Gaelg as Bretnish: A Tale of Two Languages

by M.Q. Tate

Despite their shared Celtic roots, Manx and Welsh are markedly different languages from one another. While many Manx speakers can understand large chunks of Irish and Scottish Gaelic, the same is not generally true for Welsh, whose vocabulary is much closer to Cornish and Breton. The grammatical structures of Welsh and Manx are fairly similar, and there are a few words here and there that both languages inherited from Proto-Celtic – mooar and mawr (“big”), tree and tri (“three”), Manannan Mac Lir and Manawydan fab Llŷr – but modern Manx and Welsh have about as much in common with one another as English and German.

The differences don’t end with linguistics, however. Welsh is everywhere in Wales. Menus. Billboards. Egg cartons. Energy bills. Self-checkout machines. Housing contracts. Invoices. Even the automated voices that play when you get in the elevator speak Welsh. “Lift going down. Lifft yn mynd i lawr.” Nearly 30% of the Welsh population can speak Cymraeg,[1] and it’s the only Celtic language in the world that isn’t considered endangered by UNESCO.[2]

Compare and contrast with Manx in the Isle of Man. A few bilingual road signs here and there. Overpriced tea towels in the House of Manannan with the days of the week printed on them in Manx. The occasional “fastyr mie” from a politician that moved to the Island to knock a zero off their tax bill. Unless you go out of your way to ingratiate yourself into the right circles, it’s depressingly easy to spend years on the Isle of Man without ever hearing a Manx conversation longer than a few sentences. I moved from Crosby to Cardiff in 2021, and I’ve heard more Welsh in the last two years than I’ve heard Manx in the last twenty. This was particularly painful when I realised that Cardiff has a lower percentage of Welsh speakers than the national average,[1] likely due to the influx of students and office workers from the south of England. (“Cardiff isn’t Wales. It’s basically Bristol Two.”)

However, I don’t think the Isle of Man has much to gain from self-pity or pessimism. By the late- twentieth century, Manx was on the brink of extinction, a language kept clinging to life by small clusters of nationalists and academics. The last native speaker Ned Maddrell, a fisherman from Cregneash, died in 1974. In government, in education, in entertainment, in culture, English reigned supreme. Manx had been reduced to “a ditch dead language, which is never quite as dead, or alive, as anyone thinks.”[3]

And yet, Manx emerged from the 1990s as a language reborn. From 2001 to 2021, the number of Manx speakers grew by over 30%.[4],[5] The first generation of children educated at the Bunscoill in St John’s are now old enough to start families of their own. With the development of the Internet, it has never been easier to learn Manx. We should look towards Wales, a country where kids can be proud of their language and their history, as something to strive for.

In the face of adversity, one saying has survived in both Gaelg and Cymraeg. Çheer gyn çhengey, çheer gyn ennym. A country without a language is a country without a name. Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon. A nation without a language is a nation without a heart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

M.Q. Tate is an animator and science communicator from the Isle of Man. He’s currently doing his chemistry PhD in Wales, but he occasionally uploads daft wee videos to his YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/@MQTate).

REFERENCES

1. Welsh language in Wales, Welsh Government, 2021.
2. Unesco: Status of Celtic languages Outlined By Atlas, Celtic League, 2010. Last accessed October 2023. abp.bzh/unesco-status-of-celtic-languages-outlined-by- atlas-20850
3. J. Craine, Suddenly, At Home, 2022.
4. 2021 Isle of Man Census Report, Part I, Isle of Man Government, 2021.
5. Isle of Man Census Report 2001, Volume I, Isle of Man Government, 2001.

Article photo: Wales Isle of Man Sticker, Celticana, RedBubble. Last accessed October 2023.