Manx traditional songs, rhymes and chants in the repertoire of the last native Manx speakers

The following collection of Manx traditional songs and song-fragments derives from a series of scientific surveys on obsolescence in Manx Gaelic from native Manx speakers undertaken in Man between the years 1886 and 1972. These surveys involved the gathering of linguistic material, whether through phonetic notation of textual readings or questioning, formal questionnaires, and / or sound-recordings, in order to enable a phonological and morphological assessment of the state of Manx Gaelic at the time. Such material also included connected prose-texts in the form of stories and anecdotes, as well as lyric-texts consisting exclusively of traditional songs, rhymes, chants, etc., either complete or in fragmentary form. Though it will be seen that many of the song-texts exist only in fragmentary form, this does not necessarily mean that the informant could not have given more. The reasons for this may be multiple: e.g. the unusual circumstances of the recordings. i.e., in the formal context of an interviewer-interviewee interface whereby the interviewee would likely not have been fully at ease. Nevertheless, the material available to us today is in my view sufficient to give us a good idea of what the informants could offer. The song-texts gathered from the last native Manx speakers are brought together for the first time to enable a concise overview.

Implementing Cornish in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly: Attitudes by the population

The implementation of Cornish as a community language in Cornwall has become more evident, especially during the last two decades. However, since Cornish speakers constitute not much more than one percent of the total population, it is important to take into account not only their position but also the attitudes of the non-Cornish speakers in order to achieve some success. The literature about attitudes towards the implementation of Cornish is very scarce. SGRÙD Research provided some details about the use of Cornish amongst the speakers in 2000. PFA Research (2007) described general apathy and rather weak opposition to the implementation of Cornish while the Cornish Language Partnership (2013b) presented some positive data amongst the employees of Cornwall Council. The present study, based on the answers of 367 individuals to a questionnaire, provides a more detailed and updated vision on the people’s views. It describes a very different panorama from those outlined previously, with attitudes radically opposed between Cornish and non-Cornish nationals. It is expected that these results may serve to implement a more people friendly language policy which may benefit Cornish and its speakers without encouraging opposition from the rest of the population.

The intersection of literature & law: The Saga of Fergus mac Léti

The story of Fergus mac Léti is a delight of Old Irish scholars as it provides both an exciting saga tale as well as an insight into the Old Irish legal tradition. The text itself has primarily been discussed within the legal context, and understandably so as its early Irish extant versions exist exclusively within legal material. However, this focus on the legal aspects has left the literary aspects of the text entirely neglected. This paper examines The Saga of Fergus mac Léti within the context of the literary echtra tradition and compares it to the existing corpus of echtra material, discussing key elements that common across all the texts, that evidence the need for the story story of Fergus mac Léti to be examined as both a literacy text, and a legal one. This paper argues that the dissimilarities between the text, and the other extant echtrai are not enough to dismiss the text as merely legal fiction and contends that Echtra Fergussa maic Lete has earned its place within the saga material.