Néo-Breton

One calls sometimes néo-Breton , the Breton spoken by people not having the Breton one like Native tongue, i.e. all the people (children or adults) who learn it in the schools or the training courses. In this definition, theBreton one is thus a stage in the training of Breton and one speaks more readily about " néo-bretonnant" that of " néo-breton".

Polemic on the use of the Celtic term

A definition identifies the " néo-breton" as a variety of Breton which would have excluded all that is not “Celtique”, as well from the grammatical point of view as lexical.
This design strongly attached at the Celtic origins of Breton brings a polemic opposing the partisans of one or the other definition being opposed each one, a Breton “truth” and a Breton “forgery”.

The opponents of this design say that by political fidelity with the French Republic Breton the Politiquement correct must forget the Celtic origins of the language. According to them, the use of the Celtic term can be used to mask the concept of Race, and of racial purity, which would connect its users with the Extreme-right-hand side and it is a term which dissimulates a mercantile concept that one finds in the expressions Musique Celtic or Festival interceltic and it would mask worst the Libéralisme according to the terms used in the press. They deplore the fact of associating a Idéologie with the use of a language which can only serve the image of this language and are appuyent on the linguistic aspects (weakness of the definition, absence of speakers) to refute this approach.

Polemic on the use of the néo-Breton term

Certain organizations or people are designated as practitioner néo-Breton way almost systematically (Guy Etienne, Saded, Preder, Imbourc' H, certain software designers into Breton, rear Ofis Brezhoneg, Skol year Emsav, etc). However these organizations speak about their Breton without employing the “néo-Breton” term but that of “Breton unified” or Breton “Peurunvan” ( perfectly unified ).
Nobody claims the “néo-Breton one” or of a Breton language which would be cut fish pond of the native speakers and unquestionable sees there more one sociological concept of opposition and not a language.

In French, the “néo-Breton” word exists only in one pejorative direction: it is used to catalyze all the reproaches applicable to various attempts of harmonization or modernization of Breton, as well in the field of the C-W communication, the vocabulary, syntax as grammar.
In English, the “néo-Breton” term is more neutral, because it indicates the Breton one learned by any person not having the Breton one like native tongue.

For certain people, this term is pejorative and induces an ideological dimension.

Their opponents rétorquent that a more pejorative term would be “Breton chemical”.

And there still the polemic makes rage since the first consider that even if it is pejorative, the chemical “Breton” term does not induce of an ideological size.

Origins of the quarrel

For its detractors, the “néo-Breton one” is opposed to the traditional language. They reproach him for being artificial, exaggeratedly purist and far away from reality from Breton spoken. This reproach is based mainly on the origin of the Orthographe unified of Breton the, created in 1941 by Roparz Hemon.

A confusion exists between “orthography”, written production, spoken language, and speakers (inevitably of various social origins). For some, this controversy is maintained with an obvious aim to harm the public expression, into Breton, in the media, teaching (Diwan), or the edition (An Young stag).

Discusses on Roparz Hemon

In the Years 1930, the Breton ones passed to the French for two reasons:

It was for them a universal Langue, that of the Colonial Empire and its army (left victorious a world war), only making it possible to communicate between them by erasing the obstacle of the dialectal varieties of their native language;
It was the means of communicating with the other French following the national mixing accelerated by the First World War.

Roparz Hemon then taken again the Nationalist idea of the S Breton of the 19th century to create a single written Breton language, taking as a starting point the model of the cultural rebirths of the countries of Eastern Europe.

For its defenders, it is a question of raising the cultural level in Breton language, starting from a work on the various dialects, as the collection republished by Embannadurioù Hor Yezh shows it and where Roparz Hemon collected the expressions of the popular speech. Moreover, the " monumental linguistic work, which leads to the Orthographe unified of Breton the " is recognized by holding of the two positions. They denounce the assimilation with the alleging Nazism that at the time the majority of the personalities in sights were marked by the Collaboration without that sullying their reputation inevitably and that the characteristics Nazis of the " zh ", already used by Luzel, are not proven yet.

According to its detractors, the Breton one wants to be “ the new universal language of the country ” of which the goal would be “ to replace in some generations French ”.
They compare the work of Roparz Hemon with the creation of a kind of “synthetic Novlangue”: disappearance of the words of French origin, enrichment by Celtic words, mainly of origin Welsh E. They estimate that this construction points out that of the Esperanto, language sails very about it at the time where François Vallée and Meven Mordiern are reflected to forge neologisms. And sometimes compare it to the success of the revival of the Hebrew .
They show also this " project; to be élitiste, refusing the “ expressions of the popular speech ” breton" while being based in particular on the fact that this linguistic system was thereafter constant by the Département of Celtic of the University of Rennes II, asserting that the University of Brest would support " a system linguistique" more politically correct. The use even of the " term; system linguistique" remain polemical. Its detractors also appuyent themselves on the political course of its creator Roparz Hemon during the Second world war which remains marked by collaboration with the occupant Nazi.

Teaching

According to Francoise Morvan, one leads to a “paradoxical system”:

Rennes would become the militant base of Breton “a artificial ”, with the detriment of the Breton-speaking Brittany of the west where one studies, at the university of Brest in particular, and where one still speaks the Breton dialects. Its detractors oppose to him that Rennes is a city where the Breton-speaking ones “always” practiced the Breton one without waiting until he is taught with the Université since the end of the 19th century. This vision brings a kind of fixed linguistic border at the dawn of the 20th century, separating the Brittany of the East of that from the West.
the little of children provided education for into Breton (approximately 1% of the Breton young people) would learn a language badly understood from the native Breton-speaking last (approximately 100.000) still speaking their family dialects.

She in particular wrote:

" While wanting to turn into Breton to substitute of French the Breton militants dedicated it to disappear - because why dedicate itself to the training of such a unpleasing substitute, “mixture of Welsh loans and neologisms, true Sanskrit of initiates”, as Christian J. Guyonvarc' H " wrote it; ( Le Monde like if , page 16).

This vision still feeds the polemic that some see as a fight between two schools which claim both of a Breton Culture authenticates (culture related to the language that the native speakers and the culture related to the language speak about the militants and learning). The business Francoise Morvan/Per Denez is the typical example of this opposition (see their quarrel around the thesis of Francoise Morvan on François-Marie Luzel).

The detractors of Francoise Morvan see in her work Le Monde like if , a way of suggesting that the Breton one and its teaching does not deserve the support of the authorities, that all the financial efforts in the cultural field must be held for the French-speaking culture and that the militants of Breton are denounced as being the proper enemies of their language which the state is trying to save it in their place and in spite of them.

The defenders of this vision denounces the Instrumentalisation Breton by the Mouvements separatists which created an artificial language, cut the Breton traditional one and which enters in competition with him. They estimate that Breton the “traditional one” is very far away from French in his syntax and its expression, but borrows naturally by evolution of the language number of words with French (the loan with French is very old, to see the Catholicon (dictionary) ).

Other considerations

In opposition, others affirm that there do not exist two or three Breton languages, but several varieties of language, into Breton as in French or English. They raise that the Breton one had a very rich Vocabulaire in Breton-speaking monolingual Brittany, but which it is being impoverished especially since the Années 1950.

They reproach holding of the exclusively traditional language for wanting to develop the linguistic differences (even lightest), based on the cantonal speech, horizon not easily compatible with the lifestyle of the 21e century. This difference is exacerbated by those which is opposed to the teaching and the diffusion of Breton (argument which was used for to be opposed to the teaching of Breton before the vote of the law of 1951) and obliging with a good knowledge of the popular language.

This Breton said “popular” (dialectal and most localized possible) only would thus be spoken and impossible to teach or write. For them, it is thus logical that one teaches Breton “written standard” in the schools and one uses Breton “constant” in the literature for journalism.

The principal one reproaches that they make with the controversy on theBreton one is to feed the combat of the opponents (acknowledged or not) to the teaching of the Breton one, and deliberate intention of diaboliser defenders of Breton by describing them as “militants”, “nationalists”, “Communautariste S”. Rather than indefinitely to nourish the controversies which encourage the Breton-speaking ones between-to tear, they recommend to link the forces to improve the general level of the language.

Certain militants of language estimate, while speaking it, teaching it, writing it and diffusing it, that they effectively fight the linguistic policy of the State which works, according to them, with the disappearance of the Breton one.

The spoken language

The speakers of néo-Breton do not indicate the language spoken by learning under the néo-Breton-speaking term even if they also think that these learning are fond of delicacies of Néologisme S either because they expect an inevitably disjoined Breton language of French or because they use this language in order to mark their “identity in the case of” nationalist militants.

In the same way, the Breton one diffused by methods of languages or faulty Grammaire S is not regarded either as theBreton one. Alleging that the majority of the “Dictionnaire S” would abound in " neologisms incompréhensibles" and would not be consequently " not dictionaries of breton" , since excluding some from the words employed daily by the unquestionable speakers calls upon the " nécessité" to work out of a concept of “néo-Breton”.

In addition to the preceding polemical considerations inherent in the design of néo-Breton, there even exist other polemics inherent in the construction of néo-Breton in him.

Its words were almost never adopted the “naive speakers”, i.e. people who speak Breton in a natural way, but these speakers are quasi the only ones to interest the Linguiste S;
the construction of the neologisms is considered to be awkward (because carried out by people which do not have competence on the subject);
the principal mode of construction of the neologisms is the joining of words in the determinant-given direction and has not been done any more into Breton for several centuries;
the old loans with Latin or the Greek are sometimes judged too much Francophone S .

It is it should be noted that a traditional accent can make forget the weakness of the vocabulary or a failing syntax, just like a good syntax can accompany an accent which does not have anything Breton.

Formation of words

Holding of Breton traditional note that the Breton old man left a vocabulary which is nowadays used to produce terms into Breton in the field of the Philosophie and of the Social sciences. However, these words are often considered to be incomprehensible and some just like consider that it would be more adapted to adapt terms borrowed from other languages like the French, the English, the French and the German borrows technical terms mutually nouveaux.
That, others answer that the specialized words are not very comprehensible whatever the language since they require specific knowledge, therefore little spread, and that the two processes (creation of words per loan or construction of neologisms) coexist.

Loan with the foreign languages

At least two positions exist on this subject, where there still ideological cleavages are paramount.

Holding of the popular Breton notes that this Breton does not scorn the loan with French. The Breton one, like all the languages of the world, always made loans with the close languages: Latin, then Former French, average French and modern French. The majority of the loans are unrecognizable now because they evolved/moved according to the Phonétique and the original morphology of the Breton one. In the same way, the vocabulary of this language remains in Celtic majority, its phonetics is not that of French (in particular his stressing and its melody line), without speaking about his very original syntax and its turnings idiomatic extremely distant from those of the français.
They reproach Breton used and diffused by the Breton movement on the other hand to refuse any loan visible with French: several commissions made up specialists undertook to create new words, preferring “always” (according to their detractors), the loan with Welsh (Celtic language historically near) even with the Irish (with which the relationship is much more remote) with the loan with French, however, according to them, more “logic” and “historically natural”. According to another reasoning, the Breton one is a Celtic language, and thus in right to borrow as he hears it in his Celtic inheritance “historically natural”. Holding of this reasoning do not see in what the loan with French would be only “logical and natural”, they estimate that the loans with French are only easier, and even ideological, because “républicainement correct”. For them, this crispation on Welsh is moved because the " gallois" are in fact the Breton ones of origin which remained on the Island of Brittany by preserving their Breton language.

Registers

A contrario , some stresses that the known register of the native speakers is increasingly poor and that they can seldom write the language which they speak, owing to the fact that they gave up the Breton one as of the seven years age (Scolarisation) and that their parents very often encouraged them to learn French by giving up the Breton one. The guarantee of the native speakers, although necessary, is thus to respect while taking many elementary precautions.

Pronunciation

From the point of view of syntax and modes of expression, one reproaches certain néo-Breton-speaking unconsciously for copying their Breton on French what makes it difficult to include/understand. That comes owing to the fact that they “badly learned how” to speak the Breton one, i.e. it did it too much starting from the writing, and that they pronounce it while following the French sound system. In answer, one can say that it is normal that the Breton one pronounced with a strong French accent is not easily comprehensible with Breton-speaking of birth, just as any foreign language pronounced by an initial French who will thus have a strong French accent. But it is a weakness which is corrected with the practice, in contact with speakers of better level. The Breton one is not more inaccessible than another language.

Comments on the evolution of Breton at the XXe century

The detractors of the purified Breton language of the French words reproach him for seeking to cut its popular origins for presumedly ideological reasons: the Breton movement, which promotes this Breton purified, would be before any middle-class man and townsman in the beginning, and developed almost exclusively by French-speaking people having learned more or less well the Breton one in the books on late.

The partisans of Breton constant affirm on the contrary that they are placed in the tradition of the Breton literature, which all while taking as a starting point the popular language seeks to develop a modern literary language.

In the schools Diwan and the classes Div Yezh still, one often teaches the Breton one. Today, almost all the pupils trained in monolinguals establishment or bilingual know and speak the Breton one, French, English and often a fourth language. These children will continue to speak Breton only if this language adapts to their medium of life.

Dictionaries

To sort the invented terms and the authentic terms, a thorough and complicated research is necessary.

As regards the neology, some think necessary to re-examine work completely, to scan for all the words created by the Breton-speaking traditional ones, and if necessary, to proceed either to Breton periphrases in order to translate the new terms, or with loans with the international languages like French or English.

With the pace where this world evolves/moves, indeed, one can make with difficulty differently, and nowadays the only languages which still resort to the neology are:

of the languages like the Chinese, where the loans are prevented because of the graphic or syntactic systems too constraining;
of the languages like the Icelandic, where the systematic creation of new words is quasi-traditional;
of the languages placed under the only responsibility of nationalist movements, for which the neology is mingled with notions of purity of the vocabulary for ideological reasons and policies more than linguistic or scientific.

In fact, all the languages grow rich according to the two processes: acculturation of terms borrowed from the close or dominant languages, and creation of words starting from existing roots. The Breton one, like French, does not escape the rule.

See too

Breton

External bond

Breton At has Crossroads: Looking Back, Moving Forward, by Lenora A. Timm, University off California-Davis

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