Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T07:14:35.251Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Linguistic lag as an ethnic marker1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Nancy C. Dorian
Nancy C. Dorian
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Language has long been recognized as an important marker of ethnic identity. The identification is usually made in terms of some specific language or dialect, the use of which coincides more or less well with the boundaries of some particular ethnic group. This relationship obtains perfectly in present-day East Sutherland (Scotland), where the East Sutherland Gaelic mother tongue is almost the sole marker of fisherfolk ethnic identity. It can be shown, however, that this is only a very recent development and that the long-standing linguistic component of fisherfolk ethnicity is rather a lag in linguistic behavior vis-à-vis the rest of the population. The lag has taken four different forms over the past century or so, but the presence of such a lag is itself the actual ethnic marker. (Language and ethnicity, linguistic norms, language maintenance and shift; Scotland, Scottish Gaelic.)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , April 1980 , pp. 33 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Chapman, A. J., Smith, J. R., & Foot, H. C. (1977) Language, humor, and intergroup relations. In Giles, H. (ed), Language, ethnicity and intergroup relations. N.Y.: Academic Press. 137–69.Google Scholar
De Vos, George (1975). Ethnic pluralism: Conflict and accommodation. In De Vos, G. & Romanucci-Ross, L. (eds.), Ethnic identity: Cultural continuities and change. Palo Alto, California: Mayfield Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Dorian, Nancy C. (1973). Grammatical change in a dying dialect. Language 49, 413–38.Google Scholar
Dorian, Nancy C. (1977). The problem of the semi-speaker in language death. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 12 23–32.Google Scholar
Dorian, Nancy C. (1978). East Sutherland Gaelic. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Dorian, Nancy C. (1977). Language and ethnicity. In Giles, H. (ed.), Language, ethnicity and intergroup relations. N.Y.: Academic Press. 15–57.Google Scholar
Giles, H., Bourhis, R. Y., & Taylor, D. M. (1977). Towards a theory of language in ethnic group relations. In Giles, H. (ed), Language, ethnicity and intergroup relations. N.Y.: Academic Press. 307–48.Google Scholar
Gunn, A. & MacKay, J., (eds.) (1897). Sutherland and the Reay Country. Glasgow: John MacKay.Google Scholar
Hohenthal, W.D., & McCorkle, T. (1955). The problem of aboriginal persistence. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 11, 288–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hymes, D. (1966). Two types of linguistic relativity (with examples from Amerindian ethnography). In Wright, W. (ed.), Sociolinguistics. The Hague: Mouton. 114–67.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. (1974). Language identity of the Colombian Vaupés Indians. In Bauman, R. & Sherzer, J. (eds.), Explorations in the ethnography of speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 50–64.Google Scholar
Petersen, William. (1975). On the subnations of western Europe. In Glazer, N. and Moynihan, D. P. (eds.), Ethnicity: Theory and experience. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 177–208.Google Scholar
The statistical account of Sutherlandshire. by the ministers of the respective parishes. (1841). n.p.Google Scholar