"Germanness" in 19th century German history

In cultural nationalist circles the most daring linguistic objective was envisaged by Douglas Hyde and the Gaelic League. They set out to restore the daily use of Irish for a population of which only 0.8 percent was monoglot Irish speaker by the end of the 19th century (Denvir 1999: 20).

Despite this fact, the Gaelic League, founded in 1893, became an all-Ireland mass movement by 1900. According to the League’s leading principle saving the national identity of Ireland was unattainable through the medium of English.

Consequently, they considered Irish speech vital to an authentic linguistic expression of Irishness.

Douglas Hyde, founder, and leader of the League until 1910 [he later became the first President of independent Ireland], was also closely linked to Yeats’s literary movement. He was one of those who called the Irish Literary Society to life, and in 1892 he became president of the National Literary Society.

Although Hyde had been born to English speaking protestant parents in Western Sligo, he acquired Irish as a child from peasants in Roscommon County, and in his adult life he became an Irish-language enthusiast.

In 1891 he wrote the first modern play in Irish (Foster 447), and his "The Necessity for De-Anglicizing Ireland", has been the most passionate lecture ever delivered in support of Irish-Gaelic. For Hyde Irish-Gaelic formed the cultural ground upon which a uniquely Irish identity could be constructed. In his line of thought cultural and linguistic decolonization meant the prerequisite for a sovereign nation.

But to embrace Irish-Catholic as well as Anglo-Irish protestant, this decolonizing process had to be inclusive, and not exclusive, thus elevating the Irish people to a higher level of national existence. In order to decolonize Ireland in a cultural and linguistic sense, Hyde and the Gaelic Leaguers advocated a programme of restoring “Irish Ireland”, where the revival of Irish-Gaelic was of central importance.

In Hyde’s words: I appeal to every one whatever his politics – for this is no political matter – to do his best to help the Irish race to develop in future upon Irish lines, even at the risk of encouraging national aspirations, because upon Irish lines alone can the Irish race once more become what it was yore – one of the most original, artistic, literary, and charming peoples of Europe. (Hyde 11)

The “Irish Ireland” idea rooted in a reaction to Ireland becoming part of a single, integrated cultural zone of which England was the centre, and Ireland, having lost its native tongue and tradition, was reduced to a mere imitation of Victorian England (O’Tuathaigh 56). The programme of “Irish Ireland” aimed at liberating Irish thought and mentality from a state of dependence on English culture.

Consequently, Hyde avoided scapegoating the English for the loss of Irish identity. Instead, he blamed the Irish themselves who stick “in this half-way house”, who “apparently hate the English”, and decry their “vulgar” culture, but at the same time continue “to imitate” it; who “clamour for recognition as a distinct nationality”, but at the same time throw away with both hands what would make them so (Hyde 2-3).

In Hyde’s concept of “Irish Ireland” the Irish language was postulated as a binding force for the nation, but this had to face two obvious contradictions. Firstly, by the late 19th century the Irish population had largely become English speaking, and secondly, it held a fairly negative attitude to the ancient language. Beyond this, English was the printed medium of 19th century Ireland: newspapers, political and literary texts capable of appealing to a modern nation all came out in English. In George D. Boyce’s words: “English was the medium through which nationalist Ireland became a political reality” (Boyce 254).

We should ask why Hyde chose the restoration of Irish as a source for constructing a modern Irish consciousness. Because he considered the liberation of Irish culture to be the primary step to the liberation of the Irish nation. He was convinced that Ireland’s cultural separation from Anglo-Saxon civilization necessitated a linguistic separation at its core. Thus, in Hyde’s version of an Irish nation, regained independence is symbolized by a revived Irish language. Hyde expected Irish to serve as a motor for the cultural elevation of the nation, and cultural elevation to create an inclusive Irish nation.

The Anglo-Irish protestant Douglas Hyde, who knew Irish and felt belonging to the Irish nation, destined the Irish language to integrate a modern cultural nation, which is uniquely Irish but embraces both catholic and protestant social elements. In one interpretation Hyde was an idealist because the restoration of Irish was unrealizable with a largely English-speaking population, and his “Irish Ireland” identity myth failed to prove legitimate for large sections of the Irish people at the dawn of the 20th century.

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Irish is given recognition by the Constitution of Ireland as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland (with English being another official language). Although this is technically the case, in practice almost all government debates and business are conducted in English.[26] In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge (The Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde, was inaugurated as the first President of Ireland. The record of his delivering his inaugural Declaration of Office in Roscommon Irish remains almost the only surviving remnant of anyone speaking in that dialect.

From the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (see also History of the Republic of Ireland), the Irish Government required a degree of proficiency in Irish for all those who became newly appointed to civil service positions (including postal workers, tax officials, agricultural inspectors, etc.).[27] Proficiency in just one official language for entrance to the public service was introduced in 1974, in part through the actions of protest organisations like the Language Freedom Movement.

Though the First Official Language requirement was also dropped for wider public service jobs, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools within the Republic which receive public money (see also Education in the Republic of Ireland). Those wishing to teach in primary schools in the State must also pass a compulsory examination called "Scrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge". The need for a pass in Leaving Certificate Irish or English for entry to the Gardaí (police) was introduced in September 2005, although applicants are given lessons in the language during the two years of training. The most important official documents of the Irish Government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003, enforced by "An Coimisinéir Teanga", the Irish language ombudsman).

The National University of Ireland requires all students wishing to embark on a degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate or GCE/GCSE Examinations.[28] Exemptions are made from this requirement for students born outside of the Republic of Ireland, those who were born in the Republic but completed primary education outside it, and students diagnosed with dyslexia.

The National University of Ireland, Galway is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they are also competent in all other aspects of the vacancy they are appointed to. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3).[29] It is expected that the requirement may be repealed in due course.[30]

For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in the mainstream (English-medium) schools to achieve competence in the language, even after fourteen years.[31][32][33] The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern.[34][35][36][37] In 2007, filmmaker Manchán Magan found few speakers and some incredulity while speaking only Irish in Dublin. He was unable to accomplish some everyday tasks, as portrayed in his documentary No Béarla.[38]
There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in the cities. Most of these are products of an independent education system in which Irish is the sole language of instruction. Such schools are known at the primary level as Gaelscoileanna and are supported by a number of secondary colleges. These Irish-medium schools send a much higher proportion of students on to tertiary level than do the mainstream schools, and it seems increasingly likely that, within a generation, habitual users of Irish will typically be members of an urban, middle-class and highly educated minority.[39]

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Traitorfish said:

what the hell are you even talking about.

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Pangur Bán;13663037 said:

He's just trying to fit the dynamics of eastern European ethnic essentialism onto the modern Insular world, and predictably isn't making any sense.

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Ethnic awareness, the view of who one is, is sustained by shared objective characteristics such as language, religion, by more subjective contributions (feeling of who one is), or by some combination of both (Edwards 1984, 1994). These criteria alter as groups adapt to confronting social forces. In such situations, a group’s original language need not remain as an objective marker of identity (Edwards & Chisholm 1987:393), language shift is common, and language as a key feature in identity is demoted to a symbolic feature or replaced entirely with other cultural features. (...)

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There is a substantial amount of empirical and theoretical work on the relationship between language and ethnic identity (Fishman 2001, Harris 2006, Omoniyi and White 2006), as well as some important contributions from social psychology (Gilesand Johnson 1987, Lawson and Sachdev 2004, Bourhis, El-Geledi and Sachdev 2007,Chen and Bond 2007, Jaspal and Coyle 2009). However, there has been little social psychological work on language and ethnic identity specifically among British SouthAsians, the largest ethnic minority group in the UK, although some attention has been paid to questions of ethnic identity in general (Ghuman 1999, Robinson 2009, Vadher and Barrett 2009, Jaspal and Cinnirella 2010). Nonetheless, sociolinguists have exhib-ited some interest in language and ethnic identity specifically among second genera-tion Asians (SGA) (...) The study of language and ethnic identity among SGA is particularly interesting,as their linguistic repertoire often features English (the ‘dominant’ language), thelanguage associated with their ethnic culture, which is termed the heritage language(HL) and, in many cases, a liturgical language associated with religious identity(Jaspal and Coyle 2010). Such multilingualism is constructed in the media both positively (as ‘bilingual Asian children do better’ in school – Casciani 2003) and negatively (as an obstacle to integration – Blunkett 2002). Today SGA outnumber theforeign-born first generation and their HLs continue to be widely used (Harris 2006).Theoretical generalisation across different cultures is problematic in this domain because not all cultures have the same relationship to language (...) Terms such as ‘native speaker’ and ‘mother tongue’ form part of the way that individuals think and talk about language (Myhill 2003). An individual might consider their ‘dominant’ language to be the language they speak most fluently (Fillmore 2000), although it would not be surprising for someone of Pakistani descent, for instance, to claim that their native language was Urdu, a language associated with Pakistani identity, on the basis of ethnic identity. (...)

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Pangur Bán said:

He's just trying to fit the dynamics of eastern European ethnic essentialism onto the modern Insular world

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Historically, the discussion of ethnicity diverges into two different opinions, namely the primordial and the instrumental perspectives. Traditionally the primordial view regards ethnicity as ‘constitut[ing] a fundamental feature of society and that ethnic identity is natural and unalienable’. In other words, the ethnicity of a group is defined by its ‘cultural and biological heritage, and is territorially rooted’ it is thus grounded by the group’s primordial ties and bounded by the ancestors’ values, myths, languages, etc.

Instrumentalists argue that the primordial approach emphasizes too much on the objective nature of ethnicity, which stresses that ethnicity is ‘given’ and born with once a person comes into this world. They criticize that the primordial approach cannot explain the evolution of ethnic groups over time. Instead of admitting solely to primordial ties, instrumentalists emphasize that ethnicity of a group should be understood in terms of its relationship to other groups. This simply means that the members of an ethnic group identify themselves subjectively in relation to other groups in order to maximize their social interest. In Worsley’s words, cultural traits are not absolute or simply intellectual categories, but are invoked to provide [ethnic] identities which legitimize claims to rights. They are strategies or weapons in competitions over scare social goods.

Adopting the instrumental approach to ethnicity, the relationship between language and ethnic identity will be much more transparent to us.

(...) in order to identify a group’s separate and unique ethnicity, the members often have to in some way find themselves certain features which can distinguish them from the other ethnic groups. For instance, biological heritage, religious divergence and language difference are commonly cited as proofs of ethnicity. Theoretically, biological heritage seems to be a reasonable argument which sets an ethnic group apart from the others. Yet in reality, such claims often lack the support of historical records and are sometimes subject to interpretation (...) the Taiwanese, despite their Han origin, refuse to identify themselves as ‘Chinese’ in order to fight for independence. (...) What is more important is that, claims on historical and sociopolitical reasons are not immediate indicators of ethnicity, meaning that the differences from the other groups are not immediately visible and must be traced and confirmed by additional effort.

On the other hand, it is safe to say that the very majority of our social life depends on the use of language, and the use of different languages naturally separates people into different groups, each not being able to understand the others. Lacking channels of communication, we typically identify others as being ‘different’ from us. This is what makes language such a prominent objective factor in defining ethnicity.

(...)

Other than language, religion is another very visible feature of social life which differentiates people into groups. Yet, it does not surprise us to say that religion difference is often associated with language difference. As region itself is a cultural product of a particular culture, it unavoidably bears certain emphases on the language of the culture which it originates from. For example, the official religion of Pakistan is Muslim, which regards Arabic as the sacred language. Therefore, despite the fact that the Pakistan language Urdu is almost linguistically equivalent to the Indian language of Hindi, it is written in Arabic script instead of the Hindi script, and is claimed to be a separate language.

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Flying Pig seems to be a follower of ethnic primordialism, and you Pangur perhaps as well.

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Domen said:

No, I am arguing against your Insular ethnic primordialism, as I am a follower of ethnic instrumentalism

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Traitorfish said:

In Prussia, loyalties tended to develop along confessional and traditional rather than ethnic lines. For the Lithuanians and Masurians (Polish-speaking Protestants) of East Prussia, loyalty to the Lutheran Church and Prussian crown took priority over ethnic solidarity with Catholic subjects of the Russian Tsar. They were able to call upon their historical ties to the ducal crown of Prussia against German prejudice, arguing that they were not only on an equal footing with ethnically-German Prussians, but that as loyal Staroprusaki (“Old Prussians&#8221, they had priority in the state over the newly-Prussian Germans of Hanover, Westphalia and the Rhineland, unreliable newcomers whatever language they happened to speak.

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