RESOURCES FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG
PEOPLE:
LEARNING A
CELTIC LANGUAGE
By Eva Gordon,
FoDLA Youth Religious Education Coordinator
(NOTE: This article is not primarily directed at parents or children. As a learner of Scottish Gaelic and Irish, myself, I wanted to share a few of my thoughts about this experience, especially as it relates to our spiritual practice in FoDLA, and for Celtic Reconstructionists/Revivalists. For parents who want to share their practice with children, sharing at least some of the language with them can be helpful.)
In many Celtic
Reconstructionist or Revivalist Pagan groups, you will often hear certain words
or phrases in Gaelic used in ritual: “Biodh
sé amhlaidh-May it be so,” “Go raibh
maith agaibh a Dheithe-Thank you, Gods,” and so forth. This happens at
FoDLA’s rituals, as well. What is the purpose of this? Does it make the ritual
more authentic, deepen spiritual connections with ancestors and gods, or is it
more a form of decoration or costume-play? Can we ensure that it be
more than this, in our English-speaking, modern American culture, or
should we give up and keep to an all-English script? Is there a benefit to
actually studying the Gaelic (or Welsh, or other Celtic language) in depth or
to fluency?
Many Americans
take an interest in Gaelic or other Celtic languages from a desire to connect
with or find out more about their heritage, and many have an interest in spirituality connected with that heritage.
Some of us have ancestors who lived in Ireland, Scotland, or other “Celtic”
lands, after all. However, we should be
careful not to think of “The Celts” in terms of a race or nation, but more as a
cultural family, of peoples speaking related languages and sharing some
customs. (There is no place for racism or nationalism in our practice within
FoDLA.)
The Celtic
language family is part of the
larger Indo-European language family and
has two main branches containing languages still spoken today:
Goidelic: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic
Brythonic: Welsh, Breton, Cornish
(A third branch
included Gaulish, which is an extinct language now.)
There are many
advantages to studying one of these languages, although the rewards may not be
immediate. Aside from being able to put a “Celtic flavor” into rituals, or into
other creative endeavors, learning the language can bring a deeper
understanding of the culture it belongs to. If you are a musician or a singer,
or simply enjoy Celtic music, you will find the rhythms of the speech within
the music itself. Directly understanding song lyrics as you hear them is far
better than relying on a translation. When reading myths, legends or historical
writings , it is very helpful to understand personal and place names in Gaelic,
as they are often quite descriptive of the person or place. When traveling in areas where Gaelic or Welsh
is spoken, it is not necessary to be fluent in the language to speak with the
local people (who usually speak English), but sometimes it can be life-saving
to be able to read road signs. While driving in western Donegal a few years
ago, we encountered a monolingual sign
at a crossroads: “Geill Slí”—meaning
“Yield Right of Way!”
In addition,
learning to speak one of the Celtic languages at some point will lead you to
understand more about the issues faced by people who speak a minority language
in the shadow of English. These are
languages which are in danger of extinction in the next hundred years or less,
without support.
There are some
serious arguments against studying these languages. Most people do not have the
time and cannot devote the effort required for this. However, if you are
motivated, and enjoy learning languages, study can be done in your spare time,
and using audio materials while commuting or doing household chores.
Gaelic or Welsh
(not to mention Cornish) are not the most practical languages to be studied
here in the United States, where it may well be more directly useful to learn
Spanish, Chinese, or other languages depending on the local community. This is
certainly true, but learning one language can make it easier to learn others.
Like it or not, America is not an English-only country anymore. (Should you
include your children in learning a Celtic language along with you? Children
tend to learn languages more easily at an early age, though they might be put
off by too much parental pressure, and will often be involved in too many other
activities. It is still worth considering. There are a lot of children’s
learning materials available, as well.)
Many people may
feel excluded if rituals are carried out with too much of the Celtic language
and no explanation or translation is provided. A bilingual approach can help
with this. Also, simple chants can be taught in advance, to encourage
participation.
Another problem is that original mythological
texts that one might want to study are in Old Irish (for example), and are not
easily understandable to someone who can read modern Irish or Scottish Gaelic.
Materials for self-teaching are hard to find, as are classes (usually at
University level).
Studying Gaelic
as a means of connecting with one’s ancestors in a pagan context is also
problematic. Most people speaking a Celtic language today are Christian (not
pagan), as were their ancestors reaching
back for many generations. Neopagans face a certain amount of ridicule from at
least some native Gaelic speakers. If your only interest in the language is for
the purpose of finding “mystical-sounding” phrases for ritual, or some other
superficial reason, you probably do deserve some of this ridicule! However,
seriously learning the language can bring insight, perspective and a more
realistic approach to whatever Celtic culture interests you.
Some Readily
Available Resources:
Ó Sé, Diarmuid
and Sheils, Joseph: Irish- A Complete
Course for Beginners. (Teach Yourself Series), NTC Publishing Group,
Chicago 1994
Old Irish:
Stifter, David: Sengoidelc, Old Irish for Beginners. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY
2006.
Scottish Gaelic:
BBC Foghlam /
Learn Gaelic: http://www.bbc.co.uk/alba/foghlam/learngaelic/ -online lessons, features and games
Robertson, Boyd
and Taylor, Iain: Gaelic- A Complete
Course for Beginners. (Teach Yourself Series), NTC Publishing Group, Chicago 1993
Welsh:
BBC Wales/ Learn
Welsh- http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learnwelsh/
Brake, Julie and
Jones, Christine: Teach Yourself Welsh.
McGraw-Hill Companies, Chicago 2000.
Manx:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/manx.htm
Also see a short,
English-subtitled Manx language children’s video featuring Manannan Mac Lir and
Finn Mac Cool on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIP8kJ_XhW8&feature=related
Cornish:
BBC- Blas
Kernewek (A Taste of Cornish) – http://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/connected/stories/new_cornwall_language.shtml
Breton:
Online lessons
at: http://www.kervarker.org/en/lessons_01_toc.html