In Hugo Hamilton’s The Speckled People (2003. Glasgow: Harper Collins) the changing linguistic landscape of Ireland is viewed through the eyes of Hugo, who was brought up in an Irish-German bilingual home. This article examines Hugo’s childhood memoirs from an ecological perspective. Applying the analogy of an ecosystem to the linguistic landscape portrayed in the book, three contrasting linguistic worlds are identified: Irish, German and English. The Irish world relates to the world of Hugo’s father, a nationalist who is dedicated to the revival of the Irish language, while the German world relates to the world of his mother and is closely linked to her past in Nazi Germany. The article examines the interplay between these different worlds, recognizing the role of code-switching in portraying them. It highlights the significance of name changes, which are viewed as onomastic erasure in the discourse of decolonization. There is also a focus on the role of the Gaeltacht in preserving the Irish language, drawing an analogy to the preservation of an endangered species in a nature reserve. Throughout, the present is viewed against the backdrop of Ireland’s long history of oppression in which English played the role of a killer language, destroying the ecological balance.

中文翻译：

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斑点人：爱尔兰语言生态学研究

在 Hugo Hamilton 的 The Speckled People (2003. Glasgow: Harper Collins) 中，通过 Hugo 的眼睛观察爱尔兰不断变化的语言景观，他在爱尔兰-德国双语家庭中长大。本文从生态学的角度审视了雨果的童年回忆录。将生态系统的类比应用于书中描绘的语言景观，确定了三个截然不同的语言世界：爱尔兰语、德语和英语。爱尔兰世界与雨果父亲的世界有关，他是一位致力于爱尔兰语复兴的民族主义者，而德国世界与他母亲的世界有关，与她在纳粹德国的过去密切相关。本文考察了这些不同世界之间的相互作用，认识到代码转换在描绘它们时的作用。它突出了更名的重要性，在非殖民化的话语中，它们被视为名词性的擦除。还关注盖尔塔赫特语在保护爱尔兰语言方面的作用，将其类比为在自然保护区保护濒危物种。在整个过程中，爱尔兰长期受压迫的历史背景是现在，英语在其中扮演了杀手语言的角色，破坏了生态平衡。