Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 723 / November 3, 1877

It is not a very creditable fact that after centuries of national consolidation, there should be communities within the British Islands who use different vernacular tongues and are ignorant of English. In other words, there are large numbers of persons who cannot in ordinary circumstances be directly communicated with. They can neither send nor intelligibly receive letters through the post-office. Summoned as witnesses on civil or criminal trials, they are in the position of foreigners, and stand in need of interpreters. Cut off from English books and newspapers, a correct knowledge of history, of science and art, and of passing events is scarcely possible. They necessarily vegetate amidst vague legends and superstitions. Theirs is a life of stagnation and impoverishment, in the spot where they were born; for anything like voluntary emigration to improve circumstances is only exceptional. And all this has been complacently tolerated, if not pampered, for hundreds of years by a nation full of enterprise, and which, with no injustice, aspires to be in the front rank of general civilisation.
We are quite aware that much the same thing can be said of most of the continental nations. All are a little behind in this respect. The ancient Breton language survives in France, as does the Basque in Spain. Switzerland, Germany, and Russia are respectively a jumble of spoken tongues. In Holland and Belgium, we have the Dutch, French, Flemish, and Walloon. To accommodate the inhabitants of Brussels, the names of the streets are stuck up in two languages. These continental diversities do not greatly surprise us. In frequent wars, revolutions, conquests, annexations, along with want of means, and a host of inveterate prejudices to be encountered, we have an explanation of the strange mixture of languages and dialects which still prevails in continental Europe.
The case is somewhat different in the United Kingdom, where everything but old prejudices would seem to favour a uniform native language which all can use and understand. Yet, as we have said, there exist communities who are still less or more ignorant of English. Centuries have rolled on, and notwithstanding all appliances, groups of people are yet found speaking a language which was common a thousand years ago, but now occupies an obscure and fragmentary position. We do not say that matters have not been advancing towards uniformity. Little by little, outlying communities have been satisfactorily Anglicised, not by anything like legal compulsion, but by what might be termed a natural process of assimilation. We may speak of two important cases. In the Shetland and Orkney Islands the Norwegian language existed until within the last two centuries. It is now totally gone, and the vernacular is a pure English; vastly to the advantage of the natives, who besides being open to common civilising influences, are prepared for pushing their fortunes in any part of the British dominions; some of them indeed making no mean figure in current literature. The other case is that of Galloway, a district embracing two counties in the south-west of Scotland, where the Gaelic prevailed longest in any part of the Lowlands. 'The wild Scots of Galloway' was once a well-known phrase. It has passed away along with the Gaelic speech. The Gallowegians—abounding in men of genius—are now a lively and prosperous English-speaking and English-writing people. For them the change has been a very happy one.