis on social obligations would somehow mitigate the prevailing Protestant ethic of free enterprise’ (Fraser 2021: 249). It was a poignant sign of age that, in his seventies, he nostalgically saw ‘virtues and values’ where at 33 he had denounced the Church for interpreting the Depression ‘as a sort of punishment from God upon greedy individuals’ (Granatstein and Stevens 1972: 120). Then came the October Crisis of 1970. On October 5, members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped British diplomat

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James Cross. Five days later, another cell of the group seized Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte. On October 15, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act , suspending civil liberties. On October 17, Laporte was murdered. Cross was freed on December 3, after his kidnappers negotiated their exile to Cuba.11 Unlike many civil libertarians and progressives—including his wife Marian—Scott supported the imposition of the War Measures Act, saying that democracy has to protect itself and that the War Measures Act was the only instrument to restore order. Again, he was haunted by the riots in 1918, the students disrupting meetings of the delegates of the Spanish Republican Government in 1936, two riots in Montreal in 1969, two kidnappings in 1970 and what he concluded was ‘a further erosion of civil government’. ‘A shock treatment was needed to restore the balance’, he wrote. ‘It was given and it worked. There was only one death, and it was not caused by the forces of law and order’.12 There was another casualty, however. For Scott, it meant an irreparable breach with Frenchspeaking writers and poets: nationalists who had previously been friends. Jacques Ferron had created a caricature of Scott as Frank Archibald Campbell, who physically resembled Scott and was a WASP archetype, a symbolic representation of English domination of Quebec. The October Crisis was a definitive breach: Ferron had negotiated on behalf of the FLQ kidnappers, while Scott had supported Trudeau. Ferron attacked Scott publicly, saying ‘[h]e’s always been the Anglo. He’s on the side of the exploiters’.13 Scott’s support of the War Measures Act during the October Crisis only confirmed Ferron’s view. A further breach occurred with the introduction of Bill 22 by the Bourassa government in 1974, which declared French to be the sole official language of Quebec. The bill galvanised Scott into a defence of the English minority. Scott went through the bill clause by clause, declaring them to be ‘misleading’, ‘clearly unconstitutional’, ‘discriminatory’, ‘undemocratic’ and ‘coercive and oppressive’ (Fraser 2021: 256). He maintained, as he always had, that, for all federal undertakings, English as well as French was an official language in Quebec. ‘So when the bill says French is THE official language, it suggests it is the only official language, and this is quite false’, Scott told The Montreal Star, listing

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off points where he believed the bill was unconstitutional, undemocratic and coercive (Montreal Star 1974). His passionate intervention had little impact: on July 31, 1974, the bill was adopted, becoming the Quebec Official Language Act . Scott joined a legal team challenging the constitutionality of the legislation, on behalf of the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal. ‘We saw it as a direct attack upon the concept of equality between the two principal cultures in the province, as well as upon rights and freedoms long established and in part entrenched in the BNA Act’, he told his biographer, Sandra Djwa. ‘I personally found it inconceivable that a supposedly democratic government, should claim the right to limit the growth of the English minority in Quebec by denying access to the schools to any Protestant it chose to exclude by provincial law. The idea of equal partnership and fair treatment of new Canadians, which the B & B Commission sought to achieve, was utterly repudiated’ (quoted in Djwa 1987: 424–425). The Quebec Superior Court ruled that section 93 of the BNA Act, now known as the Constitution Act 1867 , which states that ‘in and for each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Education’, did not give rights to the Protestant School Board with respect to its choice of language of instruction.14 A few months later, his tone shifted to rage and frustration at the language situation in Quebec. In a letter to his old friend and CCF-NDP colleague George Cadbury in January 1977, he wrote. ‘A dumber and more frightened crowd than the English minority in Quebec it would be hard to find’, he fumed. ‘Business won’t lift a finger; it will conform, or move out leaving a skeleton staff behind fed instructions by computer from Toronto. McGill is frozen with fright; its money, even the large amount coming from Ottawa, is channelled through Quebec. The only active fighters are the tiny little Protestant school boards and the Italians. We don’t deserve to survive as we have no collective will to live’.15 But by the time the challenge to Bill 22 reached the Court of Appeal, the Official Language Act no longer existed. The Parti Québécois had been elected in 1976 and in 1977 it replaced the Official Language Act with Bill 101, which became the even more stringent Charter of the French Language. The new legislation established sweeping obligations on the private sector to operate in French, declared French to be the

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only language of the National Assembly and the courts, and limited access to English school to children with one parent educated in English in Quebec (Fraser 2001: 109–112). Following appeals to the Supreme Court, the official bilingualism of the National Assembly and the courts was re-established and the limitation on access to English schools was expanded to include children with one parent educated in English in Canada.16 Scott’s worst fears of Quebec unilingualism had come to pass. His friends remarked on his bitterness. ‘You know for years I’ve spoken French whenever I’ve had the opportunity’, he said to Eugene Forsey, a distinguished constitutional expert, during a discussion on Bill 22. ‘Now I’m damned if I’ll speak French’ (Djwa 1987: 4). He became almost as bitter that Trudeau, despite strong urging from his former mentor, did not use the federal government’s power of disallowance—a littleused constitutional power that allows the federal government to disallow provincial legislation—to strike down the Quebec language legislation. In 1982, when the Constitution was patriated with a charter of rights and freedoms, Scott felt a mixture of pride and disappointment; the night before, at a reception for Rhodes Scholars, old and new, Pierre Trudeau had literally wept with joy when he introduced Scott to the Queen, saying ‘everything I learned about the Constitution I learned from this man’ (quoted in Fraser 2006: 83). Scott was both deeply proud of the recognition, and bitter that Trudeau had not done more. Two and a half years later, in January 1985, Scott died. Near the end of his life, he wondered if he had been a failure, if he should have focused on poetry instead of politics. It is true that his vision for Quebec and Canada did not survive. Canada’s language regime is characterised by remarkable asymmetry, with Quebec being unilingual French, New Brunswick being officially bilingual, the territory of Nunavut being officially trilingual, and other provinces having a wide range of minority-language policies from substantial to almost non-existent. It is a regime built on a series of compromises, and Scott hated compromises, above all on questions that he saw as fundamental: minority-language rights and the powers of the federal government. In the years that followed, the Supreme Court of Canada addressed some of the elements in Quebec’s language legislation that so outraged

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Scott. The 1979 Blaikie decision17 re-established that laws must be enacted in English and French in Quebec, and that regulations must be in English and in French. It made clear the rights of ‘persons’ to use English and French in the courts. Then, in 1988, three years after Scott’s death, the Supreme Court ruled in the Ford case18 that while it was permissible for Quebec to insist on having French on signs, it was unconstitutional to forbid the use of a language. Since Sandra Djwa’s biography, published in 1987, darker references to Scott have circulated. He has been described as ‘paternalist and condescending […] Victorian and aristocratic’ (Godbout 2004: 108), ‘a cultivated, well-intentioned, and polite gentleman-poet who was slightly out of synch with the community he wanted to join’ (Simon 2006: 49) and a ‘poet reformer domestic tyrant’ (Scott 1988: 84). However, 36 years after his death, it is also easier to see the magnitude of his achievements. His influence on Pierre Trudeau, while not as great as he had hoped, was huge, as it was on several generations of lawyers and legal scholars. His contribution to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was enormous. His thinking was an inspiration for the debates that led to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. His clarity of thought in defining language rights as human rights laid the groundwork for an edifice of jurisprudence on language. And his insistence on the rule of law presaged the critical role the courts have played in defining language rights (Lapointe-Gagnon 2008: 53–54). The ground-breaking Supreme Court decision on the secession of Quebec,19 with its definition of minority rights as one of the central elements of Canadian democracy, stands on the foundation that he helped build. Frank Scott laid out clearly, before the courts established the principle in law and jurisprudence20 that language rights are human rights. As he so eloquently put it, ‘[i]f human rights and harmonious relations between cultures are forms of the beautiful, then the state is a work of art that is never finished’ (Scott 1977: ix). And the English community, with which Scott had such a deep and complicated relationship, has endured and transformed itself, becoming more bilingual than ever before. Frank Scott was, in the words of political scientist Allen Mills, ‘arguably Canada’s most accomplished all-round public intellectual’ of the twentieth century (Mills 1997: 44).

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Notes 1. For a detailed account of Scott’s life, see Diwa (1987). 2. Switzman v. Elbling and A.G. of Quebec, [1957] SCR 285; Roncarelli v. Duplessis, [1959] SCR 121. 3. In Quebec, there was massive opposition to conscription. Over Easter weekend in 1918, police detained an individual in Quebec City, suspecting him of evading conscription. By the time he had produced papers proving he had an exemption, a crowd of several thousand had gathered, and burned down the police station. The army was called, and in the ensuing conflict, which lasted all weekend, four citizens were shot and killed. See Armstrong (1937: 226–231). 4. The Regina Leader Post, 21 July 1933, quoted by Djwa (1987: 144). At the time, there was considerable opposition to the idea of adding French to Canadian currency and stamps. It was done, very gradually, during the 1930s. 5. ‘The Fascist Province’, Canadian Forum, April 1934, in Granatstein and Stevens (1972: 120) (published under the pseudonym J.E. Keith). Until the 1960s, when it was overtaken by Toronto, Montreal was the financial centre of Canada, and its banks and major financial institutions were located on what was then called St James St. and is now la rue St. Jacques. 6. Quoted by Donald Creighton in Macdonald (1952: 227). 7. ‘French Canadian Nationalism’, Canadian Forum, March 1936, included in Granatstein and Stevens (1972: 144). 8. Letter to François-Albert Angers, 21 October 1939, quoted in Oliver (1983: 171). 9. Le Devoir, 3 June 1968. 10. ‘Separatist’ was the term used in the early 1960s to describe supporters of Quebec independence, and it is still used by some, although the term is resented by many in the independence movement.

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11. For a recent study, see Jenish (2018: 203–286). 12. Symposium on the War Measures Act, CAUT Bulletin/Bulletin ACPU 2(4), 1971. 13. Murray (2009: Chapters 7–9), Djwa (1987: 418–423), Godbout (1999: 86–87). 14. Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal v. Quebec (Minister of Education), [1976] CS 430, 83 DLR (3d) 645. 15. Letter dated January 7, 1977, quoted in Djwa (1999–2000: XXX). 16. On the declaration of French as the only language of the National Assembly and the courts being unconstitutional, see Quebec (AG) v. Blaikie (No. 1), [1979] 2 SCR 1016; on access to English schools being widened, see Attorney General of Quebec v. Quebec Association of Protestant School Boards et al., [1984] 2 SCR 66. 17. Quebec (AG) v. Blaikie (No. 1), [1979] 2 SCR 1016. 18. Ford v. Quebec AG, [1988] 2 SCR 712. 19. Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 SCR 217. 20. In Ford v. Quebec, the Supreme Court wrote, ‘Language is so intimately related to the form and content of expression that there cannot be true freedom of expression by means of language if one is prohibited from using the language of one’s choice’ ([1988] SCR at 748). In R. v. Beaulac, [1999] 1 SCR 768, Justice Michael Bastarache wrote ‘language rights are not negative rights or passive rights; they can only be enjoyed if the means are provided’ (para. 20).

References Armstrong, E.H. 1937. The Crisis of Quebec, 1914–1918. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Black, C. 1977. Duplessis. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 1982. S. 7, Part 1 of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-12.html. Accessed 6 Jan 2022.

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Djwa, S. 1987. The Politics of the Imagination: A Life of F. R. Scott. Toronto: McClellan and Stewart. Djwa, S. 1999–2000. Nothing by Halves: F. R. Scott. Journal of Canadian Studies 34: 52–69. Fraser, G. 2001. René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois in Power. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Fraser, G. 2006. Sorry, I Don’t Speak French. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Fraser, G. 2013. F. R. Scott and the Poetry of Translation. In In Translation: Honouring Sheila Fischman, ed. S. Simon, 13–25. Montreal, QC: McGillQueen’s University Press. Fraser, G. (ed.). 2021. The Fate of Canada: F. R. Scott’s Journal of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Montreal, QC: McGillQueen’s University Press. Godbout, P. 1999. ‘Des livres à la fois si proches et si lointains’: Les échanges littéraires à Montréal durant les années 1950. In Échanges culturels entre les Deux Solitudes, ed. M.-A. Beaudet, 81–91. Sainte-Foy, QC: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. Godbout, P. 2004. Traduction littéraire et sociabilité interculturelle au Canada (1950–1960). Ottawa, ON: Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa. Granatstein, J.L., and P. Stevens (eds.). 1972. Forum: Canadian Lige and Letters, 1920–70. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Ibbitson, S. 2016. Stephen Harper. Toronto, ON: McClelland and Stewart. Jenish, D. 2018. The Making of the October Crisis: Canada’s Long Nightmare of Terrorism at the Hands of the FLQ. Toronto, ON: Doubleday Canada. Laforest, G. 1995. The Meech Lake Accord: The Search for a Compromise Between André Laurendeau and F.R. Scott. In Trudeau and the End of a Canadian Dream, 56–86. Montréal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Lapointe-Gagnon, V. 2008. Jeter un pont entre les Deux Solitudes: Le rôle de Frank R. Scott. In Légiférer en matière linguistique, ed. M. Martel and M. Pâquet, 29–57. Québec, QC: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. Lewis, D., and F.R. Scott. 1943. Make This Your Canada: A Review of CCF History and Policy. Toronto: Central Canada Publishing Co. Macdonald, J.A. 1952. The Young Politician. Toronto: Macmillan Canada. Macdonald, R.H. 1997. F.R. Scott’s Constitution. McGill Law Journal 42: 11–28. Mills, A. 1997. Of Charters and Justice: The Social Thought of F.R. Scott, 1930–1985. Journal of Canadian Studies 32 (1): 44–62. Montreal Star. 1974. Prof. Frank Scott Speaks Out: Bill 22 Couldn’t Stand Constitutional Scrutiny, June 17, D 1–2.

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Murray, S.M. 2009. Formes, Fonctions et Représentations. PhD thesis, Queen’s University. Oliver, M. 1983. F.R. Scott as Quebecer. In On F. R. Scott: Essays on His Contribution to Law, Literature and Politics, ed. S. Djwa and R. St. J. MacDonald, 165–176. Montréal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Scott, F.R. 1977. Essays on the Constitution: Aspects of Canadian Law and Politics. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Scott, P.D. 1988. Coming to Jakarta: A Poem About Terror. Toronto: New Directions Publishing. Simon, S. 2006. Translating Montreal: Episodes in the Life of a Divided City. Montréal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Wright, D. 2015. Donald Creighton: A Life in History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

French in Canada: An Uncertain Future Charles Castonguay

1

The Making of Canadian and Quebec Language Policies

1.1

The Seeds of Discontent

Canada’s linguistic makeup remained remarkably stable during the greater part of its first century of existence. According to the earliest Canadian census, in 1871, 62% of the country’s population was of British ethnic origin, 29% French and 8% of Other origins (Lachapelle and Henripin 1982). The 1951 census found the mother tongue composition of the population to be still 59% English, 29% French and 12% Other languages. The high birth rate of a rigidly Roman Catholic C. Castonguay (B) Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_14

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French Canada had until then counterbalanced non-French immigration and the assimilation of some Francophones and many Allophones to English.1 But the modernisation of French-Canadian society following the Second World War caused its birth rate to plummet. And the 1961 census confirmed that Anglicisation was increasing apace among the Francophone minorities outside of Quebec, the one province with a Francophone majority. Heated debate ensued over how to ensure a future for French, be it in Quebec or in the rest of Canada. The most desperate solution was radically territorial: the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada. In response to growing support for this position, Ottawa mandated a Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (RCBB) to enquire as to how the country could be developed ‘on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races’ (RCBB 1967: 173). Using the 1961 census data on ethnic origin and mother tongue, the Commission established that even in Quebec, English was outdrawing French as language of assimilation, both in terms of language shift between English and French, and in terms of its superior power of attraction among Allophones, with the notable exception of those of Italian descent. The superior power of assimilation of English was especially evident in the Montreal area (RCBB 1967: 31). Such a one-sided dynamic called for strengthening the status of French everywhere, beginning with Quebec. Instead, the RCBB recommended a policy of institutional bilingualism, based on the principle of personality and with English and French as co-equal official languages (RCBB 1967: 86). Every Canadian should have the right to receive federal services in English or French. Parents should enjoy the right to have their children educated in the official language of their choice. Quebec as well as its neighbouring provinces of New Brunswick and Ontario should all become officially bilingual. Bilingual districts should be proclaimed wherever an official-language minority accounted for 10% or more of the population, with the aim of guaranteeing public services of all kinds in English in Quebec and, symmetrically, in French in the rest of Canada. Bilingual districts, the Commission emphasised, constituted the ‘cornerstone’ of its proposed policy (RCBB 1967: 116). This balancing act was disconnected from reality. Adequate public services in English at all levels had always been available throughout

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Quebec. And French was especially under pressure in the Montreal area, where even Italophone parents were now clamouring for the right to have their children schooled in English (Plourde and Georgeault 2008: 306). The facts pleaded, therefore, against an officially bilingual Quebec, as well as against the establishment of bilingual districts to further strengthen the status of English in Montreal, or in any other area of the province where English already dominated French. The RCBB had nonetheless balked at the idea of an essentially French Quebec, or even of a more French Quebec. It had rejected a policy based on the principle of territoriality, akin to those in use in Belgium or Switzerland, on the grounds that ‘in North America today the population is so mobile that it would seem unrealistic to adopt a rigid principle of this type, even if it were deemed desirable’ (RCBB 1967: 84 [emphasis added]). It had preferred ‘a policy that maximizes effective freedom of choice of where one lives […] without encountering linguistic inconveniences’ (RCBB 1970: 54 [emphasis added]). It had thus opted for what might be called a policy of linguistic free trade, for the predominance of the free circulation of individuals over any linguistic measures which could hinder such mobility, however ‘desirable’ they might appear— including, it would seem, any measure which might be deemed essential to the protection of Quebec’s French character. In response, in late 1968 Quebec established its own Commission d’enquête sur la situation de la langue française et sur les droits linguistiques au Québec (Commission of Inquiry on the Situation of the French Language and Linguistic Rights in Quebec) (CSFQ), better known as the Gendron Commission. However, the Canadian government would not wait any further. It quickly adopted in 1969 its Official Languages Act , which contained many of the RCBB’s recommendations, including bilingual districts.

1.2

Policies in Conflict

The Bilingual Districts Advisory Board (BDAB) raised a general row in Quebec by recommending in 1971 that the entire province be declared a bilingual district. Quebec was further displeased the same year by

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Ottawa’s rejection of biculturalism in favour of multiculturalism, which sounded the death knell of the binational, ‘two founding races’ view of a country essentially based on a co-equal pact between a French Canada and an English Canada, which had been embodied in the RCBB’s very title and mandate. Meanwhile, the Gendron Commission recommended that French be made Quebec’s official language, the language of work in the province and the common language of general public communication between Francophone and non-Francophone Quebecers (Commission d’enquête 1972). The results of a new 1971 census question, on language spoken most often at home, were also released in the summer of 1973. They confirmed the superior power of assimilation of English in Quebec, and notably in the Montreal area. Quebec finally moved in 1974. Its Official Language Act declared French to be the official language of Quebec, and attempted to make French the language of schooling for all children who were not fluent in English, as well as the language of work in Montreal. Confrontation was inevitable between Ottawa’s free-trade, officiallanguage-of-your-choice policy, and Quebec’s protectionist, one-officialand-common-language approach. A second BDAB report tried to mend things by proposing that no bilingual district be created in the Montreal area (BDAB 1975). It refrained, however, from using the 1971 data on assimilation to back up its report, and based its Montreal recommendation on mere opinion. Ottawa immediately rejected the recommendation and vowed to create a maximal number of bilingual districts in Quebec, including in Montreal (Hansard 1975: 9327–9328). Ottawa’s intention to go full steam ahead with bilingual districts in Quebec aroused considerable opposition in the province. Discontent was also rife across all language groups over the language test being used to regulate access to English schools in Quebec, which also contributed to the election in 1976 of an independentist government. In March 1977, the new government announced its intention to implement the Gendron Commission’s key recommendation, namely, to make French the common language of Quebec society. The forthcoming legislation would notably aim at stabilising the weight of Quebec’s Francophone

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majority, by reorienting the assimilation of future immigrants towards French instead of English (Laurin 1977: 6). Eventually adopted in August 1977, Quebec’s Charter of the French Language was geared to do just that. It confirmed French as Quebec’s sole official language, allowed access to English schools only to children of parents who had previously been schooled in English in Quebec, limited public signage to French only, introduced stringent measures to make French the language of work in companies with 100 employees or more, and so on. Ottawa lost no time. It reacted in June 1977 with its own policy statement, which merely acknowledged the existence of a ‘sense of insecurity’ about the future of French in Canada, without supplying the slightest data to show that this anxiety was well-founded (Castonguay 1979). It basically sought to discredit Quebec’s territorial policy by claiming that it would inevitably lead to the breakup of Canada (Canada 1977: 41, 68). At the same time, a backlash was developing against some of the bilingual districts under consideration in the rest of Canada, which were fast becoming unacceptable to certain non-French components of the population outside Quebec. As a result, the bilingual districts concept, which, according to the RCBB, constituted the very cornerstone of its recommended policy, was quietly shelved. For a couple of years, Quebec’s Charter achieved some success. French was beginning to replace English as the common language of public intercourse. A 1978 federal-provincial agreement also gave Quebec the authority to select its economic immigrants. Quebec promptly included prior knowledge of French among its selection criteria, giving an extra boost to its Francisation policy. But Canada’s Supreme Court began clipping Quebec’s wings as early as 1979, with the first in a long series of decisions invalidating various parts of its Charter. And Ottawa capitalised on Quebec’s failed 1980 referendum on sovereignty to rapidly adopt in 1982, without Quebec’s consent, a renewed Canadian constitution which gave its Supreme Court even broader means of curtailing Quebec’s design to be different. Ottawa furthermore revamped its Official Languages Act in 1988, formally committing itself, among other things, to enhancing the vitality of

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Quebec’s English-speaking minority and to supporting and assisting its development. By the mid-1990s, the courts had left precious little of Quebec’s original Charter intact (Poirier 2016). Following the extremely narrow defeat in 1995 of Quebec’s second referendum on sovereignty, a laissez-faire, wait-and-see attitude gradually set in among Francophone Quebecers regarding language matters in the province.

2

The Language Situation in Canada as a Whole

2.1

Language Group Trends

French has lost its footing. Francophones fell rapidly from 29.0% of the Canadian population in 1951 to 21.0% at the latest census, in 2016. In contrast, Anglophones dropped only slightly, from 59.1 to 57.0%, while Allophones almost doubled from 11.8 to 22.0%. Francophones have declined very regularly, losing more than one percentage point every ten years. Anglophones have rather fluctuated in demographic weight, while Allophones have rapidly increased since 1981, and especially so since 2001, due to Canada’s recent policy of ever-higher immigration. Main home language has followed similar trends. Between 1971 and 2016, French rapidly dropped from 25.7 to 20.5%, English just about held its own, at 67.0 and 65.9%, while Other main home languages almost doubled, from 7.3 to 13.6%. Assimilation, that is, the adoption by a given person of a main home language different from his or her mother tongue, is the sole reason why, at any given census, English weighs in much higher as main home language than as mother tongue, while French is lower, and Other languages much lower still. Indeed, such assimilation, which is more commonly called language shift, is, together with high immigration and low Anglophone and Francophone birth rates, driving both of the above trends. For shift is not rare: at any given census, 10% of all Canadians claim to speak most often at home a language other than their mother

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tongue.2 And parents normally transmit their main home language as mother tongue to their children, which helps secure the weight of English in terms of mother tongue as well. The converse holds regarding the impact of assimilation on French and Other languages.

2.2

Monitoring Language Policies by Means of Language Shift

Insofar as language behaviour at home reflects the status of languages in public life, census data on shift from French as mother tongue to English as main home language, and from Other mother tongues to English or to French as main home language, can serve to gauge and monitor the effectiveness of language policies in Canada. Shift also exists in the opposite directions, but to a lesser degree. As a consequence, we will deal in the main with net shift, meaning, for example, shift from French to English minus shift from English to French. All of the figures concerning assimilation presented in the following discussion, including those in Tables 1, 2, and 3, have been drawn from cross-tabulations of mother tongue and main home language data carried out by Statistics Canada for the censuses of 1971 through 2016.3 Table 1 shows that language shift in Canada was wildly lopsided in 1971, and remained so in 2016. English continues to win hands down over French in net shift between the two languages. And hands down again in its vastly superior power of assimilation among Allophones. Table 1 Language shift, Canada, 1971–2016 1971 Net shift French to English (1) 278,000 Other to English (2) 1,201,000 Other to French (3) 31,000 French share of Allophone 2.5% assimilation (3) / (2) + (3) Overall outcome of assimilation Gain for English (1) + (2) 1,479,000 Loss for French (3) − (1) −247,000

1991

2011

2016

350,000 1,779,000 76,000 4.1%

411,000 2,427,000 203,000 7.7%

427,000 2,660,000 245,000 8.4%

2,129,000 −274,000

2,838,000 −209,000

3,087,000 −182,000

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Table 2 Language shift, Quebec, 1971–2016 Net shift French to English (1) Other to English (2) Other to French (3) French share of Allophone assimilation (3) / (2) + (3) Overall outcome of assimilation Gain for English (1) + (2) Gain for French (3) − (1) French share of overall assimilation (3) − (1) / (2) + (3)

1971

1991

2011

2016

24,500 74,600 28,200 27.4%

6100 129,500 72,200 35.8%

10,600 176,700 190,600 51.9%

23,000 186,800 230,400 55.2%

99,100 3700 3.6%

135,600 66,100 32.8%

187,300 180,000 49.0%

209,800 207,400 49.7%

Table 3 Language shift, Canada minus Quebec, 1971–2016 1971 Net shift French to English (1) 253,600 Other to English (2) 1,126,100 Other to French (3) 3200 French share of Allophone 0.3% assimilation (3) / (2) + (3) Overall outcome of assimilation Gain for English (1) + (2) 1,379,700 Loss for French (3) − (1) −250,400

1991

2011

2016

344,000 1,649,800 4200 0.3%

400,900 2,250,000 12,100 0.5%

404,000 2,473,400 14,300 0.6%

1,993,700 −339,800

2,650,900 −388,800

2,877,400 −389,700

True, the share of French in the assimilation of Allophones has progressed from a meagre 2.5% in 1971 to a less meagre 8.4% in 2016. But the net Anglicisation of Francophones has also increased, from 278,000 to 427,000. And the latter increase has a double impact on assimilation’s overall outcome: it increases by exactly as much both English’s overall gain and French’s overall loss. Thus, while English has doubled its overall gain via assimilation, from 1.5 million in 1971 to 3.1 million in 2016, French remains, on the same score, almost as mired in deficit as it was close to a half-century ago. Overall, then, it appears that Canadian and Quebec language policies have not fundamentally changed the prevailing Canadian language dynamic revealed by the 1971 census.

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3

The Situation in Quebec

3.1

Language Group Trends

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Due to high post-war immigration followed by a decreasing birth rate, Francophones dropped from 82.5% in 1951 to 80.7% in 1971. They rose again to 82.8% in 1986, while Anglophones left the province in droves, gradually dropped back to 81.4% in 2001, and then, as Canada jacked up its annual immigration to record heights, fell at record pace to a record low of 78.0% in 2016. From the first Canadian census in 1871 through that of 2001, Quebec’s French majority had always weighed in at 80% or more in terms of ethnic origin or mother tongue. Pursuing its historic inclination to ‘go West’ for economic reasons, Quebec’s Anglophone minority first fell gradually from 13.8% in 1951 to 13.1% in 1971. It then dropped abruptly to 10.3% in 1986, as a negative reaction to an officially French Quebec drove Anglophone out-migration to a momentary frenzy and the Anglophone birth rate bottomed out at 1.46 children per woman. Anglophones subsequently dropped more slowly to 8.3% in 2001, and have remained practically stable ever since, weighing in at 8.1% in 2016. A consequence of low Anglophone out-migration since 2001, record high immigration since 2003, and the superior power of assimilation of English, the Anglophone minority’s recent stability, too, is an entirely new development, unseen before in Canadian census history. Depending on immigration levels, Allophones increased more or less rapidly from census to census, rising from 3.7% of Quebec’s population in 1951 to 13.8% in 2016. They now far outweigh Anglophones. As in the whole of Canada, main home language trends in Quebec generally parallel those for mother tongue. French home language initially rose from 80.8% in 1971 to 83.0% in 1991, declined very slightly until 2001, then dropped to 80.6% in 2016. Similarly, Other home language rose steadily overall, from 4.5 to 8.6%. English home language was an exception: after falling first very sharply during 1971– 1981, then more mildly until 2001, it rose from 10.5% in 2001 to 10.7% in 2016—another significant historical first.

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Trends in Assimilation

Assessing language shift trends in Quebec is something of a challenge. Changes made to the census questionnaire in 1991 and 2001 have artificially boosted French’s performance in the province on this count. Favouring prior knowledge of French in the selection of Quebec’s economic immigrants since 1978 further boosted reports of Allophone shift to French, over and beyond the genuine impact which Quebec’s Charter of the French Language has had on language behaviour in everyday life. For instance, Table 2 can lead one to believe that the Charter had already succeeded by 1991 in almost totally eliminating net shift from French to English and in boosting the share of French in Allophone and overall assimilation. In reality, net shift from French to English had been on the rise—24,500 in 1971, 28,500 in 1981, 39,500 in 1986—before dropping overnight, so to speak, to 6,100 in 1991. Similarly, French’s share of Allophone assimilation was going nowhere—27.4% in 1971, 24.4% in 1981, 25.9% in 1986—before leaping to 35.8% in 1991. French’s share of overall assimilation had consequently become negative in 1981 and 1986, before bounding to 32.8% in 1991. The new questionnaire introduced in 1991 is the culprit here (Castonguay 2005: 15–38). The language shift data for Quebec prior to 1991 are simply not comparable to later data. In contrast, the impact of the changes made to the 2001 census questionnaire can at least be circumscribed at the provincial level. They translated into an artificial hike of two percentage points in French’s share of both Allophone and overall assimilation (Castonguay 2005: 15–38). The increases between 1991 and 2011 shown on both counts in Table 2 should be interpreted accordingly. The data for 2011 and 2016 were obtained using identical questionnaires. They indicate an appreciable increase in net shift from French to English. Its negative impact on the overall outcome of assimilation for French almost completely wiped out the positive effect of the continuing rise in French’s share of Allophone shift. Indeed, while French’s share of the latter increased appreciably from 51.9% in 2011 to 55.2% in 2016,

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the share of French in overall assimilation barely increased from 49.0 to 49.7%. The 2001 and 2006 questionnaires were also identical. The results showed only a slight increase in net shift from French to English. Its more substantial increase during 2011–2016 marks, therefore, a quickening trend. Conversely, the share of French in Allophone assimilation increased faster during 2001–2006 than during 2011–2016, indicating that the progress of French in this regard is slowing down. Both trends call for further comment. Geographically, the increase in net Anglicisation of Francophones is entirely consistent. Of the eight million Quebecers enumerated in 2016, four million lived in the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), and two million on Montreal Island, the CMA’s economic and cultural core. Three quarters of Quebec’s Anglophones lived in the Montreal CMA, and a full half on Montreal Island, making these areas crucial testing grounds for shift between English and French. The ratio of Francophones to Anglophones was roughly 10:1 in Quebec, 5:1 in Montreal CMA, and 3:1 on Montreal Island: net Anglicisation of the Francophone majority has been growing proportionately in all three. Between 2001 and 2016, it rose from 0.1 to 0.4% in Quebec, from 0.8 to 1.1% in Montreal CMA, and from 2.0 to 2.8% on Montreal Island. The recent increase in the net Anglicisation of Quebec’s Francophones strongly suggests a rise in the status of English as compared to that of French. The most telling sign of this is the rush on pre-university studies in English, which lie beyond the schooling provisions of the Charter. The proportion of newly registered Francophone pre-university students in Quebec choosing to study in English junior colleges rose from 7% in 2006 to 12% in 2018. In all, 27% of newly registered pre-university students in Quebec attended English institutions by 2018. The corresponding figure was 49% on Montreal Island (Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement Supérieur 2019). This trend is reminiscent of that observed in Quebec schools prior to the Charter, and a sure indicator of higher Anglicisation to come. The slowing progress of French’s share of Allophone assimilation is more difficult to fathom. The major driving force in this connection has been the growing presence of Francotropes among Quebec’s

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Allophone population, rather than Quebec’s Charter. Francotropes are Allophones whose mother tongue is either a Romance language (other than Italian) or a language spoken in former French colonies or protectorates. Because of their linguistic or historical affinities with French, they are more prone to assimilate to French than to English. For the same reasons, the preference accorded, since 1978, to prior knowledge of French in Quebec’s selection of its economic immigrants tends to favour Francotrope immigration. The arrival of refugees fleeing the Vietnam war and Haiti’s Duvalier dictatorships actually caused the Francotrope share of Allophone immigrants to grow much earlier, reaching 28% among the 1966–1970 cohort of Allophone immigrants, and 50% among the 1971–1975 cohort. The share of French in the assimilation of Allophone immigrants had risen correspondingly, to 41% among the 1966–1970 cohort and 52% among the 1971–1975 cohort. Thus, the Francotrope factor had already caused assimilation among the more recently arrived Allophones to become more favourable to French, well before the advent of the Charter. Once Quebec had begun selecting its economic immigrants, the Francotrope share of Allophone immigrants rose slightly above 50% among the 1976–1980 and 1981–1985 cohorts. But French’s share of Allophone assimilation surpassed 60% among both of these, an appreciable increase over the 52% attained among the preceding cohort. Cross-tabulation with age upon arrival indicated that the additional Francisation among the two later cohorts was related to compulsory schooling in French for Allophone children who had immigrated to Quebec after the Charter at less than 15 years of age. The same analysis showed no such additional increase, however, in the French share of assimilation among Allophones who arrive at the age of 15 years or more—which is the case for more than three quarters of Quebec’s immigrants. Though Quebec’s 1974 and 1977 language laws were also intended to make French the language of work, whatever success they had in that respect was not sufficient to induce any significant increase, beyond that due to the Francotrope factor, in French’s power of assimilation among the more recently arrived Allophone workers.

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In total, since less than a quarter of Quebec’s immigrants are young enough upon arrival to be durably influenced by the schooling provisions of the Charter, the primary explanation of French’s enhanced power of assimilation among Allophones remains, by far, their increasingly Francotrope makeup. Successive new cohorts of mainly Francotrope Allophones gradually swell the percentage of Francotropes among Quebec’s immigrant and Canadian-born Allophones alike, and French’s share in their assimilation grows accordingly. French’s share in the assimilation of Canadian-born Allophones initially took the opposite tack, however, dropping very rapidly from 30.9% in 1971 to 17.3% in 1986. This no doubt resulted from the rush on English schools prior to the Charter. Italophone parents had spearheaded this movement, and, strikingly, Italophone shift to English doubled from 14,000 in 1971 to 29,000 in 1986, while that to French faded from 14,200 to 13,400. Afterwards, the share of French in the assimilation of Canadianborn Allophones began to rise, as the Francotrope share of Canadianborn Allophone children gradually increased, and as the proportion of Canadian-born Allophone children whose parents had immigrated to Quebec after the Charter also began to grow. But progress on this count has been extremely slow. Despite the boost given to shift to French by the 1991 and 2001 questionnaire changes, by 2016 French’s share of assimilation among Canadian-born Allophones had only reached 29.9%, still slightly below its initial 1971 reading of 30.9%. It must also be kept in mind that Quebec only selects some 60% of its immigrants. The rest—refugees, those admitted on the basis of family reunification, etc.—remain under federal jurisdiction. Since 2001, 67% of Quebec’s Allophone immigrants have been Francotropes. By 2016, Francotropes already constituted 53% of Quebec’s total Allophone population, 58% of its Allophone immigrants and even 38% of its Canadian-born Allophones. In the main, the slowdown in the progress of French’s share of Allophone assimilation since 2001 no doubt derives from the fact that the Francotrope component of the Allophone population is nearing its upper limit.

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What is more, a Statistics Canada survey recently revealed that 62% of shift to French reported by Allophone immigrants had been completed before immigrating, i.e. before actually living in Quebec (Houle and Corbeil 2017: 44). The corresponding percentage was only 47% for shift to English. In all likelihood, prior knowledge of French in Quebec’s selection of its economic immigrants has more frequently given the nod to Allophones who had already adopted French as their main home language abroad, before immigrating. Most definitely, then, the major part of French’s progress in assimilating Allophones must be ascribed to Quebec’s selection of immigrants, and not to the effect of its sorely weakened Charter on language behaviour within Quebec society.

4

The Decline of French Outside Quebec

Between 1951 and 2016, Francophones’ weight outside Quebec has been almost halved, falling from 7.3 to 3.8%. Since 1991, they have ceased to grow significantly in number, oscillating around one million. French home language has followed suit, albeit at much lower levels. Between 1971 and 2016, its weight dropped from 4.3 to 2.3%. It declined in number to some 620,000 in 1996, and has remained there ever since. Assimilation outside Quebec is totally one-sided. As Table 3 shows, net shift from French to English has continually increased. This is also the case in terms of proportion: Francophones’ net Anglicisation rate, that is, net shift from French to English divided by the total number of Francophones, has increased at every census, rising overall from 27.4% in 1971 to 40.1% in 2016. Moreover, Allophone shift to French has remained microscopic. Besides, as in Quebec, most of it was surely completed abroad, before immigrating. High Anglicisation and inadequate fertility spell a dramatic deficit between successive generations. In 2016, the number of Francophone children outside Quebec aged 0–4 fell 40% short of that of Francophone adults aged 30–34. Sustained net migration of Francophones from Quebec helps keep numbers up. But once established, they shift to English to almost the same degree as Francophones born outside Quebec (Castonguay 2008).

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The contribution of Francophone and Francotrope immigration, actively fostered by Ottawa since 2003, proves similarly ephemeral (Castonguay 2008). As a candid reporter recently put it, French outside Quebec is on life support. The most damning evidence of the inefficacy of federal language policy is the ever-increasing Anglicisation of Francophones in Canada’s very capital. The City of Ottawa, in southeastern Ontario and a stone’s throw from Quebec, boasts by far the highest concentration of Francophones outside Quebec—136,000 strong in 2016. Their net Anglicisation rate has nonetheless doubled, from 16.7% in 1971 to 34.1% in 2016. It topped 40% in 2016 among the capital’s younger Francophone adults aged 25–44, a proven forerunner of higher Anglicisation yet. Between 1971 and 2016, Francophones dropped from 20.5 to 14.7% of the capital’s population, and French home language, from 17.2 to 10.3%. In Ontario as a whole, Francophones’ Anglicisation rate has increased regularly, from 27.4% in 1971 to 43.3% in 2016. The latest reading of 46.8% among younger Franco-Ontarian adults aged 25–44 leaves no doubt as to what the future holds in store. French home language has fallen to 2.3% of the province’s population. Everywhere else outside Quebec, save in New Brunswick, Anglicisation of Francophones is now over 50% and French home language below 2%. Home to nearly a quarter of all Francophones outside Quebec, New Brunswick was 63.3% Anglophone and 35.2% Francophone in 1961, and became officially bilingual in 1969. The Anglicisation rate of Francophones remained, for a time, below 10% in the province, but it is now rising steadily there too, from 9.2% in 2001 to 10.9% in 2016. New Brunswick is today more Anglophone (64.8%) and less Francophone (31.9%) than in 1961. English home language similarly increased from 67.9% in 1971 to 69.5% in 2016, while French declined, from 31.4 to 28.6%.

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What Future for French in Canada?

In framing its language policy, Canada was more set on countering Quebec nationalism than on effectively bolstering French. Its utter failure in this latter respect is by now abundantly clear. If Canada’s linguistic duality is truly a fundamental trait to be cherished, Ottawa must undergo a major change of heart. As the Anglicisation of the Francophone minorities continues to take its toll, Quebec now includes over 91% of all Canadians who actively speak French as main home language. But were things to stay as they are, the prospects for French appear uncertain in Quebec itself. For there is no evidence of any significant success of what is left of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language, beyond that of what remains of its schooling provisions, in reorienting language shift more favourably towards French. As the Francotrope factor draws closer to having attained its full impact, and as the net Anglicisation of Francophones gains momentum in Montreal, English’s superiority over French as language of assimilation is gradually becoming stabilised. Though French’s overall gain through assimilation in Quebec may well eventually equal, or somewhat surpass, that of English, 50% of Allophone assimilation is in no way a point of equilibrium. To maintain the present 10:1 ratio between Francophones and Anglophones in the province would require French’s overall share of assimilation to be over 90%. Only then would assimilation compensate Francophone and Anglophone infertility to the same degree. And only then would Quebec’s predominantly French character be ensured. Bogged down at around 50% of overall shift, French is obviously not on the way to achieving anything of such order. Erosion of French’s majority status is nowhere more evident than in Montreal CMA, where 90% of Quebec’s Allophone immigrants alight. On Montreal Island in particular, French home language dropped from 56.4% in 2001 to 53.1% in 2016, while English rose from 24.9% to 25.1%. Signs that English is winning out over French as the Island’s

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common language are legion. By 2016, 80.5% of the Island’s Francophone adults aged 25–44 reported being able to speak English, while only 76.5% of their Anglophone counterparts reported being able to speak French. And most adult newcomers who cannot speak French upon arriving in Montreal never bother to learn it (Houle and Corbeil 2021: 33). The sophism which equates territorial bilingualism with the end of Canada has done quite enough damage to the status of French in Quebec. If Canada is honestly intent on preserving its linguistic duality, it must help rather than hinder Quebec in promoting French as the undisputed common language of public intercourse in the province.

Notes 1. Anglophone, Francophone, and Allophone designate a person of English, French, or Other mother tongue. 2. Language shift can be gradual and occasionally lead to reports of two or more languages as mother tongue or main home language. For the purposes of the present study, such multiple responses have been equally apportioned among the languages reported. 3. The census also asks Canadians whether they can speak English or French ‘well enough to conduct a conversation’. However, the resulting data tell us nothing explicit about the actual use of either language, whereas the best measure of a language’s vitality is the degree to which it is used (Casesnoves Ferrer and Sankoff 2004). Furthermore, Ostler (2010) has shown that the key determinant of the long-term viability of a language is its core population of native speakers. Hence the paramount importance of language shift in the intimacy of the home for monitoring the efficiency of Canadian and Quebec language policies.

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References Bilingual Districts Advisory Board. 1975. Report. Ottawa: Information Canada. Canada. 1977. A National Understanding. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada. Casesnoves Ferrer, R., and D. Sankoff. 2004. Transmission, Education, and Integration in Projections of Language Shift in Valencia. Language Policy 3: 107–131. Castonguay, C. 1979. Why Hide the Facts? The Federalist Approach to the Language Crisis in Canada. Canadian Public Policy 5 (1): 4–15. Castonguay, C. 2005. Les indicateurs généraux de la vitalité des langues au Québec: comparabilité et tendances 1971–2001. Montreal: Office québécois de la langue française. Castonguay, C. 2008. Francophone Immigration Beyond the Bilingual Belt: Wasting a Precious Resource. Inroads 23: 71–83. Commission d’enquête sur la situation de la langue française et sur les droits linguistiques au Québec. 1972. Rapport. Quebec: Éditeur officiel. Hansard. 1975. House of Commons Debates, November 21, 9327–9328. Houle, R., and J.-P. Corbeil. 2017. Language Projections for Canada, 2011– 2036 . Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Houle, R., and J.-P. Corbeil. 2021. Scénarios de projection de certaines caractéristiques linguistiques de la population du Québec (2011–2036). Montreal: Office québécois de la langue française. Lachapelle, R., and J. Henripin. 1982. The Demolinguistic Situation in Canada. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy. Laurin, C. 1977. La politique québécoise de la langue française. Quebec: Éditeur officiel. Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement Supérieur. 2019. Data on University and College Enrolments Supplied to the Author. Quebec: Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement Supérieur. Official Languages Act [1969] (R.S.C., 1985, c. 31 (4th Supp.)). https://lawslois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/o-3.01/. Accessed 10 May 2021. Ostler, N. 2010. The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel . New York: Walker & Co. Plourde, M., and P. Georgeault. 2008. Le français au Québec: 400 ans d’histoire et de vie. Anjou, QC: Fides.

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Poirier, É. 2016. La Charte de la langue française. Ce qu’il reste de la Loi 101 quarante ans après son adoption. Quebec City, QC: Septentrion. Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. 1967. Report. Book I: The Official Languages. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. 1970. Report. Book V: The Federal Capital . Ottawa: Queen’s Printer.

Group Vitality, Language Policies and the French and English-Speaking Communities of Quebec Richard Y. Bourhis

1

Introduction

It is a pleasure and an honour to contribute this chapter for my friend and colleague Professor Colin Williams. We first met in the 1970s when I was doing my fieldwork in Cardiff for my PhD thesis. Colin’s knowledge of the Welsh language and its sociolinguistic challenges was invaluable in guiding my PhD research on language and accent as a badge of social identity in Wales (Bourhis et al. 1973). Our paths crossed many times over the decades, including in the Basque Autonomous Community of Spain, in Ontario and especially in Montreal, where Colin’s scholarly interest in Quebec and Canadian language policies has been enduring. In October 2018, we hosted Colin Williams as our keynote speaker for our first conference on ‘Minority Community Vitality through R. Y. Bourhis (B) Department of Psychology, Université du Québec À Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_15

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Education’ held at Concordia University in Montreal. The conference, organised by the Quebec English-speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN), focussed on the English-speaking communities of Quebec of different cultural, ethnic and linguistic origins. Over a hundred stakeholders, researchers and teachers discussed the role of English language education in reducing minority community vulnerabilities, improving access to jobs, building community identity and promoting community vitality in different regions of the province. Presentations, panel discussions and keynote talks supported the notion that institutional control was needed by minority language groups to maintain and assert their development within existing majority state and private institutions. The rapporteur of the conference proceeding highlighted Colin’s plenary talk entitled ‘Strategic initiatives for Minority Language Education in the European Union’: In his talk, Colin Williams of Cardiff University drew on research from Euskadi (the Basque Country), Catalonia and Wales to show that the key determinant of success for minority language communities is political control at the local state level in devolved or autonomous regions. He noted that ideological and partisan differences must be negotiated if minority languages are to flourish within a dominant education system that previously disavowed their right to exist.This seemed to resonate with many participants at the forum. Participants spoke of feeling ‘a pervasive sense of marginalization of the English sector’ and a lack of political will to support the English-speaking community. At the same time many participants identified building a positive relationship with the provincial government as a key priority. (Cooper 2019: 11)

It is hoped that this chapter will remind Colin of the good moments he has spent in Montreal and Ottawa pondering over the Quebec and Canadian language policies that address relations between the nation’s ‘two solitudes’ and their cultural communities (Williams 1998, 2002). Using the group vitality framework, this chapter examines sociolinguistic factors accounting for the adoption of the Charter of the French Language in 1977, which was designed to enshrine the status and use of French relative to English in Quebec. From an intergroup perspective, the chapter documents relations between the national Francophone

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majority and English-speaking minorities who seek to maintain their institutional and demographic vitality as rightful enduring communities of Quebec. By learning and using French, bilingual Anglophones who stayed in Quebec have shown that they accept the status and predominance of French in the province. After decades of pro-French language laws, the chapter examines the institutional and economic ascendancy of the Francophone majority and the decline of the Anglophone and Allophone minorities. The chapter also documents the decline of the English school system affected by language laws that restricted access to English schools in order to facilitate the assimilation of Allophone immigrants within the French school system and in-home settings. Can the current Francophone majority accept that it has gained political, linguistic, institutional and economic dominance within its national territory? Does French language hegemony need to be the only badge of success for French language planning in Quebec?

2

The Vitality of Language Communities

Group vitality was defined as that which makes language groups behave as distinctive and collective entities within multilingual settings (Giles et al. 1977). The more vitality a language group has, the more likely it will survive and thrive as a collective entity. Conversely, language groups that have little vitality are more likely to cease to exist as distinctive language communities. The vitality framework uses available census and sociolinguistic indicators to measure the relative vitality of minority and majority language communities in contact. The vitality construct is also used as a tool for developing the advocacy and language policy strategies needed to ‘reverse the language shift’ of vulnerable low-vitality minorities within majority settings (Bourhis et al. 2019; Fishman 2001). Three structural factors contribute to the vitality of a language group: demographic factors, institutional support and language status. Demographic variables refer to the number of speakers composing language groups, their birth rate, their age pyramid, mixed marriages, their intergenerational language transmission, their proportion and concentration

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relative to other linguistic communities and their pattern of immigration and emigration within and outside their territory. Demographic indicators of ‘strength in numbers’ can be used as a legitimising tool for granting linguistic minorities the institutional support they need to develop their language community within majority language group settings. Institutional support refers to the degree of control one language group has achieved over institutions contributing to its survival in multilingual settings. It captures the degree to which members of a linguistic group have gained positions of control at decision-making levels in national, regional and municipal governments, and in areas such as education, health and social services, the security forces, the judiciary, cultural industries, commerce, mass media and religious institutions. Institutional support also includes the leadership and political parties necessary to maintain and develop such control. Language minorities need to achieve and maintain a favourable position on the institutional control front if they wish to survive or develop as distinctive collective entities. While some high-vitality majorities may be willing to share their institutional control with their linguistic minorities, others may limit such power-sharing as they prefer linguistic minorities to decline institutionally and eventually assimilate linguistically and culturally. Status vitality includes the prestige of the languages spoken by linguistic minorities and majorities in contact, both within the country and internationally. It also includes the perceived historical prestige of the language communities in contact following their rise and fall over time. Importantly, status vitality includes language laws designed to enshrine the knowledge and use of majority and minority languages within a given nation or region. The more status a linguistic community has, the more vitality it could be said to possess as a collectivity. The strength and weaknesses of language groups on the demographic, institutional support and status variables combine to situate language communities on a continuum of strong to weak vitality (Bourhis and Landry 2012). A linguistic minority may be relatively strong on the demographic front but may suffer weak institutional support. In contrast, a linguistic group may be weak on the demographic front

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but benefit from improving institutional control in key areas such as education and health care. In Canada, researchers and policymakers have drawn on the three factors described above in order to assess the vitality of French-speaking minorities in English-majority provinces (Gilbert 2010) and of the English-speaking communities of Quebec (Bourhis and Sioufi 2017). Subjective vitality perceptions monitor how language minorities and majorities perceive the relative strength of their language communities using variants of the subjective vitality questionnaire (Sioufi et al. 2016).

3

Quebec Language Laws and French–English Group Relations

In Quebec, individuals who have French as a mother tongue are labelled Francophones, those who have English as a mother tongue are labelled Anglophones, while Allophones are people whose mother tongue is other than French or English. The main mother tongues spoken by Allophones are Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Creole and Mandarin. Both Anglophones and Francophones in the province have a double status, Francophones constitute the majority in the Province of Quebec but are a linguistic minority in Canada. Conversely, Anglophones are a minority in Quebec while they constitute the language majority in Canada. At the height of the Québécois nationalist movement of the 1970s, three factors were seen to undermine the demographic and institutional vitality of the Francophone majority in Quebec: (1) the drop in the birth rate of the Quebec Francophone population; (2) Anglophone elite domination of the Quebec economy and (3) Allophone immigrant choices favouring the English rather than the French educational system for their children (d’Anglejan 1984). In the 1970s, Francophones decried the fact that most Allophone immigrants in Montreal preferred to send their children to English schools rather than French schools. To quell linguistic tensions between the French majority and Allophone and Anglophone minorities, the Quebec Liberal government adopted Bill 22 in 1974, limiting access

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to English schools by imposing English language tests to determine if a child could attend English schools. Bill 22 was opposed by Anglophones and Allophones as it curtailed their freedom to choose the language of schooling for their children (Stevenson 1999). Bill 22 also frustrated Francophone nationalists, for whom too many immigrants still had access to English schools, thus integrating within the English minority rather than assimilating to the French language majority. In 1977, the nationalist Parti Québécois government adopted the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101), a language law designed to increase the status and use of French relative to English in the province (Corbeil 2007). On the education front, Bill 101 made it clear that all immigrants to Quebec from abroad or other Canadian provinces were obliged to send their children to French primary and secondary public schools. Thus, freedom to attend English public schools was abolished by Bill 101 not only for immigrants and English Canadians from elsewhere in Canada but also for members of the Quebec Francophone majority, who had to attend French schools. However, Quebec Anglophones could choose to send their children to either the English or the French public school system of the province. Bill 101 maintained access to private feepaying schools for students of all linguistic backgrounds from Canada or abroad. Given that post-secondary education was optional in Quebec after the age of 16, freedom of language choice was guaranteed for Francophone, Anglophone and Allophone post-secondary students, who could choose to attend French or English colleges and universities. Bill 101 also stipulated that Francophones had the right to receive communications in French when dealing with the Quebec public administration, municipalities, semi-public agencies and businesses, as well as the right to be informed and served in French in retail establishments. The law also ensured the right of all employees to work in French and not to be dismissed or demoted for the sole reason of being unilingual French speakers. Bill 101 stipulated that businesses with more than fifty employees were required to obtain a ‘francisation certificate’ attesting that they had the necessary infrastructure for French to be the language of work within their organisation. Bill 101 also banned languages other

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than French from the linguistic landscape, including road signs, government signs, billboards and commercial store signs. Such immediate visible changes favouring the French landscape while excluding English and other languages reassured the Francophone majority that the vitality of their language was protected by the law (Bourhis 2001). Bill 101 ensured that its language policies were enforced by public servants of the Office Québécois de la langue française (OQLF). Francophone majority reactions to Bill 101 following its adoption were overwhelmingly positive (Taylor and Dubé-Simard 1984). Organised labour and the petite bourgeoisie saw Bill 101 as effective in securing the status and use of French at work, while contributing to the cultural and linguistic security of the Francophone majority (Maurais 1987). Some analysts considered that Bill 101 did not go far enough in improving the institutional vitality of French in Quebec (Plourde 1988). Others bemoaned the fact that aspects of Bill 101 were diluted by Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms rulings by Quebec and Canadian courts (Woehrling 2005). In addition to enforcing Bill 101 regulations, the OQLF also conducts demolinguistic and sociolinguistic studies to monitor the knowledge of French and its use as the language of work and of use in retail stores, on commercial signs, in health care delivery and across provincial and municipal public services (Québec 2019). Researchers also analysed the impact of Bill 101 on the declining demographic vitality of Quebec’s English-speaking community and on its historical, political, economic and judicial position in the province (O’Donnell et al. 2021). Other researchers used features of the group vitality framework to document the decline of Anglophone minority institutions since the adoption of Bill 101 (Bourhis 2019; Bourhis and Sioufi 2017). Sociolinguistic studies focussed on the language attitudes and patterns of French/English use by Anglophone, Francophone and Allophone speakers in different public and private settings (Landry et al. 2013).

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Collective Mobilisation of the English-Speaking Communities of Quebec

Following the adoption of Bill 101 and the first referendum on Quebec sovereignty in 1980, many Quebec Anglophones who stayed in Quebec began to see themselves as a vulnerable minority group (Caldwell 1984). Quebec Anglophones formed advocacy groups such as Alliance Quebec and the Equality Party to safeguard their individual and collective rights as well as their institutional vitality in education, health care municipalities and the linguistic landscape (Scowen 1991; Stevenson 1999). Following the decline of such advocacy groups, the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) was established as a federation of 50 regional and Montreal Anglophone advocacy organisations in 1995 (Jedwab and Maynard 2012). The Community Health and Social Services Network (CHSSN) is an association of 60 Englishspeaking organisations that seek to build strategic relationships and partnerships within the provincial health and social services system to improve services for English-speaking communities (Carter 2012). The English Language Arts Network (ELAN) is an organisation that connects, supports and creates opportunities for Quebec’s Englishspeaking artists and arts communities across the province. The Quebec English-speaking Community Research Network (QUESCREN) is a recent network of researchers and stakeholders aiming to improve understanding of Quebec’s English-speaking communities and promote their vitality through research, training, knowledge mobilisation and networking. Following advocacy efforts by Anglophone communities, the Quebec Liberal government established in 2017 the Secretariat for relations with English-speaking Quebecers to work closely with provincial ministries and bodies that provide direct services to the English-speaking minority and its community organisations (Québec 2018). Reporting directly to the executive of the Quebec government, the Secretariat received a budget of $25 million over six years. The Secretariat was maintained in the 2020 provincial budget following the election of the nationalist Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government, representing the Québécois nation.

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Declining Vitality of the English-Speaking Communities of Quebec

Though the English language is not threatened in Quebec, it remains the case that the vitality of its English-speaking communities is declining on the demographic, institutional support and status fronts. The institutional vitality needs faced by Quebec English-speaking communities have long been supported by the federal Canadian Heritage Department in the name of its policy of supporting Francophone and Anglophone official language minorities across the country. This second part of the chapter provides telling examples of the demographic and institutional challenges of the English-speaking communities of Quebec.

6

Demographic Decline

Out-migration. Based on Canadian census data, Houle and Corbeil (2018) documented interprovincial migration of Canadian citizens to and from Quebec between the 1966 and 2016 census years, excluding international migration. After subtracting departures from arrivals in Quebec, the net interprovincial outflow of Quebec Anglophones to the rest of Canada amounted to 349,500 people over this fifty-year period, contributing to a significant decline of Quebec’s Anglophone minority. What is known as the ‘Anglophone exodus’ occured in the 1966–1986 period. These were seen as years of turmoil due to critical incidents such as the violent actions of the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) in 1970, the election of the separatist Parti Québécois government in 1976, the adoption of pro-French language laws such as Bill 101 in 1977 and the first referendum on Quebec separation in 1980. These critical incidents, along with labour strife, high income taxes, declining job prospects and a second referendum on Quebec separation in 1995, were salient push factors in the historical narrative of many Quebec Anglophones (Bougie et al. 2011).

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Analyses of the 2011 Canadian census showed that Quebec-born Anglophones who left Quebec were more likely to have a university degree and as likely to be bilingual as those who stayed (Floch and Pocock 2012). These analyses showed that the English-speaking community was losing highly qualified bilingual Anglophones educated and trained in Quebec who could otherwise fill much-needed positions for the economic, health care and social development of not only the English-speaking minority but Quebec society as a whole, which was faced with severe labour shortages due to declining birth rate. Interview studies showed that Quebec Anglophone out-migration was not only motivated by individual economic interest but also in part by push factors such as feelings of exclusion and collective political helplessness (Pettinicchio 2012). A Canadian post-2001 census telephone survey of 45,000 respondents across Canada showed that, in Quebec, twice as many Anglophones as Francophones declared having been personally victims of discrimination and saw discrimination based on language and accent (linguicism) as the main factor accounting for such negative treatment, more so than ethnicity, race and religion (Bourhis et al. 2007). Houle and Corbeil (2018) also documented the net out-migration of Allophones to the rest of Canada for each census period from 1966 to 2016, totalling a net outflow of 120,000 individuals from Quebec over this period, many of whom were well qualified and had received French language training from the Quebec government but suffered job discrimination based on their ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds (MIDI 2016). The census data also showed a net outflow of Francophones to the rest of Canada totaling 57,500 from 1966 to 2016. Pull factors such as professional training and better jobs account for this outflow to the rest of Canada. Mother tongue. Figure 1 shows Canadian census data in 1971 before the adoption of Bill 101 and monitors mother tongue trends 45 years onwards using results from each subsequent census to 2016 (Statistics Canada 2017a; Corbeil et al. 2010). The Canadian census defines mother tongue (L1) as the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood at the time of the census. The number of French mother tongue (L1) speakers in Quebec increased from 4.8 million in 1971 to over 6.2 million in 2016, though in percentage terms this

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Fig. 1 Number and percentage of Quebec population by mother tongue (L1) (Source Canadian Census 1971–2016)

amounted to a decline from 80.7% of the population in 1971 to 77.1% in 2016. This percentage decrease was due mainly to the declining birth rate of Francophones from 3.7 children per women in the 1960s to 1.5 children in 2018 (ISQ 2019). It was also due to increases in the number of Allophones in the province, which more than doubled through immigration, from 390,415 in 1971 representing 6.3% of the population, to over 1 million in 2016, constituting 13.2% of the population. As seen in Fig. 1, the Anglophone mother tongue population dropped from 788,830, representing 13% of the Quebec population in 1971, to 601,155 in 2016, representing 7.5% of the Quebec population. This decline in both absolute and percentage terms was due in part to the low birth rate and net out-migration of Anglophones to the rest of Canada. Bilingualism. Québécois Francophones have long bemoaned that Anglophones and Allophones did not make the effort to learn French as the majority language in the province. The Canadian census measures bilingualism as the capacity to speak both French and English well enough to conduct a conversation. Figure 2 shows French/English bilin-

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Fig. 2 French–English bilingualism in Quebec by mother tongue (L1) of Quebec Francophones, Anglophones and Allophones (Source Canadian Census 1971– 2016, Canadian Heritage, Research Team, Official Languages Branch, 2018)

gualism in the Quebec population based on French, English and ‘other’ mother tongue speakers (Allophones) in the 1971–2016 Canadian census (Statistics Canada 2017b). This census data shows that while 25.5% of Quebec Francophones were bilingual in 1971 (N = 1,238,500), as many as 40.3% were bilingual by 2016 (N = 2,502,735). Results also show that an increasing proportion of Quebec Anglophones did become French/English bilingual: from 37.1% in 1971 (N = 292,800) to 68.8% in 2016 (N = 413,575). Close to 80% of Anglophones under 30 are bilingual, attesting to the efficacy of French language teaching in the English school system. Results also show that while 33% of Allophones were French– English bilinguals in 1971 (N = 122,900), as many as 50.9% were bilingual by 2016 (N = 539,455), reflecting the obligation of Allophones to attend French schools since Bill 101. Note that many of these Allophones are trilingual given that most still speak their heritage mother tongue.

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A key goal of Bill 101 was to ensure the widespread knowledge of French as the shared public language of communication across Quebec society (Corbeil 2007). Combining the proportion of unilingual Francophones with all French–English bilinguals in the province provides a measure of the Quebec population that has a knowledge of French. As documented by Houle and Corbeil (2018), the 1971 census showed that the proportion of the Quebec population of all backgrounds declaring knowledge of French was 88.5%. By the 2016 census, this proportion increased to 94.5%, attesting to the success of Bill 101 in improving knowledge of French in Quebec, a benchmark of success envied by many language planners of the world.

7

Institutional Control in the Economic Domain

The chief architect of Bill 101, Dr. Camille Laurin of the Parti Québécois, stated the following to his biographer: The ultimate goal of the Charter of the French Language was to insure that more and more Francophones seize power in business, that they become the directors and CEOs, and that the Québécois economy be at last controlled by them. (Laurin 1998: in Picard 2003: 247–248)

The economist Franç ois Vaillancourt examined the possible impact of Bill 101 on the ownership of the Quebec economy. His economic analyses showed that ownership of the Quebec economy by Francophone employers did increase from 47.1% in 1961 to 54.8% in 1978, and to 67.1% in 2003 (Vaillancourt et al. 2007). In contrast Anglophone ownership of the Quebec economy decreased from 39.5% in 1961 to 31.2% in 1978 and 22.9% in 2003. The share of the economy owned by foreign capital also decreased from 13.6% in 1961 to 10% in 2003. The modernisation of the Quebec economy, the rise of the Québécois Francophone business class along with pro-French language policies such as Bill 101, likely combined to account for this greater control of the economy by the Québécois Francophone majority.

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Québécois Francophones long bemoaned their inferior economic position as wage earners relative to Anglophone and Allophone minorities of Quebec. Based on Statistics Canada data, Vaillancourt (2018) used the labour income of unilingual Francophone men to calculate the percentage advantage of being unilingual or bilingual in the Quebec workforce from 1970, before the adoption of Bill 101, to forty years later in 2011. The net effect of language skills on labour income was calculated in constant dollars and was controlled for level of education, years of labour market experience in Quebec, and number of weeks worked per year. Results showed that while a unilingual Anglophone male had a 10.1% income advantage over a unilingual Francophone in 1970, by 2011 it was unilingual Francophones who had a 10% income advantage over unilingual Anglophones. In 1970, a bilingual Anglophone had a 17% income advantage over a unilingual Francophone; by 2011 it was unilingual Francophone men who had an 8% advantage over a bilingual Anglophone. The income position of Allophones relative to Francophone unilinguals also declined from 1970 to 2011. While English-speaking Allophones had zero advantage in 1970 relative to unilingual Francophones, such Allophones suffered a 25% income disadvantage relative to Francophone unilinguals in 2011. While French-speaking Allophones had a 0% income advantage relative to Francophone unilinguals in 1970, they were suffering a 36% income disadvantage relative to Francophone unilinguals by 2011. In contrast, bilingual Francophones only lost some of their income advantage over unilingual Francophones: 12.6% in 1970 and 7% in 2011, a trend reflecting the common origin of Francophone bilinguals with unilingual Francophones. These income differential results show the growing market value of French relative to English in Quebec. However, one must also ask why should only Francophones who are bilingual maintain their income advantage over French unilinguals, compared to French–English bilinguals who are of minority Allophone and Anglophone background? Empirical studies monitoring the employment prospects of Allophones and visible minorities in Quebec have revealed patterns of systemic discrimination suffered by such minorities in Quebec (Eid 2012; CDPDJ 2020).

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The cumulative effects of such trends are reflected in the 2016 Canada, census showing that the median annual income of individual mother tongue Francophones was highest, at $34,620, that of Anglophones was $31,701, while that of Allophones was lowest at $25,774 (Statistics Canada 2018). Taken together, these income trends testify to the growing market value of French following language planning efforts, and also to the declining economic position of Anglophones, the upward mobility of the Francophone majority and the systemic economic disadvantages of Allophones of diverse linguistic, ethnic and religious backgrounds.

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Institutional Decline of the English School System

What impact did Bill 101 and other laws restricting access to English schools have on the size of the English school system in Quebec? Enrolment figures for the two school systems from the 1971–1972 to 2017–2018 school years were used to monitor changes in the size of the French and English school systems (MEES 2012, 2015, 2019). Figure 3 shows that 1,378,788 pupils were enrolled in French primary and secondary schools in the combined public/private systems in 1971 (100% baseline). However, by 2018, there were 943,381 pupils in the French school system, a drop of 435,400 pupils, amounting to 68.4% of the 1971 baseline. In 2018, sixty French School boards offered a complete range of programmes and services through a network of 2023 French schools across the province. The relative decline of the French school system was mitigated, given that Francophone and immigrant pupils must attend the French school system following the adoption of Bill 101, thus compensating somewhat for the declining birth rate among Francophones in the province. Figure 3 shows that in 1971, there were 256,251 pupils enrolled in English primary and secondary schools in the combined public and private systems (100% baseline enrolment before Bill 101). By 2018, data showed there were 96,235 pupils in the public and private English school systems, or only 37.5% of the 1971 baseline. Such a decline

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Fig. 3 Number and percentage of pupils in primary and secondary French and English school systems in Quebec (public and private), 1971–2018. School enrolment in 1971 is used as 100% benchmark for percentage of students in each school systems for subsequent years up to 2018 (Source MELS 2008; MEES 2015, 2019)

is attributed to restricted Allophone access to English education, low Anglophone birth rate and their out-migration to the rest of Canada. By 2018, there were 273 English schools across the province, within nine English school boards, some covering regions the size of Belgium. The large geographical territories of English school boards other than those in Montreal make it difficult for elected school board members to monitor regional realities, while making access to small remote English schools difficult for their pupils. However, Quebec’s nine English school boards represent key institutions still controlled and managed ‘by and for’ Anglophone communities of Quebec (ABEE 2018). Across the English school boards of Quebec, 85 Community Learning Centres in local English schools provide lifelong learning and culture hubs involving Anglophone adult community members, especially in regional Englishspeaking communities who lost local church, sport and health and social services through demographic decline (Lamarre 2012).

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Analysis of the mother tongue of pupils attending English primary and secondary schools provides a revealing portrait of the effect of language laws restricting access to English schools. Enrolment figures of Anglophones, Allophones and Francophones from 1971–1972 to 2017–2018 school years were used to monitor changes in the mother tongue population of pupils attending the English school system (MELS 2008, MEES 2012; 2015; 2019). Figure 4 shows that the number of Anglophone pupils studying in the English school system dropped from 171,175 in 1971 to only 52,500 in 2018, a loss of 118,675 pupils, representing a 69.4% attrition from the 1971 baseline. This drop in Anglophone pupils is felt most dramatically in isolated schools in rural regions of the province. This problem is compounded by the dearth of Englishspeaking teachers available for primary and secondary schools in those regions, while recruitment of complementary service professionals is also difficult in such areas (Lamarre 2012). Figure 4 also shows that in 1971, before the adoption of Bill 101, 90.5% of all Anglophone pupils enrolled in the Quebec school system

Fig. 4 Number and percentage of pupils in English primary and secondary schools in Quebec (public and private) by mother tongue of pupils (L1): French, English, Allophone, 1971 to 2018 (Source MELS 2008; MEES 2012; 2015; 2019)

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attended English schools. However, by 2018 only 73.1% of all Anglophone pupils enrolled in the school system were attending English schools. Enrolment figures in French schools show that while only 9.5% of all Anglophones students attended French schools (17,924) in 1971, as many as 26.9% (19,387) did by 2018. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many Anglophone parents send their children to French schools to improve their mastery of the local Québécois French accent and culture, with the hope that their bilingual children will eventually find jobs, raise a family and thus stay in the province. Some Quebec Anglophone parents also send their children to French schools because these are often closer to home than long commutes to English schools. Many English schools in Quebec provide quality English and French teaching for their pupils through ever-popular French immersion classes along with phased-in English-medium teaching. In 2011, 83% of primary school pupils in English schools were enrolled in varying degrees of French immersion classes, while 65% of secondary pupils were also receiving French immersion classes (ABEE 2016, 2018; Lamarre 2012). English school boards help contribute to the strength and quality of the French language by training many of their students as English–French bilinguals. Ministry of Education data show that the average graduation rate was 85.3% in the English sector (public and private) while in the French sector it was 80.9% (public and private) (MEES 2019). Quebec’s English school boards have performed well despite decades of student attrition, school mergers and closures and laws restricting access to English schools. Figure 4 also shows that the number of Allophones studying in the English school system dropped from 56,376 in 1972 to only 12,144 in 2018, a loss of 44,232 pupils, as intended by Bill 101. While only 14.6% of Allophone pupils in the school system attended French schools in 1972 (9652), as many as 91% of all Allophone pupils in the province were attending French schools by 2018 (128,361). Allophone and Francophone students still attending English schools do so as constitutionally protected ‘rights holders’ under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, given that one of their parents attended most of their primary schooling in English in Quebec or in another Canadian province.

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Over the decades, the steady drop in the absolute number of pupils enrolled in English schools reduced the size of this educational system. In turn, this had the effect of reducing the number of Anglophone teachers, administrators and staff that could be employed in the declining number of schools. Such job attrition further contributed to the net outmigration of Quebec Anglophones in search of education jobs in the rest of Canada, thus further undermining the demographic vitality of the Anglophone minority in the province. On February 8, 2020, the majority CAQ Government adopted Bill 40, abolishing locally elected French and English school boards. By spring 2020, 700 elected French school board commissioners were sacked to avoid litigation and all French school boards were abolished and replaced by centralised ‘Service Centres’ under direct control of the Ministry of Education, despite opposition by Francophone communities. English school boards were scheduled for abolition in November 2020, with the majority of Service Centre positions nominated by the government, and only a few posts open to election by the community. Bill 40 was vehemently opposed by Anglophone communities and stakeholders. A brief against Bill 40 by the Advisory Board on English Education (ABEE) stated: Presently, school board commissioners play a vital mediating role between the government and local concerns and are accountable to the electors for the way they manage and control the resources made available for the education of youth and adults alike … the replacement of school commissioners with service centres will mean the loss of political control and strategic direction over their school system, increase the level of bureaucracy, give more control to the minister of the day and diminish control at the local level. (ABEE 2019: 4)

Anglophone advocacy groups and the Quebec English School Board Association (QESBA) representing its nine School boards, 268 schools and 31 vocational centres, challenged Bill 40 in the Quebec Superior Court in the spring of 2020. The QESBA invoked article 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, part of the constitution of Canada, which protects the right to French and English official minority

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education, to argue that the Anglophone minority of Quebec has the right to control and manage their own school boards, as Francophone minorities do in English-majority provinces. In August 2020, QESBA won its case in the Quebec Superior Court, which granted an injunction suspending application of Bill 40 against English school boards until the merits of the case could be fully argued. The Quebec Government immediately appealed the ruling, maintaining that Bill 40 was a minor change that did not abolish English school boards but just modified their structure. In September 2020, the Quebec Court of Appeal upheld the stay of order and prevented Bill 40 from being applied to the English school system. QESBA applauded this Quebec Court of Appeal judgement, while awaiting an eventual court ruling on the merits of the case in 2022.

9

Conclusion

The English language is not threatened in Quebec, but the vitality of the English-speaking minorities of Quebec is declining on the demographic, institutional support and status fronts. However, majority group analysts describe Québécois Francophones as a ‘fragile majority’, while portraying Quebec Anglophones as a pampered minority threatening the French language in Quebec, along with a sea of English speakers in Canada and the United States (Curzi 2014; Termote 2019). Others are concerned about growing bilingualism in work and commercial settings in Montreal, about the growing number of Francophones attending English language colleges and universities in the province, and the insufficient 50% assimilation rate to French use at home by Allophone immigrants (Castonguay 2019; Lacroix 2020; Paillé 2019). On May 13, 2021, Bill 96 was tabled by the CAQ majority government in the Quebec National Assembly to strengthen Bill 101 and reiterate the formal recognition of French as the only official language of the Québécois nation. The bill was debated in a public Parliamentary Commission in 2021 and following party committee hearings will be adopted in 2022 by the government using the ‘notwithstanding’ clause of section 33(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This

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clause allows the federal parliament or a provincial legislature to adopt a law for up to five years even if it undermines many of the rights set out in the Canadian Charter (CBC 2021). Bill 96 will also be adopted by suspending the application of articles 1–38 of Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. The Quebec rights suspended to adopt Bill 96 include the rights to life and integrity of the person; freedom of conscience, religion, expression, peaceful assembly and association; the right to the peaceful enjoyment and free disposition of individual property; the right to be a candidate in an election and to vote and the right to a public and impartial hearing of his/her case by an independent tribunal (Hanes 2021; Pratte 2021). All this in the name of a Francophone majority claiming a moral right to collective ascendancy as the only French nation in North America. As ever, English-speaking minority advocacy groups feel they must remain ‘fire hall ready’ to respond to this French language legislation which is likely to further undermine their institutional vitality in Québec (Quebec Community Groups Network 2021).

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Language Policy Challenges in Ireland, Scotland and Catalonia

Changing Spatial Understandings of Minority Language Contexts: New Geographies of Irish John Walsh

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Introduction

Readers may be surprised to see poetry featured in a Festschrift such as this, but a poem is as capable as any text of containing fascinating linguistic insights, and poetry in minority languages can be particularly insightful in this regard. Given the ongoing shrinking spatial reality of the Irish-speaking population, it is unsurprising that poetry in Irish since the seventeenth century has dealt with themes such as language shift, cultural change and shifting geography. One of Ireland’s leading poets of the twentieth century, Seán Ó Ríordáin , agonised over such issues given his upbringing in the Breac-Ghaeltacht (mixed Irish and English-speaking area) of Baile Bhuirne in west Cork. This strand of his work epitomises the hybridity, fuzziness and uncertainty of Irish J. Walsh (B) School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Ireland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_16

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language identity in modern times. Ó Ríordáin has also left us poems with more universalist themes, emphasising the interconnectedness not only of humans but of all aspects of the world in which we live. A wellknown example is ‘Ní ceadmhach neamhshuim’ (literally ‘disinterest is not allowed’ but translated below as ‘against indifference’). Ní ceadmhach neamhshuim Níl cuil, níl leamhan, níl beach Dar chruthaigh Dia, níl fear, Nach dualgas dúinn a leas, Níl bean; ní ceadmhach neamhshuim A dhéanamh dá n-imní; Níl gealt i ngleann na ngealt, Nár chuí dhúinn suí lena ais, Á thionlacan an fhaid A iompraíonn thar ár gceann Ár dtinneas-ne ’na mheabhair Níl alt, níl sruth, níl sceach, Dá iargúlta iad, níl leac, Bídís thuaidh, thoir, thiar nó theas, Nár cheart dúinn machnamh ar a suíomh Le gean is le báidhíocht; Dá fhaid uainn Afraic Theas, Dá airde í gealach, Is cuid dínn iad ó cheart: Níl áit ar fuaid na cruinne Nach ann a saolaíodh sinne. Against indifference There’s not a fly nor a moth nor a bee that God created, not a man nor a woman made we’re not obliged to aid, whose anxiety we’re allowed to disregard; no man buried in his asylum we shouldn’t sit beside, keeping him company as long as he carries on our behalf

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our own sickness in his mind. There’s no place, no stream, no bush however remote, no stone north, south, east or west whose site we shouldn’t think of with sympathy and fondness; however far South Africa, however high the moon, they’re part of us by right — there’s nowhere in the world where we have not been born. (Translation by Peter Sirr; Sewell 2014: 180–181).

Despite Ó Ríordáin’s regular concern with the relationship between Irish and English, a broader sense of interconnectedness infuses ‘Ní ceadmhach neamhshuim’. It can be viewed as an ode to the interdependence of everything and to the centrality of interconnectedness to our existence. The poem contains a message of social solidarity and universalism, touching on ecology and the relationality of all things, be they human, animal or inanimate objects such as stones, slabs and the moon. It has also been set to music in the majestic composition ‘Aurora’ by singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, who is from the same Gaeltacht area. In sleeve notes accompanying the album, he emphasised the relational message on which the composition is based: ‘It’s about people’s rights, their needs and the interconnectedness of life’ (Real World 2020). I quote this poem in full in order to set the scene for this paper, which will argue—following developments in recent decades in geography—for a greater sensitivity to interdependence and relationality in what is known in Ireland as the ‘language planning process’. This refers to the Irish government’s policy framework aimed at strengthening the knowledge and use of Irish in defined geographical areas throughout the state and through a cross-border mechanism, in Northern Ireland also. I will argue for a deeper understanding of the development of concepts such as space, flows and networks which have generated such debate in geographical circles in recent decades. This paper offers a critical assessment of the Irish language planning process by drawing on insights from theories of space in geography, the

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discipline to which Colin Williams has contributed so much. However, Colin has also been engaged with Irish language policy for decades and was a member of the consortium which advised the Irish government on its 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010 –2030 , the framework which led to the current local initiatives (Government of Ireland 2010). Therefore, it is my intention in this paper to bring together those two aspects of Colin’s expertise: geography and language policy in the case of Irish. Space and place are among the most fundamental concepts in geography and it can be argued that space is to geography what time is to history. Yet despite the obviously spatial manifestations of so much of the world—from the material and physical to the social, cultural and linguistic—space as a concept is not widely employed beyond the broad confines of geography. Despite the fact that languages and their speakers are deeply bound up with issues of space and place, and although territoriality is central to language policy, there is less overt engagement than might be expected between sociolinguistic theory and the development of these concepts in geography in recent decades. In the next section, I will examine the poor historical intersection between geography and linguistics—especially in the sense of specific languages, rather than linguistics in an abstract or discursive sense—and then outline recent theoretical developments in understanding place and space, especially relational space. Finally, I look at historical understandings of spatiality and the Irish language, the mapping of the Gaeltacht as a discrete region and more lately the ‘language planning process’ which is supposed to strengthen Irish, on a very specifically defined spatial basis, in the Gaeltacht and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Ireland.

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Mapping the Gaeltacht

A geographical understanding of the Gaeltacht was being consolidated gradually in the public mind from the 1920s onwards. Following the foundation of the state in 1922, the Gaeltacht was defined geographically, albeit in a very imprecise and often contradictory manner, which led to confusion about which areas were officially Irish-speaking and

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which were not. Gaeltacht institutions were created and the idea that the Gaeltacht was a place apart both linguistically and culturally gained ground both within the Gaeltacht itself and in the broader population. The first major mapping of the Gaeltacht was the work of the Gaeltacht Commission, which was established by the newly independent government in 1925 to enquire into the extent of the Irish-speaking districts and make recommendations to strengthen Irish within them. In cartographic work described as ‘sophisticated’ by a leading geographer many decades later (Prunty 2004: 199), the Commission mapped Irish language ability throughout Ireland based on both the 1901 and 1911 censuses of population. It also proposed two categories of Gaeltacht based on Irish language ability: Fíor-Ghaeltacht (literally ‘true Gaeltacht’), where 80% or more of the population knew Irish, and BreacGhaeltacht (literally ‘speckled’ or ‘partial’ Gaeltacht), where between 25 and 79% of the population could speak Irish. On maps these were coloured pink and yellow respectively and covered large swathes of the northwest, west and southwest of the country (Government of Ireland 1926; see also Walsh 2002). Hindley, who was highly critical of the Commission’s methodology, raised the impossibility of defending the Gaeltacht boundaries, such was the pull of emigration to urban Ireland and cities abroad (Hindley 1991: 90). Be that as it may, the neat dichotomy of Fíor- and Breac-Ghaeltacht became embedded in public consciousness and although the categories were never enshrined in law, they became a key aspect of the story and folklore of the Gaeltacht itself over the past century. A legislative quagmire endured for decades with competing geographical definitions of the Gaeltacht on the statute books, mostly for the purpose of administering financial support schemes for residents of the Irish-speaking areas. A major review of the Gaeltacht in 1956 reduced its extent considerably, coinciding with the establishment of the first Department of the Gaeltacht, thirty years after the Commission had recommended a coordinated support structure. There have been minor changes since but the Gaeltacht today remains largely the same as the 1956 boundaries and comprises 90 full Electoral Divisions (EDs) and 66 part-EDs in Counties Meath, Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Galway, Mayo and Donegal (Ní Bhrádaigh et al. 2007; Walsh 2019).

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The current language planning process can be linked to renewed policy interest in Irish language policy in general in the past twenty years, beginning with a second Gaeltacht Commission of 2000–2002 (Coimisiún na Gaeltachta 2002). This was followed by a governmentcommissioned study of the Gaeltacht which recommended ranking the Irish-speaking districts according to the strength of Irish within them. The proposed A, B and C categories were an echo of the 1926 division of Fíor- and Breac-Ghaeltacht (Ó Giollagáin et al. 2007; see also Ó Giollagáin and Charlton 2015). The next policy milestone was the 20 –Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010 –2030 , which included legislative change to give effect to some recommendations of the 2007 study and also proposed more targeted support for Irish speakers outside the Gaeltacht (Government of Ireland 2010). This led in turn to the Gaeltacht Act 2012, a rushed piece of legislation which stopped short of endorsing the proposed ranking based on language use, but established new spatial arrangements for the Irish language both within and outside the Gaeltacht. While not amending the borders of the Gaeltacht itself, the Act created three new categories, all of which have spatial dimensions: (1) Gaeltacht Language Planning Districts, amalgamations of adjacent Gaeltacht EDs, (2) Gaeltacht Service Towns, urban centres of commercial, social or cultural importance to the Gaeltacht and (3) Irish Language Networks outside the Gaeltacht. Local organisations in all three spatial categories were to embark on language planning measures subject to guidelines published by the Department of the Gaeltacht. The Gaeltacht Service Towns had been mooted in the commissioned study (Ó Giollagáin et al. 2007: 31) as a mechanism for bolstering Irish in urban centres serving the Gaeltacht, while the Irish Language Networks were based on a proposal in the 20 –Year Strategy to develop existing Irish language groups outside the Gaeltacht (Government of Ireland 2010: 23). This was the first time since the foundation of the state that legal recognition was given to a spatial category of Irish speakers outside the Gaeltacht. In 2015, the Department created an online map viewer based on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology, illustrating the borders of

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the different categories and allowing different classifications according to demographic data (Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media 2021). Although the very essence of a ‘network’ is that it is more virtual than bounded in a physical sense, the GIS viewer represents the Irish Language Networks precisely in that way, ending at the administrative boundaries of the towns or districts where they are based. The national language planning agency Foras na Gaeilge, which operates as a cross-border agency, was given oversight of all Gaeltacht Service Towns outside the Gaeltacht and Irish Language Networks, two of the latter being in Northern Ireland. Údarás na Gaeltachta, previously an industrial development authority, was given additional responsibility to oversee the process in Gaeltacht Language Planning Districts. By the middle of 2021, most of the 26 such districts had language plans in place although progress was much slower in the 16 Gaeltacht Service Towns and five Irish Language Networks. The initial work of preparing plans was done by voluntary committees with little expertise in language planning but limited public funding has allowed the employment of language planning officers in Gaeltacht Language Planning Districts and it is expected that this model will also be followed in the Gaeltacht Service Towns and Irish Language Networks (Walsh 2019). In the next section, I turn to developments in the theorisation of space in recent decades (Fig. 1).

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Language and Geography

Historically, there was poor integration in the past between linguists and geographers, with early- to mid-twentieth-century exceptions in the field of dialectology, which was itself sometimes referred to as ‘geolinguistics’. Geography certainly left a mark on linguistics as a discipline since its consolidation at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Linguists expressed interest in speech differences from place to place and gathered information from people deemed to be exemplary speakers based on surveys featuring a series of linguistic items. In their classic work on dialectology, Chambers and Trudgill memorably referred to the typical informants for early dialectologists as ‘NORMs’

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Fig. 1 Map of Irish language planning process with three different spatial categories

(non-mobile, older rural males) (Chambers and Trudgill 1998: 29). Such participants were deemed ideal according to the methodological conventions of the time, men who rarely or never left their home areas and with lower levels of education (in case the standard language of schooling left

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its mark on their speech). Speech that displayed signs of standardisation or mobility was not deemed worthy of study. Dialectologists created detailed maps in order to illustrate diversity of linguistic features, often featuring isoglosses displaying variation in space. Using these methods, many linguistic atlases were published from the end of the nineteenth century including from Germany, Denmark, India, France, North America and Britain. In the case of Irish, a landmark work is the renowned Linguistic Atlas and Survey of Irish Dialects (Wagner 1981 [1958]), complete with 300 detailed maps featuring information points in 16 of the 32 Irish counties and in the Isle of Man. Much of this early geographical dialectology was heavily influenced by dominant ideologies of the period about language and society, in particular romanticism and the fin-de-siècle philosophy. According to such views, dialectologists hoped that linguistic variants would reveal more conservative versions of the language than the standardised forms being promoted heavily through education and the media. The discursive frame of language endangerment was also present: that traditional speech was threatened by urbanisation and industrialisation and that historical examples of it needed to be documented before they became extinct. This regional form of dialectology reigned supreme until the mid-century, ceding its position to a more social variant from the 1960s. The study of social or class-based differences between speech forms became salient in the case of larger languages such as English, somewhat reducing the importance of the traditional dialect map used in regional dialectology (Chambers and Trudgill 1998: 14–21). However, the desire to document local variation remained strong in minority languages because of the greater perception of endangerment, particularly in the context of sweeping socio-economic changes in many of the peripheral regions where such languages were still spoken in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Therefore, the salience of localism has persisted somewhat in the case of the dialectology of languages such as Irish, as revealed by the extensive list of local dialectal studies published by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and others since the 1940s (e.g. de Bhaldraithe 1953; Breatnach 1945; Wagner 1979; Ó Sé 2000).

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In Language in Geographic Context (Williams 1988a), Williams notes the lack of attention to language within geography despite the historical existence of geolinguistics and its concern for ‘the relationship between languages and their physical and human contexts’ (Williams 1988b: 2). He reminds us how geolinguistics seeks to measure the socio-spatial context of language use and language choice; to measure language distribution and variety; to identify the characteristics of different language groups; and to measure and map genetic affiliations between languages. Williams argues that while political scientists or sociologists often conducted work at state or regional level, sociolinguists and anthropologists worked at the micro-level, focusing on language in specific locales and therefore that place was to become an important determinant of code-switching and the development of vernacular and dialect speech forms, for example. However, he argues that it was rare for non-geographers to pay significant attention to space when studying sociolinguistic questions: Apart from the spatially informed work of Trudgill, Mackey and Laponce, few ... scholars ... conceived of space as anything but a container, a passive context for more detailed linguistic analysis. This relative neglect of a spatial perspective is understandable when one considers that most scholars conceive of geography in two-dimensional and rather simplistic terms. If they adopt geographical assumptions at all in their research, it is in the hope of demonstrating the direct influence of distance, topography or the built environment upon their analysis of social structure in general, and of language in particular. This conception of space in nineteenth century social physics terms is limiting in the extreme. (Williams 1988b: 5–6)

The companion volume to the above, Linguistic Minorities, Society and Territory (Williams 1991), dealt with themes such as the relationship between language transmission, territoriality, power and space among western European and Canadian linguistic minorities. Williams’s opening essay also analyses the influence of ‘nationalising space’ and the state’s politicisation of its territory and considers how this can contribute to political strife and sometimes violence. The complex process of the nationalisation of social space led frequently to the exclusion of linguistic

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minorities from either participating in such space or creating their own (1991: 7–8). This volume includes an essay analysing the Gaeltacht Commission of the 1920s and subsequent shifts in the borders (Hindley 1991). Better linkages have been forged in recent decades, especially in countries such as Wales and Canada, and Colin Williams has been a key contributor to that development since the 1980s. The territoriality principle is fundamental to the field of language policy, is embedded in legislation protecting linguistic minorities and is present also in the salience of localness to Fishman’s renowned ‘Stage 6’ (the home/family/community nexus) of the ‘Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale’ (Fishman 1991). Similarly, the centrality of territoriality to language policy in Canada and elsewhere has been emphasised by scholars such as Laponce (1984, 1987) and Kymlicka and Patten (2003), albeit working from a political science perspective. Auer (2013) has problematised the concept of the territoriality of language and called for a paradigm shift away from an understanding of languages as embedded in territorial spaces towards one where the speaker is paramount (see also O’Rourke, this volume). A key recent contribution is the work of Jones and Lewis, who examine in depth the geographies of language with particular reference to Walsh (2019: 31–94).

4

Space and Place in Geography

The human geographer Nigel Thrift has written that space is so fundamental to geography that it became unmarked or invisible (Thrift 2009: 95) but the postmodern turn in geography since the 1990s has generated a large corpus of literature offering new theorisation of the spatial dimension. Space and place are highly contested concepts in human and cultural geography and it is difficult to find agreement about the distinctions between them. On the one hand, in a simplistic sense ‘space’ was in the past held to be similar to a container or a vessel, a defined and discrete bounded entity—‘a passive context’ in Colin Williams’s words. On the other hand, in its basic sense ‘place’ could be described as space infused with meaning, such as the place where we live or work. Although

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elements of this simplistic distinction may still hold true, space has itself come to be defined as much more dynamic, fluid and therefore malleable. While there is still terminological slippage, ‘place’ is increasingly concerned with specific locales or specific points on a map whereas ‘space’ has become increasingly abstract. ‘Space’ can be said to refer to how things are structured or arranged over a given area and increasingly between areas but ‘place’ too has been attributed greater meaning over recent decades. Spatial analysis became popular in the mid-twentieth century as a unit of analysis for physical geography based firmly on concepts of distance. This can be referred to as ‘absolute space’ in its geometrical sense, reflecting the dominance of quantitative approaches in mid-century geography. Human geographers, on the other hand, wondered whether people’s activities in given places could be studied scientifically at all and saw space as a social construct. Arguing that the spatial approach was inhuman, they championed the concept of ‘relative space’, now more commonly known as ‘relational space’. Castree has referred to this shift as an attempt to ‘re-humanise geography’ and a ‘vital corrective to the passionless, placeless grids of spatial scientific analysis’ (2009: 170). Challenges also came from Marxist geographers (e.g. Harvey 1973) who argued that geography was not doing enough to remedy social injustice. Marxists played a key role in the development of the concept of relational space by criticising human geographers for paying too much attention to individual places and for not looking at their interconnectedness. For instance, referring to the development of spatial planning practices, Healey described the mid-twentieth-century period as ‘being trapped in a worn-out essentialist geography’ (2004: 48). Thrift sums up the shift nicely when he writes that all human geographers working with the concept of space share a common ambition: that is to abandon the idea of any pre-existing space in which things are embedded for an idea of space as undergoing continual construction exactly through the agency of things encountering each other in more or less organized circulations. This is a relational view of space in which, rather than space being viewed as a container within which the world proceeds, space is seen as a co-product of those proceedings. (2009: 96)

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Others have taken an anti-essentialist position, arguing that space and identity are not fixed or bound and calling for geography to promote less monolithic or bound approaches to both (Natter and Jones 1997: 142). Having outlined some recent debates about space and place, I now examine in more depth the concept of ‘relational space’, which is of particular relevance to our understanding of Irish language policy.

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Relational Space

British geographers such as Doreen Massey and Patsy Healey did pioneering work on the concept of ‘relational space’. Healey has written about how mid-twentieth-century concepts of space as rigid, static, bounded and discrete are yielding ground to notions of space as ‘an alternative, relational conception which sees space as an inherent spatiality in all relations, whether social, ecological or biospherical, and which understands space as a social construct, generated as meanings are given in particular social contexts to particular sites, areas, nodes of intersection etc.’ (Healey 2004: 47). Thinking about space relationally in geography has become a major concern due to the work of Healey and in particular to Massey and her landmark book For Space. In it, Massey sets out the three components of her concept: (1) space is the product of interrelations and is constituted through them; (2) without multiplicity, there is no space and (3) space is always under construction, it is never finished and never closed (Massey 2005: 9). Massey argues that it is necessary ‘to uproot “space” from that constellation of concepts in which it has unquestionably so often been embedded (stasis, closure, representation) and to settle it among another set of ideas (heterogeneity, relationality, coevalness … liveliness indeed) where it releases a more challenging political landscape’. In other words, space is not dead and place alive: both are far more complex. She sets out the aim of relational space as a concept to challenge ‘localist or nationalist claims to place based on eternal essential, and in consequence exclusive, characteristics of belonging; to retain, while reformulating, an appreciation of the specific and the distinctive while refusing the parochial’ (2004: 6).

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In minority language-speaking areas such as the Gaeltacht, tensions around demographic change due to economic development are commonplace (see, for instance, the discussion of Anglesey in north Wales in Jones and Lewis 2019: 1–8). Massey dwells at length on discourses about what she calls the ‘defence of place’ as part of challenges to globalisation, a political defence of the local against the global. She argues that taking seriously and understanding relationally the politics of place rejects a simplistic call to always argue for the defence of place in an undifferentiated manner and to simplistically equate the local with the good and the global with the bad (2005: 101–102). Instead, Massey draws the unlikely comparison between the protection of the lands of an indigenous Amazonian tribe, the Deni, and the clamour in the English tabloids for an end to foreign immigration. Why, she asks, is it right for the Deni to fight against the invasions of their lands (and for the left to support them with this) but not for middle-class villages in England to do so where a vocal group claims that their ‘way of life’ is under threat? Massey responds that there are no universal, immutable spatial principles here and that ‘defence of a local way of life’ can cut both ways. Demarcation or a boundary is not simply good or bad and ‘an assessment of the specific power-relations and politics—the specific power-geometries—of the particular situation’ is required (2005: 167). Within this framework, Massey adds, it is possible to defend the local without simple nostalgia for a frozen, utopian past, to respect local specificity that avoids a retreat into simplistic romanticism. This stance is relevant to debates about the areas where minority languages have historically been spoken. Martin Jones has also written extensively about relationality and the region and how relational theorists have sought to redefine the region. While endorsing some of the relational paradigm, he accuses some of its advocates of overstating their case because many ‘factors can constrain and structure space’ (2009: 493). He also argues that some relational theorists ignore contextual forces of advanced capitalism or late modernity such as race, class, gender and location. Drawing on research on regions and identity, Jones argues that perceptions of bounded space continue to be potent motivations for a range of identity politics (2009: 494). This point is relevant to Gaeltacht language planning because

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the very historical boundedness of the Gaeltacht has forged an identity within that disjointed region as a whole and between various parts of it. As we have seen, such a notion of the Gaeltacht as a distinct space has been consolidated over the past century and aided by measures including mapping, signage at the borders and Gaeltacht media. In Ireland, the very existence of a clearly bounded space has led to supports being created for learners in the form of summer colleges, etc., and the Gaeltacht as a territorial concept is significant for new speakers of the language (O’Rourke and Walsh 2020).

6

Alternative/Critical Cartography

The methodology of cartography itself is also important in this regard, as the composition of maps themselves and decisions about what is included and excluded exercise powerful influences on users. The American geographers Jeremy Crampton and John Krygier are associated with alternative or critical approaches to cartography, which they define as challenging ‘academic cartography by linking geographic knowledge with power’, making it political (Crampton and Krygier 2006: 11). This approach has clearly been inspired heavily by Foucault and is based on the premise that maps make reality—or space—as much as they represent it. As another proponent, John Pickles has written: ‘instead of focusing on how we can map the subject, we could instead focus on the ways in which mapping and the cartographic gaze have coded subjects and produced identities’ (Pickles 2004: 13). This issue has been relevant to the Gaeltacht in the course of the twentieth century since its mapping began. Generations of scholars and interested lay-people have become accustomed to the familiar choropleth maps which colour spatial units based on linguistic criteria, serving to emphasise language decline in space across time. According to Pickles and others, maps are active agents, they construct knowledge, exercise power and can bring about social change. The style of Gaeltacht map that has been solidified in the public and scholarly imaginations has had deep implications for how the geography of the Irish language is perceived. Arguing that choropleth maps tracking language shift have exerted a deep

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influence on debates about language policy in Wales, Jones and Lewis produce a series of alternative maps of Welsh-speaking areas and people which give insights into factors such as mobility, hybridity and the use of Walsh on social media (2019: 147–201). Critical cartographic projects such as the ‘delete the border’ project based on art and migration on the periphery of the EU (https://www. countercartographies.org/) or recent platforms such as Open Street Map (https://www.openstreetmap.org/) allow further democratic participation in mapping. These and other projects show that cartography is no longer in the hands of the official mapmakers. Such resistance or counter-mapping offers a myriad of possibilities for representing the Gaeltacht and Irish speakers more generally in a far more dynamic and multi-faceted way than the official cartographic sources.

7

Discussion

The Irish language revival period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries further unsettled the linguistic geography by fostering the creation of what we can today call ‘new speakers’ of Irish outside the Gaeltacht (O’Rourke and Walsh 2020). The complex relationships between mostly urban learners or new speakers and native speakers of the Gaeltacht is a recurring theme over the last century of language policy by successive Irish governments. However, a combination of nationalism and a native language ideology prioritised the Gaeltacht in official discourse for the early decades of the Irish state. Following Jones and Lewis (2019), static approaches to mapping the Gaeltacht as a visual cartographic representation of the Irish-speaking community cemented the language’s association with these districts and erased the existence of Irish speakers elsewhere. While language policy since 1922 has rested heavily on the teaching of Irish outside the Gaeltacht, it has also included sporadic initiatives to develop Irish-speaking networks (Ó Murchú 2007). These were not given any formal statutory base until the Gaeltacht Act 2012, which as we have seen created the new spatial categories of Gaeltacht Service Town and Irish Language Network.

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However, although the nascent language planning process has belatedly expanded the geographical representation of Irish speakers, it remains embedded in the static spatial and cartographic representations criticised in this paper. All three new language planning categories, whether in the Gaeltacht or not, are represented as bounded entities in the Department’s GIS viewer, an inadequate reflection of the realities of the fluidity and mobility of late modernity. It is particularly ironic that the Irish Language Networks—arguably the most relational of all categories—are encased with clearly defined borders on the Department of the Gaeltacht’s GIS map viewer, when the very notion of network is unbounded. It is undeniable that the delimited maps of the past have contributed to a Gaeltacht identity which has in turn stabilised the use of Irish at least among some of the population, but a sociolinguistics of mobility coupled with a critical spatial consciousness is required to understand the patterns of language shift and language maintenance among Irish speakers today, whether they live in the Gaeltacht or elsewhere. It is not as if the people of the Gaeltacht or Irish people in general are unfamiliar with mobility—they have been emigrating in droves for centuries—but there is little official recognition of this historical and contemporary fact in how the language planning process is conceptualised. In the spirit of ‘Ní ceadmhach neamhshuim’, and following the example of Jones and Lewis (2019) and others, we need to shift attention away from the stasis of official mapping to more diverse and fluid cartographic representations which accurately illustrate the relationality of the spaces of Irish. This is not a case of ‘deleting the border’ but recognising that too much attachment to it is a very limiting approach to understanding the Gaeltacht and Irish speakers in general. The alternative cartographic approaches discussed in this paper could be part of this rethinking of the spaces of the Irish language, but official policy framing the language planning process itself needs to be more cognisant of the fundamental shifts in geographical thinking in recent decades. Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the support of Dr. Mary Cawley and Dr. Marie Mahon of the National University of Ireland, Galway for their assistance with geographical sources. I extend thanks also to Prof. Máirín Nic

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Eoin of Dublin City University for her advice. The map was created by David Kelly of the Moore Institute, NUI Galway.

References Auer, P. 2013. ‘FRAGL 16: The Geography of Language: Steps Toward a New Approach.’ Working Paper. Available at: http://portal.uni-freiburg.de/sdd/ fragl/2013.16. Accessed 1 November 2021. Breatnach, R.B. 1945. The Irish of Ring. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Castree, N. 2009. Place: Connections and Boundaries in an Interdependent World. In Key Concepts in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford, S.L. Holloway, S.P. Rice and F. Valentine, 2nd ed., 153–172. Los Angeles and London: Sage. Chambers, P., and J.K. Trudgill. 1998. Dialectology, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coimisiún na Gaeltachta. 2002. Tuarascáil/Report. Dublin: Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands. Crampton, J.W., and J. Krygier. 2006. An introduction to critical cartography. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 4 (1): 11–33. de Bhaldraithe, T. 1953. Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge: An Deilbhíocht. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. 2021. Amharcóir Pleanála Teanga. Available at: https://dahg.maps.arcgis.com/ apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=7090794ee2ca4b53bb785b84c2bd9ad8. Accessed 6 June 2021. Fishman, J.A. 1991. Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Gaeltacht Act 2012. No. 34 of 2012. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2012/ act/34/enacted/en/html. Accessed 25 Feb 2021. Government of Ireland. 1926. Gaeltacht Commission: Report. Dublin: Stationery Office. Government of Ireland. 2010. 20 –Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010 – 2030. Dublin: Government of Ireland. Harvey, D. 2009 [1973]. Social Justice and the City, Rev. ed. Athens, GA and London: University of Georgia Press.

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Healey, P. 2004. The Treatment of Space and Place in the New Strategic Spatial Planning in Europe. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28 (1): 45–67. Hindley, R. 1991. Defining the Gaeltacht: Dilemmas in Irish language planning. In Linguistic Minorities, Society and Territory, ed. C.H. Williams, 66–95. Clevedon and Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. Jones, M. 2009. Phase Space: Geography, Relational Thinking, and Beyond. Progress in Human Geography 33 (4): 487–506. Jones, R., and H. Lewis. 2019. New Geographies of Language: Language, Culture and Politics in Wales. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kymlicka, W., and A. Patten, eds. 2003. Language Rights and Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Laponce, J.A. 1984. Langue et territoire. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Laponce, J.A. 1987. Languages and Their Territories. Toronto: Toronto University Press. Massey, D. 2004. Geographies of Responsibility. Geografiska Annaler: Series b, Human Geography 86 (1): 5–18. Massey, D. 2005. For Space. London: Sage. Natter, W., and J.P. Jones. 1997. Identity, Space, and Other Uncertainties. In Space and Social Theory: Interpreting Modernity and Postmodernity, ed. G. Benko and U. Strohmayer, 141–161. Oxford: Blackwell. Ní Bhrádaigh, E., S. McCarron, J. Walsh, and P. Duffy. 2007. Using GIS to Map the Evolution of the Gaeltacht. Irish Geography 40 (1): 99–108. Ó Giollagáin, C., and M. Charlton. 2015. Nuashonrú ar an Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht 2006 –2011. Galway: Údarás na Gaeltachta. Ó Giollagáin, C., S. Mac Donnacha, F. Ní Chualáin, A. Ní Shéaghdha, and M. O’Brien. 2007. Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht: Principal Findings and Recommendations. Dublin: Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. Ó Murchú, H. 2007. Cur chun cinn na Gàidhlig agus na Gaeilge sa chathair. In Gàidhealtachdan Ùra: Leasachadh na Gàidhlig agus a Gaeilge sa Bhaile Mhòr/Nua-Ghaeltachtaí: Cur chun cinn na Gàidhlig agus na Gaeilge sa Chathair, ed. W. McLeod, 5–18. Edinburgh: Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh. Ó Sé, D. 2000. Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne. Dublin: Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann. O’Rourke, B., and J. Walsh. 2020. New Speakers of Irish in the Global Context: New Revival? London and New York: Routledge.

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Pickles, J. 2004. A History of Spaces: Cartographic Reason, Mapping and the Geo-Coded World . London and New York: Routledge. Prunty, J. 2004. Maps and Map-making in Local History. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Real World. 2020. Invisible Fields: Iarla Ó Lionáird . Available at: https://rea lworldrecords.com/releases/invisible-fields/. Accessed 6 June 2021. Sewell, F., ed. 2014. Seán Ó Ríordáin: Selected Poems/Rogha Dánta. New Haven, London and Indreabhán: Yale University Press and Cló Iar-Chonnacht. Thrift, N. 2009. Space: The Fundamental Stuff of Geography. In Key Concepts in Geography, ed. N.J. Clifford, S.L. Holloway, S.P. Rice, and F. Valentine, 85–96, 2nd ed. Los Angeles and London: Sage. Wagner, H. 1979. Gaeilge Theilinn: Foghraidheacht , Gramadach, Téacsanna. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Wagner, H. 1981 [1958]. Linguistic Atlas and Survey of Irish Dialects (Volume 1, ‘Introduction’). Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Walsh, J. 2002. Dichoimisiúnú Teanga: Coimisiún na Gaeltachta 1926 . Dublin: Cois Life. Walsh, J. 2019. Sainiú na Gaeltachta: pobail, ceantair agus líonraí. In An tSochtheangeolaíocht : Taighde agus Gníomh, ed. T. Ó hIfearnáin, 185–210. Dublin: Cois Life. Williams, C.H., ed. 1988a. Language in Geographic Context. Clevedon and Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. Williams, C.H. 1988b. An introduction to geolinguistics. In Language in Geographic Context, ed. C.H. Williams, 1–20. Clevedon and Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. Williams, C.H., ed. 1991. Linguistic Minorities, Society and Territory. Clevedon and Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.

Lessons Learned, Lessons Ignored: The Continuing Road to an Irish Language Act in Northern Ireland Janet Muller

This chapter will examine Irish language promotion in Northern Ireland over two decades, from 2000 to 2021. This period has seen legislation for the Irish language move to the centre stage of political debate, commencing with the establishment of the small grassroots nongovernmental organisation POBAL1 in 1998 and culminating in the inclusion of proposals for Irish and Ulster Scots in the New Decade, New Approach (NDNA) document in January 2020 (UK Government and Irish Government 2020). The document, intended to re-establish devolution in the North, was produced after considerable leverage from the Westminster and Irish governments. NDNA followed a bitter three-year suspension of the institutions, which witnessed increasingly acrimonious deadlock between local political parties in the North, in particular J. Muller (B) Belfast, Northern Ireland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_17

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between the main nationalist party, Sinn Féin, and its unionist counterpart, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Long-standing demands for an Irish language act were at the core of contention. NDNA was released on 10 January 2020 at an eleventh-hour press call by Julian Smith, British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Simon Coveney, the Irish Tanáiste (deputy prime minister). With Sinn Féin and the DUP accepting the deal, and smaller parties falling into line, the devolved institutions re-opened on 11 January 2020. In spite of Sinn Féin’s repeated public assertion over three years that the party would not return to Stormont (the seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly) without a free-standing, rights-based Irish language act, there is no such commitment in NDNA. Instead, there are a number of alternative measures which I will analyse in the light of some lessons highlighted by campaigners and by independent experts, including Professor Colin Williams, during the debates on the Irish language act since 2004. I shall focus on the extent to which key lessons have been learned and whether opportunities have been missed or perhaps disregarded. In addition, I shall examine what implications may arise from the approaches and attitudes of various stakeholders including politicians, government institutions and Irish speakers, and how they impact the future development of legislative measures capable of protecting and promoting the Irish language in coming decades.

1

Background

In this section, I outline some of the background to the current situation. The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) 1998 was heralded as the start of a new era. Williams (2013a: 102) has noted that in the broader European context many language activists, having spent decades building an infrastructure in various domains for minoritised languages, realised that the duties of government and public bodies needed to be specified in law. In the north, the newly formed language organisation POBAL combined fresh understanding with a grassroots drive to relocate Irish within the mainstream of public policy. The group attracted the support of noted international experts in language promotion, including Professor Robert

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Dunbar, Professor Wilson McLeod, Professor Fernand de Varennes and Professor Colin Williams. In 2004, following an extensive community consultation, POBAL published detailed draft legislative proposals and explanatory text based on the advice of these experts (POBAL 2004). Professor Williams wrote a comprehensive opening section, outlining why minority languages are increasingly accepted as part of the dividend that diversity brings to society. Pointing out that if one of the three pillars of language promotion (family and community, education and the state) is weak, Williams states (2004: 11) ‘it can threaten the long term vitality of the language’. He advises that social diversity, whilst increasingly recognised, can be distorted by selective approaches by those in power, and notes that it is best supported when communities themselves are fully engaged with other key players in developing empowerment and ‘specifying what members of the community might reasonably expect to receive in terms of public services and human rights’ (Williams 2004: 12). The extent to which the principle of democratic inclusion of community voices has underpinned the progress of the Irish language in recent years is one I shall examine throughout this chapter. POBAL’s energetic, expert-supported campaign for legislation led to an unequivocal promise from the British government in the St Andrews Agreement of 2006 to introduce an Irish language act. Unfortunately in 2007, prior to the re-establishment of devolution following a fiveyear suspension, the British government reneged on this commitment. In spite of this, Sinn Féin, who had supported the legislation in public, re-entered the Northern Ireland Assembly and the DUP quickly vetoed the act (Hansard 2007). A period of intense frustration followed for Irish speakers. POBAL mobilised thousands in support of the legislation and succeeded in presenting exemplary language research to international human rights bodies. In 2012, again with advice from Williams, Dunbar and McLeod as well as key community consultation, POBAL published updated proposals for the Irish language act (POBAL 2012). In 2015, Carál Ní Chuilín, Sinn Féin’s first Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure since devolution commenced, launched a public consultation on legislative proposals (Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure 2015). POBAL welcomed the action, but was critical of a lack of clarity and detail as well as omissions in the draft consultation document, which

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contained no proposals in respect of local authorities and little in terms of education. Consultation responses favoured the POBAL approach in all key areas (Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure 2015). Also during this period, Ní Chuilín and her southern counterpart Jimmy Deenihan led the fraught restructuring of Foras na Gaeilge’s (FnG) funding of Irish language organisations. Williams (1994: 141) has contended that in Wales, there has been ‘a deep ambiguity’ about the dominance of government in language revitalisation because of the tendency of institutionalisation to create dependency, thereby severing control of language promotion from the community. Certainly, the majority of Irish language organisations throughout the island protested vehemently against what they saw as FnG’s damaging and deeply flawed reorganisation of funding. They feared it would encourage duplication of work, create divisions between organisations and undermine independence within the sector in general, but particularly in the North. Nonetheless, core funding was ended and the budget redistributed from nineteen groups (including seven based in Northern Ireland) to six Dublin-based organisations. Along with Altram, Forbairt Feirste, Iontaobhas Ultach and Comhaltas Uladh, POBAL2 had all FnG funding withdrawn. A drop in votes for both main parties in the 2011 elections had demonstrated diminishing public confidence in what devolution was likely to achieve. Stormont was gridlocked by underlying sectarianism and awareness of growing community frustration was no doubt to the fore in party political thinking. In 2016, Minister Ní Chuilín’s Irish language legislative proposals were rejected without discussion by a majority of Executive ministers. The Assembly continued to be destabilised by spats, the chronic failure of the political parties to put into practice even the most basic tenets of good governance,3 major financial scandals and the untimely death of Sinn Féin’s Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness. In 2017, the Assembly was once more suspended. The Irish language continued to be at the centre of acerbic wrangling between the two main parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP. POBAL, now without FnG funding for eighteen months, pursued its ongoing campaign for the Irish language act, calling for no return of the devolved institutions without it. Sinn Féin responded to the demand, repeatedly stating that a free-standing, rights-based act was one its key red lines.

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What were and were not red lines, and whose red lines were to blame for what, became the media’s recurrent motif for the ongoing political squabbles. Conradh na Gaeilge, chosen and funded by FnG to carry out the advocacy work already being done by POBAL, later also called for a free-standing language act, based not on the full POBAL document but instead on a shortened, selective list from the proposals (Conradh na Gaeilge 2017). Simultaneously, it claimed that their reduced version of legislation would cost £3.8 million per annum over the lifespan of an executive (Conradh na Gaeilge 2017: 29), a figure similar to Sinn Féin’s (Irish News 2017), and criticised by POBAL as minimalist and a potentially unrealistic ‘cap’ on legitimate future investment. Vituperative attacks continued in the media on the Irish language and the proposal to legislate for its protection. In response, Irish speakers, predominantly young people under the title An Dream Dearg (‘The Red Group’), took to the streets with lively but generalised slogans calling for legislation. Unfortunately, as Gruffudd (2000: 174) notes, whilst popular, grassroots activism can be a key element in language survival, ‘such actions, while achieving reasonable success in recognisable and tangible objectives, can often be severely lacking in influence over more intricate and less easily defined domains’. Where a more detailed, expert or nuanced approach over time is necessary, he asserts, ‘simplistic youthful campaigns are no longer effective.’ Young people have important potential as voters and activists for minoritised languages and other causes. However, this may make them vulnerable to opportunist politics, including promises which cannot or will not deliver the progress genuinely required. The paucity of guaranteed rights and services for Irish speakers in NDNA raises key questions about the involvement of the general public in campaigns on complex issues such as language legislation, which require strong underlying technical expertise and in-depth knowledge. Social media campaigns and street protests are not without value, but they are blunt instruments. Organisational self-interest may eclipse vision for change if participants are not unequivocal in their aims, and equal partners with politicians and their negotiators. To obtain optimal results on language legislation, specific expertise and the ability to extensively influence combative, finely detailed and fluid negotiation is essential. Even where this exists, unless those at the negotiating table

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are fully committed to the issue as their key priority, there is a risk of serious slippage away from the wide range of rights and measures required to assure the necessary progress. It remains to be seen if the minimalism of NDNA in respect of Irish speakers will significantly influence the future approaches of energetic young participants. Whatever the outcome, responsibility for change cannot reside in the community alone. As Williams (2000: 32) has pointed out, for politicians to exhort the dispossessed to take control of their social, political and cultural development can simply be a way of transferring responsibility onto those who by definition are not in a position to carry out the fundamental structural change needed.

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Text of a Draft Agreement

In February 2018, seemingly on the brink of agreement with Sinn Féin on a package of issues, the DUP withdrew from talks, saying that the party would not agree to Irish language legislation. Sinn Féin leader in the north, Michelle O’Neill, asserted that her party had ‘worked in good faith, we stretched ourselves’ (Irish Times 2018). This left many Irish speakers curious as to what the party might have won—or conceded—on paper. They did not have to wait long to find out. Senior reporter Eamonn Mallie subsequently published online a document headed ‘Full “Draft Agreement Text”’ (Mallie 2018), widely recognised as an accurate representation of the package under discussion. Many human rights campaigners were disappointed, whilst the specific sections regarding the Irish language caused consternation amongst its speakers. POBAL publicly rejected the proposals as a flawed and poor basis for legislation. Conradh na Gaeilge initially welcomed the text but subsequently followed suit, expressing disappointment at the weakness of the proposals. Some media commentators greeted the Draft Agreement with rueful surprise that consensus had almost been achieved, given the deep-rooted conflict between the two main parties. Echoing Williams’s (2013a) ‘mask of piety’ concept, others contended that it exposed party political agendas rather than a commitment to language issues:

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It’s a climb down on behalf of Sinn Fein. Two years ago, SF’s preferred model included a Commissioner, street names, proposals for Irish to be used in the courts, the translation of Stormont business and designated Gaeltacht areas across the north. It might get them (and the DUP) off a hook. Question is what will the wider movement make of it? (Fealty 2017)

POBAL published a detailed analysis of the Draft Agreement proposals. The organisation decried the fact that the proposals created no rights and locked the language within the political system through the requirement for approval from the First and Deputy First Ministers. It raised concerns about how the three legislative bills proposed—an Irish language bill, an Ulster Scots bill and a ‘Respect and Diversity’ bill—would interact. POBAL also pointed out that international experts, including at the Council of Europe, recognised that linking provision for Irish with Ulster Scots was not to the benefit of either. The NGO criticised the lack of detail regarding language plans or standards. Whilst welcoming the creation of an Irish language commissioner, it queried the wisdom of a dual role, that is, agreeing and introducing standards and policing them, which runs counter to well-documented national and international practice. In addition, it expressed concern that some familiar old chestnuts appeared in the sub-sections of the draft, including having due regard to ‘sensitivities’, ‘cost’ and ‘practicability’—phrases deployed many times to rationalise opposition to the use of Irish. Although it approved the proposed repeal of the Administration of Justice (Language) Act (Ireland) 1737 , which currently effectively prevents the use of Irish in the courts in the North, the organisation stated that without further measures, repeal would fall far short of the right to use Irish in the administration of justice. POBAL distributed its findings widely, including to Irish language and human rights organisations, to all political parties in the North, to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and to the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister). The organisation met Sinn Féin MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) Máirtín Ó Muilleoir and representatives of the Tánaiste and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs to make its views known. Sinn Féin subsequently averred at public meetings with

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Irish speakers that whilst in February 2018 they would have accepted the Draft Agreement proposals, they were no longer willing to do so. Instead, they would press for the promised rights-based, free-standing Irish language act. The British and Irish governments continued to bring intermittent pressure to bear to re-establish the Assembly. The British government, however, had its own difficulties over Brexit and Westminster appeared at times to be almost as conflicted as Stormont. In the face of the ongoing devolution logjam, human rights activists set about persuading MPs in London to bring forward Westminster legislation to extend the UK’s Abortion Act 1967 to Northern Ireland and recognise gay marriage on an equal basis should Stormont’s suspension continue.4 POBAL, at an invitation from the Irish language voluntary organisation Gael-Linn, travelled to London to lobby MPs on the Irish language act.5 As a result, a number of MPs from the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, Labour and the Tories wrote to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland calling for Westminster to introduce the Irish language act in the absence of devolution.6 Sporadic talks between the political parties continued for several months until the new British Secretary of State, Julian Smith, threatened to call elections on 13 January 2020 if the Assembly was not re-established by then (BBC News 2019). As stated previously, NDNA was published late on 10 January 2020 and the parties returned to the debating chamber on Saturday 11 January.

3

The Commitments Made with Regard to Irish in NDNA

The references to the Irish language in NDNA represent a further acknowledgement that the British and Irish governments, as well as Stormont, have responsibility for the protection and promotion of Irish. Such recognition is hardly new. There are some Irish language provisions in the Good Friday Agreement 1998, the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1998, and the St Andrews Agreement and Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 . Given the insistence over three years by Sinn Féin that a free-standing rights-based Irish language act was a red

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line, the lack of any such act and the absence of any Irish language rights whatsoever in NDNA is rather shocking. The similarity of the NDNA provisions with the ‘failed’ Draft Agreement of February 2018, noted earlier, is also striking. For as with the Draft, NDNA creates no rights at all for Irish speakers (though it does place a duty on the Department of Education (section 5.19) to facilitate and encourage Ulster Scots in the education curriculum). NDNA includes the establishment of two language commissioners, one for the Irish language (5.6) and one for Ulster Scots (5.14), the introduction of ‘language standards’ (5.8.1), the setting up of a central translation hub for government (5.21.1) and repeal (5.13) of the Administration of Justice (Ireland) Act 1737 . Whilst birth, death and marriage certificates and wills in Irish will be recognised, there is no reference to the translation into Irish of legal texts or acts. Importantly, as in the wording of the Draft Agreement, the actual use of Irish in the courts is restricted to ‘when deemed necessary by the courts’ (5.13). In addition, there is no indication by what mechanism, or at what level the use of Irish will be decided. NDNA clearly lacks the significant range of rights required to guarantee the use of Irish in the administration of justice, as in other key areas. Like the Draft Agreement, NDNA refers to three bills. Under NDNA, an Irish language bill (Amendment 2), an Ulster Scots bill (Amendment 3) and a bill to establish the Office of Identity and Cultural Expression (Amendment 1) will form dedicated parts of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. NDNA states that the bills will share common principles around community relations and parity of esteem. Crucially, they will be ‘introduced as part of an integrated package [...] accordingly no bill should be regarded as independent from the other two’ (5.24). The contents of NDNA entitled ‘Rights, Language and Identity’ (25) appears to validate concerns that the Irish language bill risks suffocation within a neutralising framework. The section recognises the right of all persons ‘to choose, affirm, maintain and develop their national and cultural identity’, in a manner which ‘takes into account the sensitivities of those with different national or cultural identities’. As pointed out previously, this wording has been used widely to obstruct reasonable requests for Irish language services, on the grounds that such provision might ‘offend’. It was also used in 2007 to veto an Irish language act.

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NDNA (26) refers to the establishment of a ‘new framework’ by the First Ministers to deal with cultural issues. The document states that a key element of the framework will be the establishment of a new statutory body, the Office of Identity and Cultural Expression (OICE) (26a), to promote pluralism and ‘support all aspects of Northern Ireland’s rich cultural heritage’. OICE is not referenced in the Draft Agreement, which refers instead to a ‘Respect and Diversity’ bill. OICE has a rather wide range of aims (5.3) which include: providing guidance to public bodies and monitoring compliance with OICE principles (i.e. respecting and celebrating national and cultural identity whilst simultaneously having regard to ‘sensitivities’, and promoting reconciliation). OICE will promote respect for diversity in relation to ethnicity, national identity, and linguistic and faith communities. It will ensure ‘everyone has a sense of belonging’. OICE will ‘build capacity and resilience on how we address our unresolved cultural identity issues’ and support and celebrate the north’s ‘rich cultural and linguistic heritage’ whilst recognising the ‘equal validity and importance of all identities and traditions’ (5.3.4). To enable its ambitious role, it will provide guidance to public authorities, monitor compliance, report to the Assembly, promote best practice and commission and publish research. OICE will fund events and celebrations. It will build relationships with a host of community relations bodies, commissions, sectors and government departments, presumably in an attempt to avoid obvious duplication with these numerous existing bodies. OICE will provide administration, including HR, IT, and legal backup to the Office of the Irish Language Commissioner and the Ulster Scots Commissioner. It will be interesting to note over a period of time whether providing legal advice not only to itself but to two Commissioners with differing roles in a historically conflicted context will prove effective and/or desirable. OICE appears to have an overarching role in relation to ‘contentious’ issues, since either the Irish Language or Ulster Scots commissioners may request its help on matters of ‘a challenging nature’. In this capacity, it may undertake independent research, ‘reach balanced findings’ and ‘make recommendations on matters of concern’

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(5.5.6). It is unclear whether these functions of the OICE will complement or diminish the ability of either Commissioner to press forward on approaches deemed to be unpopular or contentious. NDNA (5.6) refers to legislation to create a commissioner for Irish ‘to protect and enhance’ the use of the language by public authorities, to provide advice and guidance to them and to introduce, support and monitor language standards, as well as investigating complaints. As noted earlier, a commissioner’s office with the dual role of gamekeeper and poacher is problematic. The document states that the Commissioner will be appointed by the First Ministers, ‘as a key element of providing, under statute, official recognition of the status of the Irish language’ (5.7). Thus, the matter of official status in NDNA reverts to the flawed and obscure wording of the Draft Agreement. Time will tell in what manner, if at all, the granting of official status and the ‘official recognition of the status of Irish’ will prove to be identical in practice. Of course, without any actual detail of what might be contained in the three bills mooted in NDNA, it is impossible to determine whether or not the ‘status’ of Irish stops at the Commissioner’s door. NDNA details the legislative duty of the Commissioner to introduce language standards after consultation. Clearly, therefore, their contents will not be prescribed in the Irish language bill, meaning they will have no legislative basis. In addition, whatever standards are proposed must be approved by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (5.12). Given the successive failures of such Ministers over many years to agree on anything relating to the Irish language, the clause does not inspire optimism. Indeed, rather than relocating Irish within the administrative realm, it again entrenches the language within Stormont’s political system, with its proven power to impede the development of Irish. NDNA specifies (5.10.1) that the standards must ‘reflect the guiding principles of the framework as set out in legislation’ (of which the key element is the OICE). They must ‘promote mutual respect, good relations, understanding and reconciliation’, follow consultation with public authorities and finally, must only place requirements on the public sector that are ‘reasonable, proportionate and practical’ (5.10.3). Furthermore, NDNA requires that the first priority of the standards will be to focus on forms, websites and correspondence in Irish receiving a response in

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Irish, ‘where practical’. Rather than providing a wide range of guaranteed services to the public in education, the courts, the media, political institutions and local authorities, this emphasis on basic administrative tasks, many of which are already included under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ratified by the UK in 2001), is disappointing. Finally, the statement that ‘public bodies will each continue to make their own decisions on other matters to do with the Irish language’ (5.11) is dangerously broad, giving considerable cause for concern.

4

The Current Position

This brings us to the present. Unprecedented pressure upon government resulting from COVID-19 has been cited as a reason for slow progress on a number of issues. Responses to questions from MLAs indicate nonetheless that Executive Office officials have progressed work on the ‘cultural package’ draft legislation (Hansard 2020a, b). However, the NDNA proposals on language, associated bills and policy have not been considered by the Executive or the Assembly, some eighteen months after publication of the NDNA. Nor indeed at the time of writing has the drafting of an Irish language strategy commenced, in spite of this being a legally binding duty on the Executive. In response to an MLA question, Sinn Féin Minister for Communities Deirdre Hargey stated, ‘My department has been ready to progress this important piece of work for some time. Executive approval is required to publish a timetable. I will continue to raise this’ (Hansard 2021) (emphasis added). In April 2021, DUP leader Arlene Foster was ousted from her position within the party following a bruising campaign by DUP MLAs and MPs. Commentators suggest that in addition to fallout over Brexit and the Northern Ireland Protocol intended to prevent a ‘hard border’ on the island of Ireland, Foster’s perceived ‘liberalism’ on issues including the Irish language contributed to her downfall (BBC News 2021a). Foster’s successor, Edwin Poots, had a tumultuous three weeks, including failing to persuade DUP MLAs to abstain instead of actively opposing Stormont’s Central Translation Hub, promised many months before in

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NDNA. In spite of the DUP the motion was carried (Belfast Telegraph 2021a). Foster’s resignation necessitated the nomination within seven days of First and Deputy First Ministers. Sinn Féin stated that they would not nominate without a commitment from the DUP that the ‘cultural package legislation’ would be introduced before May 2022. Poots claimed to support the legislation, but would not commit to its introduction within the timescale set (BBC News 2021b). A brief flurry of meetings culminated in post-midnight press conferences at Stormont from both Sinn Féin and Brandon Lewis, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Lewis confirmed that if the legislation were not introduced at Stormont in September 2021, it would be introduced at Westminster in October 2021 (Belfast Telegraph 2021c). Edwin Poots made no public statement. Attending a meeting of his party officials the following morning he refused their demand that because of Lewis’s commitment on the Irish language, he should delay nomination of a First Minister, thereby triggering the suspension of the Assembly. With the DUP meeting still in progress, Poots and Paul Givan MLA left for the Stormont debating chamber, where Givan and O’Neill were nominated as First and Deputy First Minister respectively (BBC News 2021c). A humiliating revolt by DUP MPs and MLAs then forced Poots to resign three weeks into his tenure as party leader. The DUP subsequently informed Givan that he must resign as First Minister when Poots’s successor took over (BBC News 2021d). The DUP has long appeared divided but even within Northern Irish politics, a series of internal and public relations disasters of such magnitude is unprecedented in recent times. Kearney highlights poor strategic thinking behind the ousting of Foster from the DUP leadership, quoting one DUP member thus, ‘collectively they were like the dog that runs after a car but has no idea what to do if it catches it’ (Kearney 2021). However, some within unionism have damned the UK intervention as offering a victory to Sinn Féin with no quid pro quo for the DUP (Lowry 2021). At the time of writing, it appears likely that Jeffrey Donaldson will replace Poots. If so, he has stated that he will not nominate a First Minister without ‘significant change in the plans to bring in Irish language laws’ (Belfast Telegraph 2021b). It remains to be seen how matters evolve, not least

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whether the UK government will indeed fulfil its latest commitment on language legislation. Williams (2013a: x) has pointed out that even in less contested political environments, all too often: The moment the fruits of a better future for historically disadvantaged minorities appear ripe, they are dashed to the ground by the twin storms of a neo-liberal ideology, which is antipathetic to public support for a grant-dependent culture, and a Western financial disaster, which renders even those public monies allocated to undergird the identifiable language policy programmes subject to majoritarian decision-making.

COVID-related impacts will not create a welcoming environment for meaningful expenditure on Irish language services and it seems unlikely that hardline unionist opposition to Irish language developments will abate. In addition, Williams has indicated that the expectations of minority language users have been often thwarted by poor implementation of legislation even when it appears on paper to be capable of delivering progress. Referring to the ‘perfidious hope’ which can therefore attend language laws, he says that strong legislation may result in public gains, ‘but only if the respective minority is treated as a public good and not seen as an outmoded expression of historical special pleading’ (2013b: 119). Sadly, the weakness of the provisions in NDNA, the linking of Irish to Ulster Scots and the ongoing entrapment of Irish in the political sphere are more likely to hamper than to progress development of the language into the mainstream. In conclusion, although the many lessons and sound advice offered by experts in minoritised language promotion have been embraced by some, others appear to have pursued narrower interests and easier options. The politically led reworking of funding to Irish language groups may have been driven initially by cost-cutting and lack of appreciation of the different roles of voluntary and government sectors. But it inevitably resulted in division between organisations, a diminution of the independence of the Irish language voluntary sector and the loss of expertise and experience at a crucial juncture. The Irish-speaking community, including its growing numbers of young people, must now question

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how more realistic progress can be made. The current context promotes voluntary sector dependence on the party political and governmental framework. It mitigates against fundamental change and favours piecemeal protest and one step forward, two steps back approaches. Whilst small gains may be trumpeted, mainstreaming provision and recognition of language diversity as a public good may prove far more elusive. Williams (2013b: 102) contends that even in countries where there is significant dedicated language legislation, the evidence is that although it may allow the development of helpful policies, ‘it does not necessarily guarantee the desired policy outcomes, hence the conundrum of analysing a perfidious hope’. Twenty years of well-informed and dynamic campaigning have been undermined by minimalistic NDNA commitments. Ironically, the latest UK government commitment to legislate at Westminster risks ossifying weak proposals within a legislative framework potentially more difficult and slower to change than at Stormont. One way or another, the realisation of the poverty of these Irish language provisions must prove to be a turning point, if not for politicians, then for Irish speakers, if the language is to rise above its fragile and endangered position.

Notes 1. The author was CEO/Director of POBAL from 2000 to 2019. 2. Foras na Gaeilge established a separate scheme for the educational resource group An tÁisaonad and Irish language community radio stations, including Raidió Fáilte. 3. See Report of the Independent Public Inquiry into the Non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Scheme, Vol. 3, Ch. 52—Minuting of meetings with the Minister: DETI’s policy and the practice, point 52.15. https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/rhi/2020-03-13_ RHI-Inquiry_Report-V3.pdf. Accessed 2 January 2020. 4. The legislation was passed at Westminster and came into force in NI prior to the re-establishment of devolution (The Guardian 2019). 5. POBAL was forced to dissolve in June 2019.

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6. Letter to Karen Bradley, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, 18 March 2019, signed by MPs Conor McGinn, Guto Bebb, David T. C. Davies, Angus MacNeil and Liz Saville-Roberts. https://www.cai rdeteo.com/2021/06/litir-sinithe/. Accessed 9 June 2021.

References Abortion Act 1967 . 1967 c. 87. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/ contents. Accessed 2 June 2021. Administration of Justice (Language) Act (Ireland) 1737 . 1737 (11 Geo. 2) c. 6. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aip/Geo2/11/6. Accessed 2 June 2021. BBC News. 2019. Power Sharing: ‘Now Is the Moment’ to Restore Devolution. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50801484. Accessed 18 Jan 2021. BBC News. 2021a. Arlene Foster Announces Resignation as DUP Leader and NI First Minister. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland56910045. Accessed 20 June 2021. BBC News. 2021b. Edwin Poots Will Not Guarantee Irish Language Law This Term. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57464224. Accessed 20 June 2021. BBC News. 2021c. DUP Revolt Over First Minister Confirmation. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57507176. Accessed 20 June 2021. BBC News. 2021d. DUP: Paul Givan Told He Must Resign as First Minister. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57538844. Accessed 20 June 2021. Belfast Telegraph. 2021a. MLAs Approve Language Translation Motion Amid Reports Edwin Poots Lost Internal DUP Ballot, June 15. https://www. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/mlas-approve-language-translation-mot ion-amid-reports-edwin-poots-lost-internal-dup-ballot-40541651.html. Accessed March 20, 2022. Belfast Telegraph. 2021b. DUP Warns: We Will Collapse Stormont, June 20. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/news/dup-warnswe-will-collapse-stormont-40558229.html. Accessed March 20, 2022.

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Belfast Telegraph. 2021c. Sinn Féin to Nominate O’Neill as UK Makes Irish Language Vow, June 22. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northernireland/sinn-fein-to-nominate-oneill-as-uk-makes-irish-language-vow-405 48994.html. Accessed March 20, 2022. Conradh na Gaeilge. 2017. Acht na Gaeilge: Pléchaipéis [Irish Language Act: Discussion Document]. https://cnag.ie/images/Acht_Gaeilge_%C3%B3_ Thuaidh/15M%C3%812017_Pl%C3%A9ch%C3%A1ip%C3%A9is_ar_A cht_Gaeilge_%C3%B3_Thuaidh.pdf. Accessed 2 Jan 2021. Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure. 2015. Proposals for an Irish Language Bill: Consultation Report. https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/ sites/default/files/publications/dcal/report-of-the-consultation-on-proposalsfor-an-irish-language-bill.PDF. Accessed 17 Nov 2020. Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1998. 1998 No. 1759 (N.I. 13). https:// www.legislation.gov.uk/nisi/1998/1759/contents/made. Accessed 17 Nov 2020. Fealty, M. 2017. O’Muilleoir [sic ] Promises That an ‘Irish Language Act Would Cost £3.5 Million or Less . . .’. https://sluggerotoole.com/2017/02/ 23/omuilleoir-promises-that-a-irish-language-act-would-cost-3-5-millionor-less/. Accessed 2 Nov 2020. Gruffudd, H. 2000. Planning for the Use of Welsh by Young People. In Language Revitalisation: Policy and Planning in Wales, ed. C.H. Williams, 173–207. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. The Guardian. 2019. MPs Vote to Extend Abortion and Same-Sex Marriage Rights to Northern Ireland, July 9. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ 2019/jul/09/mps-vote-to-extend-same-sex-marriage-to-northern-ireland. Accessed March 20, 2022. Hansard, NI Assembly. 2007. Ministerial Statement: Outcome of the Proposed Irish-Language Legislation Consultation Process, October 16. http:// archive.niassembly.gov.uk/record/reports2007/071016.htm#1. Accessed 17 Nov 2020. Hansard, NI Assembly. 2020a. Written Response to AQO631/17-24, November 3. http://aims.niassembly.gov.uk/questions/printquestionsu mmary.aspx?docid=315144. Accessed 18 Jan 2021. Hansard, NI Assembly. 2020b. Written Response to AQO 634/1722, November 3. http://aims.niassembly.gov.uk/questions/printquestionsu mmary.aspx?docid=315142. Accessed 18 Jan 2021. Hansard, NI Assembly. 2021. Written Response to AQO 2146/1722, June 1. http://aims.niassembly.gov.uk/questions/printquestionsummary. aspx?docid=340685. Accessed 20 June 2021.

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Irish News. 2017. Irish Language Act ‘Would Cost £3.5 Million Per Year’, February 24. https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2017/ 02/24/news/o-muilleoir-irish-language-act-would-cost-around-3-5-millionper-year-942853/. Accessed March 20, 2022. Irish Times. 2018. North’s Talks Collapse Over Irish Language, February 14. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/north-talks-collapse-over-irish-lan guage-1.3392149. Accessed March 20, 2022. Kearney, V. 2021. The Chaotic Downfall of the DUP Triumvirate. https:// www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2021/0619/1229156-dup-leader ship/. Accessed 20 June 2021. Lowry, B. 2021. It Seemed Barely Possible for the Appeasement of Sinn Féin to Get Even Worse but Somehow It Did. Belfast News Letter, June 19. https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/ben-lowry-som ehow-the-appeasement-of-sinn-fein-has-got-even-worse-3279322. Accessed March 20, 2022. Mallie, E. 2018. Full ‘Draft Agreement Text’. https://eamonnmallie.com/2018/ 02/full-draft-agreement-text/. Accessed 31 Oct 2020. Northern Ireland Act 1998. 1998 c. 47. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/ 1998/47/contents. Accessed 16 Nov 2020. Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 . 2006 c. 53. https://www. legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/53/contents. Accessed 2 June 2021. POBAL. 2004. Acht na Gaeilge TÉ [The Irish Language Act NI]. Belfast: POBAL. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/602f79a565837b32cc85c ebe/t/61767a529879117af5450d57/1635154516966/Acht+na+Gaeilge+ T%C3%89.pdf. Accessed March 20, 2022. POBAL. 2012. Acht na Gaeilge TÉ [The Irish Language Act NI, Eis], Issue II. Belfast: POBAL. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/602f79a565837b3 2cc85cebe/t/61767fbd5f3b4c74841c07cd/1635155910841/Acht+na+Gae ilge+Eis+2+Edition.pdf. Accessed March 20, 2022. UK Government and Irish Government. 2020. New Decade, New Approach. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/upl oads/attachment_data/file/856998/2020-01-08_a_new_decade__a_new_ approach.pdf. Accessed 16 Nov 2020. Williams, C.H. 1994. Called Unto Liberty! On Language and Nationalism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Williams, C.H. 2000. Development, Dependency and the Democratic Deficit. In Developing Minority Languages: The Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Minority Languages, ed. P.W. Thomas and J. Mathias, 14–38. Llandysul: Gomer Press.

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Williams. 2004. Cearta Teanga, Dúchais agus Reachtaíocht [Indigenous Language Rights and Legislation]. In POBAL Acht na Gaeilge do TÉ [The Irish Language Act NI], 10–29. Belfast. https://static1.squarespace.com/ static/602f79a565837b32cc85cebe/t/61767a529879117af5450d57/163515 4516966/Acht+na+Gaeilge+T%C3%89.pdf. Accessed March 20, 2022. Williams, C.H. 2013a. Minority Language Promotion, Protection and Regulation: The Mask of Piety. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Williams, C.H. 2013b. Perfidious Hope: The Legislative Turn in Official Minority Language Regimes. Regional & Federal Studies 23 (1): 101–122.

The Influence of Wales on Gaelic Development Policy in Scotland Wilson McLeod

Despite the ongoing language shift from Welsh to English in Wales, the policy regime that has been put in place for the Welsh language, driven by a strong language movement, is widely admired internationally as a model for minority language development. Activists and policymakers working for the revitalisation of Gaelic in Scotland—a linguistically related minority language spoken within the same state territory—have long looked to Wales as the main source of policy innovation and energy. This emulation of Wales has been particularly strong since the 1960s, when Welsh activists began to secure significant concessions from the British state, and most of the policies and initiatives that have been put in place in support of Gaelic in recent decades, most notably the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 , can be understood as adaptations of existing policy or provision for Wales, albeit smaller in scale or W. McLeod (B) Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_18

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more modest in scope. This policy emulation is not without difficulties, however, as there are fundamental differences between the two language contexts. This article begins by discussing the differences between the Welsh and Gaelic cases before moving on to assess the influence of Wales on Gaelic language policy from the late nineteenth century onwards, considering developments in relation to official status, signage, education and broadcasting. In the final section, issues concerning the design and implementation of language legislation are discussed. In relation to the legislative framework, it is not clear how Gaelic policymakers might best learn from more recent policy initiatives in Wales, including the creation of the Welsh Language Commissioner or the shift to a sectorbased system of language standards under the most recent piece of Welsh language legislation, the Welsh Language Measure (Wales) 2011.

1

Welsh and Gaelic: Distinguishing the Cases

The Gaelic and Welsh languages are often analysed in conjunction with each other in work on language policy and political science (e.g. Lewis and Royles 2018), but although there are certain obvious points of connection, the differences between the two cases are profound. As Celtic languages, Gaelic and Welsh are related linguistic varieties, but the structural differences between them are very considerable; there is no question of any kind of mutual intelligibility or of being able to draw upon cultural or educational resources developed in the other language. Both languages are often conceptualised (principally by outsiders) within the discursive framework of ‘Celticity’, an understanding grounded in the Romantic fascination with the ancient and mysterious (Fimi 2017: 7–12), but this obviously has little relevance to the practicalities of language policy. Most importantly, both Gaelic and Welsh are minoritised languages that share a common British inheritance in terms of administrative structures and ethos, legal frameworks and, not least, ideological understandings concerning linguistic hierarchies and the dominant role of the English language (McLeod 2020: 28–31).

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The crucial difference between Gaelic and Welsh is the much greater demographic weight of the Welsh language in Wales and its much greater social presence in Wales as a whole. This then has important ramifications for the relative importance of the Welsh language in perceptions of Welsh nationhood and identity and its general role in Welsh life. Gaelic is much smaller in terms of its speaker base and much more marginal in its social and ideological role in Scotland. As recently as 1800, around 80% of the Welsh population spoke Welsh, and English was only spoken in a few pockets on the periphery of the country (Jones and Williams 2009: 656). In contrast, Gaelic had gone out of use in the politically and economically dominant parts of Scotland by 1300, and by 1800 was spoken by less than a fifth of the population, overwhelmingly confined to the mountainous northwest of the country (the Highlands) (McLeod 2020: 8–10, 20). Today, about 20% of the Welsh population can speak Welsh while only 1.1% of the Scottish population can speak Gaelic (McLeod 2020: 339 fn. 2). These are profound differences. In addition, because Gaelic was mainly spoken in the Highlands, there was—and to an extent still is—a strong sense of Gaelic as a regional rather than national language (McLeod 2020: 36–40). Welsh was more obviously ‘national’ in that it was used throughout the national territory, although language shift in most of eastern Wales in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has weakened this perception somewhat and brought a greater sense of territoriality to the language within Wales (Jones and Williams 2009: 663–668). In addition, there were significant differences in the ways in which Scotland and Wales were absorbed into the British polity. Wales was conquered by the English crown in the thirteenth century and then administratively subsumed into England in the sixteenth century. All national institutions were effectively obliterated, leaving the Welsh language as the key marker of Welsh nationhood and national distinctiveness. In contrast, Scotland was joined with England in 1707 through a negotiated Union which allowed the retention of major national institutions such as the national church and the distinctive legal and educational systems. As such, ‘a distinctive Scottish identity has chiefly been shaped and transmitted through a set of autonomous national institutions’ (Jackson 2020: 36) while language (whether Gaelic or the Lowland Scots vernacular) has never played an important role (McLeod 2020: 42–43).

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In terms of language policy, a very important practical ramification of these contrasting histories is the role of territoriality and the acceptability or practicability of nation-wide language policy measures. The territorial variation in levels of Gaelic ability in Scotland is much greater than for Welsh, and the relatively weak sense of Gaelic as a national language and a national concern means that it is difficult to implement Scotland-wide policies (Dunbar 2016: 474–483). At the same time, Gaelic has increasingly been understood in national terms in Scotland; it is now considered vital that recognition and provision for the language should extend across the country and not be confined to the Highlands and Islands (McLeod 2020: 38, 241; Bòrd na Gàidhlig 2018: 9, 35). This presents a significant problem in relation to the design and implementation of language policy, as discussed below.

2

The Impact of Wales on Gaelic Development in Scotland

From the late nineteenth century onwards Gaelic activists in Scotland have often looked to Wales for inspiration, even though both formal institutional links and more informal social and cultural interaction between the two language communities have been relatively limited. The principal national Gaelic festival, the Mòd, established in 1892, was directly inspired by the Welsh Eisteddfod (McLeod 2020: 59), and there were reciprocal exchanges of delegates to the two events for many years. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Gaelic activists noted how their counterparts in Wales, who were more numerous and more densely represented across civil society, were able to secure greater concessions from the authorities in relation to education and public administration (An Gaidheal 1927; McLeod 2020: 81, 99). For example, an important 1936 report on Gaelic education by the lead Gaelic organisation An Comunn Gaidhealach included a substantial appendix detailing the much more extensive provision for Welsh in Welsh schools, which helped inform the report’s policy recommendations (An Comunn Gaidhealach 1936: 27–40).

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Gaelic organisations became more alert to developments in Wales from the early 1960s onwards, as the increasingly militant Welsh language movement succeeded in securing a range of concessions from the authorities, especially in relation to legal status, public signage and broadcasting (Phillips 2000; McLeod 2020: 151–153). The HughesParry report of 1965 recommended that ‘the Principle of Equal Validity should be adopted as the basic principle governing the future use of Welsh in the administration of justice and the conduct of public administration’ in Wales (Welsh Office 1965: 58), and this recommendation led to the Welsh Language Act 1967 , which granted limited official recognition to the language, particularly in relation to the production of official documents. Following the Welsh lead, Gaelic organisations and activists began to press for counterpart official status for Gaelic. Through the 1960s and 1970s, however, the government rejected all these demands and endeavoured to find ways to differentiate the Welsh case. One technical difference was that restrictions on the use of Gaelic in the courts were not codified by statute as the restrictions on Welsh were (Roberts 1997), thus allowing the Scottish authorities to argue that no legislation was necessary since judges had the discretion to allow the use of Gaelic in appropriate circumstances. Similarly, because there were no explicit statutory restrictions on Gaelic, the government deflected demands for official status for Gaelic with the claim that Gaelic already enjoyed such status—a position that is still asserted today (McLeod 2020: 155). Another line of argument was that the number of monolingual speakers of Welsh was much greater; this fitted within the government’s general position that provision for Gaelic was only appropriate for those unable to speak English. Over time, as monolingual speakers disappeared in both Wales and Scotland as language shift progressed, the argument moved to a slightly different metric, that of the overall number of speakers (McLeod 2020: 154–155). In 1981, the president of An Comunn Gaidhealach expressed ‘frustration’ that the government’s ‘facile explanation that the differences in numbers of speakers of ’ Gaelic and Welsh justified variation in provision had become ‘stereotyped under successive administrations’, with no recognition of the need to establish provision for minority languages on any more principled basis (An Comunn Gaidhealach 1981). Indeed, such was the disparity between

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provisions for Welsh and Gaelic that the government found itself ‘embarrassed’ into taking some limited measures in Scotland (e.g. Scottish Education Department 1981b, 1982). The issue of bilingual road signage also emerged as a significant issue in the early 1970s, and here too Gaelic activists took the lead from their Welsh counterparts. Through the 1960s, Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) campaigned vigorously for Welsh to be added to road signs, often adopting the tactic of painting over monolingual English signs (Phillips 2000). In 1972, after almost a decade of agitation, the Bowen Report recommended that all kinds of traffic signs on all roads in Wales should be bilingual (Committee of Inquiry into Bilingual Traffic Signs 1972). In response to pressure from Gaelic activists, the Scottish Office agreed that bilingual Gaelic-English signs might be erected on non-trunk roads if a local authority presented a persuasive case, but declined to grant a blanket authorisation of the kind agreed in Wales. Privately, civil servants expressed confidence that pressure on this front ‘c[ould] readily be resisted’, as there seemed ‘little likelihood of a serious demand’ and little support from local authorities (Scottish Office 1971; McLeod 2020: 156–158). Since the mid-1970s, bilingual road signs have been erected in the main Gaelic areas such as Skye and the Western Isles and, from 2003 onwards, on most of the trunk roads in the Highlands. Yet there has been no Scotlandwide bilingualisation programme of the kind seen in Wales. Bilingual signage has been installed on railway station platforms across Scotland in recent years, though not without controversy (McLeod 2020: 270–271, 324–325). The two most important areas of policy activity in relation to Gaelic were education and broadcasting, and here too developments in Wales loomed large. Through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the authorities in Wales had proved more willing to make provision for Welsh than their Scottish counterparts were for Gaelic. From the late 1940s, state schools in Wales began to offer education through the medium of Welsh (Williams 2014: 249–250), but comparable initiatives did not commence in Scotland until the 1980s. The success of immersion education in Canada was an important inspiration to Gaelic activists seeking to organise parents and persuade local authorities to

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offer Gaelic-medium education, but the Welsh model served as the most immediate comparator. Study visits to Welsh schools were organised and Welsh educationalists invited to conferences in Scotland to share their experience and provide strategic advice (McLeod 2020: 188, 211). Wales continues to serve as something of a beacon in relation to Gaelic education, although the Welsh-medium sector is far larger and much more deeply institutionalised, reaching approximately a quarter of Welsh pupils compared to less than 1% of Scottish pupils in Gaelic-medium education (McLeod 2020: 297, 300). In relation to broadcasting, radio programming in both Gaelic and Welsh began in the 1920s but significantly improved provision for Welsh television began in the late 1960s and increased steadily thereafter, with a dedicated channel, Sianel Pedwar Cymru (S4C), being established in 1982 (Smith 2000: 319–323). Gaelic activists pressed the government to make similar provision in Scotland, but although there were modest concessions the general argument for parity was rejected, sometimes in explicitly political terms, and the level of Gaelic funding and output remained very low until the mid-1980s. For example, the government’s 1974 Crawford Report on broadcasting ruled out the possibility of ‘any substantial increase’ in Gaelic television output given ‘the cost of programming and the strain on resources’, but urged the establishment of a dedicated Welsh channel ‘as soon as possible’ as ‘an investment in domestic, cultural and social harmony in the United Kingdom’ in the context of other ‘government expenditure which is being incurred to satisfy Welsh aspirations’ (Home Office 1974: 41). Scottish Office civil servants argued that ‘Scottish Gaels lack the numbers and (so far) the militant attitudes for such comparisons [to Wales] to be taken seriously’ (Scottish Education Department 1981a), although one minister worried about ‘discontent about broadcasting becoming a factor in the rekindling of Scottish nationalism’ given the contrast ‘between the relatively lavish provision being made for Wales, and the long-term and uncertain prospects for Scotland’ (Scottish Office 1980). There was a significant breakthrough for Gaelic television in 1989, when the government agreed to establish a Gaelic Television Fund with the aim of funding 200 hours of Gaelic programming per year (McLeod

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2020: 227–231). Although Gaelic organisations did not seek to establish a dedicated channel like S4C at this time, planning for the new service drew extensively on the experience and advice of S4C colleagues (Pedersen 2019: 153–155). From the late 1990s onwards, Comunn na Gàidhlig and other bodies began to push for a dedicated Gaelic channel, again drawing on the Welsh experience and seeking strategic advice from Welsh broadcasting professionals (Pedersen 2019: 176–177). This culminated in the launch of the dedicated Gaelic channel BBC ALBA in 2007 (McLeod 2020: 267–270). Although there were important challenges in designing an appropriate management structure for the service, the key difficulties involved finance. The funding model agreed for BBC ALBA is structurally very different from that of S4C, although the most striking divergence is the much higher level of funding for S4C—approximately four times that of BBC ALBA—suggesting that the political understandings articulated in the 1970s and 1980s remain in play today.1

3

Language Legislation: Challenges in Design and Implementation

The 1980s proved to be a critical period of policy development for Gaelic in Scotland, as a language planning infrastructure was put in place for the first time, with significant government funding. Over time, however, the limitations of this framework became apparent and from the mid1990s activists’ attention shifted to building a more secure structure (McLeod 2020: 197, 245–253). In this climate of uncertainty, Wales again provided a model. In 1993 the Welsh Language Act 1993 was enacted (superseding the Welsh Language Act 1967 ), which established the general principle that Welsh and English should be treated ‘on a basis of equality’, and required individual public bodies to ‘giv[e] effect’ to this principle through Welsh language schemes ‘specifying the measures’ they would ‘take as to the use of the Welsh language in connection with the provision of [public] services’ (s. 5). Responsibility for implementation of the Act, including the development and implementation of Welsh language schemes, was assigned to a new Welsh Language Board.

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Following a long campaign led by the Gaelic development organisation Comunn na Gàidhlig, the Scottish Parliament (which had been established in 1999) unanimously passed the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 (McLeod 2020: 197, 245–253). As part of this campaign, senior officers from the Welsh Language Board played an important role in advising Comunn na Gàidhlig and informing both the Gaelic community and Scottish lawmakers. The basic structure and approach of the Gaelic Language Act therefore tracks the Welsh Language Act 1993 closely, although the Scottish act is weaker in some important respects. The Gaelic act establishes a national language agency, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, and requires Scottish public authorities to develop Gaelic language plans if the Bòrd notifies them to do so. The Bòrd is also required to develop a National Gaelic Language Plan every five years; there was no such requirement in the Welsh Language Act 1993, although the Welsh Language Board and Welsh Government have published a series of national language plans from 1996 onwards (Welsh Language Board 1996a, 2000; Williams 2017). Unlike the Welsh Act, the Gaelic Act does not grant a right to use Gaelic in court proceedings, and due to the operation of the devolution legislation that created the Scottish Parliament (and the Welsh Assembly) the Gaelic Act does not extend to crown bodies (including branches of the Westminster government). In contrast, the Welsh Language Act 1993, as a Westminster enactment, reaches all public bodies that operate in Wales. By its terms, the Welsh Language Act does not extend to Crown bodies such as departments of the Westminster government (s. 21(1)), but the government gave a commitment when the Act went through Parliament that these bodies would prepare Welsh language schemes as if they were required to do so (Williams 2010: 51). No such commitment was made with regard to the Gaelic Act, and crown bodies’ voluntary provision for Gaelic has been minimal (McLeod 2020: 197, 256–257). Gaelic organisations were insistent that legislation for Gaelic should be Scotland-wide in scope, without a territorial limitation to those areas where Gaelic was more widely spoken (Dunbar 2016: 475, 479). To make this practicable, however, the Act contemplates differentiation among public bodies’ Gaelic plans given the significant variation in ‘the

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extent to which the persons in relation to whom the authority’s functions are exercisable use the Gaelic language’ (Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 , s. 3(5(b)). In contrast, section 5(2) of the Welsh Language Act 1993 articulated a single overarching norm, that ‘the English and Welsh languages should be treated on a basis of equality’, and all Welsh language schemes were required to give effect to this principle, no matter what part of Wales the organisation was based in, or even if the body had a UK-wide remit. Welsh language schemes thus tended to vary relatively little and to follow closely the guidelines issued by the Welsh Language Board (1996b), and as such could be agreed more quickly than proved to be the case with Gaelic plans. Conversely, the guidance on the development of Gaelic plans contemplated a ‘sliding scale’ by which the level of provision offered by different bodies would vary according to the extent to which they served ‘persons who understand, speak, read or write Gaelic’. Four categories of bodies were delineated, those serving (i) areas in which such persons form the majority of the population, (ii) areas that include districts in which such persons form the majority of the population, (iii) areas in which such persons ‘do not form a majority of the population, but are present in significant numbers or percentages or in significant concentrations’ and (iv) areas ‘where there are low percentages of Gaelic speakers and where significant Gaelic provision may not be possible’ (Bòrd na Gàidhlig 2007: 20–21). In category (i) ‘the expectation [wa]s that the public authority will work towards... the conditions in which Gaelic can be used across all of its services to the public, and in which any employee who wants to use Gaelic in the execution of their duties can do so’. In category (iv) it was only expected that they should ‘endeavour to work towards... identifying service areas in which some Gaelic provision can be made available, and to identify policy measures which can be taken to assist in the creation of Gaelic language environments, such as schools, community centres and other locally-based institutions and events’. For all authorities, however, it was anticipated that all bodies would ‘seek to incrementally increase the level of Gaelic provision they make available’ and that subsequent iterations of plans (which run for no more than five years) would ‘include[] more ambitious commitments’ (Bòrd na Gàidhlig 2007: 41).

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Although there has been no formal assignment of public authorities to these different categories, only one of Scotland’s 32 local authorities would fit in category (i), Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, which serves the Western Isles, and two in category (ii), Argyll and Bute and Highland. If 1000 speakers were considered a ‘significant concentration’, five councils would go into category (iii), leaving 24 of 32 councils in category (iv). The key underlying difficulty is that the proportion of Gaelic speakers in the national population is so low, slightly over 1%, and more than 80% of the population lives in local authority areas that do not even reach this threshold (Mac an Tàilleir 2015: 4). In other jurisdictions where legislation has been enacted to promote minority languages in the public sector, the proportion of minority language speakers is significantly higher. More than 20% of the population of Wales can speak Welsh, more than 30% of the Basque Autonomous Community can speak Basque, and even in the Republic of Ireland, where only about 2% of the population actually uses Irish on a daily basis, more than 40% of the population claimed the ability to speak the language in recent censuses (Central Statistics Office, n.d.). The local authority area with the lowest density of Welsh speakers, Blaenau Gwent at 7.8% in 2011, would be the second-highest density in Scotland (StatsWales 2012).2 Nor do countries where bilingualisation is confined to specific regions provide an obviously useful model. In Finland, municipalities with a density of at least 8% minority language speakers are classified as bilingual (Finland Language Act 2003: s 5(2)); but in Scotland only one of the 32 local authorities had a density of 8% Gaelic speakers in 2011 and only three exceeded 5%. In Finland, a municipality may also be designated as bilingual if it has at least 3000 minority language speakers (s. 5(2)). If that criterion were applied in Scotland, only two more local authorities would be covered. In the end, the demographic thinness of Gaelic in Scotland makes it very difficult to find an appropriate legislative framework in this regard, and no international comparators really provide a workable solution. Implementation of the Gaelic Act has been dissatisfactory in several respects, although these shortcomings are mainly attributable to policy decisions on the part of the Scottish Government or the Bòrd rather than to the legislation itself. Most obviously, budgets for the Bòrd have

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been set at a low level, so that the number of staff is less than a quarter of those formerly employed by the Welsh Language Board (McLeod 2020: 282). This has had obvious impacts on the numbers of Gaelic language plans that can be agreed and monitored. In the fifteen years since the Act came into effect, only about sixty plans have been agreed, while 558 Welsh language schemes were prepared between 1993 and 2013 (Williams 2014: 246). Perhaps more importantly, many of the plans that have been agreed have been minimal in scope and do not involve any real offer of Gaelic-medium services. Even some of the plans prepared by organisations serving strongly Gaelic-speaking areas make only very weak commitments (Dunbar 2019a). Nor do second- or third generation plans appear to include strengthened undertakings as contemplated by the statutory guidance. The fundamental issue is whether the Act has brought meaningful benefits in terms of overall language revitalisation; many argue that there has been too much emphasis on formal interventions and insufficient attention to the needs and views of Gaelic speakers in Gaelic-speaking communities (MacLean 2019; McLeod: 328–329). As such, it is not necessarily clear that changes to the legislative framework for Gaelic should be a priority at this juncture. Nevertheless, there may be new opportunities to draw lessons from the Welsh experience, as the legislative regime in Wales has changed considerably over the last decade, principally through the adoption of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. The two most important changes have involved a move away from separate language plans on the part of individual public bodies to a general system of sectoral standards for Welsh language provision and the creation of a Welsh Language Commissioner. These standards set out benchmarks for all organisations of a similar nature (such as local authorities or health boards and trusts) and ‘provide a much greater level of consistency and clarity in relation to the obligations of regulated bodies [...] than was the case with Welsh language schemes’ (Dunbar 2019b: 113). An obvious possibility would be to consider whether the sectoral standard model—now also adopted in Ireland via the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021 —could be introduced in Scotland. There would be considerable difficulties, however, in that the Welsh standards make

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no provision for regional differentiation, which is needed for both practical and political reasons in Scotland, as outlined above. In addition, the current Gaelic language plans often involve almost no service provision at all, and thus do not provide a solid foundation that might be built upon. It is significant that the Welsh Language Board was abolished in 2012 (pursuant to the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011), with some of its functions transferred to the Welsh Assembly Government and others to the new Welsh Language Commissioner (Williams 2014; M.P. Jones, this volume). The creation of language commissioners—executive officers with powers to enforce compliance with language laws—has become an increasingly common model in minority language provision in recent years, with Ireland also having established such an office in 2003 (Amon and James 2019). Establishing a language commissioner in Scotland, drawing on experience in Wales and other jurisdictions, and on the experience of other kinds of commissioners in Scotland,3 might help strengthen institutional provision for Gaelic, but to date there have been no detailed proposals to this effect (but see Herald 2017). Under the terms of the current Gaelic Act, Bòrd na Gàidhlig is given an uncomfortable mixture of roles in relation to the preparation and implementation of public authorities’ Gaelic language plans: it is expected to advise and work with authorities in developing their plans, give formal approval (or otherwise) to their draft plans, and then monitor these plans and ensure their effective implementation. Assigning responsibility for oversight and implementation to a new commissioner might make for a more logical division of labour. There would be significant structural, practical and political issues to overcome, however. Under the current Act, Bòrd na Gàidhlig has no specific investigatory powers and its only enforcement power is to be able to report perceived failures to implement language plans to the Scottish Government to take enforcement action (s. 6(4)). A new commissioner would need to have meaningful investigatory powers and the right to institute legal proceedings against authorities that have breached their obligations. The commissioners in both Ireland and Wales do have reasonably extensive formal powers, but significant difficulties have nevertheless arisen as they have endeavoured to carry

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out their statutory functions. The Irish commissioner has been underresourced and stymied by recalcitrant public bodies (Williams and Walsh 2018), while the Welsh Government, perceiving various deficiencies, proposed a significant restructuring of the commissioner’s role in 2018, but withdrew its plans in the face of public and institutional opposition (BBC News 2019). These fraught experiences suggest that devising an effective, politically acceptable model for Gaelic would be far from straightforward. The most fundamental difficulty, however, would involve the range of a commissioner’s remit. In Wales, Ireland and Canada the national language commissioners are charged with responsibility for only one or two languages; in Wales, the office is specifically framed as that of Welsh Language Commissioner. In Scotland, while it would be possible to establish a commissioner whose remit did not extend beyond Gaelic, there might well be significant pressure for it to have a much wider role, including responsibility for British Sign Language and Scots as well as community languages such as Polish and Urdu.4 This would mean that any commissioner would have to deal with a number of different policy regimes; indeed, of these other languages only BSL is currently covered by formal legal regulation (the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 ). The commissioner might end up as some kind of general ‘languages champion’; while this would serve a useful public function, it is much less than the kind of concrete policy role played by commissioners elsewhere.

4

Conclusion

For well over a century Gaelic advocates have seen Wales as an inspiration and a model, seeking to emulate the successes of their Welsh counterparts. This approach has clearly brought some benefits, not least in terms of persuading policymakers in Scotland that their policy proposals for Gaelic are feasible and reasonable. At the same time, the difference in scale between the two language communities can sometimes make the comparison unrealistic, or lead to overreach and excessive ambition on the part of Gaelic policymakers. Ultimately, the challenges facing Gaelic

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policymakers must be understood as specific and sui generis, requiring particularised approaches tailored to the circumstances of Gaelic in Scotland. Looking to comparators and precedents can help inform a national or local language policy strategy but the circumstances and constraints of each case will probably require considerable reworking and adjustment if these policy initiatives are to be successful in practice. There is also a risk that looking elsewhere for ideas may discourage innovation and fresh thinking; as is so often the case, a degree of balancing is required.

Notes 1. Funding for S4C was actually more than eight times as high at the time BBC ALBA was established (Mercator Institute 2011; BBC Trust 2012: 2). In structural terms, the most striking difference in the funding models is that approximately two thirds of BBC ALBA’s budget comes from the Scottish Government while the UK Government has gradually shifted the entire cost of S4C to the BBC and will withdraw its contribution entirely from 2022 (BBC News 2018). 2. Note that this proportion has risen very considerably in recent decades after Welsh became a mandatory subject in the national curriculum; in 1991 only 2.2% of the local population indicated that they could speak Welsh (Blaenau Gwent Public Service Board 2017: 451). Yet even 2.2% would be more than 29 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. 3. Scotland already has a Biometrics Commissioner, a Children and Young People’s Commissioner, a Commissioner for Ethical Standards and an Information Commissioner, among others. 4. It is notable in this connection that the ruling Scottish National Party’s manifesto for the 2021 Scottish Parliament election included a (rather vague) commitment to ‘bring forward a new Scottish Languages Bill which takes further steps to support Gaelic, acts on the Scots language and recognises that Scotland is a multilingual society’ (Scottish National Party 2021: 66).

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of an Endangered Language, ed. M. MacLeod and C. Smith-Christmas, 156– 172. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dunbar, R. 2019b. An Coimisinéir Teanga and Comisiynydd y Gymraeg: The Challenges of a Changing Legislative Environment. In Constitutional Pioneers: Language Commissioners and the Protection of Official, Minority and Indigenous Languages, ed. H. Amon and E. James, 101–124. Toronto: Thomson Reuters. Fimi, D. 2017. Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy: Idealization, Identity, Ideology. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Finland Language Act 2003. No. 423/2003. English Translation at https:// www.uottawa.ca/clmc/finland-language-act-no-4232003. Accessed 6 Mar 2021. Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005. 2005 asp 7. https://www.legislation.gov. uk/asp/2005/7/contents. Accessed 6 Mar 2021. The Herald . 2017. Call for Gaelic Language Czar for Scotland, October 16. Home Office. 1974. Report of the Committee on Broadcasting Coverage. London: HMSO. Jackson, B. 2020. The Case for Scottish Independence: A History of Nationalist Political Thought in Modern Scotland . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jones, R., and C. Williams. 2009. The Sociolinguistic Context of Welsh. In The Celtic Languages, ed. M.J. Ball and N. Müller, 650–711. London: Routledge. Lewis, H., and E. Royles. 2018. Language Revitalisation and Social Transformation: Evaluating the Language Policy Frameworks of Sub-State Governments in Wales and Scotland. Policy & Politics 46 (3): 503–529. Mac an Tàilleir, I. 2015. Cunntas-sluaigh na h-Alba 2011: Clàran Gàidhlig. http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/suil/cunntas-sluaigh-2011/CS-2011-Cla ran-Gaidhlig.pdf. Accessed 6 Mar 2021. Maclean, M. 2019. The Place of Gaelic in Today’s Scotland. In Scotland the Brave? Twenty Years of Change and the Future of the Nation, ed. G. Hassan and S. Barrow, 252–259. Edinburgh: Luath Press. McLeod, W. 2020. Gaelic in Scotland: Policies, Movements, Ideologies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Mercator Institute for Media, Languages and Culture. 2011. Written Evidence to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee Submitted by Mercator Institute for Media, Languages and Culture, Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Aberystwyth University. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm2 01011/cmselect/cmwelaf/writev/s4c/s4c20.htm. Accessed 5 Oct 2021.

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Welsh Language Board. 1996b. Welsh Language Schemes: Their Preparation and Approval in Accordance with the Welsh Language Act 1993. Cardiff: Welsh Language Board. Welsh Language Board. 2000. The Welsh Language: Mission and Vision for 2000–2005. Cardiff: Welsh Language Board. Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. 2011 nawm 1. https://www.legislation. gov.uk/mwa/2011/1/contents/enacted. Accessed 6 Mar 2021. Welsh Office. 1965. Legal Status of the Welsh Language: Report of the Committee Under the Chairmanship of Sir David Hughes Parry, Q.C., LL.D., D.C.L. 1963–1965. London: HMSO. Welsh Office. 1972. Bilingual Traffic Signs/Arwyddion Ffyrdd Dwyieithog: Report of the Committee of Inquiry Under the Chairmanship of Roderic Bowen, Esq., Q.C., M.A., LL.D. 1971–72. Cardiff: HMSO. Williams, C.H. 2010. From Act to Action in Wales. In Welsh in the Twenty-First Century, ed. D. Morris, 36–60. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Williams, C.H. 2014. The Lightening Veil: Language Revitalization in Wales. Review of Research in Education 38 (1): 242–272. Williams, C.H. 2017. Policy Review: Wake Me Up in 2050! Formulating Language Policy in Wales. http://www.meits.org/policy-papers/ paper/wake-me-up-in-2050-formulating-language-policy-in-wales. Accessed 10 Mar 2021. Williams, C.H., and J. Walsh. 2018. Minority Language Governance and Regulation. In The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities, ed. G. Hogan-Brun and B. O’Rourke, 101–129. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Voluntariat Per La Llengua: Building Social Cohesion Through Language Maite Puigdevall

1

Introduction

Colin Williams’s influence is extensive in the field of language revitalisation of linguistic minorities. His work has provided knowledgeable insights on protection, promotion and policy action in many minority language contexts. One of the hallmarks of Colin Williams’s comparative investigations is his search for best practice interventions by which linguistic groups may be served or strengthened and then proposed for adoption by other jurisdictions. This chapter will examine one such instance of good practice, Voluntariat per la llengua (Volunteers for the language),1 which aims to build new speakers’ skills and confidence in Catalan so that they can become active speakers of the language. The chapter begins by discussing the changing demographic context of M. Puigdevall (B) Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_19

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Catalonia and the challenges involved in making migrants to Catalonia into active speakers of Catalan. It then describes the history, development and operation of the Voluntariat per la llengua programme, which has grown into a very large initiative, involving both public and private organisations. It then addresses the extent to which the scheme has been successful, showing how the programme has been evaluated in quantitative and qualitative terms. This evaluation demonstrates that the programme goes beyond facilitating the learning and adoption of Catalan by giving access to all kinds of resources to new speakers, providing social capital and favouring social cohesion. However, it has not quite succeeded in changing the habits of Catalan speakers when addressing migrants; therefore, further measures will need to be implemented to tackle this issue. Since the recovery of democratic institutions in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Government of Catalonia (Generalitat), which regarded language as one of its key policy priorities, has carried out a wide variety of measures to promote and protect the Catalan language, enacting two laws on language normalisation, the first in 1983 and the second in 1998, and developing a wide array of language policies in key domains: education, public administration, the media and the private sector (Puigdevall 2005). One of the effects of the active language policies promoting Catalan has been that many people who did not have Catalan as their first language have adopted it during their life trajectory. Currently in Catalonia, almost three million (57.6%) of the five million people who know how to speak Catalan of a total population of 7.6 million are new speakers who did not have it as their family language (Generalitat de Catalunya 2015: 15–17). Between 2003 and 2018, the date of the most recent language use studies by the Generalitat, Catalan has incorporated some 850,000 such new speakers who have Catalan as a language of identification and everyday use (Generalitat de Catalunya 2019).2 This capacity for attraction to Catalan has operated within a demographic context of high immigration due to Catalonia’s comparatively strong economy: first, between the 1960s and 1970s, mainly from different regions of Spain; and second, an influx of international migrants from a wide range of countries, which peaked between 2003 and 2008. According to data from the Municipal Population Registry

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(IDESCAT 2021), Morocco, Romania, China, Italy and Pakistan are the five countries with the largest representation of their nationals in Catalonia. Between 1981 and 2019, the population of foreign origin has risen from 89,985 (1.5%) of a total of almost 6 million to 1,380,720 (18.2%) within a total of 7.6 million (Generalitat de Catalunya 2020). Therefore, migration is key to understanding the sociolinguistic dynamic of Catalonia. An additional factor is the balance between those who move to Catalonia and those who leave. For instance, from 2003 to 2018 Catalonia received 572,000 newcomers from outside Spain, but 480,000 left, resulting in a net migration increase of 90,000 newcomers within this period. Of these, about 50% have lived in Catalonia for 10 years or more, and 50% for less than ten years. This has had a great impact on the results of knowledge and use of Catalan by the foreign-born population. According to the language survey of 2018 (Generalitat de Catalunya 2019), knowledge and use of Catalan by foreign immigrants is considerably lower than for other groups and decreased slightly over the period 2013–2019. On average, 81.2% of the people surveyed declared themselves able to speak Catalan in 2018. This figure decreased to 52.8% if we only consider the population of foreign origin. Furthermore, although there was a slight increase of 0.8% in the proportion who declared themselves able to speak Catalan between 2013 and 2018, there was a slight decrease of 1.8% among the population born outside Spain during this period. If we focus on language use, the figures show even greater disparities between the average use of Catalan among the population as a whole, in comparison with its use by those born outside Spain. In 2019, 36.1% of the total population declared that Catalan was their usual language; 7.8% declared that both Catalan and Spanish were their usual languages; 48.6% declared that their usual language was Spanish and 7.4% spoke other languages or a combination of languages as their usual languages. For the data on people born outside Spain, only 4.6% have Catalan as their usual language, 2.9% have both Catalan and Spanish while 59.1% have Spanish as their usual language and finally 12% declared that they usually spoke another combination of languages. As we see in many minority language contexts, including Catalonia, it is one thing to be able to speak the language and another to have

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the habit of speaking it every day and for all purposes. Many migrants chose Spanish as their usual language. This can be because learning two languages, Catalan and Spanish, requires a great investment in both time and effort and many cannot afford either. Also, to apply for Spanish citizenship, they must pass a Spanish language exam (at level A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and that is a significant incentive for learning this language first and foremost. Although by attending a Catalan language course for a minimum of 90 hours they can obtain a certificate of ‘rootedness’ or social integration (Climent-Ferrando 2016), many immigrants still encounter difficulties in accessing the language in their everyday lives regardless of the availability of affordable Catalan language courses provided by the Catalan Government. A large part of the immigrant population living in Catalonia experiences segregation and exclusion in multiple public and private spaces: place of residence, school, health provider etc. (PinyolJiménez 2016). There is also an added obstacle, in that Catalan speakers tend to code-switch to Spanish to address or to reply to newcomers or any person who looks or sounds foreign (accent, skin colour, appearance etc.). This is what Pujolar (2010), following Aracil (1983), calls ‘interposition’. As the American linguistic anthropologist Kathryn Woolard (1989, 2011, 2016) observes, the hegemonic linguistic accommodation norm, which still prevails, impels Catalan speakers to address and reply in Spanish to new speakers. However, Pujolar and Gonzàlez (2013) have observed that this norm is beginning to change. Given these dynamics, it is imperative to pay attention to the processes that allow newcomers to have access to social spaces where they can develop their language skills. The existence of open, porous spaces where speakers of different profiles and origins can mix, interact and passthrough is at the core of the programme of Voluntariat per la llengua (henceforth VxL). This chapter describes how this programme was developed and how it works. Furthermore, I provide information about its value and success, both from a quantitative and qualitative approach. The quantitative data consist of secondary data derived from three main sources: (1) an early survey of the programme undertaken by the Institute of Catalan Sociolinguistics in 2004 (Campos and Genovès 2005; Camardons, Castaño and Díaz 2005); (2) an unpublished internal evaluation

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survey of the programme by the Direcció General de Política Lingüistica (DGPL, General Directorate for Language Policy) (Generalitat de Catalunya 2020)3 and (3) the results of the latest Language Use Survey regarding interpersonal language use (Generalitat de Catalunya 2019). Finally, the qualitative primary data is taken from an ethnographic study about learning Catalan and social integration in the VxL programme.4

2

Voluntaris per la llengua: Origins and Development of the Scheme

The idea of including language exchanges in volunteer activities was first developed in Catalonia in university campuses in the early 1990s. In 1994, the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) started a programme called Tàndems lingüístics (language tandems) whereby foreign students, mostly Erasmus exchange students, practised Catalan with local Catalan-speaking students so they could improve their knowledge of the language so as to be able to follow lessons in the language. It was also a good way to make friends and get to know the Catalan culture and way of life. Conversely, Catalan students profited from the exchange as they could also learn and practise the languages of the European students. The scheme was implemented in most of the Catalan universities with great success and it remains in place today (UAB 1997; Generalitat de Catalunya 2020: 67–68). Language mentoring or language exchanges have been prolific in the Catalan context as there are a great variety of initiatives based on the simple idea of putting learners in contact with Catalan speakers, both native and new speakers alike.5 We can say that through these kinds of projects, planning agencies make virtue out of necessity, as they substitute for or complement Catalan language courses and other initiatives that these same agencies do not have the budget for. VxL has been ‘exported’ to other places, both inside the Catalan-speaking countries and other minority language communities in Spain and Europe. However, the largest initiative in terms of participants is what was initially known as Voluntaris per la llengua and later as Voluntariat per la llengua.

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VxL is a Catalan Government language policy programme that started in 2002. The programme is led by the DGPL and managed by the Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística (CPNL, Consortium for Language Normalisation). The CPNL is a de-centralised public organisation, coordinated and financed by the DGPL, together with a variety of local authorities, which oversees the teaching of Catalan to adults and promotes the use of the language at the local level. The first version of VxL was implemented in Cornellà del Llobregat, a big city south of Barcelona, where Catalan is not widely spoken. The purpose of this scheme was to provide opportunities for new speakers of Catalan who faced many problems in practising and learning the language in informal settings. At the beginning the name of the programme was Hores de conversa: parlem una estona? (Conversation time: let’s speak a while?), whereby learners of all levels met regularly to practise Catalan during course hours. Later the meetings were with volunteers from outside the courses who could spare time to meet up with learners. Nineteen linguistic partnerships were established in 2002, with learners and Catalan speakers agreeing to meet up a minimum of 10 times for about an hour. The scheme began with the realisation by Catalan teachers in Cornellà that while language courses taught formal Catalan to learners, many were not able to use the language spontaneously or informally outside the classroom (Freixa et al. 2016; Gallego et al. 2014). Many of these learners settled in neighbourhoods where little Catalan was spoken; therefore, they had few opportunities to practise the language in everyday life. This, together with the fact that migrants are rarely addressed or replied to in Catalan by Catalan speakers, makes it even more difficult for them to find the language useful and experience enough opportunities for practice and improvement. Thus, teachers thought about organising one-to-one contact between learners and Catalan-speaking volunteers who could spare at least an hour a week for 10 weeks to meet and talk in Catalan. These meetings had a dual aim: to offer opportunities to speak Catalan and to facilitate the spontaneous learning of Catalan by new speakers and to change the habits of Catalan language speakers, making them aware that it was not necessary to switch to Spanish to address and talk to new speakers. Another major objective was to facilitate the establishment of

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emotional bonds between Catalans, both natives and new speakers alike, and newcomers to favour social inclusion. As the initiative in Cornellà was highly successful, the scheme was extended nationwide from 2003 onwards, with the coordination of three government departments (DGPL, INCAVOL [lnstitute of Catalan Volunteering] and the Secretariat for Immigration) and the collaboration of about 280 different entities, including many NGOs such as Omnium Cultural, immigrant associations, universities, neighbours’ associations, cultural associations and sports clubs (including Barcelona Football Club). During this first year, the scheme was extended to a further 34 locations, creating 1466 linguistic partnerships (Generalitat de Catalunya 2004). From 2003 onwards many partnerships were established with all types of businesses, such as shops, bars and restaurants, where the participants could be served in Catalan. In 2004 linguistic partnerships were also developed in private companies where workers could partner with each other and practice the language while working or during their breaks. In 2007 the CPNL enrolled 22 language animateurs or specialised language planners, one for each of the 22 branches of the CPNL services, to run the programme locally and manage the partnerships, contacts with volunteer organisations and collaborations with retail companies and other businesses to give both new speakers and volunteers ‘real’ and safe spaces where they could go and be served in Catalan. In addition, in 2007 a software application was developed that allowed easier access to volunteers to participate in the scheme, as they could enrol online. This helped the language animateurs to better manage the database of participants and the task of establishing partnerships, considering different aspects such as place of residence, time available (days of the week and specific hours), hobbies, age, gender, etc. In 2017 the virtual version of VxL provided an opportunity for Catalan language learners living outside Catalonia and learning Catalan through Parla.cat (www.parla.cat), a distance Catalan language learning platform created in 2008, and those with difficulties meeting face-toface, to practise and improve their language. In 2019, 777 people were enrolled in the virtual programme, of which 501 were learners and 276

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volunteers. These numbers will increase in the next report as the coronavirus pandemic has made holding face-to-face meetings more difficult and many have used internet platforms to keep in contact and chat in Catalan regularly. By 2019 the scheme had grown considerably and developed as a programme that goes beyond the individual partnerships. It is present in 200 towns and cities in Catalonia, being coordinated by 22 Catalan Language Normalisation Centres, while around 144,000 partnerships have been established since it was launched. Every year around 70 learners become volunteers as they reach fluency and confidence to keep connected to the programme and help other learners through the journey of becoming new speakers of Catalan. There are 5689 ‘meeting points’ in Catalonia, of which 745 are civic organisations and 4944 are private establishments. Some 2800 partnerships are active in hospitals, public health centres, in the justice sector, in jails and youth education centres, in cultural and educational organisations and many other governmental and non-governmental organisations as well as religious organisations, which constitute 24% of the total partnerships created. Furthermore, in 2019 the CPNL had organised some 1800 activities which range from excursions, readings in libraries, cooking sessions and gastronomic meetings, sports, visits to museums and other cultural and political sites, such as the Catalan Parliament or the local city and town councils, with the participation of more than 49,600 volunteers and learners (Generalitat de Catalunya 2020). Since its establishment, most of the learners participating in the scheme have been migrants from outside Spain, although many learners born in Catalonia and Spain have also joined. The prototypical profile of a volunteer is a woman between 50 and 65, whereas most learners, both men and women, are 30–39 years old. Tables 1 and 2 demonstrate that the majority of participant learners come from outside Spain (67%). Of these non-Spanish participants, the plurality is from South America (44%). Those from North Africa constitute 19%, followed by EU citizens (12.7%) and those from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean comprise 10%. Finally, it is worth mentioning that in September 2005 the European Commission, coinciding with the European Day of Languages,

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Table 1 Origin of learners in 2019 Origin

Total numbers

Percentage (%)

Catalonia Spain Outside Spain Virtual VxL

272 798 3.490 584

7 15 67 11

Source Generalitat de Catalunya (2020: 79)

Table 2 Origin of learners from outside Spain in 2019 Origin

Total numbers

Percentage (%)

South America North Africa EU Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean Asia Europeans outside EU The rest of Africa USA–Canada Oceania

1545 664 444 381

44.3 19 12.7 10.9

143 134 130 46 3

4.1 3.8 3.7 1.3 0.1

Source Generalitat de Catalunya (2020: 79)

published a booklet of a commissioned project entitled Lingo: Motivating Europeans to Learn Languages, in which VxL was considered one of the best 50 pedagogical experiences to reinforce the learning of languages in the EU (Kolvya and Angelescu 2005). Indeed, this programme has been presented in various meetings and conferences in Spain and elsewhere in Europe which has prompted interest by other language policy and planning officials both inside the Catalan-speaking countries and in other minority language jurisdictions in Europe. Many have contacted the CPNL to learn more about the scheme with the aim of implementing it in their own language communities. So far, VxL has been deployed in Perpinyà (French Catalonia), Andorra, Valencia and the Balearic Islands. In the Aran Valley the objective is to encourage the use of Occitan by newcomers (Volontariat per aranès—Volunteers for Occitan). Also, a similar scheme is being developed in Galicia, Faladoiros (places to speak) and for some time the Habla conmigo-Hitz egidazu

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(speak to me) and Mintzapraktika (language practice) programmes have been in place in the Basque Country. In Europe, language officials in Flanders, Belgium, Bolzano in South Tyrol and the city of Padua in Italy have also contacted the CPNL to apply the scheme for the promotion of the use of Flemish (Samen Inburgeren- Integration together) in Belgium; German and Italian in South Tyrol (Voluntariat per les llengües— Volunteers for languages)6 and Italian for refugees (Cleopa-Volontariato Linguistichi per profughi) in Padua (Generalitat de Catalunya 2020: 78; VxL 2016). Furthermore, since 2018, the National Centre for Learning Welsh has put in place a similar programme (Siarad—Speak) so that Welsh language learners can improve and practise Welsh in informal settings (Welsh Government 2019: 24). If we only consider quantitative data based on the numbers of participants, both individuals and all types of public and private organisations, we could say that it is a successful initiative. In addition, many learners become volunteers after achieving a good command of the language (Gallego et al. 2014). Furthermore, the fact that the programme is still growing since it was established almost 20 years ago and that it has inspired other language communities to follow its steps and it is additional proof of its success. However, the question that comes to our mind is how successful it has been in reality in achieving the two main goals for which it was created: to increase the use of Catalan by newcomers and to encourage Catalan speakers to maintain Catalan when addressing or replying to new speakers that sound or look foreign, that is, to change the hegemonic accommodation norm?

3

How Successful Is the VxL? Evaluating the Programme in Quantitative and Qualitative Terms

Before presenting the data, it is important to bear in mind that although the DGPL commissions studies both internally and externally to research institutions and universities regarding different aspects of language use in different fields, only one official and published study, in 2004, has

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been commissioned to evaluate the VxL scheme. However, the VxL programme internally gathers information yearly about the running of the programme through questionnaires sent to participants to monitor its progress and as the basis for further improvements, but it does not publish them. The major tools that the DGPL uses to assess whether their policies are effective are basically macro quantitative data: the general census, which is undertaken every 10 years (from 1975 to 2011) and the language use surveys, which are carried out every 5 years (from 2003 to 2018). We have presented above some data regarding Catalan language use by people born outside Spain, which is notably lower than other groups. In this section, I present data from the 2004 study of VxL; the internal survey of the VxL programme for the year 2020 and the results of a qualitative research of the NEOPHONE II project on VxL. Finally, I will analyse data regarding interpersonal language use from the last language use survey to understand the linguistic habits of Catalan speakers when addressing strangers (Generalitat de Catalunya 2019). In 2004 the lnstitute of Catalan Sociolinguistics commissioned an evaluation of the VxL scheme, which was carried out by a specialised consultancy firm (CIES) between September and November 2004. The study combines a quantitative analysis through questionnaires and a qualitative analysis from a series of short interviews with all participants, plus one semi-structured in-depth interview carried out by a researcher at the Institute with a volunteer. The study’s objectives were: (a) to identify the sociodemographic and sociolinguistic profile of participants; (b) to evaluate the degree of participant satisfaction together with the subjective perception of learners as to whether they knew and used more or less Catalan after taking part in the scheme and finally (c) to learn about organisational aspects of the programme, such as the suitability of materials etc. The survey was carried out through telephone interviews with 1300 participants (650 learners and 650 volunteers) out of a total sample of 4016 participants (Campos and Genovès 2005). Aspects of the sociodemographic and sociolinguistic data are outdated, and it would be very interesting if the DGPL could commission a new study to revisit the profiles of current participants and to find out if and how they have incorporated Catalan in their linguistic repertoire at some point after their participation in the programme. However, one constant

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is the fact that the majority of the schemes’ volunteers and learners are women. Gender gap in volunteering is quite common across different fields of social action. Studies on motivation behind volunteerism point out that woman seem more inclined to engage in volunteerism because they are socialised into nurturing and caring roles (Gil-Lacruz et al. 2019: 128). In terms of satisfaction with the programme, this is a summary of the main findings: • participants give an average of 8.66 points—on a scale of 0 to 10—to the global satisfaction with the scheme (8.91 for learners and 8.4 for volunteers); • regarding global satisfaction with the scheme, participants give an average of 8.56 points (8.91 for learners and 8.22 for volunteers); • on the effect of the scheme in improving the knowledge of Catalan among learners, the great majority of learners, 95% feel more able to speak Catalan than before; • regarding the effect on the use of Catalan among learners, 84% indicate that they speak Catalan more often than before; • learners found the scheme helpful for two reasons: – language-related: 43.9% feel that they learned Catalan; 31.1% feel more confident and less shy in speaking Catalan; 20.2% improved their fluency; 14.2% valued being able to speak Catalan spontaneously or naturally. – social-related: 29.3% declared themselves to be very happy to have met and started a friendship with a habitual Catalan speaker; 23.2% state that their knowledge of Catalonia has increased, and they feel more integrated into Catalan society; Other positive aspects highlighted were the help received by volunteers, and the constant motivation as well as the improvement in their employability. • volunteers found the scheme valuable for three reasons:

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– language-related: 56.4% found the scheme effective because it increased the number of Catalan speakers. – social-related: 31.2% were happy to have met and started new friendships with other people; 11.7% felt happy to have exchanged and shared experiences. – and solidarity reasons; 21.3% felt very good about helping people; and 4.6% believed the scheme was very useful to learners. Finally, regarding organisational aspects, a few respondents suggested improvements. Those who did noted that there should be more volunteers available and greater publicity, and that the programme should run for longer than 10 meetings. Many of these demands have since been implemented, although the 10 meetings aspect has remained in place with the possibility for the pair to start a new cycle of 10 more meetings if they wish. Camardons et al. (2005) provide more information on the results of what transpired from the short interviews with some participants and the one interview with a volunteer. The results of the short interviews showed that both learners and volunteers are very satisfied with their participation in the scheme. Learners who were successfully enrolled with the programme for different reasons, mainly to improve their opportunities in the job market or because they were interested in learning the Catalan language and its culture. Many expressed their satisfaction in being able to tap into Catalan-speaking networks, as they used to socialise mainly in Spanish-speaking circles, and to meet new people, make friends and integrate better in their local social environments. The 2021 internal survey run by the VxL programme shows that both learners and volunteers are very satisfied with their participation in the VxL and figures are even higher if we compare them with the 2004 study. The survey presents data gathered through questionnaires both to learners and volunteers in 2020 about their satisfaction with the two types of meetings, depending on how they met to practise Catalan: virtual and face-to-face. In 2020, 7341 linguistic partnerships were

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established, 3884 of which were face-to-face (52.9%) and 3457 virtual (47.1%). They received 1343 responses (704 from virtual participants and 668 from face-to-face participants). If we look at Table 3, we can see that the scores regarding satisfaction with all the aspects of the programme are very high. We can see also that the face-to-face modality has slightly higher scores from both learners Table 3 Appraisal of VxL in virtual and face-to-face modalities, 2020

Satisfaction with number of meetings (10) (%) Improved capacity to speak Catalan after participation in the programme (%) Satisfaction with modality of programme (Score from 1 to 5) Usefulness of general orientation and documentation (Score from 1 to 5) Attention received from the organisation (Score from 1 to 5) Recommendation of the modality of the programme to others (%)

Learners of Virtual VxL

Learners of face-to-face VxL

Volunteers of Virtual VxL

Volunteers of face-to-face VxL

95

94

92

95

92

93

–

–

4.56

4.74

4.40

4.47

4.45

4.45

4.27

4.14

4.75

4.69

4.63

4.55

98

100

98

100

Source Author’s elaboration from internal VxL report (Generalitat de Catalunya 2021)

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and volunteers than the virtual modality. Also, the perceived capacity to speak Catalan after participating in the programme has increased in both cases, virtual (92%) and face-to-face (93%) learners. Unfortunately, the survey does not enquire if learners have become habitual users of the language or investigate where and with whom they speak Catalan. Both the results of this earlier, mostly quantitative study and the internal appraisal of the VxL programme coincide with the findings of our ethnographic study, but we can say that VxL goes beyond helping newcomers to become Catalan speakers (Puigdevall et al. 2019). We carried out the fieldwork between January 2018 and January 2020 as part of the NEOPHON II project on new speakers in Catalonia. The aim of the research was to study linguistic mudes ‘in real time’ by learners participating in VxL and find out how they engaged in new linguistic practices, such as using Catalan in their everyday life. We define mudes as the sociolinguistic junctures or moments of transformation of the linguistic practices and forms of self-presentation of new speakers (Pujolar and Gonzàlez 2013; Pujolar and Puigdevall 2015; Pujolar 2019). We combined participant observation fieldwork together with the gathering and analysis of a variety of materials (brochures, pictures, web pages and blogs and other documents). VxL is quite easy to access and with the various media campaigns by the CPNL and contacts with many organisations the scheme is becoming widely known. Learners joined the programme in three ways: through agreements between the CPNL and the organisation where they were members; voluntarily when they found out about the programme (especially when they enrolled and started language courses at CPLN); or because other people they had met told them about CPNL and the VxL. Apart from being easy to join, the programme gives both volunteers and learners a safe space as there is no segregation by origin and it offers the possibility of ‘training’ to be a new speaker of the language in quite ideal conditions without being too exposed to the usual linguistic scrutiny of society in general. This programme can be seen as a space of inclusion that overcomes some implicit barriers and where new speakers can be legitimised simply as speakers, being able to build new identities related to the use of Catalan. It also favours the creation of new friendships and social networks, while helping new speakers to access new spaces that

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allow them to continue using the language and strengthening their mudes (Puigdevall et al. 2022). Therefore, VxL fulfils a function that Catalan society at large should play spontaneously, but which it is not doing because the language is not hegemonic in all fields. VxL goes beyond facilitating the learning and adoption of Catalan because it gives access to all kinds of resources that prove very useful for immigrants. These include not only knowledge of Catalan language, culture and society and acquaintance with new people and social networks where Catalan is the main language but also elements that can be transformed into material resources such as training, education, work and housing. From the results of these studies and surveys, we can say that the scheme has been successful in achieving the main objectives set by language policy authorities to encourage immigrants to learn and use Catalan. But, if we have seen that migrants show the lowest use of the language for the reasons identified in the introduction, how much of the habit of code-switching to Spanish by Catalan speakers when addressing newcomers has changed? We do not have segregated data specifically showing interpersonal language use between Catalans and migrants, but when being interviewed, many new speakers complain about only rarely being addressed in Catalan. However, we do have information on the choices Catalan speakers make between using Catalan and Spanish when interacting with strangers. Again, these data do not provide further information about their linguistic choices when interacting with people who speak Catalan with a non-native accent. Thus, in the first column of Table 4, we can see that there are around 12% of what we call the ‘maintainers’ of the Catalan language, that is, those Catalan speakers who always or normally address and reply to everyone in Catalan. However, in column two we have what the majority (75.6% in 2018) of Catalan speakers still do: switch to Spanish when addressed in Spanish. We see that between 2008 and 2018 the percentage of those who speak Catalan and who declare that they never address anyone in this language has increased from 6.4 to 9.1%. However, the second column of Table 5 demonstrates that the majority of Catalan speakers (79% in 2018) switch to Catalan if they are answered in Catalan when addressing someone in Spanish. We can also

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Table 4 Population that speaks Catalan according to their response when addressing someone in Catalan get a reply in Spanish (%)

2008 2013 2018

Carries on in Catalan

Carries on in Spanish

Ask the person to speak Catalan

12.2 12.3 11.8

76.7 71.0 75.6

1.7 2.5 1.4

Never addresses people in Catalan

Stops the conversation

No information

6.4 12.2 9.1

.. .. 0.3

3.0 1.9 1.9

Sources Data for 2008: Generalitat de Catalunya (2015). Data for 2013–2018: Generalitat de Catalunya (2019). (..) Data not available

Table 5 Population that speaks Catalan according to their response when addressing someone in Spanish and get a reply in Catalan (%)

2008 2013 2018

Carries on in Spanish

Carries on in Catalan

Ask the person to speak Spanish

10.1 13.4 12.2

79.5 75.7 79.0

1.1 1.4 1.1

Never addresses people in Spanish

Stops the conversation

No information

6.8 8.2 6.1

.. .. ..

2.3 1.1 1.5

Source Data for 2008: Generalitat de Catalunya (2015). Data for 2013–2018: Generalitat de Catalunya (2019). (..) Data not available

see that those who declare that they never address people in Spanish are in a minority and that there was a slight decrease between 2003 (6.8%) and 2018 (6.1%). To sum up, we see that the great majority of Catalan speakers switch to Spanish very easily when addressed in this language and even some still carry on in Spanish when addressed in Catalan. This is something that many migrants also report and complain about and makes them feel that all the efforts in learning Catalan are for nothing (Puigdevall et al. 2019, 2022). It is clear that this kind of language behaviour is still very ingrained in the psyche of Catalan speakers, and it dates from earlier experiences of language minoritisation, chiefly during the dictatorship regime when speaking Catalan in public was forbidden (Woolard 1989: 69–87).

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Macro quantitative results provided by language surveys do not show major changes in relation to interpersonal use of the language between Catalan natives and new speakers, especially with immigrants. However, the realisation that we need to be more aware of this behaviour, which is pernicious and detrimental to the Catalan language community, has grown recently. Many initiatives have emerged to convince Catalan speakers to avoid switching languages and most importantly not to do so with immigrants (Junyent 2020).7 Clearly, many efforts and actions across several fronts by language planning authorities are needed to make Catalan the common and hegemonic language for social relations in Catalonia for all its inhabitants. But we can say that programmes like VxL can help to achieve this goal, and even more significantly prevent segregation and favour social cohesion at the same time that they foster greater understandings between Catalans of all origins.

Notes 1. The programme changed its name in 2007 from Voluntaris to Voluntariat, both meaning ‘volunteers’ in English, as the latter form is gender-inclusive in Catalan (Generalitat de Catalunya 2008). 2. Language of identification is the language that the speaker considers to be his or her own language or languages. The language of identification can be different from the first language learned at home. In language statistics in Catalonia the language of identification represents the answer to the question ‘What is your language?’. 3. I am grateful to the Documentation Centre of Language Policy (https://llengua.gencat.cat/ca/direccio_general_politica_linguistica/ centre_de_documentacio/) for providing me with the internal non-published report. 4. This chapter presents results from the following projects: Linguistic Mudes: An Ethnographic Approach to New Speakers in Europe (NEOPHON II)’, ref. FF12015-67232-C3-1-P, funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Inovación and ‘New Speakers as Agents of Sociolinguistic Transformation in Catalonia’ (EquiLing_cat), ref. PID2019-105676RB-C44, a sub-project of the main

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coordinated project ‘Critical Linguistic Awareness and Speakers’ Agency: Action-research for Sociolinguistic Equality (EquiLing)’ (AEI/10.13039/501100011033), also funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Inovación. 5. Other similar programmes in Catalonia that are also worth mentioning are Quedem? (Shall we meet up?), a scheme by the most important cultural organisation in Catalonia, Omnium Cultural (https://www.omnium.cat/ca/projectes/quedem/) and Xerrem (Chatting) organised by CAL—Coordinadora d’Associacions per la Llengua, an umbrella organisation for Catalan language NGOs (http://www.cal.cat/projecte/projecte-xerrem/). 6. The programme in South Tyrol has taken the same name as the original Catalan: see https://www.provincia.bz.it/formazione-lingue/ lingue/volontariato-linguistico.asp. 7. There are other initiatives that encourage Catalan speakers to address and speak Catalan with newcomers. One such initiative is the campaign No em canviis de llengua (Don’t change your language) run by activist Rosario Palomino, born in Perú but resident in Catalonia for thirty years, using social media such as Twitter (@CanviisEm) and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj6bbos0h6iYT_JvV U7bymA).

References Aracil, L.V. 1983. Dir la Realitat. Barcelona: Edicions dels Països Catalans. Camardons, J.S., J. Castaño, and A. Díaz. 2005. ‘Volunteers for Language’, Linguistic Integration Programme in Catalan: Facts for Evaluation. Noves sl. Revista de Sociolingüística. http://www.gencat.cat/llengua/noves/noves/hm0 5primavera-estiu/docs/a_sole.pdf. Accessed 11 June 2021. Campos, A., and I. Genovès. 2005. Avaluació del programa ‘Vountaris per la Llengua.’ Llengua i Ús: Revista Tècnica De Política Lingüística 33: 52–59. Climent-Ferrando, V. 2016. Expert Note 7: The Linguistic Integration of Immigrants in Catalonia. In Report on the Integration of Immigrants in Catalonia 2015, 108–115. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya.

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Freixa, P., L. Ponsatí, and N. Tarridas. 2016. Voluntariat per la llengua (#VxL): Molt més que un programa de foment de l’ús oral del català. Llengua Nacional 96: 23–25. Gallego, A., V. Sanz, M. Nadal, and S. Sanz. 2014. Voluntariat per la llengua. Una història que va començar fa deu anys. Llengua i ús 54. https://www.vxl. cat/sites/default/files/materials/279221-382458-3-pb.pdf. Accessed 22 June 2021. Generalitat de Catalunya. 2004. Informe de política lingüística 2003. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya. https://llengua.gencat.cat/web/.content/docume nts/informepl/arxius/ipl_2004.pdf. Accessed 22 June 2021. Generalitat de Catalunya. 2008. Informe de política lingüística 2007 . Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya. https://llengua.gencat.cat/web/.content/docume nts/informepl/arxius/ipl_2007.pdf. Accessed 22 June 2021. Generalitat de Catalunya. 2015. Anàlisi de l’Enquesta d’usos lingüístics de la població 2013. Resum dels factors clau. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya. Generalitat de Catalunya. 2019. Els usos lingüístics de la població de Catalunya. Resultats de l’EULP 2018. Principals resultats de l’Enquesta d’usos lingüístics de la població 2018. Generalitat de Catalunya. 2020. Informe de política lingüística 2019. https://lle ngua.gencat.cat/web/.content/documents/informepl/arxius/IPL-2019.pdf. Accessed 22 June 2021. Generalitat de Catalunya. 2021. VxL virtual i presencial. Buidatge dels qüestionaris de valoració 2020. Unpublished internal report, Servei de recursos linguistics. Gil-Lacruz, A.I., C. Marcuello, and M.I. Saz-Gil. 2019. Gender differences in European volunteer rates. Journal of Gender Studies 28 (2): 127–144. IDESCAT. 2021. Padró municipal d’habitants. Generalitat de Catalunya. https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=pmh. Accessed 22 June 2021. Junyent, C. 2020. El català, la llengua efervescent. Barcelona: Viena Editorial. Kolvya, K., and D. Angelescu. 2005. Lingo: Motivating Europeans to Learn Languages. Brussels: EC DG Education and Culture. Pinyol-Jiménez, G. (coord.). 2016. Report on the Integration of Immigrants in Catalonia 2015. Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya. Puigdevall, M. 2005. The Challenge of Language Planning in the Private Sector: Welsh and Catalan Perspectives. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wales. Puigdevall, M., A. Colombo, and J. Pujolar. 2019. Espacios de adopción del catalán, una aproximación etnográfica a las mudas lingüísticas en Cataluña. In Neohablantes de lenguas minorizadas en el Estado español ,

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ed. F. Ramallo, E. Amorrortu, and M. Puigdevall, 111–130. Madrid: Iberoamericana Vervuert. Puigdevall, M., J. Pujolar, and A. Colombo. 2022. Linguistic Safe Spaces and Stepping Stones: Rethinking mudes to Catalan Through the Lens of Space. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 43 (1): 21–31. Pujolar, J. 2010. Immigration and Language Education in Catalonia: Between National and Social Agendas. Linguistics and Education 21 (3): 229–243. Pujolar, J. 2019. Linguistic Mudes: An Exploration over the Linguistic Constitution of Subjects. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 257: 165–189. Pujolar, J., and I. Gonzàlez. 2013. Linguistic ‘Mudes’ and the De-ethnicization of Language Choice in Catalonia. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 16 (2): 138–152. Pujolar, J., and M. Puigdevall. 2015. Linguistic ‘Mudes’: How to Become a New Speaker in Catalonia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 231: 167–187. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-UAB. 1997. Actes de la VII Trobada de Servei Lingüístics: La Dinamització lingüística. Bellaterra: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Gabinet de Llengua Catalana. Welsh Government. 2019. Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers. Action Plan 2019 –20. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Woolard, K.A. 1989. Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Woolard, K.A. 2011. Is There Linguistic Life After High School? Longitudinal Changes in the Bilingual Repertoire in Metropolitan Barcelona. Language in Society 40: 617–648. Woolard, K.A. 2016. Singular and Plural. Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in 21st Century Catalonia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. VxL. 2016. El projecte ‘Cleopa’ adopta el model del Voluntariat per la llengua a Pàdua per als refugiats. https://www.vxl.cat/node/130880. Accessed 22 June 2021.

Afterword: Conviction, Advocacy and Resilience Colin H. Williams

1

An Appreciation of the Conceivers and Contributors of the Festschrift

My heartfelt thanks to the initiators of this volume, Robert Dunbar, Kathryn Jones, John Walsh and particularly Wilson McLeod, who coordinated the venture. I am delighted at the selection they have made as each contributor has provided a stimulating interpretation of issues which have been of concern to my career and research. My deep appreciation to Emyr Lewis for his gift of such a meaningful cywydd , published at the start of this volume. I have acted as external examiner for higher degrees to five of the academic contributors, supervised the Ph.D. of two others and served either on the appointment panels or as a referee C. H. Williams (B) School of Welsh, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK e-mail: [email protected]

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for all the rest. I have enjoyed a close working relationship with the nonacademic colleagues either in relation to my membership of the Welsh Language Board or within the International Association of Language Commissioners. Each in turn has become a much respected and valued friend.

2

A Career Summary

The editors have encouraged me to summarise my academic journey and to provide a response to the issues raised by the contributors. Early socialisation explains a great deal about my academic interests. My parents were strong advocates of Welsh-medium education and I attended Ysgol Gymraeg St. Ffransis, Y Barri (1954–1962) and Ysgol Uwchradd Rhydfelen (1962–1969) as one of the first cohort attending that pioneering Welsh-medium high school in South Wales. These schools and their associated cultural activities in the Eisteddfod, media and chapel system instilled a strong sense of identity and awareness of the struggle one was engaged in to preserve the Welsh language within a predominantly unsympathetic socio-political context. Rhydfelen encouraged its sixth formers to apply to the federal University of Wales, in part because of the quality of the education and in part so as to exert some pressure on developing Welsh-medium university-level courses. I chose to read for a B.Sc. Econ degree at the University College of Swansea, attracted by the applied nature of the disciplines and their concern with socio-economic problems, development issues, conflict resolution and international relations. It is strange how one’s career turns out. I am convinced that we do not determine our own trajectories, but as the adage suggests, ‘chance favours the prepared mind’ and I have benefitted from adopting an interdisciplinary approach to my investigations, allowing me to settle happily in a range of academic departments. Each of the departments in which I have studied or served has had an outstanding feature which has enriched my academic development and perspective. At the University of Wales, Swansea (1969–1976) and the University of Western Ontario (1973–1974), I was privileged to be

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taught by excellent scholars who were concerned primarily with problemsolving, applying social scientific methods and approaches to national and global issues. For my Ph.D. topic at Swansea, I chose to study the relationship between language and nationalism, and the influence of Dr. Colin Thomas and Professor David Herbert in Geography and Peter P. Nicholson and Professor Jack Spence, with whom I also undertook a postgraduate M.A. course in African Politics, has been profound. Having studied Biafran separatism as a special subject within Professor Spence’s course, I determined to undertake fieldwork in Nigeria, but was advised by the authorities that that would be unsafe, so I turned my attention to Québecois separatism and was very fortunate to come under the guidance of Professor C.F.J. Whebell and Professor Don Cartwright in the Geography Department at the University of Western Ontario. There my wife Meryl and I, newly married, had a wonderful start to our life together, making firm friendships and initiating a long-term interest in matters Canadian both for my research and teaching. Later I became a Committee Member and Chair of the Welsh Section of the British Association of Canadian Studies, where we sponsored students to undertake postgraduate studies at Canadian Universities, hosted visiting Canadian academics, and organised an annual conference of Canadian Studies in Wales. I am grateful for the support of the Social Science Research Council, which sponsored my Ph.D. and allowed me to conduct research as a visiting scholar in the mid-seventies at Harvard University, Dartmouth College and McGill University. I also acknowledge the support of the English-Speaking Union, which provided a travel scholarship to enable me to undertake postgraduate studies at the University of Western Ontario, where I conducted fieldwork on the challenges facing the Québecois and Acadians. My first appointment was at North Staffordshire Polytechnic/Staffordshire University in 1976, where I encountered innovative and challenging undergraduate teaching in both Human Geography, in which I specialised in Political Geography, the Geography of Ethnic and Minority Relations, and the Geography of China, and in the International Relations Department, where I specialised in the International

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Politics of the Environment. In the early eighties, I was invited to be a Fulbright Professor at the Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University to teach Political Geography and to work with Professor Wilbur Zelinsky on issues of language and nationalism. In the early nineties, I was appointed a Multicultural History Society of Ontario Fellow in Toronto, where under the directorship of Professor P.R. Magosci, Chair of Ukrainian at Toronto University, the MHSO was compiling the Encyclopaedia of Canada’s Peoples (Magosci 1999). This period allowed me to conduct extensive fieldwork in Eastern Canada on the Celtic migrations and their subsequent involvement in Canadian society, contributing my own entries and reviewing others. While working in Toronto, Professor Glyn Jones of Cardiff University informed me that I had been named in a joint bid made by several departments to create the post of Research Professor in Sociolinguistics and he was subsequently responsible for inviting me in 1993 to become a professor within Cardiff ’s School of Welsh. Strong arguments for the need for such a Professorship were supplied by the Welsh Language Board (WLB), whose Chair, Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas, enabled a period of fruitful cooperation to be facilitated where much of my empirical fieldwork and recommendations on language interventions and the development of a bilingual infrastructure was fed into the evolving strategies of the WLB. I am particularly grateful to Glyn Jones for his unstinting encouragement of my comparative research in Europe and Canada and allowing me to establish a Centre for Language, Planning, and Policy. He was fully supportive of my efforts as School Research Director to construct a robust and intellectually dynamic research culture involving both staff and postgraduate students. Thus, for many years in Cardiff I occupied a dual role as a professor and as a member of the WLB. As School of Welsh Research Director, 1994–2014, I was responsible for successive planning and submissions to the Research Assessment Exercise/Research Excellence Framework in Welsh and latterly within Modern Languages and a contributor to university-level deliberations. At undergraduate level, I taught the firstyear foundation course on Wales and its Culture and in the second-

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and third-year taught options in the field of Language Policy and Planning and Dissertation Planning. I was responsible for the M.A. in Welsh, specialising in Philosophical, Methodological, and Key Issues in Scholarship core courses, and two options, namely Language and Society and Wales and the Americas. I also taught courses on Wales and the Welsh: Contemporary Issues to Cardiff ’s visiting students from the USA and Europe. A close working relationship was established with the WLB, where I undertook a series of research investigations on Community Development, Comparative Language Planning, and Issues of Language Legislation and Regulation in Europe and Canada. Commissioned projects ceased when I was appointed a Member of the WLB in 2000, being co-responsible for devising and implementing language policies and contributing to the Board’s strategic thinking and staff development. Together with senior officers, I represented the WLB at public functions both within Wales and in Europe, where we established the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity. This was a most stimulating period and the experiences and insights gained fed directly into my teaching and research supervision at Cardiff University. In preparation for the establishment of the National Assembly of Wales, I chaired the committee which set out guidance for translation standards and practices and contributed a chapter on ‘Operating Through Two Languages’ in John Osmond’s National Assembly Agenda: A Handbook for the First Four Years (1998). I am grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council, which has supported my investigations at different stages of the devolution journey. An initial ESRC Award, ‘The Bilingual Character of the National Assembly of Wales’ (1999–2001), enabled me to scrutinise the manner in which the Assembly implemented its decision to operate as a bilingual institution. Comparative work was facilitated by a second ESRC Award ‘Devolution and Decentralisation in Wales and Brittany’, held jointly with Dr. Alistair Cole, Mr. Barry Jones and Dr. John Loughlin (2001– 2003). A third ESRC award for research on ‘Language Commissioners in Comparative Perspective: Wales, Ireland and Canada, 2012–2015’ enabled Professor Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost, Dr. Patrick Carlin and myself to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the Language

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Commissioner concept and operation in Wales, Ireland and Canada. Between 2007 and 2013 I was Chair of the Steering Committee of the Centre for Bilingualism, a £5.4m research facility co-funded by the ESRC, Bangor University, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Wales. My service in Cardiff was particularly satisfying for the opportunity it gave me to supervise and work with a number of outstanding postgraduate/postdoctoral researchers on a range of topics both national and international. This was the most rewarding part of my daily work, and I am delighted to say that these former colleagues remain warm friends in regular contact. The majority now occupy positions in academia and public service in Wales, while others occupy similar positions in Ireland, Catalonia and the USA. Long-term engagement with many Canadian researchers, including Professor Charles Castonguay and Professor Richard Bourhis represented in this volume, has been enabled both by Canadian and British research scholarships and my position as an Adjunct Professor of Geography at Western Ontario (UWO), for which I am grateful. Since the nineties I have also been a regular visiting professor in the Department of Political Science, the University of Ottawa, able to undertake joint research work with Professor Linda Cardinal on comparative aspects of evaluating bilingual service provision and legislative enactments. A particularly rewarding experience was investigating the empowerment of Francophone communities as a member of the University of Ottawa’s ARUC (Alliance de recherche universités-communautés) team, focussed on ‘Les Savoirs de la gouvernance communautaire’ (2009–2014). My times in Ottawa allowed me to benefit from sustained periods of engagement with Graham Fraser, former Commissioner of Official Languages, and senior civil servants within the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, the Department of Justice, Heritage Canada, the Treasury Board and the Parliament of Canada. I extend my gratitude to Professor Thomas Charles Edwards, Jesus College, and Dr. Anthony Lemon, Mansfield College, University of Oxford for inviting me to become a Visiting Fellow in both colleges in 2002 and again in 2010, where I benefitted from being part of the Celtic Studies and Geography network of scholars.

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It has also been a privilege to co-operate closely with government agencies and partner organisations from civil society. Through my membership of the WLB and involvement in the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages (EBLUL), Linguamon and the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity, I have been able to participate in a number of significant international projects and initiatives which have informed my own scholarly and professional work. Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of my career has been the opportunities I have had to contribute partial solutions or accommodations for long-standing conflicts and tension-ridden contexts. These include the preparation of position papers and strategy documents (often anonymously) for bodies such as the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe. In the spring of 1994, the Department of Geography, the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa invited me as a Visiting Professor, where Professor Izak van der Merwe and myself prepared detailed geolinguistic maps and a justification for the restructuring of the country’s educational and public services in anticipation of an African National Congress victory at the elections of April that year. In the Basque Country, I have been involved in various projects as a Member of Euskaltzaindia, the Advisory Board of the Royal Academy of the Basque Language, and of the Udaltop network, particularly in relation to the Euskaraldia initiative. In Slovenia, I have cooperated very fruitfully with Professor Milan Bufon and his colleagues, initially within the University of Ljubljana, then at the University of Primorska, and more recently as a member of the ZRS (Slovene Research Institute) Koper, on issues related to EU integration, ethnic identity in the Upper Adriatic region and the protection of minority rights in South-Central Europe. The most enduring contribution to post-conflict reconciliation has been my involvement with stakeholders in Northern Ireland. Several non-governmental opportunities to press for language and group equality were arranged by the late Aodán Mac Póilin and Gordon McCoy for the Ultach Trust and Dónall Ó Riagáin of EBLUL in the 1990s and early 2000s. The most significant engagement was with the Good Friday Agreement, which came into force on 2 December 1999. I wrote the

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position papers on group equality, language rights and cultural diversity, aspects of which became enshrined in the Agreement as respecting the position and status of Irish and Ulster-Scots within the framework of the overall future planned for Northern Ireland. Both before and after the Agreement’s enactment, I helped raise awareness among civil servants by conducting training sessions on the theme of international best practice for the promotion and regulation of minority languages. As part of the Northern Ireland Transition Programme, I was invited to address the newly elected Northern Ireland Assembly Members under the ambit of the ‘Cultural Diversity and the Equality Agenda in Northern Ireland’. Equality Seminars were held in Belfast on 28–29 October 1998. Following the signing of the Agreement, a series of meetings were arranged for participants to discuss its implementation, and these allowed me to have detailed conversations with the leading politicians, mainly from Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and to conduct further briefing sessions for public servants and civil society agencies organised by the Linguistic Diversity Branch of the Department of Arts, Culture and Leisure. As Janet Muller of Pobal has detailed in her contribution to this volume, together with Professor Robert Dunbar, Professor Wilson McLeod and Professor Fernand de Varennes, I was involved in the preparation of the 2006 draft Irish Language Act for Northern Ireland and its revised version of 2012, together with several presentations at events organised by Pobal in 2006, 2011 and 2015. Since the late seventies, I have been a regular visitor to Ireland, cooperating with EBLUL, Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge, Foras na Gaeilge and An Coimisinéir Teanga. A constant companion in these investigations was the late Peadar Ó Flatharta, with whom I authored a number of publications and organised international conferences. The most significant of the publications was the 2014 report From Act to Action: Comparative Language Planning in Finland, Ireland and Wales, which was the culmination of a sustained period of fieldwork and investigations (Ó Flatharta et al. 2014). Peadar convened an international team comprised of Professor Joe Lo Bianco, Professor François Grin and myself, together with his Fiontar colleagues, to prepare the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language for the

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Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs published in 2009 (Fiontar 2009). This provided a foundation for the government’s subsequent 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010–30 (Government of Ireland 2010). Peadar, Seán Ó Cuirreáin (the first Coimisinéir Teanga) and I organised and hosted an International Conference on Language Rights in Dublin in May 2013. At this meeting was born the International Association of Language Commissioners and as Graham Fraser notes in his contribution to this volume, I became the Rapporteur for many of the subsequent conferences. I consider the IALC to be one of the most significant developments in language protection and regulation. It was with real sadness, and a great deal of affection, that I was honoured to deliver the inaugural Léacht Uí Fhlatharta at Dublin City University on April 12, 2018, in memory of Peadar and his unstinting contribution to the cause of human dignity and minority langauge protection (Williams 2018). In early September 2015, I retired from my Research Professorship at Cardiff but remain an Honorary Professor still active in and around the university community. A day after my splendid farewell retirement party, I took up an invitation to be a Visiting Fellow at St. Edmund’s College, the University of Cambridge. My current position is as a Senior Research Associate of the Von Hügel Institute, under the directorship of Dr. Philip McCosker and Dr. Vittorio Montemaggi. Here, I work in close collaboration with Professor Ralf Wuestenberg on issues of postconflict reconciliation and restitution in societies riven by violence and tensions, such as Palestine, South Africa, Rwanda, Northern Ireland and the Basque Country.

3

A Reflection on Some of the Salient Themes Raised by the Contributors

3.1

Disciplinary Pluralism

My approach throughout my career has been to concentrate on issues, many of which I readily admit I am not qualified to tackle. However,

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I have adopted a multi-disciplinary perspective to problem-solving and have benefitted from the insights of wide range of colleagues both in the UK and further afield. My conviction has been to make the most of the time and limited talent I possess so that my work should be relevant, mainly to civil society activists and policy formulators. This type of social engagement can be criticised for not being as objective, neutral and ‘scientific’ as it might be. My response to such judgements is to argue that we all make choices and I have chosen to align myself with the cause of often marginalised and discriminated people in the hope that whatever interpretations and recommendations I may draft will be of some utility to the improvement of their quality of life and human dignity. The rapacity of dominant political and economic systems throughout history cannot and will not be reversed or reconciled by wish fulfilment, but this exploitative relationship can be mitigated somewhat by elegant and convincing evidence-based ideas so as to restore some degree of respect, equanimity and power to chart one’s own future to a greater or lesser extent. It is all so contingent and thus requires resilience! I am no linguist, but others believed me to be a sociolinguist. Indeed, in his 1997 review of my volume Called Unto Liberty (1994), Joshua Fishman declared that ‘macro sociolinguistics is finally coming of age’ and described me as a representative of a younger generation of scholars (Fishman 1997: 149). It has been gratifying, therefore, to receive Festschrift contributions from outstanding scholars representing a range of disciplines. Let me comment on some of the findings and insights they have shared in this volume.

3.2

Gathering and Interpreting the Evidence

The most fundamental task of the analyst seeking to find solutions to key issues is to marry empirical data with a vision of how solutions could and should be implemented. Charles Castonguay has committed a lifetime’s academic and personal dedication to questioning and interpreting both the sufficiency and application of Canada’s Official Languages data. While his scientific interpretation has been accurate, as befits a Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, his often-critical judgements of the policy

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interpretations of official data have earned him a reputation as an iconoclast among some establishment circles. But this is exactly what is needed when politicians rely too much on spin and not enough on hard, longterm evidence to track changes in demolinguistic and group identity fluctuations. The uncertainty of French in Quebec is encapsulated in data-driven messages contained in his contribution. They are told in stark, telling phrases, for he believes that ‘French has lost its footing’ and ‘English’s superiority over French as language of assimilation is gradually becoming stabilised’. His robust conclusion could not be more plain: ‘The sophism which equates territorial bilingualism with the end of Canada’s territorial integrity has done quite enough damage to the status of French in Quebec. If Canada is honestly intent on preserving its linguistic duality, it must help rather than hinder Quebec in promoting French as the undisputed common language of public intercourse in the province’ (Castonguay, this volume: 273). Helping individuals and societies make better-informed choices and select more effective strategies is the leitmotif of François Grin’s explication of the conundrums which derive from evaluating language as a vehicle of economic value. His contribution signals important corrections to unwise or lazy uses of the concept of language as a public good, an economic asset and a source of collective pride and communal wealth. Through an examination of whether language is a good, a public good or a hyper-public good he is able to demonstrate both the limits of conventional thinking and the need for a far more reassuring conviction that a ‘language policy in favour of linguistic diversity, including in favour of minority languages, is, from an economic standpoint, a perfectly reasonable proposition’ (Grin, this volume: 93). His discussion of public goods has major implications for public policy, because public goods cannot be supplied by the market. His treatment of externalities in relation to hyper-public goods reveals that ‘language does not merely offer non-rival consumption, but goes beyond it’ (Grin, this volume: 89). That is to say that language serves multiple functions, not only in the prime communication sense, but also in a variety of meaning-seeking and identity forms. Accordingly, he argues that the relatively common accusation that the economic approach

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to language is suspect because it has an alleged ‘neoliberal’ bent that just does not hold up and in fact reveals a superficial grasp of the epistemology of economics by some sociolinguists.

3.3

Space, Place, Context, Networks and Territory

John Walsh is concerned to show how relatively static and conservative conceptions of space have limited the official understanding of those contexts inhabited by Irish speakers. By detailing alternative cartographic approaches, his prescient contribution seeks to advance a rethinking of the relational spaces of the Irish language. This would include how cartographic demarcation both represents and constructs realities, and creates coded subjects and identities. For me the significance of his analysis is not the call for a more realistic interpretation of the Gaeltacht, as that is a common trope and one which I have advocated since the early eighties when I first undertook extensive field work there. No, the telling ideological point is the final part of his statement that ‘static approaches to mapping the Gaeltacht as a visual cartographic representation of the Irish-speaking community cemented the language’s association with these districts and erased the existence of Irish speakers elsewhere’ (Walsh, this volume: 320). By fixating on the Gaeltacht, the flourishing of Irish speakers elsewhere within the national territory has tended to have been marginalised, save the excellent work of the Gaelscoileanna and other grounded initiatives. It is only now being partially addressed through a series of official interventions sanctioned under the Gaeltacht Act 2012, which saw the designation of 16 Gaeltacht Service Towns and five Irish Language Networks. But far more is needed to reinforce the conviction that Irish belongs by right in every part of the island. This is particularly pertinent for the promotion of Irish in Northern Ireland and for the socialisation of new speakers throughout the various territories on the island. Rhys Jones has demonstrated how networked infrastructures play a key role in creating national territories. Moving beyond the standard concern with heartland and hinterland he argues that the differentiated spaces that constitute the Welsh-speaking communities are too aggregate

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for meaningful policy application. Rather, what official policy formulators need to understand are the nuanced variations brought about by meaning-seeking interpretations of linguistic territory as constituted by a series of nodes within a complex network of places and spaces. Space from this perspective is far more than a context, a frame for other activities; it is itself an important factor in how we perceive and shape reality. It also informs the conditions of possibility of what can be imagined and argued within the political realm and public consciousness. Thus, Jones correctly warns against a presumption that the Welsh language belongs by birthright and demolinguistic weight primarily to the north and west of the country. While such a presumption legitimises the primacy of establishing bilingual local authorities, guiding governmental investment to key nodes such as Carmarthen, Aberystwyth and Caernarfon, it also implicitly disavows similar attention being focussed in the south and east. This clearly runs counter to the revitalisation efforts of Welsh-medium education in so-called anglicised areas and downplays the socio-economic and infrastructural significance of internal population movements consequent to employment opportunities in both public and private sectors. What cannot be denied, however, is the significance of heartland areas both in terms of their cultural resources and creativity and the fact that until recently Welsh was the llengua pròpia, the default language of social interaction. As others throughout this volume have highlighted, it is essential that a minoritised language has a set of spaces wherein it can breathe or feel safe. The policy implications are many and varied. Jones avers that academics and policymakers need to understand what works, what is effective and which interventions cause a reshaping of linguistic territories. Above all, it is evident that space and place are in a constant state of flux and part of this dynamic relates to a set of assumptions about what should be happening to such spaces as meaning-containing nodes in a multi-layered network of locales. Concern with territory, space and ecological approaches to the landlanguage interaction has long characterised my interpretation of the sustaining nature of local communities and their related socio-economic activities (Williams 1991). Placemaking, as Kathryn Jones demonstrates, is a powerful concept by which the synergy between land-use planning and language considerations may be harnessed. All too often, the

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implementation of official language strategies has been frustrated by the inability of local government and planning authorities to require language issues to be taken into account as a material consideration when determining planning applications and infrastructural developments. The Welsh system now has a suite of legislative and regulatory enactments which can, in the main, consider the Welsh language as such a material consideration. In earlier times, as James and Williams (1997) made clear, there was a great deal of apprehension within the planning profession regarding controversial decisions on both land-use and environmental matters which could adversely affect the interests of the Welsh language. Put bluntly, without the legislative authority and technical, evaluative tools, the planning profession did not want to be politicised by taking a risk in recommending or denying specific planning applications that might have a long-term effect on certain Welsh-speaking locales. Today, not only are the technical tools and assessment procedures in place, but there is also a strong political will to consider the Welsh language and its associated infrastructure an important part of both the development of a bilingual society and also the implementation of the Cymraeg 2050 strategy (Williams 2017). Equally significant is the capacity of overarching legislation and agencies, such as the Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015 and its associated Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, to promote Welsh as a mainstream and crosscutting feature of government plans (Future Generations Commissioner for Wales 2020). This has important implications for the engagement of all aspects of government work in securing the best interests of the Welsh language and offers a far broader justification and platform for national and local government co-ordinated efforts. This was witnessed, for example, in the process by which the Horizon nuclear project on Anglesey was handled, where both environmental and language impact assessment procedures were mandated, as discussed in more detail below. The weaknesses identified by Jones are structural and characterise so much of the Welsh implementation of well-drafted and rational plans for their application is far too often fragmented and inconsistent. She gives a telling illustration in the lack of coordination between the 5year Welsh Language Promotion Strategies, Welsh in Education Strategic Plans and Public Service Board Well-being Plans. The admission that,

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of the 19 Public Service Boards, ‘only the Gwynedd and Anglesey PSB Well-being Plan makes an overt statement about the significance of the Welsh language for local understandings of wellbeing’ (Jones, this volume 174) mirrors the earlier rounds of Welsh Language Schemes negotiated by the Welsh Language Board, where committed local authorities were in the vanguard and laggard ones were largely able to sidestep their full commitment to the scheme until the WLB initiated a formal investigation. Nevertheless, the discourse on future trajectories for the language and its role in society is much enhanced by the current emphasis on place and on safe breathing spaces for speakers and communities and is aided by sophisticated work undertaken by sociolinguists and language planners drawing on geography and spatial analysis, especially in relation to the deployment of GIS, time-series analysis and the interpretation of non-census data sources. I commend the practical involvement which Dr. Kathryn Jones and IAITH have had in both formulating and advising on many of these evaluations and assessment techniques (Jones and Wyn 2010, 2020). Drawing on previous studies in minority language sociolinguistics, Bernadette O’Rourke argues that a focus on new speakers in new spaces can reap rich rewards for both speakers and officials concerned with the welfare and sustainability of minority language speakers. By probing the sociolinguistics of mobility and emphasising the in-between spaces of language use, she is able to highlight the significance of certain spaces largely ignored in previous linguistic and sociolinguistic analyses. The difficulty with such insights is in their suitability for policy formulation, for the current metadiscourse, and concepts such as relational space, do not necessarily translate into programmatic interventions. Nevertheless, the emphasis on how speakers constitute and construct spaces, whether inclusive or exclusive, physical or virtual, is surely long overdue and provides some salve to the apparently inexorable tendency to laud deterritorialisation as the dominant motif in socio-economic interaction.

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Legislative Considerations

Robert Dunbar discusses the degree to which any recognition of an individual language right can be identified as a precursor to an acceptance of a wider reality, namely the social context from which such rights emerge and in which such rights are to be exercised. He identifies several, apparently tortuous, means by which legislative enactments in Wales have implicitly and explicitly recognised two fundamental features of the language regime. The first is that the cumulative effect of various reforms has produced a situation whereby public bodies and a range of institutions are required to take cognisance of the wellbeing of the Welshlanguage speech community, even if no group or communal rights have been directly enacted. The second is that these enactments create a range of legal obligations that are potentially justiciable. The significance of this is that a paradigm shift and a new ideological underpinning of the legitimacy of the Welsh language as an element within public discourse and law establish a firmer foundation for future enactments going forward. Creative, cautious evolutionary thinking has characterised the Welsh model. This is seen by the buttressing effects of the legislative turn as other wide-ranging enactments, while not identifying the language in their titles, nevertheless provide conduits for a greater harnessing of Welsh legislation to consider, and if necessary, direct policy injunctions to protect the interests of Welsh in far more domains than any abstract notion would entertain. Professor Dunbar cites the force of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, which conferred on the language an ‘official status in Wales’ (s. 1(1)), established the office of the Welsh Language Commissioner having some enforcement powers (Part 2), created mechanisms for the enforcement of obligations created under the Measure (Part 5) and created a freedom for Welsh speakers to communicate with each other in Welsh (Part 6), a precedent which Emyr Lewis (this volume) argues should be developed. If specifying communal language rights was a step too far for government, a pale version and outcome could be woven through the complex framework for the regulation of the use of Welsh by the public sector and, to a limited extent, elements of the private sector through ‘language standards’ (Part 4). These standards and their operative framework have yet to be fully played

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out, but they could yet create a sensitised safe environment wherein the public interests of Welsh speakers could be nurtured. Other significant pieces of legislation are the Well-being of Future Generation (Wales) Act 2015 , which has far-reaching implications for the vitality of Welsh in so many domains, together with the Planning (Wales) Act 2015 and the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which have transformed land-use planning law because now the local planning authority has to assess ‘any considerations relating to the Welsh language, so far as material to the application’ (Planning (Wales) Act 2015, s. 31, creating a new s. 70(2)(aa) in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 ). To this we may add other reforms such as the guidance set out in the Technical Advice Note 20 : Planning and the Welsh Language (Welsh Government 2017a) and the instruction that National Parks consider the socio-economic wellbeing of local communities. A very specific innovation has been the need to consider and evaluate large-scale infrastructure developments. The Horizon Nuclear Power Station proposal in Anglesey represents one such challenge. In order to assess this proposal, a strong regulatory environment was put into action, both to evaluate the initial proposal and, if successful, to modify and oversee the subsequent developments of the site and its impact on the local and national context. This was comprised of strict tests for Welsh Government and Isle of Anglesey County Council approval and can be summarised as a statutory requirement to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment and a second statutory requirement to conduct a Language Impact Assessment. While the former could be based on existing and well-established UK procedures, the latter had to be developed de novo as a more far-reaching assessment was required to assess such a large investment proposal, the like of which had not been tested previously in relation to any impact on the Welsh language. The language impact assessment (Isle of Anglesey County Council 2020) looked at the threshold criteria and language requirements for the number of children of workers likely to enter local bilingual schools, both in the initial construction phase and in the operational phase. It noted the company’s proposals for an on-site accommodation facility and its likely impact on housing, community activities and travel patterns. It determined the likely requirements of higher education training and wider skills training, by language, for the

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recruitment of the site’s workforce. Each of these considerations was part of the revised company submission and contained a great deal of both language-sensitive recommendations and targeted programmes of investment and action to meet the regulatory standards determined by the impact assessment. Accordingly, we may agree with Dunbar that the Welsh model has succeeded in part in making the Welsh language a material consideration in a range of legislation and regulatory requirements. Taken together with reforms in education policy, the Cymraeg 2050 language strategy (Welsh Government 2017a, b) and current proposals to make the rudimentary knowledge of Welsh a requirement for appointment within the public service (Wales Online 2021), the legislative turn has fashioned a supportive infrastructure by which the identification of Welsh as a public good may be operationalised. Emyr Lewis considers an extension of this legislative turn, namely the presumed right to chat in one’s preferred language, arguing that ‘it is difficult to conceive of a language right which is more rooted in universal human experience, and which is more deserving of being called a human right’ (Lewis, this volume: 44). He argues that the right to chat is insufficiently recognised as a universal right in international law and in the UK. He counterposes freedom rights with claim rights and illustrates the potency of soft law in both the Welsh and international context to construct an advocacy approach to language empowerment. By taking elements of recent Welsh legislation, he is able to offer a nuanced interpretation of the right to chat as a precursor to more specific and justiciable language rights. This evolution works because such linguistic freedoms are self-sufficient, not being dependent on a suite of other clauses, regulations or enactments. Secondly, they extend to all people wishing to exercise that freedom, regardless of ethnolinguistic or geographic affiliation. In that sense, Lewis’s assertion that ‘an explicitly recognised universal right to chat, which can benefit speakers not only of indigenous minority languages, but of all languages’ (Lewis, this volume: 56) is a significant step forward in our conception of the relationship between individual/collective freedoms and language use. Accordingly, the chapter contains a profound message which I would endorse fully, namely that to function as a sentient human requires the freedom to

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interact with others in a formal setting without let or hindrance, but I also recognise that, astonishingly, the formal entitlement of this expression of our common humanity is a relatively recent phenomenon in the human story. Janet Muller, a tireless advocate of the need to recognise the permanence of the Irish language fact in, and the desirability of, securing an Irish Language Act for Northern Ireland, provides a trenchant criticism of the vicissitudes which surround the politics of language in that complex jurisdiction. She argues that ‘twenty years of well-informed and dynamic campaigning have been undermined by minimalistic... commitments’ (Muller, this volume: 339). It is not uncommon for language to be used as a political weapon, but the intractability of opposition to greater recognition for Irish on its own soil seems particularly galling. Naturally, having been involved to some degree, I find it astonishing, but not surprising, that such a zero-sum calculation should have persisted for so long and this case study teaches us that nothing is inevitable in the politics of language. Nevertheless, for those who wish to advance the cause of Irish speakers, there are some encouraging signs. The most promising is the growth of the Irish-medium education sector, which now comprises some 30 Irish-medium schools and a further 10 Irish-medium units attached to English-medium host schools. In 2010/2011 there was a total of 4248 pupils in Irish-medium primary and secondary education. By 2020/2021 this had risen to 7064 pupils (Northern Ireland Department of Education 2021). I vividly remember visiting Bunscoil Phobal Feirste in West Belfast with Aodán Mac Póilin and Liam Andrews on several occasions and could readily identify so many similarities with the school set-up at home in Wales. What is particularly pleasing is the commendable Irish-medium educational resources produced in Northern Ireland (Education Authority NI, n.d.). Muller’s cautious approach to the future of Irish is well founded in the grounded reality of struggle, but so also is her perseverance, which should yet produce the anticipated outcomes in terms of the infrastructural investment, language production rates and an Irish Language Act so vital if Irish is to flourish there.

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The Transfer of Good Practice from One Jurisdiction to Another

Linda Cardinal and Anastasia Llewellyn trace my attempts to identify and then persuade others in authority to implement good ideas and proven practices. Describing the trajectory of my thought as organic is apt for at each juncture in the development of various policies in Wales, as elsewhere, the guiding principles have always been ‘can this improve the position of Welsh speakers?’ and ‘are the recommendations I propose practicable?’ However, incremental reform must always be situated within a grand vision, which is why Canada has always been an inspiration and a source of proven, evidence-based initiatives, eminently worthy of emulation in so many multilingual jurisdictions. Nevertheless, Cardinal and Llewellyn also identify a major barrier to the logic and practicality of transferring lessons/approaches from an official languages regime comprised of two major world languages to that of jurisdictions, such as Wales, Ireland, and the Basque Autonomous Community, where a struggling minority language has to contend with the inherent politicoeconomic advantage and the legally reinforced might of a hegemonic language, such as English or Spanish. In such circumstances, both the political will and the infrastructural capacity to implement initiatives such as an Official Language Commissioner, the active offer of service, the training of civil servants and the maintenance of their professional standards, the specification of legislative enactments which clarify duties and obligations of the local state, and the citizens’ expectations as to how their rights are to be met, all rest on the abiding support of an engaged civil society. Another of my convictions, which they identify, is that sound language planning is inherently dependent on community action and support, so that once an initiative has been implemented it has to be embedded within the language regime as a public good. I am also increasingly convinced that the support of the hegemonic majority is crucial for the long-term prospects of minority language revitalisation within liberal democracies. This should not be taken for granted, but factored into the discourse supporting minority rights, education and economic advance, for the majority exercise electoral power and dominate the tax-paying

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and resource allocation capabilities of the local state, and it is from among the majority that successive generations of new speakers will be drawn if the target language, and its accompanying educational and economic purchase, is sufficiently attractive. In discussing the influence of Welsh policy on Gaelic thinking and practice, Wilson McLeod identifies three Welsh advantages not shared by Scotland. These are the greater demographic presence of Welsh speakers, the role of territoriality, and the acceptability or practicability of nationwide language policy measures. Having used the Welsh experience as a template for the development of Gaelic-medium education, media and communications, and language legislation, the current institutional arrangements seem not to satisfy the expectations of Gaelic speakers and activists. Two innovations are considered, namely the establishment of a Gaelic language commissioner, and the introduction of a range of statutory language standards. Commenting on the rather uncomfortable suite of responsibilities currently shouldered by Bòrd na Gàidhlig, McLeod argues that assigning responsibility for oversight and implementation to a new language commissioner might make for a more logical division of labour. Another possibility is the establishment of language standards, which might replace language plans. However, McLeod reminds us that such innovations have to be rooted in the geolinguistic reality of Gaelic, for unlike Wales, it would be impractical and politically naïve to introduce a national set of standards, as opposed to spatially discrete applications. His cautious interpretation calls for a return to basics and to garner support for more effective community-based language transmission and use, which in the concern for superstructural modifications of language planning strategies has tended to be taken for granted. If McLeod is concerned with the importation of good practice from one context to another Maite Puigdevall is keen to showcase a successful intervention in language planning which could be exported to a range of contexts. Her analysis of the Voluntariat per la llengua (VxL) programme is replete with sound observations and recommendations which demonstrate a concern for the welfare of Catalan language learners, especially recent migrants. I am conscious that this is a government-supported and authorised programme, but to make it work a great deal of generosity of spirit and goodwill towards the ‘other’ has to be demonstrated by Catalan

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residents. By using both official evaluations and her team’s participant observation, Puigdevall is able to discern the strengths and weaknesses of the programme to date. Critical to the development of a stronger set of behavioural outcomes is the attitude and perception of native speakers of Catalan towards immigrants. This I would take to be a universal desideratum for all minoritised communities, where the role of the host speakers is so critical to the long-term attempts to attract new speakers in an increasingly multilingual environment. Ostensibly about attracting and encouraging learners of Catalan, who simultaneously may be improving their Spanish language skills, the programme is also an instrument for social cohesion and communal integration. Accordingly, two developments should be encouraged. The first would be the application of the perceptions and experiences of the migrant learners to the improvement and extension of the VxL. A second would be a comparative analysis of the VxL equivalents which exist in the Basque Autonomous Community, Wales and elsewhere so that comparative good practice can be celebrated and measured before being diffused to many other jurisdictions as evidence-based interventions.

3.6

Policy Formulation and Implementation

Graham Fraser’s explication of the role of F.R. Scott in developing Canada’s language policy is a reminder that single actors can have an influence well beyond their individual actions and can be seen as a counter to the often-anodyne accounts of structural change where agency is vested in institutions rather than also in personalities. A complicated man, not fully appreciated during his lifetime, Frank Scott’s signal contribution in influencing a generation of lawyers, Pierre Elliott Trudeau among them, deserves to be placed on record. Fraser judges his contribution to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism as being enormous, while his thinking was an inspiration for the debates that led to the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The maturing of Canadian democracy and statehood were both enhanced by an evolving Canadian jurisprudence on language and minority rights, while the Supreme Court decision on the secession of Quebec was a fundamental

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expression of the necessity of maintaining the two official language communities as a permanent feature of the country. The Reference re Secession of Quebec (1998) was considered to be one of the most important court decisions in Canadian history. For while the nine judges unanimously stated that unilateral secession was not legal, the court itself nevertheless asserted that should a referendum decide in favour of independence, the rest of Canada ‘would have no basis to deny the right of the government of Quebec to pursue secession’. Newman (1999: 84) avers that ‘the sagacity – the brilliance, even – of the Supreme Court of Canada’s judgement in the Reference re Secession of Quebec lies in the Court’s having had the vision to wed the value of constitutional legality with that of political legitimacy’. Scott, as a public intellectual, understood that legal and constitutional principles had to be applied within the confines of political pragmatism, a lesson which many have yet to learn in contexts as diverse as Spain and Northern Ireland today. Richard Bourhis is concerned with the decline in group vitality among the English-speaking population of Quebec. To this day, this is a concern that draws little empathy among a majority of speakers in the province. Nevertheless, by tracing various policy reforms and laws passed by the Quebec government in order to strengthen the position of the Frenchspeaking majority, he is able to demonstrate their deleterious effect on the institutional framework which supports the English-speaking minority. In response to such concerns, the Quebec Liberal government established the Secretariat for Relations with English-Speaking Quebecers in 2017. Both advocacy groups and academics such as Richard Bourhis have had an influence in convincing the authorities that institutional control was required if the needs and rights of English speakers were to be upheld. The current sharp focus in relation to honouring this set of responsibilities is the English School Boards, whose reform and contraction has been the subject of a great deal of debate and anxiety. This is the case also, given that the English-speaking minority of Quebec is one of the two Official Language minorities of Canada. The governing Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), in power since 2018, adopted Law 40 in 2020, abolishing local French and English school board governance in favour of greater centralised control by the Quebec Ministry of Education. In response, the English School Boards and advocacy groups contested Law

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40 by invoking article 23 of the Canadian Constitution and previous Supreme Court rulings so as to maintain control of their own school boards. Bourhis’s earlier work demonstrates the impact of the declining bilingual healthcare system in Quebec on Anglophone access to Englishlanguage healthcare (Bourhis and Montreuil 2017). Both the reforms of the provincial healthcare system and school boards are indicative of how a previously dominant minority English language can weaken as a collectivity, as its status, demography and institutional support decline as a result of the empowerment of the French majority in most domains of group vitality. For many Québecois it is difficult to accept that the formerly advantaged Anglophone minority now needs elements of institutional support! The challenge for the Québecois Francophones is to justify and manage the paradigm shift from seeing themselves as a fragile majority to seeing themselves as a dominant majority within Quebec with a specific mandate to cater for the needs and wellbeing of their own linguistic minorities comprised of Anglophones, Allophones and First Nation constituents. What this chapter demonstrates is that even global languages such as English need infrastructural support in the form of statutory and thirdlevel education, health care and the media else the quality of individual life and especially group vitality will atrophy. Huw Lewis and Elin Royles advocate a fresh look at how neoinstitutionalist approaches can enlighten the political origins of distinctive language policies and legislation. Using the examples of the national language strategy Iaith Pawb (Welsh Assembly Government 2003) and the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, they adroitly chart the impact of variables such as the formal powers of regional government, the internal structure of governance arrangements and the nature of the party system on shaping policy choices with regard to Welsh. While the politics of language has been an ever-present element in the language struggle, at least from an activist perspective, the party-political machinations and obfuscations have not received sufficient attention. Critically, it was the interplay between the hegemonic power base and ideological predisposition of Labour in government with the pressing, agenda-setting

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trajectory represented by Plaid Cymru which led to a coalition of interests being formulated in the 2007 One Wales agreement (Labour Party and Plaid Cymru 2007). For the first time in history, Plaid Cymru exercised a degree of influence in government (19 July 2007–2010 December 2009) as its leader Ieuan Wyn Jones was made deputy to First Minister Rhodri Morgan, with three other Plaid Assembly Members joining the cabinet. Despite some useful innovations and the agreement to establish a Welsh Language Commissioner, many felt that Plaid Cymru’s period in shared government was not far-reaching enough as regards securing the unequivocal rights of Welsh speakers, injecting new economic purpose and reinforcing the communal solidarity of predominantly Welsh-speaking areas. Accordingly, the experience demonstrates the limits of political capabilities to translate long-held promises into action. Meirion Jones discusses the distinctive contribution of the Welsh Language Board to language planning and policy. Its 1996 strategy (Welsh Language Board 1996) was both comprehensive and far-reaching and enabled the WLB to establish a strong platform for regular innovative interventions. Jones claims that this strategy placed a real emphasis on creating new opportunities and increased language use which remains the leitmotif of the current Cymraeg 2050 Strategy (Welsh Government 2017a, b). However, there is a discernible criticism in his interpretation of the manner and consequence of abolishing the WLB in 2012 and moving many of its responsibilities to the Welsh Government and the Welsh Language Commissioner. This reform meant that for the first time in history the government took it upon itself to direct language policy, but according to Jones, the government withdrew funding from several of the projects previously supported by the WLB and very few new projects have been initiated. His view that a lack of capacity, experience and real understanding of the needs of Welsh speakers on the part of the government’s Welsh Language Unit may be considered a harsh judgement, especially when recent reforms augur well for the future prospects of policy implementation. The imponderable question is whether or not the situation would have been better had the WLB’s own proposals for its

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transformation into a Commission, with both a promotional and regulatory role, been accepted, even if the political climate was antagonistic to the WLB’s continued survival. One of the dominant themes of this volume has been the creation and sustenance of particular places which offer a breathing or safe space for native speakers and learners. Steve Morris is concerned with bottomup communal initiatives, namely the operation of the Canolfannau Cymraeg which are of relevance to areas where the density of Welsh speakers is low. Morris commends such centres as a vibrant locale for linguistic and cultural activities. Their impact is strengthened when other Welsh-medium organisations e.g. the Mentrau Iaith, local Urdd activities and the Mudiad Meithrin are co-located within these one-stop locales. In principle, such centres are a very appealing addition to the infrastructure of language provision. However, recent experience indicates that there is a significant difference between establishing and maintaining such centres as permanent entities within the local linguistic network. While many thrive, several of the ventures have now folded, and this offers a reality check as to how dependent such initiatives are on local or national government support. More generally, it reinforces the point that so much of a minority language’s infrastructure is grant-dependent rather than being self-sustaining; not a particularly unique situation when considered alongside the arts, culture and sport domains, but a constraining influence nevertheless where political power and resource allocation decision-making exercise a great deal of influence. Several contributors have referred to the ability of actors through history to signify and invest meaning in particular places. Eleri James illustrates this naming process by considering how the maps and signage that depict them point to significant developments in Welsh-language policy. Having initiated the process of formalising place-names during the operation of the Welsh Language Board, the current approach of the Welsh Language Commissioner to this responsibility is to apply Welshlanguage standards in a more thoroughgoing and uniform manner. James recognises that the task is facilitated by the increased readiness of local authorities to undertake standardisation projects and to ensure that they are using Welsh-language forms for settlement names where they exist. However, legislation has undergirded the institutional response and

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several local authorities, such as Caerphilly and Cardiff, have demonstrated a commitment to strengthening the Welsh linguistic landscape, often overriding the wishes of the marketing department of land-use and housing developers. Nevertheless, there remains the worrying trend where long-established Welsh forms for particular names and places are increasingly being translated or ignored in terms of individual house names or when a generic English name is substituted within new developments, especially the repurposing of brownfield sites. To date, James notes that there has not been a satisfactory political response to counter such trends, leaving one to speculate how prescient Emyr Llewelyn was when he warned that ‘Ein tir a anrheithir yn ein gwydd: ˆ o flaen ein llygaid dietifeddir ni’.1

4

A Brief Reflection on Some of the Outstanding Challenges Which Remain

Perhaps the most important task is the construction of an approach to analysing the relationship between language, policy and territory which is able to find a workable balance between two countervailing tendencies. The first is the adoption of a holistic interdisciplinary approach to problem identification and interpretation. It seems obvious that the grand issues of social, economic and ecological transformations require radical and visionary perspectives to identify what is possible. However, a more common and manageable tendency is the temptation to establish finer-grained and necessarily fragmented sub-disciplines e.g., the sociolinguistics of new speakers. I understand the attraction of the latter as it allows one to focus on specific aspects, but they will only be realised when married to a grand narrative of structural change, and that requires a complex, multidimensional analysis of the situation. One tantalising, if challenging, illustration will suffice and that is the prospect of undertaking a full sociolinguistic analysis of the implications and impact of China’s immense international infrastructure development strategy, the

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Belt and Road Initiative (OECD 2018), both at home and along its route. For languages to reproduce it is evident that intergenerational language transmission is a must, but so often a link in the chain of individual and communal transmission is fractured or weakened and, as a consequence, there is even more pressure on the educational system to deliver a robust grounding in the target language. The challenges of so doing in an increasingly multilingual context can be assisted by new initiatives and methodologies and of this translanguaging seems to offer great scope. A second consideration is the securing of continuity of target language use both as a medium and as a subject from primary to secondary to post-secondary education and the training requirements of the workforce. This in turn prompts a major rethink of the relationship between acquiring language skills in a formal education setting and their subsequent deployment and use in the world of work, leisure commerce, sport and the like. If there is a leitmotif adage of language revitalisation, it is ‘use it or lose it’. Fear of attrition, language loss and the atrophying of once-secure spaces invite closer examination and application of ecological and environmental considerations, where species imperative, biodiversity and nurturing conditions must surely play a more prominent and sustainable role in applied language planning. A significant weakness in current narratives related to language revitalisation is the paucity of sound and convincing economic and commercial interpretations of the worth that bilingual or multilingual individuals share in terms of value-added skills and wealth creation potential, both fiscal and social. We have become accustomed to arguing the cultural, identity and social-psychological benefits of preserving and promoting minority languages, but we still struggle with popular, ‘off the shelf ’ defences of such actions from an economic perspective. This need not necessarily be posited as a zero-sum minority majority language competition, because it is recognised that regional or minority languages and hegemonic languages interact together in a meaningful, often well-integrated system. Thus, exploring continua rather than adhering to binary relations is the meaningful way forward. This is

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particularly apposite in the analysis of new speakers, who occupy various stages along a language continuum of capability, belonging and identification. Fundamental to the thematic advances we may advocate is the technical infrastructural framework of artificial intelligence and information technology within the digital space economy. Data is the new currency! Its management is the new challenge. The investment and resources required for minority languages to take advantage of these increasingly necessary facets of contemporary life depend initially on political support, for it is predominantly public monies which undergird the range of public policy interventions within sympathetic political cultures. One implication, as seen in Canada and the Basque Autonomous Community, is that internet-based bilingual services may satisfy the statutory obligations of various regulations but can in turn reduce the need for an interactive human element and skill set required of public servants in the discharge of their duties. Allied to this is the far-reaching development in quantum computing, with its distinctive character of superposition whereby qubits may be on or off at the same time or somewhere on a spectrum between the two which allows for uncertainty. A fundamental feature is entanglement, which allows for data to be moved around and encryption to be factored into features such as modelling weather patterns, developing self-driving cars, medical advances and chemical discoveries. In our domain, the creation of advanced multilingual frameworks through artificial intelligence and quantum computing could enable minority languages to ‘sit’ within a suite of relevant languages and benefit from the predictive capabilities of powerful computing to realise a higher quality of information, translation and interaction. Granted, such developments may confer a type of ambiguous freedom for the individual or organisation and should substantial fees be attached to the service required, a new form of digital dependency would be created for those least able to afford access to such provisions. However, once a digital platform has been constructed then private enterprise organisations such as banks, insurance companies, supermarkets and elements of the leisure industry such as gaming technologies in IT ‘reality’ spaces can offer targeted linguistic services. Significantly,

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the central point is that the initial start-up and maintenance requirements of increasingly sophisticated means of communication have to be authorised and undergirded by political authorities and this renders the minority language even more dependent on government decisionmaking. Areas where authorities are likely to develop more intensive and wideranging linguistically appropriate public services would include health and social concerns, the social psychology of wellbeing and wellness, opportunities to increase social cohesion and safe breathing spaces within networked systems and the bilingual socialisation of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Cross-cutting developments within translation and interpretation practices together with language awareness training for the workforce will induce good practice transfer within institutions and diffuse through society. This raises the issues of multi-level cooperation and the need to evaluate how interventions at one level of the political hierarchy either filter down or rise up to other levels. A particularly sensitive element of such fluidity is the legal recognition of language-related rights as a subset of UN human rights or Council of Europe provisions, especially in relation to their interpretation and application at international, national and local levels. Guaranteeing the formally recognised right to use or receive a service in one’s preferred official language remains a challenge and in consequence so many opportunities are lost either as a result of lack of capacity or benign neglect where the sophism, ‘they all speak French/Spanish/English anyway so what’s the problem?’ reflects an inescapable populist logic!

5

Conclusion

Having identified these themes, one element remains a constant constraint on the ability of linguistic minorities to experience regeneration and revitalisation, and that is the uncertainty which surrounds many of their efforts. Planning for various contingencies is an unaffordable luxury which drains energy, resources and finance and perhaps most importantly, the goodwill of the host community. Limited and shortterm access to government funding, sporadic ancillary resources across a

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range of domains, episodic political support and marginalisation and the threat of legal challenges to minority gains all make the achievement of normalisation a constant struggle. More generally there is the ever-present reality of living interdependently with one or more hegemonic linguistic and socio-political systems. Accordingly, while we would never play down the advantages of knowing and using two or three languages simultaneously, we must acknowledge the degree of tension and the drain on energy that this creates for the sustenance of the weaker of these languages in our repertoire. Rising above this challenge, one could do worse than imbibe the lessons offered by the contributors to this volume. Promoting threatened languages requires advocacy and intelligence. Living in and through a threatened language is far more than an earnest endeavour, a dutybound set of behaviours. It also involves creativity, spontaneity and joy, capturing the myriad senses, sensations and nuanced realities of our complex existence. It is my conviction that an intelligent application of mutual respect, dignity and hard-headed realism can add much to the quality of life of both individuals and groups if they are but recognised as permanent members of an increasingly plural society, rather than being confined and ascribed to being pitiful illustrations of special pleading interest groups, a judgement which neither serves nor satisfies anyone over the long term.

Note 1. ‘Our land is despised in our presence: before our eyes’ echoing the imagery of Isaiah, chapter 13, verse 16 and Psalm 34, verse 21. See Llewelyn 1970.

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References Bourhis, R.Y., and A. Montreuil. 2017. Acculturation, Vitality, and Bilingual Healthcare. In The Oxford Handbook of Acculturation and Health, ed. S.J. Schwartz and J. Unger, 49–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Education Authority NI. n.d. Irish-Medium Education Resources. https:// www.eani.org.uk/irish-medium-education-resources. Accessed 10 Aug 2021. Fiontar. 2009. Twenty Year Strategy for the Irish Language. Dublin: Fiontar. Prepared for the Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs. Fishman, J.A. 1997. Review of Williams 1994 Called Unto Liberty! Journal of Sociolinguistics 1 (1): 145–149. Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. 2020. The Future Generations Report 2020. https://www.futuregenerations.wales/wp-content/upl oads/2020/06/Intro-Chap-1.pdf. Accessed 20 Sept 2021. Gaeltacht Act 2012. No. 34 of 2012. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2012/ act/34/enacted/en/html. Accessed 25 Feb 2021. Government of Ireland. 2010. Twenty–Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010 –2030. Dublin: Government of Ireland. Isle of Anglesey County Council. 2020. Welsh Language Impact Assessment for Wylfa Newydd: Supplementary Planning Guidance. Llangefni: Isle of Anglesey County Council. James, C., and C.H. Williams. 1997. Language and Planning in Scotland and Wales. In Nationality and Planning: The Cases of Scotland and Wales, ed. R. Macdonald and H. Thomas, 264–302. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Jones, K., and O. Wyn. 2010. Carmarthenshire Draft Deposit LDP Welsh Language Impact Assessment, Commissioned by Carmarthenshire County Council. https://www.carmarthenshire.gov.wales/media/1221673/wlia-finalenglish.pdf. Accessed 20 Sept 2021. Jones, K., and O. Wyn. 2020. Placemaking as if a Thriving Welsh Language Mattered. Webinar organised by IAITH: Welsh Centre for Language Planning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzmGdBT2FGg. Labour Party and Plaid Cymru. 2007. One Wales: A Progressive Agenda for the Government of Wales. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/27_ 06_07_onewales.pdf. Accessed 29 Apr 2021. Llywelyn, E. 1970/1976. Adfer a’r Fro Gymraeg. Pontypridd: Cyhoeddiadau Modern Cymreig. Magosci, P.R., ed. 1999. Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples. Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario and the University of Toronto Press.

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Newman, W. 1999. The Quebec Secession Reference. Toronto: York University. Northern Ireland Department of Education. 2021. https://www.educationni.gov.uk/publications/school-enrolments-northern-ireland-summary-data. Accessed 2 Aug 2021. Ó Flatharta, P., S. Sandberg, and C.H. Williams. 2014. From Act to Action: Language Legislation in Finland, Ireland and Wales. Dublin: Fiontar. OECD. 2018. The Belt and Road Initiative in the Global Trade, Investment and Finance Landscape. In OECD Business and Finance Outlook 2018. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/bus_fin_out-2018-6-en. Accessed 24 Aug 2021. Osmond, J. (ed.). 1998. The National Assembly Agenda: A Handbook for the First Four Years. Cardiff: The Institute of Welsh Affairs. Planning (Wales) Act 2015. 2015 anaw 4. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/ 2015/4/contents/enacted. Accessed 20 July 2021. Reference re Secession of Quebec. [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217. https://scc-csc.lexum. com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1643/index.do. Accessed 20 July 2021. Town and Country Planning Act 1990. 1990 c. 8. https://www.legislation.gov. uk/ukpga/1990/8/contents. Accessed 20 July 2021. WalesOnline. 2021. All people applying for a Welsh Government job will need a basic level of Welsh. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/peopleapplying-welsh-government-job-21032176. Accessed 24 August 2021. Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. 2015 anaw 2. https://www. legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2015/2/contents/enacted. Accessed 20 July 2021. Welsh Assembly Government. 2003. Iaith Pawb /A National Action Plan for a Bilingual Wales. Cardiff: Welsh Assembly Government. Welsh Government. 2017a. Technical Advice Note 20: Planning and the Welsh Language. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Government. 2017b. Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers. Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Language Board. 1996. A Strategy for the Welsh Language. Cardiff: Welsh Language Board. Accessed 25 June 2021. Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. 2011 nawm 1. https://www.legislation. gov.uk/mwa/2011/1/contents/enacted. Accessed 20 July 2021. Williams, C.H. 1991. Language Planning and Social Change: Ecological Speculation. In Focus on Language Planning: Essays in Honour of Joshua A. Fishman, ed. D. Marshall, 53–74. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Williams, C.H. 1994. Called Unto Liberty! Reflections on Language and Nationalism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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Williams, C.H. 2017. Wake me up in 2050. The Formulation of Language Policy in Wales. Journal of Languages, Society & Policy. https://www.meits. org/policy-papers/paper/wake-me-up-in-2050-formulating-language-policyin-wales. Accessed 27 June 2021. Williams, C.H. 2018. A Sigh Between Two Sorrows: Reflections on Language Policy. Léacht Uí Fhlatharta Inaugural Memorial Lecture, Fiontar and Scoil na Gaeilge, Dublin City University. April 12. https://www.dcu.ie/fiontarsc oilnagaeilge/news/2018/03/leacht-ui-fhlatharta. Accessed 10 Aug 2021.

Index

A

Aberystwyth 399 Acquisition planning 205 Administration of Justice (Language) Act (Ireland) 1737 331, 333 Advisory Board on English Education (ABEE) (Quebec) 295 Advocacy coalition framework 32 Allophones (Canada) 262, 265, 269, 281, 282, 283, 287, 288, 291, 294 An Coimisinéir Teanga 114, 229, 358 An Comunn Gaidhealach 348, 349 An Dream Dearg 329 Andrews, Liam 405 Anglesey 172, 211, 213, 400, 403 Anti-discrimination law 40, 48, 50, 55

Applied linguistics 84 Arfor 144, 146, 149 Argyll & Bute Council 355 Artificial intelligence 415 Assimilation linguistic assimilation 264 Auer, Peter 65, 68, 75 Austerity 154 Autochthonous minorities 73

B

Baker, Colin 106, 107, 111 Bangor 213 Basque Autonomous Community 355, 406, 408, 415 Basque Country 225, 228 Basque language 124, 355 BBC ALBA 352 Belfast 405

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 W. McLeod et al. (eds.), Language, Policy and Territory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2

421

422

Index

Belgium 227 Belt and Road Initiative (China) 414 Bilingual Districts Advisory Board (BDAB) 259 Bilingual road signs 350 Bill 101. See Charter of the French Language Biodiversity 173, 414 Blaenau Gwent 355 Blommaert, Jan 69 Bòrd na Gàidhlig 353, 355, 357, 407 ‘Bottom-up’ language planning 100, 208, 211, 215 Bowen, Emrys 141, 145 Bowen Report 350 Breac-Ghaeltacht 305, 309, 310 Breathing spaces 399, 401, 404, 412 Brexit 160, 161, 332, 336 British Columbia 241 British North America Act, 1867 241–243 British Sign Language 358 British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 358 Bunscoil Phobal Feirste 405 Bwrw ’Mlaen 211, 212

C

Caernarfon 399 Caerphilly 413 Caerphilly County Council 195 Canada 107 census 257, 263, 286, 291 federalism in 225 immersion education in 350

language policy in 122, 223–234, 237–251, 257–273, 315, 406, 408, 415 official languages in 396 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms 124, 126, 242, 251, 294, 295, 408 Canolfannau Cymraeg 205–216, 412 Canolfan Soar (Merthyr Tydfil) 207 Cardiff 206, 213, 214, 413 Cardiff Council 195 Cardiff University 390 Cardigan 213 Carmarthen 150, 212, 399 Carmarthenshire 146, 150, 189 Cartography 319, 320 Catalan language 124, 407 Catalan language, learning of 365–382 Catalan Language Normalisation Centres 372 Catalan language policy 365–382 Catalan, new speakers of 366, 371, 372, 379 Catalonia, immigration in 366, 368 Catalonia, language legislation in 366 Catherine Wheel 128 Catholicism 240, 247, 257 Celticity 346 Celtic languages 346 Charter of the French Language (Bill 101) (Quebec) 126, 127, 250, 261, 266, 272, 282 China 413 Choropleth maps 319 Claim rights 40 Clwb Ifor Bach (Cardiff ) 206

Index

Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) 284, 295, 409 Code-switching 314, 368, 381 Collective rights 125, 241 Comhairle nan Eilean Siar 355 Commissioner of Official Languages (Canada) 228, 229, 231 Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism 245 Committee of Inquiry into Bilingual Traffic Signs 183 Commodification of languages 71 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages 208, 368 Common law jurisdictions 29 Communism 124, 126 Community Health and Social Services Network (CHSSN) (Quebec) 284 Community Learning Centres (Quebec) 292 Commuting 151 Comunn na Gàidhlig 352, 353 Conradh na Gaeilge 329, 330 Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística (Catalonia) 370, 371 Constitution Act, 1867 122 Cook, Ramsay 243 Co-operative Commonwealth Federation 238, 239, 242 Cornellà del Llobregat 370, 371 COST Action on ‘New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe’ 65 COST New Speakers network 215 Council of Europe 122, 124, 127, 416 Counter-urbanisation 161

423

COVID-19 74, 75, 160, 212, 336, 338 Crampton, Jeremy 319 Crawford Report 351 Critical sociolinguistics 21 Cross Hands (Carmarthenshire) 189 Cross, James 248 Cunliffe, Daniel 74 Cymdeithas Cynllunio Cymru (the Welsh Planning Society) 165, 186 Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg 41, 101, 128, 147, 190, 350 Cymraeg 2050 100, 101, 105, 112, 162, 166–168, 170, 171, 174, 205, 215, 232, 400, 404, 411 Cymuned 142, 145

D

Dafis, Cynog 28 Davies, Alun 215 Davies, John 148 Davies, Keith 210 Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities 124 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) 326–328, 330, 336, 337 Denbigh 206 Department of the Gaeltacht 309, 321 Deterritorialisation 75, 401 de Varennes, Fernand 394 Devolution 163, 353 Devolution (in Wales) 104, 144, 174, 185, 230 Devolution (Nothern Ireland) 325

424

Index

Dialectology 68, 311, 313 Diasporas 73 Digital space economy 415 Diglossia 70 Direcció General de Política Lingüistica (Catalonia) 369, 370, 374 Discourses of endangerment 167 Discrimination linguistic discrimination, in Quebec 290 Distance learning 371 Djwa, Sandra 251 Donaldson, Jeffrey 337 Dunton, Davidson 242 Duplessis, Maurice 238 Dyfodol i’r Iaith 213–215

E

Economic development 128 Economics 22, 81–93 Eisteddfod 207, 213, 348 Encryption 415 English language in Canada 231 in Quebec 409 in Quebec schools 291, 293 English Language Arts Network (ELAN) (Quebec) 284 Equality Act 2010 51 Equal validity 349 Essentialism 43, 54, 145, 147, 317 Ethnic diversity 126 Ethnic intelligentsia 225 Ethnicity 62 Ethnolinguistic movements 225, 230 European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages (EBLUL) 393, 394

European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 45, 47, 127, 129, 336 European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) 48, 49 European Court of Human Rights 48, 55 European Union 108 Exchange value 85

F

Ferron, Jacques 248 Finland 122, 355 Finland Language Act 2003 355 Fíor-Ghaeltacht 309 First Nations 410 First World War 123 Fishman, Joshua 67, 72, 92, 204, 315, 396 Foras na Gaeilge (FnG) 311, 328 Foster, Arlene 336 Foucault, Michel 319 Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities 122, 124, 125 Francotrope 268, 271 French language in Canada 231, 233, 262–273 in Quebec 397 Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) 242, 247, 285 Future Wales 164, 166, 170

G

Gaelic language (Scotland) 74 and national identity 347 bilingual 350

Index

demography 347 history 347 in education 348, 351, 407 official status 349 plans 353, 354, 356 policy 345–359 television 351 Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 127, 345, 353, 355, 357 Gael-Linn 332 Gaelscoileanna 398 Gaeltacht 74, 128, 307, 308, 318, 319, 398 Gaeltacht Act 2012 127, 310, 320, 398 Gaeltacht Commission 309, 310, 315 Gaeltacht Language Planning Districts 310, 311 Gaeltacht Service Towns 310, 311, 398 Galician language 72, 124 Gendron Commission 259, 260 General Directorate for Language Policy (DGPL) 375 Geographical Information Systems (GIS) 172, 310, 321, 401 Geolinguistics 62, 63, 230, 311, 314 Givan, Paul 337 Globalisation 21, 69, 73, 160 Good Friday Agreement (GFA) 326, 393 Governance 117 Government of Wales Act 2006 164 Grin, François 394 Group rights 125, 227 Group vitality framework 278 Gruffudd, Heini 329

425

Guidelines for Standardising Place-Names in Wales 186, 187, 189, 193 Gwynedd 146

H

Hancocks, David 190 Hargey, Deirdre 336 Harper, Stephen 246 Healey, Patsy 317 Heritage Department (Canada) 285 Highland Council 355 Hindley, Reg 309 Historical institutionalism 24, 25, 31 Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016 197 Horizon Nuclear Power Station 400, 403 Housing 128, 160 Hughes, Medwin 107 Hughes-Parry report 349 Human Geography 61 Human rights 416 Hungarian language 45 Hyper-public goods 91, 93

I

Iaith Pawb 26, 27, 31, 109, 112, 230, 410 Iintergenerational transmission 43 Immigration 21, 160 Impossibility of exclusion 89, 93 Indirect discrimination 51 Individual rights 125, 126, 227 Information and communication technology 160, 415 Infrastructure 128

426

Index

Institutionalism 23, 32, 410 Interdisciplinarity 83 Inter-ethnic violence 124, 127 Intergenerational transmission 215 International Association of Language Commissioners 395 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 48, 50, 55 International law 40, 123, 404 Irish language 355 in Northern Ireland 394, 398 legislation 405 policy in 306–321, 325–339 Irish Language Networks 310, 311, 321, 398 Irish-medium education 405 Irish, new speakers of 320 Isle of Anglesey County Council 403 Iwan, Dafydd 99, 183

J

Jacobs, Jane 169 James, Clive 174 Jones, Carwyn 188, 211, 214 Jones, Glyn 106, 390 Jones, Gwyn 186 Jones, Helen Mary 212 Jones, Ieuan Wyn 411 Jones, J.R. 148 Jones, Martin 318

K

Kaya and others v Turkey 48, 49 Krygier, John 319

L

Labour Party (Wales) 27, 29, 410 Laforest, Guy 243 Land-use planning 132, 160, 161, 165, 173, 399, 403 under Welsh language policy 400 Language activism 326, 329 Language, as a good 81–93 Language as public good 397 Language commissioners 107, 116, 117, 124, 357, 358, 406, 407 Language, commodification of 84 Language death 70 Language economics 81–93, 397, 414 Language endangerment 67, 313 Language ideology 64, 67, 346 Language impact assessments 403 Language learning motivation for 203, 210, 216 Language legislation 226, 248–250, 259, 261, 268, 282, 326–339, 366, 402, 405, 409. See also Charter of the French Language; Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005; Names of individual legislative enactments; Official Languages Act 2003; Welsh Language Act 1993; Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 Language policy, theory of 20, 22 Language regimes 23 Language rights 22, 39–56, 116, 121, 123, 125, 227, 229, 241, 294, 296, 402, 404, 411 in private sector 126 Language shift 70, 225, 305, 319 Language socialisation 167 Languages, official status of 191

Index

Language standards 52, 229, 402, 407 Language transmission 215, 414 Language vitality 279 Laporte, Pierre 248 Laurendeau, André 242, 244 Laurin, Camille 289 League of Nations System 123, 126 Legislative turn 121, 123–128, 133, 402, 404 Lewis, Brandon 337 Lewis, David 240 Lewis, Saunders 101 Linguamon 393 Linguistic animateurs 206 Linguistic anthropology 67 Linguistic atlases 313 Linguistic colonialism 148 Linguistic discrimination, in Quebec 286 Linguistic diversity 81, 160 Linguistic environment 82, 88 Linguistic Human Rights (LHR) 39, 43 Linguistic impact assessment 130 Linguistic integration 20 Linguistic landscape 283, 350, 413 Linguistic territory(ies) 140, 150 foregoing territory 153 networked conceptions of 141, 147, 152 List of Standardised Welsh Place-names 193 Litigation language-related 249, 251 Llanelli 150, 212 Llewelyn, Emyr 413 lnstitute of Catalan Sociolinguistics 375

427

Lo Bianco, Joe 394

M

Mac Póilin, Aodán 393, 405 Macdonald, John A. 240 Mackey, William 245 Mapping 172, 398 Market failure 90 Marxism 316 Massey, Doreen 317 May, Stephen 69 McCoy, Gordon 393 McGill University 238, 239, 242, 249 Mentrau Iaith (Wales) 207, 208, 210, 412 Merthyr Tydfil 207, 214 Metrolingualism 70 Migration 66, 73, 265, 285, 366, 408, 416 Minority language education 123, 124, 126 Minority language promotion minority languages 153 Minority languages, role of the majority 406, 416 Minority rights 251 Mobility(ies) 69, 70, 75, 150, 152, 321, 401 Mòd 348 Monolingualism 88 Montgomeryshire 186 Montreal 248, 258–260, 267, 272, 281, 292, 296 Morgan, Rhodri 109, 411 Mudes 379, 380 Mudiad Meithrin (Wales) 111, 210, 412

428

Index

Multiculturalism 227, 232 Multilingualism 62, 69–71, 81, 83, 87 Multilingual turn 69

N

National Assembly for Wales 26, 27, 40, 52, 112, 185, 228, 391 National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Welsh Language) Order 2010 40, 52 National Development Framework for Wales 132 National infrastructures 140, 146 Nationalism 64, 140 National language strategies 26, 28, 353 National language strategies (Wales) 105, 109, 144 National minorities 125, 126 National territories 140 Neagle, Lynne 188 Negative rights 45 Neoliberalism 21, 93, 398 Networked infrastructures 140 Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity (NPLD) 101, 108, 391, 393 New Brunswick 250, 271 New Decade, New Approach (NDNA) 325, 330, 333, 336, 339 New Democratic Party 240 New speakers 63, 65, 66, 75, 111, 203, 205, 209, 210, 215, 216, 320, 366, 371, 372, 379, 401, 407, 408, 413, 415 Ní Chuilín, Carál 327

Non-rival consumption 89, 93 Normalisation 417 Northern Ireland 228, 307, 311, 393, 405 Irish language in 325–339, 394, 398 language legislation in 326–339 Northern Ireland Act 1998 333 Northern Ireland Assembly 327 Nunavut 250

O

October Crisis (Canada) 247, 248 Ó Cuirreáin, Seán 395 Ó. Riagáin, Dónall 393 Office of Identity and Cultural Expression (Northern Ireland) 334 Office Québécois de la langue française (OQLF) 283 Official language 39, 42, 45, 132, 261 Official Language Commissioner 231 Official Languages Act, 1969 123, 126 Official Languages Act, 1988 124, 128 Official Languages Act 2003 127, 356 Official Languages Act (Canada) 226, 261 Official Languages Act (Quebec) 249, 259 Official language strategies 400 Official status 29, 129 Ó Flatharta, Peadar 394 Ó Lionáird, Iarla 307

Index

Ombudsmen 229 O’Neill, Michelle 330, 337 One-language one-nation ideology 64 Online communities 74 Ontario 232, 271 Open Street Map 320 Opportunity cost 86 Opportunity planning 205 Ó Ríordáin, Seán 305 Ottawa 271

P

Parti Québécois 225, 285, 289 Path dependence 25, 26 Pearson, Lester 242 Pickles, John 319 Placemaking 159, 161, 164, 168, 169, 171, 399 Place-names 181–197 Place-Names Advisory Committee (PNAC) 184 Placenames, in Wales 412 Place-Names Standardisation Team 186, 187, 189 Plaid Cymru 27–29, 112, 144, 411 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 132, 133 Planning and the Welsh Language 173 Planning (Wales) Act 2015 132, 133, 166, 403 Plurilingualism 87 POBAL 325, 326, 328, 331, 394 Policy making standards 130 Polish language 358 Political theory 22 Pontardawe 213, 214

429

Pontypridd 206, 214 Poots, Edwin 336 Popeth Cymraeg 214 Porthcawl 145 Postmodernism 315 Powys County Council 186 Preference revelation 86 Public goods 89 Public Health Act 1925 195 Public policy, conceptions of 20 policy research 33 Public Service Boards (PSBs) 164 Public Service Board Well-being Plans 400 Public services, in minority languages 123, 126

Q

Quangos 109 Quantum computing 415 Quebec 124, 238, 239, 397 economy 289 English language in 243, 247, 409 immigration in 269 independence 224, 240, 242, 244, 258, 262, 281, 284 language legislation in 248–250, 259, 261, 268, 282 language policy in 224, 226, 261, 409 nationalism in 285, 408 Quebec City 238 Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) 284 Quebec English School Board Association (QESBA) 295

430

Index

Quebec English-speaking Community Research Network (QUESCREN) 284

R

Rational choice theory 32 Reference re Secession of Quebec 409 Regina Manifesto 239 Regional European funding 161 Relational space 317, 401 Reversing Language Shift (RLS) 205, 208, 209 Rhwydiaith 187 Richards, Melville 184 Road signs 147–150, 153, 183 Romanticism 68, 346 Roncarelli, Frank 238 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (RCBB) 238, 241, 242, 251, 258, 259, 261, 408

S

Saith Seren (Wrexham) 208, 212, 213 Salvage anthropology 67 Salvage linguistics 68 Sami language 123 School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013 104, 164 Scotland 407 nationalism in 347, 351 union with England 347 Scots language 347 Scott, F.R. 237–252, 408 Scottish Government 355, 357 Scottish Highlands 347, 348

Scottish Parliament 353 Second homes 161 Secretariat for Relations with English-Speaking Quebecers 284, 409 Senedd Cymru (Welsh Parliament) 40, 210 Separatism 233 Service delivery 226, 230–233 Sianel Pedwar Cymru (S4C) 102, 351, 352 Sign language 123 Sinn Féin 326–328, 330, 331, 336, 337, 394 Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove 42, 43 Skye 350 Slovakia 45 Slovak language 45 Smith, Julian 332 Social capital 366 Social cohesion 366 Social Democratic and Labour Party 394 Social media 74 Sociolinguistic theory 308 Soft law 404 Sovereignty 154 Soviet Union 124 Space 63, 68, 72, 74, 307, 314, 315 conceptions of 398 Spain 124 Spanish language 368 Spanish language skills 408 Spatial analysis 316, 401 Spatiality 308, 317 Spatial planning 165, 170 Spolsky, Bernard 20 St Andrews Agreement 327 Statecraft 154

Index

Status planning 205 Strubell, Miquel 128 Supreme Court of Canada 238, 251, 261, 408, 410 Sustainable development 166 Swansea 72, 150, 207, 214

T

Talfryn, Ioan 214 Tàndems lingüístics (Catalonia) 369 Technical Advice Note 20 166, 170 Technical Advice Note 20: Planning and the Welsh Language 403 Territorial identity 147 Territoriality 63–65, 154, 230, 314, 315, 347, 348, 399, 407 Territoriality principle 126 Thomas Cook 52 Thrift, Nigel 315 Tolerance-oriented rights 39, 45 ‘Top-down’ language planning 100, 211, 213 Torfaen 188, 189 Torfaen County Borough Council 188, 189 Tourism 71 Town and Country Planning Act 1990 133, 403 Translanguaging 70 Translation and interpretation 416 Translingualism 70 Tregaron 213 Trudeau, Pierre Elliott 242, 248, 250, 251, 408 20 –Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010 –2030 308, 310, 395 TWF project (Wales) 107, 110, 114

431

Tˆy Tawe (Swansea) 72, 207

U

Údarás na Gaeltachta 311 Ulster Scots 331, 333, 338, 394 UNESCO 105 United Nations 416 United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) 197 Universalism 43, 307 University of Ottawa 392 Urban contexts, minority languages in 72 Urban planning 169 Urdd Gobaith Cymru (Wales) 207, 208, 210, 412 Urdu language 358 Usage planning. See Opportunity planning

V

Vaillancourt, Franç ois 289 Variationist sociolinguistics 69 Virtual spaces 74 Voluntariat per la llengua (VxL) 407 Voluntaris per la Llengua (Catalonia) 210 Volunteering 376

W

Wales demography 171 devolution in 163, 174 placenames in 412 population of 160

432

Index

union with England 347 War Measures Act 248 Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 131, 132, 164, 166, 169, 400, 403 Welsh Assembly Government 100, 186, 191 Welsh for Adults centres 210 Welsh Government 26, 54, 100, 104, 113, 114, 144, 192, 205, 210, 211, 214, 232, 353, 403, 411 Welsh ‘heartland’ 141, 144, 145, 149, 151, 152 Welsh in Education Strategic Plans (WESP) 104, 164, 400 Welsh Labour Party 112 Welsh language 39, 41, 51, 54, 99–117, 128, 141–154, 181–197, 203–216 adult learners of 203–216 and national identity 347 centres 211, 412 decline 347 demographics 167 impact assessment 173 in education 348, 350 in urban areas 161, 168 in urban language 399 linguistic history 347 movement 147, 183, 196, 349 new speakers of 111, 203, 205, 209, 210, 216 official status of 191 policy 26–33, 205, 227, 402 schemes 102, 103, 191 standards 115, 129, 132 television 351 Welsh Language Act 1967 349, 352

Welsh Language Act 1993 28, 41, 100–103, 115, 116, 127, 185, 187, 191, 352–354 Welsh Language Board (WLB) 27, 28, 41, 100, 102, 103, 105, 108, 111, 113, 115, 122, 185, 193, 228, 352–354, 356, 357, 390, 401, 411, 412 Welsh Language Commissioner 52, 53, 100, 112, 114–116, 130, 188, 191–193, 196, 228, 229, 356–358, 402, 411, 412 Welsh Language Measure (Wales) 2011 191 Welsh language movement 101, 345–359 Welsh Language Promotion Strategy(ies) 163, 170, 174, 400 Welsh Language Resilience (WLR) 171 Welsh language schemes 102, 103, 187, 191, 352, 354, 401 Welsh Language Society. See Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg Welsh Language Standards 115, 129, 132, 164, 191–193, 356, 412 Welsh Language Standards (No. 1) Regulations 2015 131, 194 Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 26, 28, 31, 40, 48, 51, 52, 56, 113–115, 127, 129, 132, 164, 192, 228, 229, 356, 357, 402, 410 Welsh-medium education 100, 104, 113, 164, 170, 399 Welsh nationalism 142 Welshness 145 Welsh Office 104, 185, 190

Index

Welsh Place-Name Society 196 Welsh-speaking ‘heartland’ 145 Welsh-speaking communities 161, 398 Western Isles 350 Woolard, Kathryn 368

Wrexham 208, 212, 213

Y

Y Farteg (Torfaen) 188 Y Lle (Llanelli) 212 Yugoslavia 124

433