The discovery or the ignorance

version française

Excerpt from Comment peut on être breton, "Essai sur la Démocratie française", Morvan Lebesque (Editions du Seuil, 1970).

Sang by Tri Yann in their spoken tune La découverte ou l'ignorance, 1976.


Is Breton my mother tongue ? No : I am born in Nantes where it is not spoken... Am I even Breton ? Really I believe yes. But of "pure blood", I do not know and which importance ? ... Separatist ? Autonomist ? Regionalist ? Yes and no : different . But so you do not understand anymore. What do we call to be Breton ? And first , why to be a Breton ?

... French of civil state , I am named French , I assume at every moment my situation of French : my belonging to the Brittany is only a facultative quality that I can perfectly deny or ignore . I in fact did it. I have during a long-time ignored that I was Breton... French without problem , I must live Brittany moreover , or , to better say, consciously : if I lose this conscious , Brittany stops to be in me; if all the Bretons lose her , she absolutely ceases to exist. Brittany has no papers. She exists only insofar as at each generation men recognise themselves as Bretons. At this hour , children are born in Brittany. Will they be Bretons ? Nobody knows. To each, when age comes, the discovery or the ignorance. ...