Scottish Independence

Continuing this theme of international relations, let us explore the effects of Scottish independence on language. Although we are still unsure on whether Scotland will gain independence, we can begin to predict the changes that it may bring with it.

According to the 2011 Census, the population was 5,296,400 which is only 8.4% of the population in the United Kingdom. This would make Scotland the 113^th most populated country if it were a sovereign state.

English is the official language of Scotland, however, Scots and Scottish Gaelic are officially recognised languages. In fact, according to the Gaelic Language Act (2005), Gaelic was given ‘equal respect’ to English. Although in 1996, 30% of Scottish inhabitants were fluent in Scots, this number has declined considerably and it has also been found that less than 1% of people speak Scottish Gaelic, so these are both minority languages

Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language that is used in the Scottish highlands and according to historical texts, was brought over from Ireland in the 1300s. However, this view has recently been opposed by archaeologists who have not found any evidence of the Irish settlers. The language itself is made up out of 18 letters, not including vowels with accents. Gaelic nouns have gender and they also have cases and the word order is verb-subject-object (unlike subject-verb-object in English). The BBC broadcasts a radio station in Gaelic called ‘Radio nan Gàidheal’ and also the television channel ‘BBC Alba’, which are available across the UK.

Scots is a Germanic language which is spoken in Scottish lowlands. It is disputed whether Scots is in fact a language or a dialect and 64% of the population "don't really think of Scots as a language". Scots is much more similar to English than Gaelic as it follows the subject-verb-object word order and many words are recognisable.

This is a small section of text in Scots:

Thar are mony folk, wha hae spoken English a' their grown-up days wha like to gang back to the tongue o' their bairnhood, i' the mirk and shadows o' auld age. Thar are ithers wha seem tae tak better to the Word whan it comes to them wi' a wee o' the Scottish birr. And thar are a hantle o' folk - and I meet them a'gate - wha dinna speak Scots theirsels, but are keen to hear it, and like to read it.

On the 18^th of September 2014, there will be a referendum for Scottish nationals to vote whether they would like to be independent from the UK. Although politicians have been reassuring people that independence will not make a big difference as Scotland will remain in the EU and will keep pound sterling as its currency, references to language has been very infrequent.

I think that if Scotland becomes independent, due to border controls and since fewer people will cross the border, the language is Scotland may change further away from British English. This may lead to the Scottish dialect may become a different language. However, I doubt this because of the influences of the media and internet, the Scots will still be exposed to English.

However, Scotland is not the only sovereign state considering independence. Catalonia also wants to become independent from Spain, which may have a larger impact on their language. Catalan has been oppressed since Franco’s rein but if Catalonia was granted independence, it may give inhabitants a push to revitalise the language.

St Andrew's Cross (Flag of Scotland)

The Catalan Language

When I arrived in Barcelona, I was surprised at the amount of Catalan I heard and how different it was to Spanish. Catalan is a Romance language and therefore evolved similarly to Spanish and French from Vulgar Latin. Therefore there are many resemblances between these languages, as you can see from these lexical comparisons:

English	Latin	French	Spanish	Catalan
Window	Fenestra	Fenêtre	Ventana	Finestra
Morning	Matvtīnvs	Matin	Mañana	Matí

Catalan has 26 letters in the alphabet which are identical to Modern Latin and English. However, the letters K, W and V are only used in loan words from other languages. Also, diacritics such as Ç are used regularly to aid pronunciation and differentiate between different words. For example, if it is before a vowel or at the end of a word, it is softly sounded.

Catalan phonology depends on the dialect. In Barcelona there is a ‘central’ dialect. This is comparable to the ‘standard English’ dialect generally spoken on news programmes in the UK. However, there is a huge divide between the dialects in eastern Catalonia compared to the West. Even though there are differences in phonology, they also have different vocabulary and grammar. For example, ‘I speak’ in the west is ‘parle’, but is ‘parlo’ in the east.

As you can see, this is a fascinating language but it is very specialised to the few areas that it is spoken and hardly found anywhere else. In order to rejuvenate Catalan to the state it was before the Francoist Regime, the government needs to do more than print Catalan signs. They need to promote and spread awareness of the language all over the world so that more people learn the language and its’ future it secured.

Languages of Barcelona

Technically speaking the official language of Barcelona is Catalan. Although Catalan is on the street signs and menus, I have rarely heard this spoken since only 40% of inhabitants speak Catalan as their main language. Contrastingly, Spanish is the native tongue of 60% of inhabitants. Originally, Catalan was by far the most widely spoken however during the dictatorship of Franco, he tried to stamp out minority languages and therefore anyone who spoke the language was punished.

Nowadays, Catalan has been revitalised but is much less widely spoken than before the reign of Franco, but most people in Catalonia can speak both Spanish and Catalan. This bilingualism is very important in Barcelona because of the amount of tourists. In just one day here, I was able to identify a huge variety of languages being spoken in the tourist areas, like La Rambla, including Chinese, French and a lot of English. In fact many of the waiters and restaurant owners were able to speak basic English and possibly many other languages. The ease of learning these different languages may be due to their bilingualism from birth as they have the ability to acquire different languages more easily.