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Name
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The Language Decline
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Description
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The census numbers tell the story. In 1874, 16,200 people spoke Manx, roughly thirty per cent of the population. By 1901, 4,598. By 1911, 2,382. By 1921, 896. By 1931, 529. By 1946, perhaps twenty native speakers remained. The mechanism was domestic, not dramatic: English-language schooling produced children who spoke English at school and Manx at home, then children who spoke English everywhere because their parents wanted them to get on. Margaret Murray remembered the old folks talking Manx when they did not want the children to understand. There were stories of Manx speakers getting stones thrown at them in the towns. The Revestment did not kill the language, but it removed every institutional support that had sustained it.
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Date
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1765-1974
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Type
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Decline
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Statistics
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Source
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Census data 1874-1931
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Margaret Murray, oral history
