What can we do to revive the Irish Lanuage?

FTA69

FTA69 wrote: »

Learning Polish would give us an oppurtunity to actually utilise it, that and it is the second most spoken language in Ireland.

If those who claim to have Irish used it whenever possible, that situation would soon change.

As someone who is trying to learn it is frustrating not being able to use (try to use) what little I have already learned, there is only so much you can do with TG4 etc.

PS: listening to 2FM, someone said that some Poles are not impressed with Irish people trying to learn their language, they want english!

EamonnKeane

Wibbs wrote: »

The language of international trade, science and most of the arts. Throw in Spanish, Chinese and a smattering of French and you have the world covered. All more useful than minority languages that need "saving" like Irish.

Learning Chinese would be a waste of time unless you're going to China or SE Asia, and it's notoriously difficult. Arabic or Russian would give you a better geographic spread.

Rossibaby

i have very little irish.although i could speak at a decent standard when i was about 8,just everyday convos nothing major.the reason: i had a great teacher who every morning would do irish oral work with us and would give us sentneces and grammer to learn off,and if you passed a test a few days after and remembered it you would get a prize.i even rang my classmates back then and asked them to say what irish we had to learn because it was good craic and you had a goal to achieve to win stuff...it's too tedious in schools generally

That's the crux of the issue, learning anything needs a purpose! if you don't see the point in learning it then you won't be able to learn it. For many Irish doesn't serve any purpose.

dresden8

I was good at Irish in primary, as soon as we got to poetry and prose and that bitch Peig, it was a total turn off. Most boring book ever. Irish just became ****.

Still, there's good looking weather girls on TG4, that's always worth a look.

Nordwind

Irish pornos clearly the way to revive this.

heyjude

randylonghorn wrote: »

The biggest mistake that was made in trying to revive the Irish language was ramming it down people's throats. So many Irish people came out of the school system with a hatred of Irish as a result of the way it was taught that they never again wanted to speak / hear it.

The best way to teach a language is to:
(a) start early
(b) make it enjoyable.

Agreed. Compulsion is never the way to make people want to do something

guinnessdrinker

One thing almost anybody can do is to speak more Irish in day to day life.
I find if you say something to somebody in Irish they will reply in Irish, just simple basic phrases like "go raibh maith agat" and "ta faitle romhat" that everyone one knows and take it from there. Although a lot of people don't like Irish because of school or whatever reason, I have never really seen anyone outright hostile to the langauge being spoken.

WindSock

Starting up Ghaeilge nights, once a week or even once a month in your local community center would be great. Not only would people be attracted to learn and speak as ghaeilge with each other but it would help with reinstating community spirit. Which is all but lost in many parts of this country.

WindSock

Nordwind wrote: »

Irish pornos clearly the way to revive this.

Cad ata do Dhaidi?


Edit: or is it Ce he do dhaidi?
Just goes to show how brutal mine is after 12 years of learning.

No one ever listens to the dialog while watching porn & forget subtitles

karen3212

randylonghorn wrote: »

While I take your point, I doubt it will ever happen, as there is no "native" base for Esperanto, nor anyone to advocate its cause.

I do, however, believe that if I live to be an old man I will be living in a world dominated by 2 / 3 languages, with most people able to speak at least one of them, regardless of where they are from (my guess would be English / Spanish / Chinese). Hell, it's happening already to an extent!

Either that or we will have developed Star Trek style Universal Translators, and it won't matter what language we're actually speaking!

Well yes, I see what you mean, but I know people who've never lived outside their own countries who've learned english for 16 years and are still very handicapped when I try to speak about anything that is not the usual conversation they would have with a foreigner, also they seem to be a bit embarresed when speaking with a native speaker of English.

The point of an Internationl language is that it would be a second language for most people, therefore all learners. I have been trying to learn Chinese and for a European it is very difficult, and even with that I will still only ever be able to speak it very well If I go there and learn with native speakers, assuming they will not want to use me to learn English.

Even with a 2nd or 3rd big language, a person is still very limited with regards to communicating with people around the world.

Killaqueen!!!

FTA69 wrote: »

Teaching Irish like they do French or German will do no good as they are taught terribly as well. Look at the Dutch, German or Scandinavians; most of them have a degree of spoken proficiency in English while we leave school unable to converse in Irish or the European language which we were taught.

Irish should be taught with an 80% emphasis on oral skills, crap like learning to write letters etc should be disposed with and a complete conversational approach should be taken. Reams of grammar, tenses and verbs simply alienate people and it was that method which probably finished the language off. The government should also be doing more to expand Gaelscoileanna.

I also fail to see the point in learning French or German, Polish would be a much more apt language to learn and people would actually get an oppurtunity to use it.

Perhaps it's just the new generations - and Ireland's 2nd language speaking population will increase - but most of the people in my school have a good understanding of the langauge they learn (German, French, Spanish etc.) I don't think it's taught terribly in schools, though of course it varies.

If you think about it, the government could make all public schools Gaelscoileanna, but as has been said, there just isn't the desire to learn the language. I did say earlier, that most teenagers would like to be able to speak Irish fluently but most aren't bothered to actually try - it's that badly taught in school.

McArmalite

What could possibly be the ratio of Gaelscoileanna to ordinary schools ?

According to http://www.gaelscoileanna.ie/index.php?page=about_us

Currently there are 168 Irish medium primary schools as well as 43 Irish medium post primary schools thriving throughout the 32 counties (outside of the Gaeltacht), with 135 and 39 of these respectively in the 26 counties.

According to the education.ie website there are 3,160 schools in the Republic. not sure if that figure includes the gaelscoileanna or not.

Approx ratio = 18:1

randylonghorn

Deleted User wrote: »

According to the education.ie website there are 3,160 schools in the Republic. not sure if that figure includes the gaelscoileanna or not.

It should. That's a hell of an improvement, actually.

Deleted User wrote: »

No one ever listens to the dialog while watching porn & forget subtitles

I would have thought so too, yet I found myself getting very annoyed with a German vid recently. Sub-titles are the devil's txtspk, 'tho, even on real films.

WindSock

I disagree about subtitles. I almost need them to pay attention to a plot(not in porn) as I get distracted all to easily. In fact, I find it much easier to understand Irish when they speak English and have Irish subtitles, rather than the other way around.

Stollaire

"What can we do to revive the Irish Language?"

1) Re-establish (Coláiste Íosagáin) and establish the all-Irish teacher training colleges to insure that teachers can actually teach in Irish. (This is the source of the problem, and an obstacle to the expansion of Gaelscoileanna)

+

2) Introduce a 2 year early immersion Irish language stream in every gnáthscoil around the country.

=

3) Bilingual Irish-English speaking Ireland in 1 generation.

Johnmb

Johnmb wrote: »

One simple, and easy, thing that I've always felt should be done is to reverse the street signs. Have the large letters in Irish, and the smaller letters above it in English. That wouldn't mess things up too much for non-Irish speakers, as the English name would still be there, but it would encourage more use of the Irish names, and hopefully a bit of the Irish language to go along with asking where places are and giving directions etc. Even if the only thing to be used was the Irish name, at least it would help when it comes to knowing how to pronounce letters/letter groups should the individual ever take up the language in the future.

I find that having the Irish in italics make them harder to read as well as being in a smaller font with the english names in CAPITALS emphesizes the importance (or lack of it).

In several other countries where bi-lingual signs (local & english), there is a trend to making the anglicised version of the name into a phonitically correct version instead.
For example Nicosia is pronounced Lefkosia and the signs have been changed accordingly.

An Fear Aniar

Best thing you could do for Gaeilge is stop forcing children to learn it at school. The Irish educational system is a linguistic murder machine.


.

topper75

It is hard for learners of any level to get decent material. A lot of TG4/RnaG content is aimed at people who are already fluent. Ros na Rún for instance has quite a few characters speaking full-speed Donegal dialect and I can hardly understand a word.

If there were programmes done in a simple school-standard Irish on interesting topics, that might get the ball rolling. What about a weekly magazine with the same focus with edgy Hotpress-style content and riddled with little dictionaries on each page? The Irish-speaking areas will look after themselves.

Tá sé deacair do daltaí o aon leibhéal chun ábhair maith a fháil. Ta chuid mhór dona cláracha are TG4/RnaG dírithe ar iad siúd ata líofa cheana féin. Ta cúpla charachtair ar Ros na Rún mar shampla a labhairíonn i gcanúint Dún na nGall ró-thapaidh agus nílim in ann fiú focal amháin a thuiscint.

Má dhéanfadh cláracha i stíl bunúsach scoil-caighdeánach ar téimeanna suimiúla, b’fhéidir go dtugfadh sé sin tús maith dúinn. Céard faoi iris seachtainiúl cosúil le Hotpress agus foclóiríní beaga scapaithe tríd? Eireoidh na gaeltachtaí go maith leo féin.

Fratton Fred

I noticed they had Dora the explorer on there, who usually teaches English speaking American kids bits of Spanish. In this case she was, I guess, teaching Irish Speaking kids bit of Spanish.

Surely it would make sense that they did this programme in English but teaching kids to speak Irish.

There lies one of the main problems that many people have, one is assumed to be fairly fluent (as if the school Irish sticks!) or non-speaking.
There are many who are learning in isolation and don't have access to such "first year Irish" and get lost in "ros na run". Theres only so much you can do with self teaching materials. http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/schools/gcsebitesize/irish/ is a good source of Irish

Ace7

Lets discuss Welsh language revival. They have had a lot more success there, but nobody really explains why.

I've heard the Welsh wanted to revive it, and thus it has. Well, why do they want to revive it and the Irish don't?

Are the Welsh stupid to revive it and for wanting to revive it? Of what use is Welsh? Seems like many of the knocks against Irish could also be said about Welsh. Is reviving Welsh a wate of tax payers money?

Welsh is not spoken outside Wales, right? Like Irish, Welsh is more a 'rural' language rather than the language of business/commerce. English is a much more useful language and more widely spoken than Welsh. etc. etc.

Maybe Welsh is taught better than Irish is. But I've heard that for English speakers, Welsh - like Irish - is still a hard language to learn.

How many school children will use Welsh after leaving school? Maybe not that many, as with Irish. Maybe some view Welsh as a waste of time. But Welsh has somehow been revived.

I've heard that Welsh hadn't died out as much as Irish has, and so that made it easier to revive. But is that the whole story, or are there other reasons?

I'm sure there are some in Wales who view Welsh as an old, poor, backward, farming, type language. So it has had its opponents and obstacles. And yet it has still been revived. So whats been the difference between Wales and Ireland, between the Welsh people and the Irish people, and between the two celtic languages?

I think it would be great if a lot of people weighed in with their thoughts on this. Thanks.

ChocolateSauce

The problem that most people seem to be forgetting is that no one is honestly arsed to revive it. If the Irish truly wanted to speak it, we would, instead of depending of the government to keep it on life-support. If the Jews can revive an extinct and ancient language in Israel, there's no reason other than our own lack of determination why we can't revive our dead language.

Fratton Fred

Ace7 wrote: »

Lets discuss Welsh language revival. They have had a lot more success there, but nobody really explains why.

I've heard the Welsh wanted to revive it, and thus it has. Well, why do they want to revive it and the Irish don't?

Are the Welsh stupid to revive it and for wanting to revive it? Of what use is Welsh? Seems like many of the knocks against Irish could also be said about Welsh. Is reviving Welsh a wate of tax payers money?

Welsh is not spoken outside Wales, right? Like Irish, Welsh is more a 'rural' language rather than the language of business/commerce. English is a much more useful language and more widely spoken than Welsh. etc. etc.

Maybe Welsh is taught better than Irish is. But I've heard that for English speakers, Welsh - like Irish - is still a hard language to learn.

How many school children will use Welsh after leaving school? Maybe not that many, as with Irish. Maybe some view Welsh as a waste of time. But Welsh has somehow been revived.

I've heard that Welsh hadn't died out as much as Irish has, and so that made it easier to revive. But is that the whole story, or are there other reasons?

I'm sure there are some in Wales who view Welsh as an old, poor, backward, farming, type language. So it has had its opponents and obstacles. And yet it has still been revived. So whats been the difference between Wales and Ireland, between the Welsh people and the Irish people, and between the two celtic languages?

I think it would be great if a lot of people weighed in with their thoughts on this. Thanks.

as far as I am aware, people in Wales do not consider it a backward farming type language. To be honest, pretty much every Welsh person i know has a reasonable grasp of the language whether they are from Cardiff Bay or Cardigan Bay and is proud to speak it. Wales does not suffer from the "Jackeans/Culchie" divide that Ireland does.

When i look at the kids around my way, most of them are more interewsted in sounding like so todally like freaking cool and todally awesome. Maybe if it was trendy to talk irish rather than californian the language would stand a better chance.

Shinji Ikari

Riddle101 wrote: »

Bit of a long shot but i'll give it a try. Even though Gailge is still part of Irish culture, i feel it's being phased out of exisitance. Nowadays Irish is something we learn about in school and then after school we leave we forget most of it. I don't know about you but i'm proud of my country and culture and i feel sad that the Irish Lanauage isn't of concern anymore. Now i'm not saying that we should all be speaking Irish everyday or adopt itr but i think we need to do more to keep it large in our society, and not because we're Irish or because it's part of our culture but because Irish is one of the very few things that seperates us from the rest of the world. So what do you think, shold the Irish Lanauage be made more bigger and what ways do you think we could make it bigger.

My Ideas of how we could make the Irish lanauge bigger:
(1)Parents could spend at least 1 hour a day with their children and try to help them learn about Irish

(2)Children could be given a task of learning one Irish sentence and knowing what it means everyday

I still have to think of more ideas but you catch my drift

Firstly it should not be obligatory in the J.C. and L.C. Instead it should be optional and about one quater should also cover Irish mythology and Traditional culture. This would increas the amount of students taking Celtic Civilisation in University and allow the secondary student to deveope an apreciation of the Irish language rather than seeing it as something forced down his/her throat which could potentially wreck his leaving cert and all that would entail.

Secondly have realistic expectations. When the state was founded De Valera and co. probably thought that it would be a feasible ambition that most Irish people would become bi-lingual and Irish would be the primary language. The education system still adheres to this anachronistic ideal. Its never going to happen. However with the right "marketing" Irish could have the similiar cultural status as Latin and be spoken more by the population in general.

Agus

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

The problem that most people seem to be forgetting is that no one is honestly arsed to revive it. If the Irish truly wanted to speak it, we would, instead of depending of the government to keep it on life-support. If the Jews can revive an extinct and ancient language in Israel, there's no reason other than our own lack of determination why we can't revive our dead language.

A dead language is one that has no native speakers left. So Gaeilge is not a dead language and never has been - threatened certainly but not dead.

ChocolateSauce

Agus wrote: »

A dead language is one that has no native speakers left. So Gaeilge is not a dead language and never has been - threatened certainly but not dead.

I detect desperate pedantism. There's a giant turtle species that has living specimens, but is extinct for all intents and purposes, as there are no females left.

topper75

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

I detect desperate pedantism. There's a giant turtle species that has living specimens, but is extinct for all intents and purposes, as there are no females left.

So you have an idea what year all native speakers of Irish will finally just speak English? Ba mhaith liom é a chloisteáil! (I'd like to hear it!)

The jews' example stands as the model. The Irish will get around to it as soon as they get over their greedy spell and realise there is more to life than owning stuff.