Ebook: Language Contact in the British Isles

Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1991. — 717 pages. — (Linguistische Arbeiten) — ISBN 3-484-30238-0.The present volume contains 25 papers given at the 8th International Symposium on Language Contact in Europe, which was organized by the Linguistischer Arbeitskreis Mannheim (LAMA) under the title Language Contact in the British Isles and held in Douglas, Isle of Man, September 18 - 24, 1988. The choice of Man as a conference place was not accidental but logical from a geographical, historical and ethnic point of view, as the Isle of Man is situated so strategically in the middle of the Irish Sea at the cross-roads between Ireland, Northern England, Scotland and Wales. The central position of the island was not the only reason for holding an international conference in Douglas, but also the great historical and cultural role, which the island has played throughout its Celtic and Scandinavian past, was an equally decisive factor. During the Middle Ages the island was a veritable meeting-place of Celtic, Nordic and Anglo-Saxon components, so unique in North-Western Europe and still so visible, that to hold a conference on language contact and cultural fusion here seemed to be a natural thing to do. The members of the conference had here, before their very eyes, a miniature of language development in the British Isles, which has led to recession and death of a lesser-used language. The death of Manx is an excellent example, that a small language cannot be saved, if economic and social factors are negative for its use and survival. In other words, the Isle of Man could be used as a stepping-stone to enter the Celtic world in the past and the present. What has happened here, will be repeated elsewhere, where similar sociopolitical conditions prevail as those leading to the death of Manx Gaelic and where a smaller language is confronted with a dominating larger language (English).