Ball Martin, M?ller Nicole. The Celtic Languages

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736 THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF THE CELTIC LANGUAGES

• Translation upon demand (excluding literature) from French into Breton.

• TermBret proposes new terminology to allow brittophones to use Breton in all sec-

tors of modern life; 17,000 new terms have been created in recent years.

• New initiatives that promote Breton – e.g., ‘Ya d’ar brezhoneg’ (‘Yes to Breton’),

launched in 2001 – encourages businesses, organizations and communes to sign an

accord demonstrating their commitment to use Breton in their establishments or com-

munities. Hundreds of entities, including sixty communes, have signed (as of 2007).

Institut Culturel de la Bretagne (ICB)

Founded in 1981 with the support of the Conseil Régional de Bretagne and the Conseil

Général de Loîre- Atlantique, the ICB’s mission is to develop and diffuse Breton culture in

the broadest sense of the term; it helped establish the OLB.

The participation of Loîre-

Atlantique, which lends ﬁ nancial support to the Institute along with the Breton Region,

highlights the Institute’s commitment to the historical, ﬁ ve- department conception of

Brittany. The ICB serves as a publishing house of non- ﬁ ction works on a modest basis,

and produces a quarterly journal Sterenn (Star) and a monthly newsletter; it is located in

Vannes (Morbihan).

The International Committee for the Defence of the Breton Language

This nonproﬁ t organization was ﬁ rst established in Brussels in 1975 by persons, both

Breton and non- Breton, concerned about the future of the language and interested in

non- confrontational advocacy to promote its recognition and use in Brittany’s public sec-

tors, including schools and the media. The committee has branch organizations in several

countries, including in North America and Canada. The US branch publishes a monthly

newsletter, Bro Nevez (New Country), which is a resource for the latest news from Brit-

tany about events and documents concerning Breton language, culture, and history.

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML)

Arguably a potential source of legal support for Breton (and other regional languages in

France), the ECRML was drafted by the Council of Europe and readied for ratiﬁ cation by

member states in November 1994. The Charter provides sixty- eight practical steps that

might be taken to bolster the status, teaching and visibility of regional and minority lan-

guages (Grin 2003: 64). However, the document has no force unless individual member

states of the Council are willing both to sign and to ratify it – i.e., declare the state’s deﬁ n-

itive consent to be bound by the charter’s provisions. France was very slow to respond

to this initiative, worrying that, if ratiﬁ ed, it would be in conﬂ ict with Article Two of the

Constitution in which it is stated that ‘the language of the Republic is French’. After years

of studying the matter further, the government authorized an ofﬁ cial to sign the document

in May 1999. Six weeks later the French Constitutional Council ruled the Charter con-

trary to fundamental [French] law, arguing that the Constitution would need to be revised

to allow for the Charter’s full, legal ratiﬁ cation. To date (2009), the Charter has still not

been ratiﬁ ed by the French government. Disappointment and no small measure of cyni-

cism have been the widespread reaction among linguistic and cultural activists in Brittany

and elsewhere.

LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN BRITTANY 737

BRETON IN SOME IMPORTANT SOCIAL DOMAINS

Education

Free, public, secular and obligatory primary education was inaugurated in France in the

early 1880s with the laws of Jules Ferry (then Minister of Public Instruction), and with

this innovation came the imposition of French as the sole medium of instruction, in princi-

ple if not always in practice (see Chanet 1996). In Brittany there were some unsuccessful

efforts, on the part of the elites and clergy, in the latter half of the nineteenth century to

instruct Breton- speaking students (the vast majority) in their maternal language.

Again

in the 1930s–1940s there was a movement – Ar Brezoneg er Skol (Breton in School)

– to establish Breton- medium primary schools in rural Brittany. A campaign advocat-

ing this was launched among the municipal councils of Lower Brittany to obtain their

vote in favour of teaching Breton in parity with French in the public school system. Over

half the communes in Lower Brittany voted afﬁ rmatively on this proposal during the

years 1934–7 (Fouéré 1977: 42–3), but the outcome was not commensurate, as only one

such public school was established near Lannion and it remained open for just two years

(1942–4) (Gwegen 1975: 97).

By contrast, the opening three decades later, in 1977, of the ﬁ rst Breton- language

nursery- school classroom in Lampaul- Ploudalmézeau (Finistère) with ﬁ ve students

aged 2–4 was the harbinger of a much more momentous undertaking soon to unfold –

persistent and serious attention devoted to Breton not only as a language suitable to be

taught in school but as a medium of instruction. This was a grassroots initiative taken by

young adults, language and cultural activists who probably did not anticipate fully the

success their approach would enjoy. By 1979 there were 11 such classes with 100 stu-

dents (Rogers 1996: 554). Soon primary schools, then middle schools, and eventually

a lycée would be established across Lower Brittany, Upper Brittany and the department

of Loîre- Atlantique. With an annual growth rate of up to 20 per cent during the 1980s

(and continuing in the 1990s), it quickly became necessary to establish a substantial

institutional framework for Diwan, the training and hiring of teachers, public outreach,

fundraising and negotiations with the National Education Ministry. Diwan’s legal status

is that of a private cultural association, but it has for many years been seeking incorpora-

tion into the national educational stream. This has been a tempestuous and, for Diwan, a

frustrating set of negotiations; although the movement has been granted some limited sup-

port in the form of partial payments of teachers’ salaries, the Ministry continues to refuse

to accept Diwan as a part of the public educational system. (For a detailed account of the

ups and downs of these negotiations, see Rogers 1996.) The Diwan schools do, however,

receive support from the Regional Council of Brittany, from the department of Loîre-

Atlantique, and from departmental councils within administrative Brittany. Diwan also

mounts fundraising campaigns and receives private contributions;

nevertheless, making

ends meet is a constant challenge for the organization.

In spite of its travails – or perhaps partly because of them – the Diwan commitment

to teaching Breton, and in Breton, has become a prominent popular cause and a symbol

of regional identity. While political movements have not regularly drawn Bretons to the

streets in large numbers to demonstrate in favour of or against an issue, Diwan has done

so: crowds in the thousands (up to 15,000 in one demonstration in Rennes [Vallerie 2003])

take to the streets, peacefully, carrying placards expressing their solidarity with Diwan

and their support of the Breton language. Diwan has indisputably become one of the most

salient emblems of Breton identity in recent times.

738 THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF THE CELTIC LANGUAGES

Though not drawing as much attention from the media, the two other important streams

of education using Breton in the curriculum – public Div Yezh (Two Languages) and pri-

vate (Catholic) Dihun (Awaken) – bilingual classes together teach considerably more

youngsters each year than does Diwan. The ﬁ rst public bilingual class was offered in 1982

in a rural community in Finistère, following the Savary Circular

of the same year that

authorized, on an experimental and voluntary basis, the opening of bilingual classes in

which the media of instruction would be French and a regional language (Arzur 1996:

33). Like Diwan, the public bilingual classes met with a favourable response from parents

and communities and were soon launched on an impressive growth trajectory.

The Catholic school system’s bilingual class stream was inaugurated somewhat later,

in 1990. It, too, has been seeing demand climb regularly and today counts nearly 4,000

students.

Table 15.3 indicates the distribution of schools across these three streams of

education and Table 15.4 shows the number of students in each educational stream by

department, including Loîre- Atlantique in historical Brittany.

Table 15.3 Number of bilingual school sites according to stream (Diwan, public, Catholic)

for 2006–7. Source: Ofﬁ ce de la Langue Bretonne 2006a

Pre- elementary Elementary College Lycée Total

Diwan 34 32 5 1 72

Public 66 60 12 7 145

Catholic 58 54 15 1 128

Total 158 146 32 9 345

Table 15.4 Number of students by department according to stream for 2006–7. Source:

Ofﬁ ce de la Langue Bretonne 2006a

Diwan Public Catholic Total % growth

Côtes d’Armor 484 967 374 1,825 +3.6%

Finistère 1,682 1,655 1,338 4,675 +7.6

Ile- et- Vilaine 121 468 173 762 +6.0%

Loîre- Atlantique 187 143 50 380 –3.3%

Morbihan 452 1,033 1,948 3,433 +7.5%

All Brittany 2,926 4,266 3,883 11,075

Annual growth (%) 1.7 9.9 6.4

Within ﬁ ve- department Brittany, according to most recent ﬁ gures available (Ofﬁ ce de

la Langue Bretonne 2006a), over 11,000 students are receiving up to half of their instruc-

tion in Breton; this represents less than 2 per cent of the school- age population in Brittany.

Enrolment in these classes is highest by far in Finistère (1,682) compared with Côtes

d’Armor (484) and Morbihan (452); these are the three departments traditionally consid-

ered part of Lower (Breton- speaking) Brittany. Across historic Brittany, the public stream

enrols the greatest number of students (4,286), the Catholic stream is second in numbers

(3,883) and Diwan third (2,926).

Why do parents choose immersion or bilingual schooling? An important motivation

is that they feel that bilingualism is a good thing for mental development, and they want

their child to learn another language. Breton is a logical choice since it is the traditional

LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN BRITTANY 739

language of the region, even though the vast majority of parents sending their children to

such schools do not themselves speak Breton. Still, it is perceived as a living language by

the parents (Kuter 1999: 179). Breton may also be perceived by some as a defence against

Americanization (ibid.: 180) and probably increasingly against the widely feared homog-

enizing effects of globalization.

Lars Erickson has further investigated parental motivation, interviewing 16 fami-

lies who had made the decision to send their children to Diwan schools to ﬁ nd out what

motivated them to do so. The responses he received emphasized aspects of diversity or

difference that Diwan schooling represents. Some stressed what Erickson calls the ‘ethnic’

aspects of Diwan, that is, the schools are perceived as protecting Breton language and

culture. Others were drawn by the ‘linguistic beneﬁ ts of Diwan’s bilingual curriculum’

(2005: 4), as they believe, in accordance with recent scientiﬁ c literature on this subject,

that bilingualism brings psychological and intellectual beneﬁ ts to children. Finally, some

parents expressed appreciation for Diwan for pedagogical reasons, saying it offers more

ﬂ exibility than the national system, and encourages children to be more creative and to

enjoy learning more. They feel, too, that Diwan pedagogy focuses more on contributing

to children’s overall intellectual development than on preparing them mainly to do well

in national tests (although, as it has turned out, Diwan- educated children score better than

the national averages on a number of test measures).

BRETON AND OTHER CELTIC LANGUAGES

Breton in higher education are taught at the two principal universities of Brittany – Univer-

sité Rennes 2 Haute Bretagne in eastern Brittany and Université de Bretagne Occidentale

in western Brittany (Brest). Université Rennes 2 offers the equivalent of the licence,

the MA and PhD degrees in Breton, emphasizing the three domains of language (includ-

ing linguistics), literature, and civilization. In 1985 Rennes was authorized to administer a

CAPES degree (Certiﬁ cat d’Aptitude au Professorat de l’Enseignement du Second Degré)

which certiﬁ es its recipients as qualiﬁ ed to teach Breton in public secondary schools; this

was followed in 1989 by the authorization of the DEUG (Diplôme d’Études universitaires

générales), which, since 1993 has been a two- year university degree;

students may now

opt to take that in Breton. In 2002–3 there were 338 students studying for a degree in

Breton at Rennes and 272 at Brest (Mercator- Education 2003: 22).

Historically, Université Rennes 2 has been an important site of teaching and research

in Breton and other Celtic languages, ﬁ rst offering courses in this area in the 1880s, and

creating a chair in 1903. The present- day Département Breton et Celtique (Department of

Breton and Celtic), which administers these degrees, is also associated with the Labora-

toire de Recherche Bretagne et Pays Celtiques (Laboratory of Research on Brittany and

Celtic Countries), focusing on Breton and Celtic bilingualism, oralities, and Celtic stud-

ies in general.

The Université de Bretagne Occidentale offers the BA and MA degrees as well as the

DEUG and CAPES described above. In addition it offers a one- year Diplôme d’université:

Langues et culture de la Bretagne (University Diploma in the Languages and Culture of

Brittany) for non- specialists to deepen their understanding of Brittany.

This university is the base for the Centre de recherche bretonne et celtique (CRBC,

Centre for Breton and Celtic Research), grouping together some thirty researchers

and teachers in a range of humanistic disciplines focusing on Brittany and other Celtic

countries.

740 THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF THE CELTIC LANGUAGES

BRETON IN PUBLISHING

Journals

Following the First World War, political/literary journals appeared such as Breiz Atao

(1919–1944) and Gwalarn (1925–1942), with the goal of producing literature for the

Breton intellectual elite. Gwalarn was reincarnated after the war as Al Liamm and in 1957

a second literary review Brud was launched, later re- emerging as Brud Nevez in 1977.

Other journals getting started around this time are Hor Yezh in 1954, oriented to linguis-

tic studies, Imbourc’h in 1969 (a Christian- slanted political review), Al Lañv in 1980 and

Bremañ in 1980, the last two being cultural and political reviews with some international

coverage, especially in Bremañ, which prints about 1,000 copies of its monthly issues,

and claims some 3,000 readers.

A new journal appeared in 2006 called BreizhMag, published fortnightly by the

Morbihan- based society Douar ha Tud Breizh (Land and People of Brittany), the title

emphasizing its interest in ‘the environment and Breton identity’ (from the journal’s web-

site: www.anarvoig.com). Sold on newsstands nationwide, some of its content is also

on the internet; it has a circulation of 15,000. Although French predominates, there is

sometimes Breton content, at least on the internet version. The magazine donates a con-

siderable percentage of its revenues to Diwan.

A children’s magazine, Moutig, was set up in 1990. Since the year 2000 four additional

journals have been established, focusing on children: Louarnig in 2000, Rouzig in 2001,

Gripi et Bara Gwin in 2002 (ceased in 2003) and Meuriad in 2003. All Breton- language

journals are available mainly on subscription; the range of subscriptions is between 200

and 1,000, and the average number of subscribers per journal is about 430 (Ofﬁ ce de la

Langue Bretonne 2004).

There are no daily newspapers or journals in Breton; the two francophone dailies most

widely distributed in Brittany – Le Télégramme and Ouest- France – publish weekly arti-

cles in Breton – e.g., interviews on current topics or columns about Breton history (Le

Télégramme) and articles about important Breton festivals (Ouest- France). The latter

paper also offers on Sundays a short lesson on Breton grammar (Courcelle 2003: 132).

Books

For the period 2000–3, there were 45 organizations of one sort or another publishing

books in Breton or bilingually, which represents 22 per cent of publishers in Brittany

(Ofﬁ ce de la Langue Bretonne 2004). Most publishing houses are cultural associations,

though 25 per cent of them, those created most recently, are established as business

enterprises (meaning they are not eligible to receive public funds). On the surface, the

publishing industry seems to have the capacity to hire a substantial number of employees;

however, the OLB’s survey revealed that of the 184 people involved in Breton publishing

in the early 2000s, only 55 were salaried, either full time or part time; the remainder (69

per cent) were volunteers (ibid.). Most of the important publishing houses are located in

Finistère, but some are found also in the other three departments, including Ti- embann ar

Skoliou brezhonek (TES) in Ile- et- Vilaine, which produces materials for the Diwan and

bilingual schools

According to the Breton region statistics for 2003, ‘of 1300 book titles published each

year in Brittany, 80–100 new titles are in Breton or are bilingual’.

Ofﬁ ce de la Langue Bretonne (2004) reports that books are published for adults, with

only about 15 titles a year for children and only a few each year for adolescents, mostly

LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN BRITTANY 741

related to school studies. The average number of copies of Breton books printed was

1,300 in 2003; for bilingual books it was 2,400. The overall range in number of copies

was 300–15,000, with the upper ﬁ gure representing for the most part reference works

such as dictionaries and grammars of Breton.

THE BROADCAST MEDIA

Radio

Until the early 1980s broadcasting services on which Breton could be heard were very

limited – just under six hours per week of radio and under one hour per week of television

time (Humphreys 1993: 636). Under the Socialist presidency of François Mitterrand,

there were two developments favouring regional language broadcasting:

1 publicly funded Radio France was authorized to establish regionally focused branches

as France Bleu X (e.g., France Bleu Alsace, France Bleu Bourgogne, etc.); and

2 non- state, independent (called ‘associative’) radio stations were also authorized.

Thus it was that a publicly funded station came to Brittany in 1983 – France Bleu Breiz

Izel (which had operated as Radio France Bretagne Ouest until September 2000 – Moal

2000: 124). The station is headquartered in Quimper in south- western Lower Brittany and

provides about 18 hours per week of Breton language programming (Nicolas 2001: 148).

A second public station, France Bleu Armorique, is headquartered in Rennes in Upper

Brittany; it offers much less programming in Breton, about four hours a week (with one

two- hour programme repeated).

Independent stations

Such stations have been proliferating throughout France since they were ﬁ rst authorized;

in Brittany alone there are probably close to two dozen at present, though not all have

Breton- language programming, and not all prove viable. Among the more successful ones

are Radio Kreiz Breizh, launched in 1983 and broadcasting from Callac in central Breton-

speaking Brittany – it offers nearly 18 hours/week in Breton language programmes – and

Radio Bro- Gwened, broadcasting from Pontivy in southern Brittany. Both are bilingual

stations. Radio Bro- Gwened gives some preference to the vannetais form of Breton indig-

enous to the area; its Breton- language programming constitutes about 26 hours per week.

During the 1990s ﬁ ve more independent stations were added: Plum FM, based in

Plumelec in the Morbihan; it offers programmes in both regional languages, Breton and

Gallo, along with French. Arvorig FM in Brest serves the north- western sector of Brittany

and broadcasts only in Breton (though its musical selections are multilingual/multi-

cultural). Radio Kerne, near Quimper, covers the south- western part of Brittany. Only

Breton is used on this station, which broadcasts for 60 hours a week. Radio Emeraude

is based in Lesneven and is a Breton- medium station, broadcasting for 14 hours a week,

offering interviews with ordinary and extraordinary Bretons, as well as a phone- in pro-

gramme. Radio Rivages is a Catholic station based in Brest that broadcasts 5–6 hours

weekly in Breton, including some news, programmes on Breton writers, as well as ves-

pers and sacred music.

Most of the independent stations are staffed by volunteers – up to 45–50 in the case

of Plum FM and Radio Bro- Gwened; Arvorig FM and Radio Kerne have four to ﬁ ve

742 THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF THE CELTIC LANGUAGES

(salaried) staff. The majority of these independent stations are accessible worldwide

through internet streaming. Musical offerings predominate, but Breton is heard between

sets of music, and during daytime and early evening hours there are Breton- language

programmes such as news, discussions about literature, cinema, and world issues, and

interviews with local or regionally notable individuals. Radio Kreiz Breizh claims that

it has for long had more broadcasts in Breton than any of the other stations, and esti-

mates that, together with the other independent stations, it reaches a potential audience of

300,000.

Overall, radio broadcasts utilizing Breton have increased considerably over the past

few decades in both number and length of on- air time. It remains the case that the con-

tent of most radio broadcasting in Breton is related to the region’s society and culture.

While some may ﬁ nd reason to be critical of this, it may rather be an essential component

of the region’s renewed initiatives to express, project, and protect its cultural and histori-

cal identity.

Public television

Analogous to the national radio network in France, national public television is control-

led centrally by France Télévisions, which offers 13 regional networks; the one for the

west, based in Rennes, has two sub- regionals, one each for Région Bretagne and Pays de

la Loîre. Though it offers some Breton- language programming, this varies with locale in

Brittany: western Brittany (but not Pays de la Loîre) has a daily local news programme of

about 4 minutes in Breton entitled An Taol lagad at lunchtime (Moal 2000: 125). It also

receives a 26- minute programme on Saturday afternoon, Du- mañ, Du- se (formerly Breiz

o Veva) that includes reports and interviews and a 45- minute Sunday lunchtime talk show,

Red an Amzer, that focuses on news and cultural events in Brittany as seen through the

eyes of two journalists and one guest (Winterstein 2001: 153); it is subtitled in French.

For quite a few years these three offerings have been the traditional mainstays of Breton

programming on public network television. In recent years more Breton- language (often

subtitled) programming has been added, as a result of a new commitment on the part of

France 3 Ouest to present Breton- language materials. This is made explicit on the chan-

nel’s website: ‘Attached to its patrimony and through it, to the Breton regional language

and culture, France 3 Ouest takes on daily life as a veritable vector for the transmission

of the local ancestral language.’

The channel airs 85 hours of Breton annually, about 30

per cent of its programming. To achieve this, several new weekly programmes have been

devised, mainly oriented to children and young adults. The station also provides year-

round coverage of public events involving the Breton language such as concerts, festivals,

singing competitions and cyber festoù- noz.

Non- public television

Private television stations have made signiﬁ cant inroads on the French government’s

monopoly of the visual media. Undoubtedly the most celebrated of these in relation to

Breton programming is the satellite channel television TV Breizh (Brittany TV). It was

launched in September 2000 after considerable advance publicity, since it was the ﬁ rst

regional television channel of its kind in France (Winterstein 2001: 156). The founders of

this venture had looked to Wales’s S4C and Ireland’s TnaG (now TG4) as models worthy

of emulation, but with a key difference: from the outset TV Breizh was ﬁ nanced by pri-

vate funds from world- class tycoons – including two Bretons (Moal 2000: 126) – who had

LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN BRITTANY 743

calculated, after conducting market research, that Brittany was ready and had the popu-

lation to sustain this undertaking, especially considering the thousands across the Breton

diaspora who still feel attached to Brittany. Non- terrestrial broadcasting would make the

channel available to this potentially loyal audience.

TV Breizh had intended to be completely bilingual by allowing viewers to choose

either a Breton- or French- language track, an option on a digital channel; there were also

plans to offer feature ﬁ lms dubbed into Breton. Programmes were to cater to Neo- Breton

speakers ‘to give the image of a youthful, dynamic television’ to help offset the long-

standing image problem of Breton as a language for the over- sixties (ibid.: 161–2). It also

planned a soap opera series directed at learners of Breton (Moal 2000: 127).

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that many of these features would not be cost

effective (Winterstein 2001: 156), and Breton- language offerings were fairly quickly lim-

ited to two hours daily of children’s programming and some parts of adult chat shows

(ibid.). Moreover, the projected audience of three million homes subscribing to TV Breizh

did not materialize. What happened? Several explanations have been advanced, including

the difﬁ culty of changing people’s viewing habits, the reluctance on the part of viewers to

pay for the service, and general resistance to the channel’s existence (Milin 2003: 73).

Though TV Breizh did not bring to fruition its initial mission, the city of Rennes has

created a successful cable station, TV Rennes 35, which offered in autumn 2007 the ﬁ rst

sitcom in Breton, Leurenn Breizh, acted by the Breton theatre company Pik Achu. Ten epi-

sodes aired on this cable station, catering to what the channel’s director calls the ‘young,

committed Breton- speaking audience’ (Hicks 2007: 1). It is worth noting that TV Rennes

35 broadcasts free of charge, without subscriptions.

NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES

Brittany was a pioneer in the development of the information technologies that much of

the world relies on so heavily today, so it is not surprising that there are many web- related

sites devoted to Breton language and culture. For example, a server called Kervarker has

been active since 1995, describing itself as ‘dedicated to the Breton language’. Here one

can get introductory lessons in Breton, drawing on both visual and audio components,

enter a live chat space with others, ask questions, learn about Breton names, history, etc.

There are numerous other internet sites that cater to Breton language and/or culture. For

economy of space, only a few will be mentioned here.

Association Stalig is a site dedicated to promoting and disseminating Breton culture

on the internet; for example, it allows free access to several Breton or bilingual stream-

ing radio stations (as described above) and to several Breton record and book distributors.

Antourtan.com describes itself as ‘the ﬁ rst Breton television on the internet’, offer-

ing coverage of events in Brittany, Breton radio, Breton news, and broadcaster of ‘cyber

fest noz’ (which had 83,000 viewers in 81 countries around the world on 2 November

2002). It maintains an archive of 1,750 video ﬁ les collected since 1999, and allows inter-

ested parties to access interviews conducted by several of the associative radio stations or

videotaped interviews with persons working in or knowledgeable of a variety of issues

concerning Breton language and culture. Breizhat.com and Gwalann.org are other sites

of this nature that provide innumerable opportunities to gain a ‘virtual’ entrée into Breton

cultural life.

The browser Mozilla and search engine Google are available in Breton formats, and

in March 2007 an ofﬁ cial agreement was signed between OLB, the Breton Region and

744 THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF THE CELTIC LANGUAGES

Microsoft to have Breton included among Microsoft’s language offerings. As only about

100 languages have been accorded this presence by Microsoft, the agreement is seen as an

important advance for the status, and presumably the use, of the language (Anon. 2007:

1). A Breton version of Wikipedia exists and proudly asserts (as of August 2007) that it is

the ﬁ ftieth language to have achieved the distinction of having 10,000 or more articles in

the Wikipedia system; in fact it has over 16,000.

BRETON THEATRE

Breton- language theatre has a long and distinguished history, extending back to the time

of Middle Breton, and it remains vital today; indeed it has been enjoying renewed pop-

ularity in recent years, with no fewer than 15 companies, including several professional

ones. A few of these were established in the 1970s (Ar Vro Bagan, Strollad Plougin and

Teatr Penn ar Bed), with the remainder emerging since the 1990s. Several are profes-

sional, and others developed within educational settings such as Diwan or adult evening

classes as a means of encouraging the use and development of learners’ Breton- language

skills; some companies offer performances in French as well as Breton.

BRETON MUSIC AND FESTIVALS

Since the 1970s Breton music and the festivals that feature such music, along with dance,

have been of paramount importance in the revitalization and re- creation of Breton iden-

tity. Anthroplogist Lois Kuter did some pioneering work in the early 1980s on the role of

Breton music and dance in Bretons’ understanding of their identity, and how this paral-

lels language (1981a, 1981b). More recently Desi Wilkinson has written on the role of the

fest- noz (night festival), in particular, in the expression of Breton identity. As he sees it,

The fest noz does two important things vis- à- vis identity: First, it celebrates local

identity expressed in the danse du pays, the most meaningful and accessible way of

‘being Breton’ for many. Second, it further activates an inclusive pan- Breton identity

in both a cultural and social sense . . . the modern fest noz event . . . is the most im-

portant public expression of contemporary bretonnitude. (2003: 223)

Since the 1970s, he continues, ‘there has been a new fusion of the building blocks of music,

mythology, history, and politics in Brittany to give contemporary meaning and form to

celtitude’ (ibid.: 226). Most of these elements are in evidence in the numerous regional fes-

tivals that take place across Brittany, and especially in Lower Brittany during the summer

months (while the far more numerous local festoù- noz occur throughout the year).

No summer festival draws more attention than the international Festival interceltique

de Lorient (FIL). Launched in 1970, the FIL currently (August 2007) registers 700,000

visitors and 4,500 artists and performers extending over 10 days of festivities and call-

ing itself ‘the biggest Celtic festival in the world’. Wilkinson describes it (and others of

its genre) as ‘extravagant public displays of contemporary Brittany’s concern with a pan-

Celtic identity’ (ibid.: 228).

The older Festival de Cornouaille, held each year since 1923 in Quimper in July, offers

nine days of Breton and other Celtic music and dance festivities. Like the FIL, it attracts a

huge domestic and international audience – 300,000 in 2006.

LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN BRITTANY 745

Of more recent vintage is the Festival des Vielles Charrues (Festival of the Old

Ploughs), which started in the 1980s as a sort of inlanders’ joking mimesis of the big festi-

vals of the coastal sites (Gemie 2005: 113–14). Since 1994 it has been held in the town of

Carhaix in interior Finistère, running for four days; registering 200,000 visitors in 2007,

Vielles Charrues has grown into one of the largest festival venues in Europe for young

adults (mainly) to enjoy Celtic and other popular music – rock, reggae, funk, hip hop, etc.

(ibid.: 116). Emphasizing the ‘world’ aspect of such festivals, Wilkinson situates them

in the context of globalization, saying they ‘can be viewed as an encapsulation of the

parallel ideas of local and global identity as expressed through music . . . opening up ever-

widening vistas of diasporic experimentation’ (ibid.: 229).

What is the role of the Breton language in all this grandiose expression of Bretonni-

tude and Celtitude? Breton is heard in some of the lyrics of songs, certainly in those of the

more traditional genres of kan ha diskan, gwerz, etc. Otherwise it is for the most part only

emblematically present, in signs and labelling of products, for, as Gemie observes, at the

FIL ‘the language has no ofﬁ cial status’ (ibid.: 113). This points to what he calls ‘the suc-

cess of a low- impact non- verbal Celtitude’ among spectacle devotees, citing a Scottish

musician’s opinion that ‘it’s certainly easier not having words get in the way of that rogu-

ish twinkle or that misty yearning’ (ibid.: 116).

THE JOB MARKET

The OLB reports that for 2006 there were 900 full- time, salaried positions throughout

Brittany for ‘brittophones’. Not surprisingly, the majority of them are found within the

realm of education (73.4 per cent), and most of these (9/10) are in the immersion and

bilingual programmes, with the remainder consisting of instructor positions in adult lan-

guage programmes or assistant jobs in the Breton- medium nursery schools. Smaller

numbers of jobs are available in other sectors as well; the overall distribution of jobs by

type is shown in Table 15.5.

Table 15.5 Distribution of jobs utilizing the Breton language. Source: Ofﬁ ce de la Langue

Bretonne 2006c

Position type Percentage of jobs

Education 73.4

Administration (e.g., directors, secretaries, bookkeepers) 10.0

Culture (e.g., promoters of Breton culture, translators,

collectors of traditional folk culture) 4.6

Media (print and broadcast journalists, producers) 4.1

Industry, crafts, commerce 1.7

Arts and shows 1.3

Public administration 1.3

Other occupations 3.0

Just ﬁ ve years earlier there had been about 330 jobs in Brittany for brittophones, show-

ing an obvious growth pattern, though it had been envisaged in 2001 that there would be

1,000 jobs by 2006, a projection based partly on the hope that the satellite television sta-

tion TV Breizh would create additional positions for Breton speakers in the media and

related areas. As already discussed, TV Breizh did not develop in this direction.