| Chapter 1: | The Dying Gael |
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language holds a unique body of knowledge and worldview. I examine, as well, arguments against this theory—one proposed by the adherents of “universal grammar” and its offshoot, “mentalese,” which seek to counter the “special quality” argument of the Whorfians. Those counterarguments hold that languages are not unique in and of themselves, but are united by underlying grammatical universality and, more specifically, that spoken language is not a medium of thought and does not influence in any way the thought processes of the individuals who use it.
To the casual reader, it might seem that I spend an inordinate amount of time on this seemingly irrelevant and theoretical issue of language relativity. However, to that reader I would propose that this argument is at the heart of any position that would support a minority language against a dominant language culture. If a language or language culture does not possess intrinsic value or any value beyond the purely utilitarian, why should a society and the educational system, which pass culture from one generation to the next, not simply opt for the most widely spread, dominant language of the time? In today's climate, the definitions of term useful circle around the economic functionality of a language, the numbers in dollars that a language culture's economic system generates, and the numbers of people who speak a particular language.
Also of concern is the relationship between identity and language. Here, the issue has less to do with theories about how language affects our thought processes, but rather with how the ways in which language serves as a marker of identity—both personal and cultural—are more tangible and observable. However difficult it might be for people to directly experience how one's thought processes are influenced by the language in which one is thinking, the idea that “I am a member of a Spanish language community” or “I am a Gael because I speak Gaelic” is readily accessible to consciousness.