THE MANX LANGUAGE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SM.—You have asked whether the Manx language has ceased to be used by the farmers and fishermen of the Island. For- tunately, the answer is in the negative. But the decline of the language proceeds rapidly, as the census figures tell us : MANX SPEAKERS.
1901 .. • • .• • • 4,657
1911 ...
• • • •
• •
2,383 1921
.. 915 The langunge has an official status, for the laws passed (i.e., Rimmaries of them) are promulgated in both English and Manx at the annual open-air Tynwald ceremony on July 5th, and it is still possible to have an eloquent reader of the mother tongue in the person of Rev. Kewley, Archdeacon of the Island. - For thirty years or so no one has existed who speaks Manx only. In "Notes and Queries," October 1st, 1887, Rev. E. B. Savage, F.S.A., Vicar of St. Thomas's, Douglas, wrote : "Four or five years ago I made minute inquiries as to how many Manxmen survived who could not speak English ; I found about six, but that small number is sadly thinned by this time."
A few earnest students hold classes each winter for Manx study, and the Manx Society strives gallantly to foster the cult of the language, but generally there is little interest in the matter, for we Manx have a most inordinate love of all things English, and it is to be feared that Manx-Gaelic, like its Celtic cousin, Cornish, will, in a brief space of time, become extinct.—
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