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Mind your language: Explaining the retreat of the Irish language frontier

Author

Listed:
  • Fernihough, Alan
  • Colvin, Christopher L.
  • McLaughlin, Eoin

Abstract

Why do we choose one language over another? Rival views see language frontiers as exogenous, driven by policy, or endogenous, determined by social, cultural and economic forces. We study language loss in nineteenth-century Ireland's bilingual society using individual-level data from the 1901 census. Our analysis highlights the intergenerational influence of the education received by a community's elders on subsequent generations' language use. This is consistent with an endogenous demand for English driving language choice because the elder generation's literacy was acquired by attending privately financed voluntary primary schools in a period that predates state-funded compulsory schooling.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernihough, Alan & Colvin, Christopher L. & McLaughlin, Eoin, 2024. "Mind your language: Explaining the retreat of the Irish language frontier," QUCEH Working Paper Series 24-07, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:qucehw:300647
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    language loss; bilingualism; education policy; census data; Ireland;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N93 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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