Minority languages have always been associated with the countryside, the rural, the sea. Along with the modernization and the processes of insdustrialization, a big barrier has opened up between the traditional world and the cities, which have directed affected to the distribution of minority languages in the mountains and sea and the hegemonic ones in the factories and cities. Associating the hegemonic languages (Spanish, French, English, German, Italian...) with modernity has lead to think of them as the cool languages.
Two phenomena have occured:
1) Minority language speakers from the countryside are stigmatized for not having joined "modernity" and adapted their language and customs. In order to protect themselves and their kids from marginalization, they avoid speaking in their minority language(s). My granpa (aitite Hila) was a clear example of this. In the debate, many of you told me about this situation to be true in your communities (Galician, Catalan, Lombard, Arpitan, Welsh, Kurdish, Venetian), including self-hatred based prohibitions in Asturian and Low Saxon contexts.
2) The linguistic varietiy of the countryside has been idealized as the authentic and true one, leaving the more standard or metropolitan variety as "not original enough". As a result, minority language sprakers and learners of the countryside are viewed as not competent or legitimate speakers in the community and stop employing their variety too.
During Summer, I interviewed many young Basque speakers of the metropolitan area of Bilbao. One of them (PT), who learned standard Basque at school (like me), told me how he was mocked in college by his countryside classmates, because of "how bad and artificial" his Basque was. One day he exploited and told them that it felt like and aggression and that it was not his fault not having born in a Basque-speaking town. The next day, one classmate showed him his support and told him they could speak Basque together whenever he wanted and that he would help him through it.
This is not an isolated case. As I told you all in the debate-stories, every time I tried to speak standard Basque with historical variety speakers, I would be mocked or they would even switch to Spanish. This stopped after I learned Uribe Coast's variety (to reconnect with my roots), and I am always told that they would not have guessed I had not acquire it at home. However, when they do know, they feel free to correct my grammar.
This is the case of many early or childhood second language speakers (cL2, De Houwer, 2009). We are talking about people whose parents decided to have them immersed in a language that was not theirs (may be their ancestors'). Should that not be enough for them/us to be considered "legitimate" speakers? Is it possible for us to work through our grammar mistakes all together, instead of being ridiculized? Do we even see a future as a united community?
There is a famous quote by the Basque poet J.A. Artze that states the following: "Hizkuntza bat ez da galtzen ez dakitenek ikasten ez dutelako, dakitenek hitz egiten ez dutelako baizik."
(A language does not dissappear because those who do not know it do not learn it, but because those who know it do not speak it)
What do you think of this eternal conflict between the historical and metropolitan varieties?
I read you below!!! ⬇️
📍Gorliz, Bizkaia, Basque Country
Comments
Post a Comment