What languages belong to Govanhill?

Glaswegian poet and novelist, Shane Johnstone reflects on the ties between language and identity in Govanhill, tracing its evolution through Irish diaspora culture to today’s vibrant multilingual community. By exploring how migration shapes belonging while raising questions about preserving and celebrating the area’s rich linguistic diversity.

By Shane Johnstone | Photo by Rob Reid

Language and belonging are often difficult to distinguish. Growing up on Allison Street, attending St Bride’s Primary, we absorbed hymns, including this one which I can guarantee that any alumni will still remember: 

“Saint Bride is our patron

for her guidance now we pray

for the cross and all its meaning

to give us strength to work and play”

Which cross this was was ambiguous; the crucifix obviously, but the uniform was adorned with its own emblem: St Brigid’s cross. This cross looks every bit as Celtic Pre-christian as the Triskele or the Green Man. It signalled to us that we belonged somewhere, as most school logos are designed to do, but the place it signalled was a place that none of us lived in. Some of us visited every summer, some of us only experienced it through Irish dancing, at Comhaltas Ceoltóirí or the Fleadh Cheoil music festival Some through the culture around football and ‘the rebs’ (Irish rebel songs).

There were certain albums and artists that would be found in even the least musical households. By age 13, at Holyrood Secondary, I had absorbed Rum, Sodomy and the Lash (The Pogues) and A Drop of the Hard Stuff  (The Dubliners) into my entire being – both the stories and the archetypes that would later contribute to decades of alcohol abuse. At this age we started hearing more of the language of the ‘Jailtacht’ (a distinct form of the Irish language popularised by political prisoners) in the playground – being unaware of this lingo quickly became cause for receiving acute pelters.

From the teachers and priests, the language was a high register Scottish English (and some Latin naturally). In the playground, a (heavily Gaelic-influenced) Glaswegian dialect of Scots. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “The language of the street is always strong”; socio linguist Dr Joshua Fishman said it's always “strongest”. This might be why this particular dialect only ceased to be my inner voice, that which came to me when I wrote, after I learned Gaelic to fluency. Scottish Gaelic is now the language of my home, and the language I work in. I speak French on a daily basis in Govanhill. It is perhaps, as I’ll go on to explain, not the irony you’d think, that I now speak these two languages more often here than I do the dialect I learned growing up here.

When people talk of a language as being natural to an area, it is always unclear which time period they believe it to have been conceived in as ‘the’ language of an area. What constitutes the ‘the’-ness is always vague. When I grew up here, standard English was the official language of the school, but it was not ‘the’ language of Govanhill. Anyone could see or hear that Polish, Panjabi, Urdu, Italian and other languages were being spoken daily, comprising local people’s sub-consciousness as much as this particular melange of Scots, Church English and Irish made up mine. 

It has been this way for centuries. Glasgow grew into the city it is today as a result of the Gaelic-speaking immigration from Highland Scotland and Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries, whereas international migration  during the 20th century laid the groundwork for the linguistic rainbow waterfall that is Glasgow, and specifically Govanhill, today. My linguistic experience of Govanhill may differ from a few people in that I have four communities (all defined linguistically, and all intersecting in complex ways) that I may dip into at different times, which make part of the subconscious matter of the area. I learned Gaelic mostly while living here. There are Gaelic speakers here (both Scottish and Irish) who live their lives almost fully in the language. Like wee birds that only appear in your garden when you leave seed for them, they may not be likely to appear to you unless you offer some kind of nourishment. Still, I can assure you, they are here. 

I remember a sceptical friend, who grew up here but has moved away, comment that MILK offering French classes was a sign of the area catering to the interests of middle class professionals who have moved here rather than locals. This might be a sign that these people have, for some reason or another, been unable to listen to the area as a whole. Many French speakers live in my own close – including my French teacher, a Belgian-Moroccan with a complex relationship to the language. 

I first learned French from another pal in Calder street, and toured France through knowing her. This may seem quite ‘New Govanhill’, but I am considered a ‘native’ to the area who has never really broken out of poverty. Through listening, I have formed a sort of acquaintance with some homeless people who speak French and next-to-no English, the constant immediacy of their life preventing them from learning anything other than survival. They are all multilingual people, some Romani, who lived in France and came here looking for a less dire experience. Their relationship with French varies from visible pride to pragmatism: believing it to was their best chance of not being on the receiving end of aggression from locals. 

My friend (from the Irish diaspora)’s attitude towards the French language classes may be representative of a pervasive alienation. He feels he doesn’t recognise the area, a sentiment I have heard over and over from people from the diaspora. Interestingly, I have heard it exclusively from English speakers whose nostalgia is often based on a vague memory of times when the craic was flowing and Celtic were starting to break out of a dark time. It is not necessarily xenophobic, but it can be. Ironically, more concrete forms of ‘Celtic’ identity and culture are on the up in the city, so the anxiety of “losing Irishness” or “Scottishness” may not be said to be about culture alone (the number of Gaelic speakers in Glasgow has, according to the last census, increased, though that does not account for fluency), but a more nebulous anxiety around the absolute fact of change.

This experience of arriving, integrating and looking back with, at times nostalgia, at times dissonance, has been mirrored throughout hundreds of years of immigrant experience in Glasgow, and more recently Govanhill. But it will not be the experience of those who speak English as a first language, who can walk into almost any country and expect to find that the infrastructure at least bends to their preferences. At most it is completely pre-furnished for their entire linguistic make-up – and this makes them different to any other group who has historically moved to Govanhill. 

This is not some bitterness against people from this demographic, but rather a question to contribute to the current conversation about Govanhill. In my experience (which includes years of communication with non-English speaking residents), this demographic is often quite good at interpreting what marginalised groups in the area want to work towards and are looking for. There is quite often an assumption from ‘Old Govanhill’ (i.e the Irish Diaspora) that the willingness from ‘New Govanhill’ (i.e ‘hipsters’) to help or contribute actively to integration, through the setting up of infrastructure like free language classes, comes from some kind of vanity or pompousness.

This ‘influx’ of people without the various struggles that come with generations of integration and instability, in an area where rent prices have become sickening and frankly, exploitative, could be seen as symptomatic of the dismantling of community and culture. I know that for many hearing the loss of the Scots language among children in the area, as well as the total loss of many of Govanhill’s languages can be hard to take: often due to nursery and school programmes prioritising Scottish Standard English above all else. 

At the heart of the conflict many feel about the ‘gentrification’ of Govanhill may be this. The migration of Standard English speakers may (perhaps unintentionally) contribute to the language loss of many of the area’s cultures, but it may also help to contribute to important infrastructure in the area – like the magazine in which this article is being published, Living Rent, Govanhill Baths Community Trust, South Seeds, MILK  and Govanhill Law Centre. 

The obvious answer to the question of ‘What languages belong to Govanhill’ is ‘all of them’, but we should be careful to bring the question of ‘how can the languages and cultures of Govanhill be more equal?’ into the conversation especially where there is an assumption that this conversation should happen exclusively in standard English. 

Shane Johnstone is the author of Govanhill Mythology – Beul-aithris Chnoc a’ Ghobhainn, a new compendium of poetry in English, Gaelic, Scots and French (with translations) about the effects of change on a community and its people. Available to purchase from Arkbound.