A similar situation existed for Frisian, the sister language of  Ulster-Scots (Ullans).  In the 19^th century teaching aids for Frisian as a subject were non-existent.  In 1907, however, the Provincial Council of Friesland granted subsidies thus enabling the first courses in Frisian for children to be started.  These classes, which were run outside normal school hours, did not attract many pupils.  In 1924 the Frisian Education Board assumed responsibility for these and other courses and in 1937 it became legally possible for Frisian to be taught as an optional subject.  Thanks to the wording of Section 2 of the 1920 Primary Education Act “in those cases where besides Dutch a regional dialect is in active use the subject’s reading in Dutch may include some knowledge of that regional dialect.”  Caution precluded Frisian being mentioned by name but all this was changed by the Amendment to the Act in 1955 when the following sentence was included, “In those cases where besides Dutch the Frisian language or a regional dialect is in active use, the curriculum may stipulate that up to the third school year at most the Frisian language or that regional dialect shall also be used as a language medium in schools.”

In 1959 the Fryske Akademy established the first educational advisory service in the Netherlands to be fully subsidised by the state.  This centre developed a system and paved the way for the production of teaching aids and gave advice to schools which became affiliated to it.  In 1974 a further Act of Amendment to the Primary Education Act in Friesland promoted an increase in the use of Frisian as a language medium in all classes.  Finally on 1^st August, 1980 Frisian was made a compulsory subject.  Therefore today while 100% of Frisians are Dutch-speaking, albeit at varying levels, 97% understand Frisian, 83% speak it, 71% speak it at home, 69% can read Frisian, 41%occasionally read a Frisian book, 23% occasionally buy a Frisian book and 31% can write Frisian, 11% well and 20% reasonably well.

In Policies to support Radio and Television broadcasting in the lesser used languages of the European Community (New University of Ulster).  Antony Alcock and Terence O’Brien summarised the work of the Fryske Akademy as follows: “(a) linguistic research to prepare a course for the teaching of Frisian in primary school, (b) the provision of materials for teachers and pupils, (c) the design of this programme with a view to its use in utilising a novel low cost form of telecommunications, i.e. teleboard, (d) follow-up studies to test the results and indicate where improvements might be made.”  There is therefore much to learn from the Frisian-Dutch Bilingual Primary School system as well as the education system in Wales.  There are three types of school in Wales, the first of these is the traditional modern language type of rural Wales, the second Ysgol Gynraeg which originated as a mother language type for small groups of Welsh-speakers in urban areas and the third a bilingual educational project, the Welsh Language School for English-Speaking Children.

The preservation of both Ulster Scots or Ullans and the Ulster Gaelic must be considered a priority by those who wish to maintain the Ulster identity.  Only by the collective will of the Ulster people will either survive.  Neither language belongs solely to one or other religious or political “tradition”.  Both are indeed under threat by the combined influences of English and Irish nationalisms.  Ulster should therefore continue to develop as a centre for both conservation and rediffusion.  Co. Antrim is particularly well placed with its continuing Ullans literary tradition.  The Gaelic of Co. Antrim has fortunately also been completely described by the Swedish dialectologist Nils H. Holmer in 1942, based on fieldwork undertaken in the thirties.  This East Ulster Gaelic (Ulidian) shares features with the Gaelic of Fanad, Glenvar, Urris, and other parts of Donegal as well as that of Western Scotland, where the ancient traditions of Ulster were so long preserved.

To be continued

The history of the English language starts with the settlement in Britain of Jutes, Saxons and Angles in the 5^th and 6^th centuries and these population groupings came from respectively Jutland, Schleswig and Halstein, although the Belgae before them may have been Germanic-speaking with Gallo-Brittonic/British Celtic overlords.  The Jutes settled mainly in Kent, Southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, while Saxons occupied the rest of England south of the Thames as well as modern Middlesex and Essex.  The Angles, who also settled in what is now modern Friesland in the Netherlands, eventually took the remainder of England as far north as the Firth of Forth, including the area of the future Edinburgh, and the Anglian speaking region developed into two speech groups.

To the north of the river, Northumbrian was spoken and to the south, Southumbrian or Mercian.  There were thus four dialects, Northumbria, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish.  One result of the Norman Conquest of 1066 was the placing of all four old English dialects on a more or less equal level.  The Old Northumbrian dialect became divided into Scots and Northern by the end of the 13^th century.  In its roots and origins Scots was closest perhaps to Frisian and thus is grouped today, together with Received Pronunciation or standard English, along with Frisian in the language grouping known as Coastal Germanic.  This forms with the Dutch and German or land Germanic the group known as West Germanic.  In fact, the Anglo-Saxon Boniface was so well understood in Friesland in 754 that it became dangerous for him to stay there.  The Frisian heritage is also apparent in the name of Dumfries, which is thought to mean “The Fort of the Frisians.

It must be stated that Received Pronunciation English is not intrinsically superior to other varieties of English but has for purely historical reasons achieved more extensive usage than the others.  This may have been fostered by the establishment of public schools such as Winchester, Eton, Harrow and Rugby and its use as the standard English in ancient universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Trinity College, Dublin.  Irish pronunciation generally has been conservative and is clearer and more easily intelligible than many other dialects.  Ulster English in fact preserves many older words than have since gone out of use in England.  It has been stated that more of Shakespeare’s words are used at the present time in Armagh than in Warwickshire itself.

Overall there has been a widespread generalisation of Ulster English (Northern Hiberno-English) throughout Ulster including Belfast.  The source of this Ulster language is a mixture of English dialects in the narrower sense and of Lallans or Scots.  John Braidwood in his classical study Ulster and Elizabethan English has pointed out that the English contribution, historical and linguistic, should not be minimised.  Brendan Adams (1977) delineated a border between Ulster English and the Southern speech as running between two parallel lines from Bundoran  to Dundalk and from Sligo to Drogheda.  As with Gaelic, south of a similar line dialects are quite homogeneous while north of it Scottish influences have led to more complex regional variations.

There remains however an area in which among the rural population an Ulster Scots language is still spoken.  This may be indeed a purer form of Lallans than that spoken in Scotland itself.  The language area begins at Whitehead and its borders run south-westwards, approximately a mile distant from the shoreline north of Glengormley down to Dundrod.  The line then runs north to the east of Antrim and swings round north of Antrim town to the Long Mountain, progressing then to just south of Rasharkin and then swinging north-west across the Lower Bann nearer Kilrea to continue in a more or less straight line to the shores of Lough Foyle.  On the other side of the Belfast Lough it begins at Groomsport running along the Holywood Hills through the Dundonald gap to Gilnahirk and south-westwards through Carryduff and Boardmills to gradually turn round to run eastwards to Strangford Lough, north of Killyleagh.  It then commences again at the Saltwater Bridge north of Ardkeen in the Ards Peninsula and runs along this to Cloughey.  As well as this large area in Northern Ireland there is the Laggan area of Donegal, the boundary of which begins a mile or two north of Muff and runs across to Lough Swilly then across the Fanad Peninsula through Carrowkeel, Milford, Termon amd round to the Foyle near Clonleigh.

From approximately 1770 onwards, this Ulster Scots, or as I term it Ulster Lallans or Ullans, was cultivated by local poets popularised by John Hewitt as the “Rhyming Weavers”, who flourished mainly in Mid Antrim, East Antrim and North Down.  Educated in both Latin and Greek, they achieved a higher level of culture than any section of the peasantry in Western Europe.  They were not merely writing an imitation of Robert Burns but belonged to a tradition which went back to Allen Ramsey and beyond in Scotland.  The greatest period of their activity was roughly the century between 1770 and 1870 but the tradition continues even until today in Co. Antrim.  Unfortunately the literature of the people has not been fully developed by the urban elite, although an Ulster Dialect Archive has been established at Cultra Manor, the headquarters of the Ulster Folk Museum.

Brendan Adams exemplified the two different types of Northern speech by reproducing a few lines of the well known poem by W.F.Marshall entitled Me and Me Da.  Part of the original poem in the Ulster English Language spoken in Co. Tyrone is as follows:

I mind the day she went away,
I hid wan Struken hour,
An cursed the wasp from Cullentra
That made me da so sour.
But cryin cures no trouble,
To Bridget I went back
An faced hor for it that night week,
Beside hor own toarf-staack.

Transposed into the Ulster – Scots language of Co. Antrim this reads:

A mine the day she went awaa,
A hud yin stricken oor,
An cursed the wasp fae Cullentraa
Thaat made ma daa sae soor.
But craayin cures nae trabble,
Tae Bradget A went beck
An Faced harr for it that nicht week,
Beside harr ain turf-steck.

There are many parts of Ulster where people are still bilingual in two varieties of the English language. They use Ulster Scots (Ullans) while speaking among themselves and the approximation of the regional standard of Ulster English, in talking to strangers.  (Adams, 1977).  Neither Ulster Scots nor Ulster English are “foreign” since the original dialects were modified in the mouths of the local Gaelic speakers who acquired them and eventually, after a bilingual period, lost their native tongue.  These modified dialects were then gradually adopted by the Scottish and English settlers themselves, since the Irish constituted the majority population.

The dialect of Belfast is a variety of Ulster English, so that the people of the Shankill Road speak English which is almost a literal translation of Gaelic.  In rural areas Ulster Scots is learned through day by day conversation and communication by a process of natural bilingualism, but is then treated as an inferior dialect by the urban elite.  R.J. Gregg included in Scotch-Irish Urban Speech in Ulster that local Scotch-Irish urban versions of modified standard English “are spoken nowadays not only by the townsfolk, but by educated country dwellers as well.  For this very reason they are obviously destined to expand, for with uninterrupted recession of the rural dialects, the regional modified standard language is spreading out from the towns and rapidly encroaching upon the surrounding countryside.”

To be continued

At the beginning of the 20^th century in that area which now constitutes Northern Ireland there were eight districts in which dialects of Ulster Gaelic survived among 5% or more of the total population.  As well as the Red Bay Gaeltacht of the Glens of Antrim and Rathlin Island, the Mid-Ulster Gaeltacht centring on the Sperrins lay entirely within what was to become Northern Ireland.  There were also three areas along the border which were extensions of localities in which Gaelic was spoken by a higher percentage of people.  These were South Armagh Gaelic, which was part of the old Oriel Gaelic spoken also in Louth and Monaghan, west Tyrone Gaelic, which was an extension of Donegal Gaelic, and south-west Fermanagh Gaelic which was an outlier of the Gaelic of Cavan and Leitrim.  Perhaps the most literary of these was the Gaelic of Old Oriel.  A fourth border area was Strabane, which was formed by immigration from Mid-Ulster and Donegal.  The eighth area was around Trillick in southwest Tyrone.

The Gaelic heritage survives in Ulster in place and personal names, i.e. Shankill and Craig.  In fact, there are more of these names of Gaelic derivation in Ulster than anywhere else in Ireland.  Ulster Gaelic however has seriously declined as a living language. By the late 1970’s, according to the great cultural philosopher and linguist, Desmond Fennell, there were then only two small Gaelic-speaking areas in Donegal of 8,400 and 2,000 souls, with a further 15,500 in the remainder of the island and he proposed the initiation of the language’s revival.  The decline had been due firstly to the effects of the industrial revolution taking people from the land and concentrating them in the major cities which were English-speaking, secondly to the early antagonism of both Church and State and then to feelings that Gaelic-speaking had become the weekend sport of the urban elite, with subsequent rejection by the people.  More recently however the language has re-established itself in West Tyrone and Belfast, where it has become a badge of national identity.

Yet the decline of Ulster Gaelic also owes much to Irish Nationalism itself.  The main problem for the early Gaelic nationalist was that there was no single “caint na ndoine” or language of the people to promote as the “Irish Language”, but an extensive range of local idioms and grammatical forms.  Most scholars agreed with T.F.O’Rahilly that “in the case of Irish it is especially necessary that a standard language be left to evolve itself …the pressing problem of the hour is to keep alive and vigorous every one of the last few dialects of Irish that have survived.  Little good would a manufactured ‘literary’ language be if once the stream of living Irish … is allowed to dry up” (Studies, 1923).

In the early 1940’s with the development of the Gaelic nationalist urban elite, de Valera requested the translation department of the Eire parliament (since there was no central Academy to direct language reform) to produce a standard reformed spelling.  This they did in 1945, followed by a proposed standard grammar in 1953, which was composed mainly of forms selected from Munster and Connaught Gaelic, and largely ignored the Ulster Gaelic of Donegal.  This standard grammar has now been generally adopted as the “Irish Grammar”.  One of the most influential essays prior to its development was Forbairt na Gaeilge by Niall O Domhnaill, ironically of Donegal Gaeltacht origin.  O Domhnaill’s work was vigorously nationalistic, strongly advocating the artificial development of a standard language as the “mental tool for a new national life” and he declared that the standard would be created in Dublin.  For O Domhnaill the main goal of Gaelic revivalism was “to give Irish a national character”.  This was bound engender hostility towards Gaelic among the Unionist population of Ulster, who could have acted to preserve more of their ancient heritage.

To be continued

Having worked for more than twenty years on a linguistic atlas of Gaelic dialects, Heinrich Wagner found that: “each major dialect and each minor subdialect of Gaelic is dependent on its geographical position, all the dialects forming a chain in which two neighbouring dialects always have certain features in common not shared by more distant dialects.  The dialect of North Clare, for example, correctly defined as a Munster or southern dialect, has strong features in common with the dialects of South Galway, although Galway Irish on the whole belongs to the central Connaught dialect.  The dialects of the old province of Ulster in the north are almost as close to the dialects of Southern Scotland (Arran, Kintyre, and also Rathlin Island) as they are to other Irish dialects.” The latter we may term Ulster Gaelic or Ulidian.

The earliest extant Scottish document which contained Gaelic matter is the Book of Deer in which Latin Gospels were accompanied by marginalia in Gaelic and Latin, the Gaelic being if the 12^th century.  Many other manuscripts however, of a later date belonged to the common Scots-Irish tradition and the most important of these was the Book of the Dean of Lismore, an anthology of verse compiled between 1512 and 1526 by Sir James McGregor in Argyllshire.  This is thought to be the earliest extant anthology of heroic Gaelic ballads in either Scotland or Ireland.  Later Gaelic prose concerned the hero Finn McCool and his war band, becoming part of the popular tales if the West Highlands and Islands although such stories are as much part of the heritage of those who returned to Ulster from Galloway and Carrick.

The 1961 census showed that there were still 80,978 Gaelic speakers in Scotland.  In addition 3,702 Scottish Gaelic speakers were recorded in the 1961 Canadian census.  The survival of Scottish Gaelic is therefore in many ways less in doubt than that of Gaelic in Ireland.  This stems from the remarkable fact that the majority (80%) of Scottish Gaelic speakers are Protestants, who are accustomed to read the Bible and use it as a vernacular in their religious services.  Indeed the first book to be printed in Irish Gaelic was a translation of the Calvinist Book of Common Order, commonly called John Knox’s Liturgy, published in Edinburgh in 1567 for the use of Presbyterians.  Scottish Gaelic was not to become a literary language until the early 17^th century.

The division between Ulster Gaelic and that of the rest of Ireland developed well before the arrival of English from the 17^th century.  T.F.O’Rahilly (1932) outlined a number of features which distinguished the two major Irish Gaelic languages and regarded the position of word stress as one of the most important of these.  He believed that the Southern language reached south Co. Meath in the east.  The boundary then ran west through Westmeath and Longford to South Galway.  The Southern language was more homogenous than that of Ulster and more widespread, occupying at least three-quarters of the island.  Ulster Gaelic was characterised by an increasing influence of Scottish Gaelic as one proceeded north and east, though some Scots influence was evident everywhere in Ulster.  English was to take over the distribution patterns of the Gaelic language during and after the 17^th century, thus perpetrating that ancient frontier between Ulster and the rest of Ireland evidenced also in the structure known as the Black Pig’s Dyke.

To be continued

Set as Ulster is at the North Eastern corner of Ireland, facing Britain across a narrow sea and separated from the rest of Ireland by a zone of little hills known as Drumlins, marshland, lakes and mountains, the characteristics of her language and people have been moulded by movements, large and small, between the two islands since the dawn of human history.  P.L.Henry has described the difference between Ulster and the rest of Ireland as: “One of the most deeply rooted, ancient, and from a literary point of view, most productive facts of early Irish History.”  Furthermore, “Ulster’s bond with Scotland counterbalances her lax tie with the rest of Ireland.  To say, once more, that this applies only to modern times and to dialects of English would be to miscalculate grossly.  Here too the mould was fixed in ancient times and modern developments continue ancient associations.

We need but think of the Pictish (native British Pretani/Cruthin) Kingdoms in both areas, of the Ulster-Scottish Kingdom of Dalriada from the last quarter of the 5^th to the close of the 8^th century, of the Scottish Kingdom founded under Gaelic leadership in 842, of Irish relations with the Kingdom of the Hebrides and Argyll from the 12^th century, particularly the immigration of Hebridean soldiers (gallowglasses) from the 13^th to the 16^th century.  The Gaelic form of this word, Galloglaigh, (i.e. Gallagher) occurs as a family name in Northern Ireland.  There was a constant coming and going between North East Ireland and Western Scotland.  The Glens of Antrim were in the hands of Scottish Macdonalds by1400, and for the next two hundred years Gaelic-speaking Scots came in large numbers.  The 17^th century immigration of a numerous Scots element need not to be considered outside the preceding series.  It has brought for example Presbyterian Scots with names as familiar on this side as McMenemin and Kennedy, who must be considered rather in the light of homing birds.”

The original language or languages of Ulster have long been subsumed but elements of an old British tongue may be traced in the personal names of the oldest inhabitants, the Cruthin and Ulidians whose political influence declined following defeat by the Gaelic “Ui Neill” at the Battle of Moira (637) and Crew Hill (1004). The earliest certain evidence for a Celtic language in Ireland dates to c. 100 AD. This is Brittonic (Welsh: ieithoedd Brythonaidd/Prydeinig, Cornish: yethow brythonek/predennek, Breton: yezhoù predenek), spoken by five British Tribes , ie the Brigantes, Gangani, Manapii, Velabori and Coriondi, who first came to occupy the south of Ireland following the campaigns of Julius Caesar in Gaul and then Great Britain. These are not likely to have been the only Brittonic Celtic-speaking people to have come. We must add  warlords, monks and, of course, the slaves such as St Patrick.

Although no literature has survived of the Brittonic language in Ulster, the Goddodin of Aneirin and the Odes of Taliesin, who wrote in praise of the war-like deeds of his Lord, Urien of Rheged in South-West Scotland, have survived. But the term “Gaelic” (gwyddel) in Ireland is Old British for incoming “raiders” who knew themselves as Feni or land-owning freemen and did not have a common name for themselves until they adopted it centuries later from the people they had conquered. Although they spoke an archaic form of Celtic, there is nothing more certain in early Irish history, however, than that the Gaels were relative newcomers to Ireland. And, other than the split between “q” and “p” in the languages, the first serious difference between Brittonic and Irish Gaelic does not appear until the 1st century AD.

The legendary Ninth Legion, Legio IX Hispana, the Spanish Legion, was one of the oldest and most feared units in the Roman Army. Put together in Spain by Pompey in 65 BC, it came under the command of Julius Caesar who was Governor of Further Spain in 61 BC, and served in Gaul throughout the Gallic Wars from 58 – 51 BC, the Legion was decisive in ensuring Caesar’s control of the Republic. After Caesar’s assassination it remained loyal to his successor Octavian. It fought with distinction against the Cantabrians in Spain from 25 – 13 BC but suffered terribly in the British revolt led by Boadicea (Boudicca) in 60 AD, losing as many as 50 – 80 per cent of its men . However, several high ranking Officers who could only have served after 117 AD are well known to us, so we can safely assume that the core of the Legion was still extant in the reign of Hadrian, 117 – 138 AD.

The first great leader of the Feni ( later “Gaels”) in Ireland, Tuathal (Teuto–valos) Techtmar, was probably a Roman soldier, commanding Gaelic-speaking auxiliaries from Spain. The earliest known source for the story of Tuathal Techtmar’s conquest of Ireland from the Aithech thuatha (Vassal Tribes) is a poem by Mael Mura of Othain AD 885. Mael Mura intimates that about 750 years had elapsed since Tuathal Techtmar had marched on the native British, Pretani or Cruthin ritual centre of Tara to create his kingdom of Meath, which would date the invasion to the early 2nd Century AD. This is probably approximately correct. The standard pseudo-historical convention is employed, however, to make him an exiled Irishman returning with a foreign army. Others conjecture that he invaded Ireland at the time of Agricola in Britain 77/78 to 84 AD.

Túathal is claimed to have fought 25 battles against Ulster, 25 against Leinster, 25 against Connacht and 35 against Munster. The whole country subdued, he convened a conference at Tara, where he established laws and annexed territory from each of the four provinces to create the central province of Míde (Meath) around Tara as the High King’s territory. He built four fortresses in Meath: Tlachta, where the druids sacrificed on the eve of Samhain, on land taken from Munster; Uisneach, where the festival of Beltaine was celebrated, on land from Connacht; Tailtu, where Lughnasa was celebrated, on land from Ulster; and Tara, on land from Leinster. Yet Tara was still in Pretanic hands until the time of Congal Claen in the seventh century.

The account in the Lebor Gabála Érenn, which does contain a shadow of history, is probably older and in this we see that Tuathal was born outside Ireland and had not seen the country before he invaded it. We can synchronise his birth or “exile” with the reign of the Roman Emperor Domition (81–96), invasion to very early in the reign of Hadrian (122 – 138) and his death fighting the Cruthin under Mal mac Rochride,  king of Ulster, at Mag Line (Moylinny near Larne, County Antrim in the reign of Antoninus Pius (138 – 161). This fits with Juvenal (c60 to 127 AD) who wrote “We have taken our arms beyond the shores of Ireland…” Tuathal may indeed represent the fictitious Mil Espáne (the Soldier from Spain), or even the Ninth Legion, the Legio IX Hispana, but that we will probably never know. His son, Fedlimid Rechtmar, later avenged him. Túathal, or his wife Baine, is reputed to have built Ráth Mór, an Iron Age hillfort in the earthwork complex at Clogher, County Tyrone.

The history of the Gaelic  language in Ireland can be divided into four periods: Ogham Irish Gaelic (400-700 AD), Old Irish Gaelic (700-900 AD), Middle Irish Gaelic (900-1200 AD) and Modern Irish Gaelic (1200 AD-present). The 5th and 6th centuries AD in particular are known to have been a period of unusually rapid development in the Gaelic language, as shown by the contrast between the general language of Ogham inscriptions and the earliest Old Gaelic known from manuscripts. There is little doubt that this was due to the widespread adoption of the Gaelic speech by the original inhabitants and the passage of older words and grammatical forms such as Old British or Brittonic (Welsh) into Gaelic. By this time, therefore, Gaelic had become, according to Heinrich Wagner, “one of the most bizarre branches of Indo-European” since “in its syntax and general structure it has many features in common with non-Indo-European languages.” These included Semitic and Hamitic influences, which point to a Phoenician origin in Southern Spain and North Africa, with Tarshish as the most obvious candidate.

The oldest Irish sagas were composed in a language that suggests that they were first written down in the 7^th and 8^thcenturies from an oral tradition.The most outstanding cycle in the early Irish literature was the Ulster Cycle.  The longest tale of this is the Cattle-Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cuailgne),dealing with the conflict between “the men of Ulster” and “the men of Ireland” (i.e. the rest of Ireland).  The chief hero was Cuchulainn, whose real name was Setanta which is the same as that of an ancient British tribe who have been also recorded as living in present day Lancashire. Brittonic was displaced in Ireland by Gaelic just as English later displaced Gaelic, so that the Gaelic name Cuchulainn (The Hound of Cullen) is remembered and Setanta became merely his “boyhood name”.  When Gaelic was planted on the British mainland, however, its verbal system was remoulded on the lines of the Brittonic language, which originally had no future tense.  Scottish Gaelic was also to preserve archaic features now lost in Irish Gaelic.

To be continued