Language Issues

The issue of language in Ireland has been at the centre of much heated debate in the closely linked spheres of culture and politics at least since the early 1980s. The essays in this collection seek to place the ongoing debate on Irish and Ulster-Scots on both sides of the Irish border within a broader comparative frame with specific reference to positions on lesser-used languages in the very different contexts of France and Spain. The result is a book that looks at the situation of a number of lesser-used western European languages within three broad frames: cultural politics, the education system and relations with the state (or states) in which they are spoken. While Irish runs off with the lion’s share of the attention, the reader will find work on Ulster-Scots, Welsh, Breton, Basque and Catalan. The book also reflects broader choices made by Irish studies in France which are structured within a strongly transdisciplinary frame. Thus, the texts that feature in the present volume operate in various, often interconnecting fields: literature, history, geopolitics, linguistics and cultural studies.