"It's noo apen fur lae pit in jab foarms fur tha ontak a UnnerEditor an Ulster-Scotch, wi tha Chaummer o the scrievit Accoont (Hansard) o tha New Ulster Sammlie sittin at tha Tolsei Biggins, Stormont, Bilfawst. A start wull be gien fur sax-month, wi anither contraick aiblins forbye."
A moment's pause while I explain what is going on. The foregoing - or should it be "tha fore-end", the Ulster-Scots, or Lallans, from which it is derived, for foregoing? - is from an advertisement in the Belfast Telegraph for a sub-editor, fluent in English, but perhaps less so in Ulster Scots (or wi a guid hannlin o the laid, as we Ulster Scots folk say) to keep a parliamentary record of the new Northern Ireland Assembly. And what can one say about this other than wha rubbidge, wha idioticals, wha witlins maunerin, wha amitan youstin.
Obscure dialect
This is where the brainless parity-of-esteem road takes us, where a culturally subversive politicisation of language on the one hand (of Irish by Sinn Fein) automatically attracts an equal but opposite reaction from their political opponents, with the elevation of an obscure dialect of English, with few literary forms, into equality with Irish. We all know beyond doubt that every word being spoken in English will be understood by all members of the Assembly and all interested parties; yet we are now obliged to accept that for full comprehension (at this point you may with benefit read "incomprehension") the debates must be translated into the respective aboriginal tongues of two of the respective tribes.
It needn't stop there. The Irish being used presumably is of the Ulster variety, and I daresay the people of South Armagh (to judge from their English) spoke a dialect of Irish more akin to Leinster Irish, which is of course extinct. Better revive it quickly so that the good denizens of Crossmaglen can understand the political riches being revealed by their representatives in the Assembly.
And then there is the Ulster-English of the English planters of Armagh, whose descendants are so prominent in the Drumcree affair; might their language too (whatever it was) not properly be used for a full and enlightening account of parliamentary proceedings? And what about the Huguenots? Did they not bring the linen business to Northern Ireland? Might their descendants not justifiably demand translation of the Assembly's deliberations into the various French dialects of the immigrants of 300 years ago - La Rochelle, Occitan, Paris - the better to perceive the fluent wisdom contained within? And what about the people of Ferns and Bargey? Admittedly, they are Wexfordians; but Wexford voted on the Good Friday Agreement - will not those who speak that odd admixture of Flemish-Welsh-Irish-Norman French not require elucidation in the tongue they cherish above all things?
Tribal artefact
There is a truth here, and a dangerous one too. When language is used as a political weapon and not as a means of communication, when it is commandeered as a tribal artefact rather than being deployed as a method of inter-tribal speech, we are in trouble: invariably so. We know this especially in Ireland. The seizure of the high offices within the Gaelic League by members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1915 caused the politicisation of the teaching of the language, and its effective death.
Nor is it coincidental that when the new Bosnian Assembly gathered in 1992, before the civil war erupted, Serbs demanded Serbian translation, Croats demanded a Croat translation, and "Bosnians" - i.e., Muslims - demanded a Bosnian translation of proceedings they all perfectly well understood in the one common language they were all employing anyway. They chose to give that single tongue separate names because inwardly, perhaps not even knowingly, they were preparing for war.
We order these things differently in Ireland. We had our war first, and now we're trying to talk tongues to each other. Instead of coming together, we're dividing over language, and largely unused and almost mythical languages too. The literary, educational, political and administrative language of the people of Northern Ireland is their own version of English. Only a footerin dae-guider can manage the heroic pretence that we need to render that single tongue into other languages.
To be sure, it might on occasion provide a bit of fun - "pit" in Ulster Scots means "put"; its meaning in Irish is somewhat different - but for the most part these linguistic divisions will either be a cause of stupefied somnolence as speakers insist on addressing the Assembly in their own recently-acquired and profoundly imperfect versions of them, or as cultural clubs to bludgeon one's opponents. But we can be sure of one thing: they won't be used to intensify harmony.
Polyglot piquancy
Yet harmony is the very effect which is being sought; for the advertisement is perfectly drenched with multiculturally political correctness. Applications are sought, regardless of religion ("nae maner thair kirk"); political opinion ("quhit partie ye houl wi"); or sexual orientation ("sexual airt", a relatively new term to that dialect, I might hazard a guess). And how much more polyglot piquancy will be added to the North's multicultural accommodation when politicians sit down to discuss Sinn Fein's proposal (in Irish, of course) for a police force which is 10 per cent homosexual, even as in gallant Lallans, Ian Paisley fights to Save Ulster From Sodomy.
Peace, perfect peace.