22 Festivals as tools of language revitalisation in the anti- colonial contexts of Wales and Aotearoa. Cerys Gruneberg This essay was written for the module ‘Theatre and Empire’ (DRA3110). Language revitalisation can be described as “the restoration or strengthening of a particular language in regions where it prevailed before being displaced” (Comajoan-Colomé and Coronel-Molina 2020: 987). Pine and Turin note that “the work of language revitalization is inherently multidisciplinary and very often polit- ical, with long-range cultural and social goals that extend beyond the immediate task of generating more speakers” (Pine and Turin 2017: 2). The endangerment of languages is rooted in colonisation. A major aspect of the colonial agenda was to ensure that everyone in the colonies spoke English, as “language is the life line and sustenance of a culture” (Pere 1997, cited in Ka’ai-Mahuta 2011: 208), meaning that everyone speaking the same language further legitimised colonial powers and acted as a way of establishing complete hegemony. This suppression was mainly situated within social institutions, which, as a result, drove cultural organisations to conserve and reclaim their native languages. In this essay, I will be comparing how festivals have functioned as tools of language revitalisation in the anti-colonial contexts of Wales and Aotearoa, focusing on the Eisteddfod and Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Festival. I will be examining how and why these organisations have directly supported the revitalisation of Welsh and Te Reo Māori, acting as cultural resurgence programmes. Both countries were suppressed under different forms of colonialism. Wales is a site of internal colonisation, which refers to the taking of shared land by a dominant group. It must be noted that “modern Wales was British through choice rather than coercion” (Johnes 2019: 3), meaning that Wales was complicit in colonial practices in other nations, including Aotearoa, which was subject to settler colonisation from the British. Firstly, “to make sense of contemporary efforts to revitalise Indigenous languages, it is essential to understand the political and historical context that has shaped their marginalization” (Pine and Turin 2017:4). The suppression of the Welsh lan- guage developed over a period of five centuries. The Acts of Union Laws of 1535 and 1543 were foundational to linguistic censorship as English became the official language of the government. The laws did not ban the use of Welsh, but set in motion the initial associations of the language being linked with class differences, as English was not widely spoken by the population (Johnes 2019: 60).
View this content as a flipbook by clicking here.