International Mother Language Day

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Rachel Hopkins

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I am not sure how long I have to wind up for the SNP, but I will assume it is about five minutes and be gentle and kind to Labour and the Conservatives—as is always my way. It was a very interesting debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum)—it is absolutely fantastic that she secured it. It was inspiring to hear that Tower Hamlets has 90 languages; I am not sure that it is a competition with Vauxhall, but Tower Hamlets is winning 90 to 50. I gently say to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) that she has another 40 to go in order to hold her head up with Poplar and Limehouse.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse also talked about the expressing of ideas in various languages; those of us who are multilingual or bilingual understand that intuitively. She said very wisely that one language is never enough. I will help: chan eil aon chànan a-riamh gu leòr, as it is in Scottish Gaelic; ní leor teanga amháin riamh, in Irish Gaelic, which my mother spoke; and, einn tungumál er aldrei nóg, in Icelandic, which I have been trying to learn in Parliament with the help of the Foreign Office. Lessons are available to Members of Parliament, incidentally, in any language. There are ups and downs of doing that. I got hammered in the Daily Express for it—but that is the sort of thing the Daily Express does anyway. However, on the upside, when people in Iceland read the Daily Express, I became a national hero there for 24 hours. I have to thank the Daily Express for pointing out—and it might want to print the article again—that I learnt Icelandic in Parliament with the Foreign Office’s help. I would encourage other Members to take that up; it is a fantastic opportunity.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse also said that culture wars were a mistake. That is absolutely right; they cut people off, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Mark Logan). I was fascinated to hear about his use of Mandarin at home—I think he has told me before. It was amazing to hear what he had to say on language. He also said that he was in Donegal to learn some Irish. I have also been to Donegal; although my mother was Irish, she was not really from a Gaeltacht area. I would say to him that he should persevere, because the spelling systems of both Scottish and Irish Gaelic are logical. The only time that English had such a system was when the monks of Iona went to Lindisfarne and sorted out the spelling for English—which the English language has gone about messing up ever since. I am sure that the monks of Donegal, or Iona, if they were still there, might be willing to come back and help.

The hon. Member for Bolton North East also mentioned the hegemonic place of English in the world. That is an advantage but it is also a disadvantage. We cannot see into other societies as clearly as they can see into our society. We do not know the granular arguments that are going on in Oslo, Stockholm or Helsinki like they know the arguments that are going on in the UK or Washington DC. Too often, the monolingual English world loses a lot of insight as to what other people are doing. I think that is a big mistake.

The hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) emphasised that languages borrow from each other. That was no idle slogan—if I can throw in a Gaelic word. Languages do borrow from each other, and that is something very natural. People often ask me, “What is the Scottish Gaelic for helicopter?” I say to them, “What is the English for helicopter? It is a Greek word, for goodness sake.” Similarly, “television”—

[Rachel Hopkins]

One of the most quoted mistakes, from a certain international figure, was that there is no word in French for entrepreneur.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Very good; yes, I remember the great gift to modern democracy and politics that was that certain individual.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse was also right to make the point about funding and how the Government have to provide it. We are having a nice, celebratory debate about International Mother Language Day; maybe that phrase is benignly sexist in a way, because Scottish Gaelic was my father’s language. However, the hon. Member made the serious point about cuts of 60p in the pound. On a day of good will to the Government, perhaps the point can be made gently to them that they should ensure that languages are not left as barriers to people but rightly become the conduits to a greater understanding that they should be.

The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) gave us a scholarly account of Welsh and multilingualism in Wales; I thought his speech was a tour de force. In fact, he devises new terms himself; he is a wordsmith. We have a wordsmith in our midst; we are very lucky. In fact, he was so scholarly that he encouraged us all to go to the library and learn some Welsh. He also emphasised that monolingualism is the exception and that most people in the world are bilingual.

I myself used to be a bilingual teacher, teaching Scottish Gaelic on the island of Mull to young children coming from English-speaking households. They could pick up Gaelic very quickly and very easily. Typically, 800 hours was the amount required for a breakthrough in Gaelic; after 2,000 hours, they were generally quite fluent. They had no problems at all and I would say that their lives were enhanced. Research from Canada and other countries shows the benefits of a bilingual education. One is improved problem-solving in maths and another is that although children study their own first language less in school, they end up being better at it; that is one of the benefits of expanding and stretching the brain, with the gymnastics—perhaps—of learning a second language.

Then there is the Juries Act 1974. I want to check this one, because the hon. Gentleman wants to change it. However, given people’s willingness to serve on juries, perhaps it might work as a perverse incentive to bilingualism; people might claim not to be bilingual to get off serving on juries. That would be my only word of caution there.

The hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) mentioned language death, family relationships and people having different ways of expressing themselves and knowing each other, due to the language they choose to use. I can remember quite vividly that, when my late parents were alive, there was an occasion when speaking around the table were myself, my mother and my father; my two sisters were not there. I was speaking Gaelic to my father and English to my mother; my parents spoke English together; and all three of us understood each other. It felt alien to me to speak English to my father. It felt a bit of work to talk to my mother in Gaelic, because I knew she had learned Gaelic; she used to envy me as a child, because I had gone from being a baby to vaulting past her in linguistic ability by the time I was four or five.

The hon. Member’s comments really brought back to me how people are comfortable in some languages and uncomfortable in others. I know that some of my own neighbours would prefer by far to use Gaelic all the time. I asked one neighbour to do an interview for radio; it was just about agriculture in the area. He asked me if the interview was in Gaelic or English. I said it was in English and he refused point blank to do it, saying he was not comfortable enough in English to do it. He said, “I dinnae want to be doing it”.

The hon. Member also mentioned how Welsh has survived the economic forces of people coming in and buying houses, which happens in many places. We see it perhaps particularly with Cornish; now it is a dead language, but we have to remember it in this debate, because it is one of the older languages of the British isles. I would put Manx in there, too; we have mentioned Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic. And today, of course, we are conversing in one of the Johnny-come-lately languages to these islands, if I can gently say that, which is English; of course, it is also a very welcome language.

The hon. Member also mentioned the focus on technology. I should say that 500,000 people have started to learn Scottish Gaelic on Duolingo. It is also important if there can be spellcheckers in various programmes, to help people in their various languages. It helps and increases the use of those languages, and makes it seen that the languages are about. I say that because I know myself that if somebody joins the company and we are speaking in Gaelic, we will move to English, but that gives people an impression that there is no Gaelic about. The Welsh are renowned for not doing that; whether that is true or not, I do not know. It is possibly detrimental to the Gaelic language that we do that.

There was also mention of poetry and music. I should also put an advert in for BBC Radio nan Gàidheal, available on BBC Sounds. From 10 to 12 every weekday morning, people can listen to “A’ Mire ri Mòir”—a fantastic programme, where the best of traditional Gaelic songs can be heard. On Friday nights, if people want to chill between 6 pm and 9 pm, they can listen to “Na Dùrachdan”—that is a great programme as well. I think I am making a good case for Gaelic there.

Everybody has emphasised that there are many languages about and we are very fortunate to have them, whether that is Mandarin, Irish Gaelic, Yoruba or Bangla, or any of the number that have been mentioned. In Scotland, we have seen a resurgence in Gaelic, which has been low. We have about 87,000 speakers. The Gaelic school in Glasgow is doing particularly well, having gone from 450 pupils to 1,300 in the last 10 years. A second school is on the way. In the Highlands, almost 2,000 pupils are in Gaelic medium education. My own constituency, the smallest by population in this Parliament, has 1,400 students in Gaelic medium education. The Scottish Government are planning to bring forward a new Scottish languages Bill, which will support not only Gaelic, but also the Scots language.

The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) had some fantastic boasts about what Labour were doing in Wales. That is fantastic—every political party should have boasts on what they are doing for second languages. Languages do not belong to anybody. The hon. Member for Bolton North East, who is originally from Northern Ireland, made that point. I pay tribute to Linda Ervine in Northern Ireland who does an awful lot, from the Unionist loyalist community, for the promotion, in a sensible and mature way, of enhancing her life and the lives of those around her through the use of the old language of Ireland, while not in any way diminishing any other language—a point we all should be making.

I have often heard the opinion that it would be great if we all spoke the one language. On reflection, when we think about that, it is not true, although the language of heaven might be a separate point—the Welsh have claimed it is Welsh, actually. It would be great to see an eternal life, not where we have one language, but where we have the capacity to understand and to speak the thousands of languages that are about and to get the insights, the views and the jokes. Bilingual jokes rely on two languages; our sense of fun would certainly grow. I have never heard anybody who can speak however many languages say that they wish they could speak fewer languages. We always hear them say, “I wish I could speak more.”

As politicians, we have to look at the resource in communities across the United Kingdom of Yoruba, Bangla and so on—those 50 or 90 languages—and maintain them, and keep them. In years to come, those might be the languages of trade and commerce. They are a direct route into another community; there is a fantastic dividend for everybody, not just through the joy of knowing that language, but through the access to and communication with other people. That is essentially what language is—a communication with other people, and that communication is very special when people can use idiosyncratic and family terms together.