Examine the power of language and power in Friel’s translations?

As the title indicates, the overriding themes of Brian Friel’s Translations are all related to the power of language and the power that comes with controlling language. The play follows the British effort to completely reconstitute the native Irish language, giving anglicized names to places and things that already have Gaelic words attached to them. This campaign, to change the national language of Ireland to English, is presented as a violent and bullying project, one which strips the country of its history and pays no respect to the structures already in place and the systems of meaning to which the Irish citizen is already accustomed. We see people struggle to hold on to their history in language, and struggle to communicate across linguistic barriers.

The characters all have different relationships to language. The waifish Sarah can barely speak, so anxious is she about being able to produce sound. Maire can only speak Gaelic, but dreams of speaking English. Yolland speaks English, and so wants to be able to speak Gaelic. Meanwhile, Jimmy and Hugh are enamored of the dead languages of ancient times, often reciting Latin and Greek poetry.