Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

106 Language Planning and Education
as a unifying national symbol, and this, in combination with a tradition of political
centralism, helps explain why regional languages, Breton included, are experienced
as greater threats to the integrity of the state than those in Britain, where language is
considered less of a central state interest and where, as a result, approaches to
linguistic difference have been marked by greater pragmatism.
The ramifications are felt in language policy. The French state has consistently,
sometimes aggressively, excluded Breton from public functions, contributing thereby
to the devaluing of the language by its own speakers. The British state, by contrast,
has felt able to respond more sympathetically to Welsh nationalist claims, as is
reflected in the passage of the 1993 Welsh Language Act, institutionalising the use of
Welsh in public domains across the country. Of course, it is true that the French state
has in recent years adopted a somewhat more conciliatory posture, signalled, for
example, by President François Mitterrand’s 1981 promise of ‘le droit à la différence’,
but a certain ambivalence remains, as indicated in the recent 2002 decision of the
Conseil d’État not to admit Diwan schools to the public education sector after all
(Mercator-Education 2003: 5).
Also distinguishing Welsh and Breton are the different identities available in,
and constructed from, these languages. As we have already noted, native bretonnants
identify with their ‘pays’ rather than with a larger Breton-speaking community,
and see the Breton language as an expression of this localised identity. They do not
conceive of Brittany as a nation: a region within France, yes perhaps; a nation, no.
Welsh speakers, by contrast, do feel that they belong to a nation, and, though they
have attachments to regions, these are overlaid by a greater affinity with a national
Welsh identity and a greater loyalty to the national language (Jones 1998a). This
sense of belonging to a national unit has, moreover, been encouraged by the recent
establishment of national institutions – a National Assembly, a Welsh Language
Board and so forth. In Brittany there are no institutions of corresponding status, and
fewer opportunities, therefore, to realise an identity above that of the ‘commune’ or
‘pays’ and below that of the French nation. A consequence has been that Breton
native speakers are generally resistant to the pan-Breton ‘national’ identity that the
néo-bretonnants have sought to project. In Wales, however, there is less divisiveness:
native speakers and language activists are far from co-extensive categories, but they
are not antagonistic – something that is not generally the case in Brittany.
Linked to identity and language maintenance is language standardisation, which
is generally thought to assist language revival by enhancing prestige and by
permitting wider dissemination of the language through education and literacy.
Jones (1998a) points out, however, that the manner of standardisation must also be
considered, and she draws here a useful distinction between ‘standardisation from
below’ and ‘standardisation from above’. Welsh belongs to the former category in
that a standard literary form of the language evolved over time from the medieval
bardic schools and from the translation of the Bible, and it was this already
prestigious variety that was readily adopted when the need for a modern standard
Welsh arose. Standard Breton, by contrast, is a variety many native Bretons have
difficulties identifying with, an important reason for this being that it is a relatively