Making the future of Irish multi-lingual.

blinding

The Welsh have done a great job preserving and developing their language. We must learn as much as we can from them and put it into action.

Acacia

bk wrote: »

To answer your how question, I believe you must first understand the psychology of the Irish people. Irish people are very non conformist and rebellious people, if you try and force something on us, specially something we see no benefit of, we typically rebel against it. I believe that is why the government forcing Irish down our throats at school for many years has failed miserably.

If you want to see Irish grow, you need to use a little reverse psychology. Don't make Irish a required subject in schools any more, change the syllabus so that there are two different Irish syllabus, a variant on the current one for Irish speaking schools and an optional, foreign language type syllabus (with strong emphasis on Irish culture also) for all other schools. Don't punish people who take the latter, it should award the same points as the more traditional type.

I agree, I don't think making Irish compulsory in schools has worked very well. I know this is personal anecdotal evidence, but I've found myself (and among my friends) that we have a lot more interest in learning Irish now that it's not forced down our throats in school. I didn't like Irish very much in school, now that I've left (about three years ago), I'd love to go back and learn it. Properly. Like the way I've learnt other languages- with emphasis on grammar and language, rather than folk-lore stories and poetry that I can't even understand, let alone analyse.

FTA69 wrote: »

The reason nobody goes to continental Europe for work is because there isn't any work there and the wages are low in comparison to Australia. The reason people went to the USA in the first place was because of the Famine, nothing to do with the English language, a language half of the people who emigrated could barely speak anyway. People went to Australia as they were giving away free land and people went to Britain as it was the closest country to us where work (with a sterling wage) was freely available up until recently.

Language may not have been the main reason people emigrated to Anglo-phone countries in the past, but I imagine it is now. For example, I'd much prefer to work in France, Italy or Germany, than other Anglo-phone countries because I feel they are more similar to Ireland than Australia or Canada, and certainly closer. I don't have a good enough command of French, Italian or German though to move there.

The real problem however is the fact that Irish is just not spoken widely enough in every-day conversation. I know people who are bi- or mulit-lingual (all immigrants to Ireland, it has to be said) who can use all their languages fluently because they grew up using and hearing them at home. That simply doesn't happen with Irish, which is a shame.

Ideally, it would be great if Irish people could be fluent in English, Irish and another language (not necessarily European either, but maybe Chinese or Japanese.)

Priscilla Duck

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Irish people have typically emigrated to the UK, Australia & North America. Now what's the main thing that unites these nations?

I don't know where this notion that the Irish only go to Anglophone countries comes from. According to the CSO, almost 40% of all Irish emigrants have continental Europe as their destination, and there are at present almost 250,000 Irish people living and working in Europe. That's more than are living in the UK and USA combined. Presumably, some of those emigrants will speak at least a smattering of the local language.

I moved to Germany in 1999 with very rusty school German. By the time I returned to Ireland 4 years, I was fluent (if not grammatically perfect) in the language.There are over 10,000 permanent Irish residents in Germany. The ones I knew spoke German with varying degrees of fluency. It was a very rare individual who didn't try to learn. Many others spoke Spanish, French, Italian etc as a result of their jobs, their spouses or simply out of interest. Not all of these were university educated professionals, just adaptable workers willing to learn, much like the majority of Poles of my acquaintance here in Ireland. It would be nice to say we all spoke Irish together when we met up, but in truth, the only conversations we had as Gaeilge were those calculated to piss off our non-Irish friends and colleagues. It was handy in those circumstances, but to me German and French will always be more attractive and easier to speak than Irish, simply because it is possible to immerse yourself in those languages in a way that is simply not possible in day-to-day life with Irish in Ireland.

anladmór

Priscilla Duck wrote: »

I don't know where this notion that the Irish only go to Anglophone countries comes from. According to the CSO, almost 40% of all Irish emigrants have continental Europe as their destination, and there are at present almost 250,000 Irish people living and working in Europe. That's more than are living in the UK and USA combined. Presumably, some of those emigrants will speak at least a smattering of the local language.

Delighted to hear.

I also think there is about 40,000 and people of irish descent in Germany and more in France. Might be wrong though.

LordSutch

There are about 'Six Million' people of Irish descent on the island next door.

P. Breathnach

Priscilla Duck wrote: »

...According to the CSO, almost 40% of all Irish emigrants have continental Europe as their destination, and there are at present almost 250,000 Irish people living and working in Europe...

Far more than that. I think they might have forgotten that Ireland is in Europe.

anladmór

the mainland

anladmór

Camelot wrote: »

There are about 'Six Million' people of Irish descent on the island next door.

Ok

FTA69

Priscilla Duck wrote: »

I don't know where this notion that the Irish only go to Anglophone countries comes from. According to the CSO, almost 40% of all Irish emigrants have continental Europe as their destination, and there are at present almost 250,000 Irish people living and working in Europe. That's more than are living in the UK and USA combined.

Eh, no it isn't. In Britain there are a million people who were born in Ireland itself, not to mention about 150,000 odd first-generation people in the USA.

Acacia,

For example, I'd much prefer to work in France, Italy or Germany, than other Anglo-phone countries because I feel they are more similar to Ireland than Australia or Canada, and certainly closer. I don't have a good enough command of French, Italian or German though to move there.

Fair enough for you, but I know I'd earn more money working as a skilled operative (machine driver) in London or New York construction than I would working in Italy. Substantially more, as well as having more hours and more overtime.

Permabear

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FTA69

That's not been my experience. Many parents are sending their children to Irish-language schools because they believe that the regular primary schools are filled with non-English-speaking children of foreign nationals and that the experience is little more than glorified TEFL. They believe their children will make better academic progress—ironically—if educated in the monolingual environment of an Irish-language school. It's thus very much open to question whether they are embracing the Irish language or embracing insular xenophobia.

That's fairly off the wall to be honest and its a point you can't seriously hope to substantiate. Most people send their kids to Gaelscoileanna because of a love of Irish culture and the wish for their child to become fluent in their own native language. As for wishing to learn European languages, off with them. You seem to be forgetting that its practically complusory in most schools to learn a European language, and all schools will have one on offer.

The fact is that Irish isn't to blame for the fact that young people here couldn't be arsed learning French or whatever.

Godge

donegalfella wrote: »

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I think that is harsh. There are a number of reasons parents send their children to Irish-language schools. Sure, there might be some xenophobia but it is isolated.

A more thought-out reason might be the fact that Leaving Certs done through Irish continue to attract a 10% bonus mark. With the split into A1, A2, B1, B@ etc., 10% can make a huge difference to the points score.

At the same time, there are a lot of parents who do send their children to Irish-language schools because of a love of Irish and a desire to preserve that culture.

Different people with different motivations for doing the same thing (very few will own up to the first two though)

Permabear

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Godge

The problem with the preservation of Irish is that it hasn't worked. yet the Irish language lobby and our Minister for Craggy Islands won't admit that.

Making Irish an official language of the EU was trumpeted as a great achievement by that lobby but what difference has it made? Is Irish more visible in Ireland as a result? Don't see it myself. Oh yes, jobs in Brussels for the Irish so more qualified Irish degree holders (potential teachers) head off there. then we have the magnificent piece of legislation that is the Official Languages Act. What did that achieve? A row about Daingean and a forest of trees knocked down to print documents in Irish that nobody even reads the English version of it. Oh yes, more jobs for translators (potential teachers) in writing these unread documents.

In the meantime, there is a dire shortage of qualified Irish teachers in the second-level school system. Ask any post-primary principal about that. So while simultaneous translators in Brussels translate meetings into Irish while nobody listens and written translators in Dublin produce documents that nobody reads, there is a shortage of people to teach Irish to the next generation. Only the Irish could mess something up so badly and call it a success and crow about it!

anladmór

perhaps then we should look at interactive irish lessons in the classrooms?

Grudaire

donegalfella wrote: »

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Gaelscoileanna were around before the wave of immigration

However that is a separate issue about the immigration, it is a fact that Béarla-primary schools are struggling to teach classes as well as teach very basic English.


Interactive in what way? Classes definitely need improving

anladmór

Cliste wrote: »

Gaelscoileanna were around before the wave of immigration

However that is a separate issue about the immigration, it is a fact that Béarla-primary schools are struggling to teach classes as well as teach very basic English.


Interactive in what way? Classes definitely need improving

not sure, just sounds good.:p

about the gaelscoileanna i know a few people who are either children of immigrants or immigrants themselves who have attended gaelscoileanna.


about

karen3212

Cliste wrote: »

Do you think that a direct effort by Gaelgeoir's to just speak Irish would help? Do a 'No Béarla' on it and insist on speaking Irish to everyone... Would this help, or further isolate the language?

tbh I see that as the only way Irish would become used by more people more often. As many here have said, they don't use it or make an effort to learn it because they have never needed to be able to speak it.

That's the answer in my opinion.

anladmór

just to add i was reading today a book about history of ireland it came to the irish language and its pretty sad the final days of it being widely spoken on a regular basis in ireland. people just lost any care with all the hardship they were suffering, they gave up hope as they knew in that it would just hold them back and they wouldnt need it. with the irish language its not so much that it declined for me its how it declined and it represents a depressing theme which seems to have been on ireland since modern times began.

sorry i probably can't convey what i mean, not a very good writer but it seriously was an emotional read. i think we(you) owe it to all the people who struggled to keep it alive.

Micamaca

I'm going to add my tuppence to this now. I learned French at school and was hopeless at it because of the way it is taught. Furthermore I hated it, because I didn't understand it.

Ten years later I went back to college to study French and German because I decided I really wanted to be able to converse with people in their own language...and if my husband and I are going to move abroad, it will help us get jobs. No doubt. However, I find that studying other languages gives me an appreciation of my own language again. For instance I found out that Irish has cases like German, it has even more cases...as it has the vocative case as well as all the others in German. Even more, Irish is like Croatian and other slavic languages whereby they do not have indefinite articles so the noun changes each time to reflect the case, whereas students of German will know that there is an indefinite article that changes each time.

I think it would be a crying shame to just give up on Irish. You have to realise, the language was heavily discouraged (and discouraged is hardly the word for it) for centuries. I've just been thinking about this recently. Other countries were taken over by the Brits but did not lose their language. So obviously Ireland's geographical position and the fact that the main trading partners of Ireland were Britain and the USA for many years has helped to kill the language even further.

Suggestions... I would agree that the compulsory element of Irish is probably making it unpopular. It would most likely become trendy if it was an option.
The syllabus would also need to be changed. There are modern books available...I saw a Harry Potter book in Irish the other day. Expensive but available. I have to say Ros na Rún rocks ... it's hilarious!

Having spent almost four years in DCU learning French and German, I would say the same problem applies for all languages here...we haven't a clue how to teach them. I am certainly not fluent in French after five years in school and four in college. Far from it. Am I annoyed...yes I am :mad: Tonight I attended the Goethe Institute to supplement my German in college.

Back to Irish. There is a business course taught through Irish in DCU and I attended a debate as Gaeilge one evening. I understood most of what was being said and I really enjoyed hearing the language being spoken by young people. I have started attending Irish classes myself to get it back. It is important to me and I would like to see the use of the language in everyday life begin to return. I know it probably won't happen in my lifetime but it did take 800 years to erase the use of the language, so it will take some time to re-introduce it. If it ever happens. I don't see the harm in it and I see a lot of good. Believe it or not, a lot of foreigners love the language and associate it with Ireland in a positive manner. Some are even trying to learn it... I know quite a few Germans who are learning Irish

I think what I find disappointing is that people really don't care. I get that you think it is impractical and there is no use for it really at the minute or in the foreseeable future. But there is no use for a lot of things and we don't discard them...look at our Government for example. :mad: Not everything in life needs to have a use to be valuable. It just depends where you place your values. Yes, I agree that money needs to be spent wisely...but the attitude and the approach to the language really needs to change. No money will fix that. That was more than tuppence worth. Oíche mhaith!

mick.fr

I am surprised to read that some people are saying migrants should be forced to learn Irish. I do appreciate the comment made but knowing that Irish people themselves failed to properly maintain the language in their very own country, I do not see the reason behind this.
It is a shame to watch a language dying like this, although some efforts are being made at school, TV programs, news...

It probably is a lot easier to learn a bit of Polish in Ireland, as there is signs and writings everywhere, way more than Irish, in banks/shops/tv/etc...

jank

It's thus very much open to question whether they are embracing the Irish language or embracing insular xenophobia.

Oh plesae! Thats a comment pulled out of your rectum. You are making up stuff just to back up your "points"

I know for a fact that its all a jewish conspiracy to overthrow the government, mess up the economy and get the zionist IMF to come in and get their flithy hands of
on the money of the country.

dolliemix

donegalfella wrote: »

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What experience do you have of Gaelscoileanna because that's not the sense I get.

Parents may send their children to a Gaelscoil because they believe their chil dren will get a better education - what's wrong with that?

You're twenty behind everybody else. Gaelscoileanna are completely integrated at this stage. Every child is welcome. gaelscoileanna uses a minority language - there is simply no question but that minorities and all cultures are celebrated in any of the Gaelscoileanna I've had experience of. Immigrants are a minority group jusy like us Irish speakers! The underdogs - cheering each other on:)

TomRooney

Mena wrote: »

I speak four languages already, I don't necessarily want to speak a fifth, but can I ask you, what your reason would be behind requiring Irish to be taught? I've been here going on nine years now and not once have I ever had the need to be able to speak, read or comprehend Irish.

If we were in France for example, I would expect myself and any other immigrant to speak French and English at the very least, however in Ireland, from an immigrants point-of-view... and I apologise in advance for saying this, but the Irish language appears to be dead, or at least dying.

And I don't see much call to revive it currently either.

well its not suprising that you as an immigrant dont see any reason for a revival of the irish Language, but im sure by and large irish people view things differently.

you see Gaeilge is more than just a language it is part of irish heritage and culture, and many irish men and woman gave there lives just so we could have the oppurtunity to speak our native toungue if we so choose.

so to just push it aside as meaningless is akin to pushing the very essence of irishness aside as meaningless. a nation without its language is a nation without a soul.

LordSutch

TomRooney wrote: »

you see Gaeilge is more than just a language it is part of irish heritage and culture, and many irish men and woman gave there lives just so we could have the oppurtunity to speak our native toungue if we so choose.

I have nothing against the Irish language, (but I strongly disagree with the above). "gave their lives so we could have the opportunity to speak Irish" .... :rolleyes:

TomRooney wrote: »

so to just push it aside as meaningless is akin to pushing the very essence of irishness aside as meaningless. a nation without its language is a nation without a soul.

A very emotive & narrow 'de velera-esque' view :rolleyes: most people in Ireland are Irish, and yet, most Irish people cant & dont want to speak Irish because of decades of having it 'Forced' down their throats!

I gave my views in Post76.

Permabear

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The Corinthian

TomRooney wrote: »

well its not suprising that you as an immigrant dont see any reason for a revival of the irish Language, but im sure by and large irish people view things differently.

No we don't. On the other hand, while Irish (by blood, in case you're wondering) I was technically born abroad, so maybe I'm just another one of these filthy dirty immigrants.

you see Gaeilge is more than just a language it is part of irish heritage and culture, and many irish men and woman gave there lives just so we could have the oppurtunity to speak our native toungue if we so choose.

I agree broadly with this (apart from the jingoism at the end). However, and this a big 'however', not all national heritage and culture is worth keeping. Being a "priest-ridden" nation is regrettably also part of our heritage and culture, but we're frankly well off without it.

Of course, I'm not suggesting with the above example that Gaeilge is a bad thing, only that 'heritage and culture' is not always a good one.

The main problem I see with the Irish language is that it's pretty irrelevant to the vast majority of the population. When it is relevant, it is only so because of legal requirements - many state related jobs require some form of 'qualification' in Irish, which leads many to do crash courses to pass exams, after which they never use it again.

And those crash courses and requirements are, in my mind, where a lot of the support (active support as opposed to pub nationalism) comes from. There's quite a few people in Ireland who get tax breaks, grants and jobs from it.

Unfortunately, the language is pretty much on life support. No one believes that without vast amounts of government money being pumped into the aforementioned tax breaks, grants and jobs, that it will last long.

The reality of this though is that the language is where it is now, not because of the British, but because of us - and maybe Hollywood. Finnish was on much the same footing as Irish when Finland became independent (again at much the same time as Ireland). They turned it around though.

Saying how it is part of our 'heritage and culture' is not going to change the fact that since independence use of the language has decreased.

so to just push it aside as meaningless is akin to pushing the very essence of irishness aside as meaningless. a nation without its language is a nation without a soul.

What dreadful rubbish. Other than the fact that an Australian would likely punch you for such a statement, you appear to have very little understanding of what a language is.

I suggest you look at the history of English, German, French or Italian. All of these were simply various dialects that were standardized to one national dialect, for administrative reasons. Most Germans didn't speak German, they spoke one of the various Germanic dialects that were knocking around. You see this in particular with those countries that were defined as 'German', but did not become part of the German nation - ever wonder where 'Dutch' came from?

If Irish survives another century, it's not going to do so through jingoism alone. As I said, it's on life support, and as things stand we will eventually pull the plug. Probably quietly and in increments - a law repealed here, a cutback there.

Is it dead? I like to think not. But it will be if the best argument you can come up with is that it is a nation's soul.

ChocolateSauce

OP, we do indeed have a problem with language learning, all English-speaking countries do. IMO, teaching Irish is counter-productive to becoming multi-lingual as you're forcing people to learn a useless language when you could be teaching them something else, like French, German, Spanish, or even Chinese. By forcing them against all logic and will (I say if they want to learn Irish, let them, if they don't, don't force it), you make them resent language learning.

Anything else I might have said has been summed up nicely in the above post.

Dannyboy83

I respect people who do choose to embrace their native tongue, I wouldn't do so however.

I speak Polish and Russian as secondary languages.
I enjoyed learning those languages and frequently have the opportunity to speak in these languages.

I never enjoyed learning Irish.
The language always seemed dead, there was nobody to speak it to.
The way in which its taught in school is very poor, however, it can be hard to argue about this as there is no culture behind the language.
I learned French and German in school and there was a visible culture and visible options behind that language and the excitement of talking to some gorgeous woman in her own language.
It simply doesn't exist for Irish.


Admittedly, I didn't like the language before I did a little travelling.
Then I began to understand why its important to have your own lanuage.

Despite that, I prefer functionality over superficiality, therefore I doubt I would ever make a genuine effort to learn it.

K4t

Soldie wrote: »

I'd wholeheartedly support a complete overhaul of the antiquated secondary school Irish syllabus, but I'd also contend that it should not be a mandatory class. As a matter of fact, I think such measures may even result in something of a mini-revival of the language - given the fact that many people's distaste for the language comes as a result of them associating it with having crappy Irish poets rammed down their throats in secondary school.

I'm in the system atm so I can tell you what it's like from my own experience. I was one of the better students at Irish in primary school but a bad start to secondary school resulted in me doing ordinary level Irish for the LC. I can honestly now say that I would rather have done higher level (and failed miserably) than go through this course. It is hell. We have 6 forty minute classes a week in which we mostly spend our time taking down notes off the board (which we can barely understand) and then learn them. Pages and pages of complete bull ****.
For example, just last week we started doing some oral work. Now oral work is considered a positive aspect of the Irish cirriculum, even among critics. But what some of you may not know is that there is a reading section in the oral where the student must read a passage from a story in the exam for a few minutes. We got our 5 passages (of which you are asked to read one in the exam) and our teacher went through it and told us how the words should be pronounced.
I waited and waited for her to explain the passage. I asked her to but she said you don't need to understand it.
6 forty minutes classes a week of that, compared to every other subject except maths where we only have 5 classes a week.
And just to rub it in our faces, most of us have the same standard of Irish (or even lower in some cases) than we did in Junior Cert.

Oh and the reason we are not a multi bilingual country is because students are introduced to french/german etc. too late. If you go into most french LC classes in the country you'll find no more than five or six students will have a passion for the subject. This is because of a number of factors.

1. French is only introduced to Irish students in secondary school. Although the cirriculum is far superior to the Irish one, it is still too late.

2. French LC classes are of mixed ability compared to Irish which has seperate classes for higher and ordinary. Mixed ability classes (in the majority of cases) means that half of the class are trying to learn a language while the other half are trying not to do anything and cause as much disruption as possible.

Basically, the whole system is completely f**ked.

Camelot wrote: »

Sad thing is Cliste, nothing is going to happen, and I suspect that people will be having conversations like this in twenty years time

They've been arguing this topic since the 1940s so we shouldn't get our hopes up. One sometimes thinks that the gaelgeoirs prefer being the only Irish speakers and want to keep it that way!

This 3% figure has been used frequently in this thread. I think it represents the amount of households in which Irish is spoken. I can tell you one thing, the other sane 97% see Irish as a dead language. It's been dead for a long time too.