Is it no really time to assess how much the irish language costs us all?

Euro_Kraut

Wicknight wrote: »

Basically it is a massive waste of money.

Think of all the trips we could have sent John O'Donaghue on with that €30,000:eek:

LimeFruitGum

Taxipete29 wrote: »

The wrong question is being asked here. The question is why did it cost €30k to be translated in the first place?? Surely this could be acheived at a much lower cost and why if there is a requirement for these documents to be produced in Irish is there not someone working within every council and government department who can translate them??

I can answer this one

Yes, all civil service bodies have an Irish language officer, who can do small translations themselves and ensures the body is compliant with the act and answer Irish language correspondance. Translating the odd note is OK, but these people are not qualified or trained translators who could handle a complex report like Clare CoCo's one.

I think it works out cheaper to outsource a translation than to hire an in-house translator full-time. A report like that would take around 1-2 months to translate, QA and publish.
I'm not sure of the finer details here, but I think any project over a certain amount of words has to be put out for public tender.
Usually you quote a price per word for translation and then add review time (generally charged by the hour)

desertcircus

There seems to be a problem with perception here. The original poster suggested it might be time to reassess spending on Irish, and several people decided that he actually meant he wanted no money whatsoever given. Stop setting up straw men. And incidentally, thinking of Chinese and Polish as more important and relevant than Irish isn't that mad an idea when you live and work nowhere near a Gaeltacht area. I work with Chinese, Moldovan, Russian and Polish colleagues and customers. I have never in my career met someone who used Irish only, or even primarily.

Another thing: it's weird and unpleasant to blame an infatuation with foreigners for the state Irish finds itself in. For a start, it comes across as being borderline racist eve if it's not intended that way, and at any rate it's not as if Irish was doing great until non-nationals started appearing in large numbers. Ask anyone over forty who had to live with Peig Sayers.

The main point I want to make:

I don't think understanding Irish is culturally essential - you can be as Irish as anyone else without speaking the language. It's a regional language, not a national one - the majority of the population wouldn't notice if all Irish-language services were stopped tomorrow. With that in mind, we can certainly accept that while funding is no bad thing, there should be some discussion of exactly how much is appropriate - which is where the thread comes in.

I don't see why, when somebody brings up an entirely rational question - the cost-effectiveness of current Irish language policy - it should be shot down as if it's mad. The budget is horribly out, and the recommendations being made for cuts are serious across the board. Assuming we're only willing to withstand a certain level of taxation, we spend a limited budget on the assumption that any decrease in any one place is the least socially damaging one that can be made - or at least that's what we shoot for.

Cultural spending I actually have very little problem with - but having every act of officialdom translated into a language only 3% of the population use as their primary tongue smacks of overspending. Doing a translation-on-request system for these kind of documents when somebody can show a need would subtract precisely nothing from the cultural life of the country, and save money that could be used to lessen cuts elsewhere. Why is that so hard to accept as a policy?

The reality: it is entirely possible to be Irish without speaking or reading a word of Irish. Speaking English isn't kowtowing to the hated British (and seriously, what's that about? Still angry about the Brits?). We need to recognise that we're incredibly lucky to live in a country where we all learn a hyperlanguage of immense use. The reason Irish is such a minority language in Ireland is because English is immeasurably more useful - we can immediately understand the discussions of dozens of countries around the world, we can communicate in ESL countries from France to India, and it's because of THAT that we gravitate so strongly towards English. Forget any nonsense about us wanting to be Brits - it's a worthless argument.

mike65

Thats so sound a post I'm giving it a +1

Permabear

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Sand

@Dlofnep

Blame the Irish language for all the woes in Ireland. How original. Why not aim that at the real causes - shady bankers and shady politicians. Not an ancient and historical language.

The Irish language is a distinct part of our nation, and an as an official language in this country - it must be catered for. It is unique to this Island.

Look here lads, watch a master at work. See how the substance of the post being replied to is ignored? Instead, the poster diverts onto ground where they feel safer?

No longer is it a question of whether the amount of money we spend on aspirational projects like Irish is best spent when we are cutting back on life and death medical tests for Irish children. No. That is not comfortable ground.

Instead, lets move the debate to "Wouldnt it be nice if we all spoke Irish? Yeah, thatd be nice. Heres a blank cheque to spend on that nice aspiration."

Yeah, itd be great if we all wore Aran sweaters, danced at the crossroads and could ignore what was posted in Irish as well as English. Come back to me when you are ready to discuss just how *critical* you think open ended drunken sailor spending on Irish is when spending on cancer tests for children is being cut back.

I would like to see an Irish language centre in every major town and city in this country,

Yeah, Id like to see the streets paved with gold but theres a finite amount in the budget and an infinite amount of "I would like to see..." projects out there so I tend to give greater weight to the cancer tests for kids. Sue me.

starbelgrade

lmimmfn wrote: »

i dont care, the irish language is dear to me, you guys might not give a crap but i do coming from a Gaeltacht
.

It's not like you or anyone else from the Gaeltacht can't speak English. And it's not like everyone else doesn't give a crap about the Irish language or indeed Irish culture, but the fact of the matter is, that for the vast majority of the country, it is essentially a dead language & we have a right to question what it costs most of us when it has very little value to us - whether in recession or not.

Euro_Kraut

donegalfella wrote: »

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Of course the number speaking the language has declined over the last 100 years. I think you are using that a straw man. I am not claiming otherwise.

But do you in principle support state intervention to support the revival of the language?

Permabear

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starbelgrade

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

But do you in principle support state intervention to support the revival of the language?

You'd have better results from flogging a dead horse. Plus it'd cost less.

Permabear

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Soldie

donegalfella wrote: »

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The parable of the Aran sweater.

starbelgrade

How much money is spent/ wasted on teaching Irish to kids who will never use it / don't care about it?

The cash spent on printing books of Peig alone could probably foot the NAMA bill.

cyclopath2001

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

But do you in principle support state intervention to support the revival of the language?

No.

Any revival must come from within the community and be sustained by it. It does not need huge amounts of money or state interferance.

Irish needs goodwill and that cannot be bought.

What next, paying people to be Catholic?

daithicarr

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

Think of all the trips we could have sent John O'Donaghue on with that €30,000:eek:

1 trip abroad or almost three sets of curtains ?

on the topic of irish spending, many people seem to think Irish is a dead or defunct language beacue they dont here it spoken openly all the time.
Irish is spoken in and outside the gaeltacht between groups of people who know each other to be irish speakers or in places which also operate through irish (clubs , societies etc) , people are not going to go around to shops and banks trying to speak in irish when the likelyhood is the other person they are dealing with doesnt speak it. its not a dead language , its a minority spoken language.

as for the spending, it does seem a trifle wastefull to spend this on a report no one wanted, but then id didnt say how much was spent on the neglish language version either, it could also have been highly wastefull.
In my opinion the money could be better used providing classes, or more intresting literature in irish or go towards providing places where irish can be spoken in public.

Support of the language is still strong desbite the terrible manner in which they teach it, so as its going to be continued to be supported for the forseeable future, maybe it is more important to look at how the money is spent in relation to how it achieves it aims. promotion of the language.

ei.sdraob

lmimmfn wrote: »

i dont care, the irish language is dear to me, you guys might not give a crap but i do coming from a Gaeltacht

While we witchhunt for overspending at least have a bit of respect for our culture.

so why dont you offer your free time to translate?

ot for that matter we have teachers who are unemployed now, and loads of people, can any of them volunteer??

Permabear

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Euro_Kraut

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

What next, paying people to be Catholic?

Yes you are right that is the only logic conlusion to state support for the Irish langauge.:rolleyes:

deisebabe

I think its ridiculous spending so much on translation. The government departments outsource this. yet there is jobs that are advertised for irish speaking people only. Why not have some of these Irish speakers translate the documents?

Every document and road sign etc should have the Irish translation. We haven't much of our heritage left. We should be trying to conserve as much as possible at the same time as encouraging its use.

I just wish more had been done when I was in school to promote irish, rather than the awful way of teaching that was employed in my primary school, where Irish was portrayed as a useless language that you just had to plough through.

Funglegunk

If I were an Irish translator I would fully support this, nice way to butter the aul bread.

Did I read correctly that the Official Languages Act requires documents like this to be translated? That is pretty stupid and despicably wasteful. How is this preserving the Irish culture?

Remember the old days when the family used to gather around the fire and the seanachaí, in between puffs of his old wooden pipe, with the familiar smell of his tobacco filling the room, would tell us about his adventures drafting a development plan for Clare County? Didn't think so.

O'Morris

donegalfella wrote:

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The point is to encourage high standards in use of the language. If the government doesn't spend hundreds of thousands on proffessional translators and on Irish-language literature then people will have less incentive to study Irish at third-level. That will lead to a decline in standards. I'd much rather see a small minority capable of producing high quality prose as gaeilge than see the majority speak and write a bastardised and outdated version of the language.

donegalfella wrote:

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As an Irish nationalist I want to see money being spent on promoting high standards in use of the Irish language. That's why I don't have a major problem with the millions being spent to support the work of professional Irish-language translators and Irish-language writers. I don't have a major problem with seeing millions being spent on promoting high standards in the use of English either. I think the emphasis should always be on quality rather than quantity.

Permabear

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thebman

The crazy reality is the government don't even want to revive this language. They don't want it to be the first language of the people of this country IMHO.

You know why, we speak English! It is a massive advantage to us to have it as our primary language (and it is for most people even if it isn't official). And if anything we should be learning another mainland European language fluently IMO so Irish people can travel to mainland Europe and get jobs there with our knowledge of their language and fluent English, we'd do well in business over there if more people could speak German fluently.

A language isn't a culture and even if it was, cultures evolve and our culture has evolved without Irish as the agenda has been mismanged for years. There is no turning this back IMO. It will always a language used for special occassions and little else for the majority in Ireland. We should accept that and move on. Cultures evolve and I can't see how you can change something on that scale by writing a few books nobody reads or making it mandatory to sit in a room where someone tries to teach it for a few years. Nobody in any Irish class I have ever been in actually seemed to enjoy the language except a few people at the top of the higher level class who thought it was great fun when abroad to insult people in Irish so they wouldn't understand them.

I can't even remember the last time I heard anyone speak Irish that wasn't on TV.

O'Morris

donegalfella wrote:

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It's incentivizing the writers to write their books. Without the state funding they would be less likely to write in Irish.

donegalfella wrote:

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That's because the number of career options for people with Irish degrees is limited. If you reduce the demand for translation services then you will limit the number of options further.

donegalfella wrote:

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I was expecting the cancer vaccine to get a mention.

The point I was making about spending on the language was a general one about spending on the language in general - not about spending on the language during the recession. I've argued in previous threads that spending on the Irish language and spending on foreign aid should be suspended until the economy recovers. Once the economy recovers and we do have the money to invest in the language though I think we should invest it in producing high quality output. If we remove the funding for translation and for Irish-language literature then I think we can expect to see a decline in standards that would be as damaging to the language as the decline in the number of people regularly speaking it.

dlofnep

Sand wrote: »

@Dlofnep
Look here lads, watch a master at work. See how the substance of the post being replied to is ignored? Instead, the poster diverts onto ground where they feel safer?

Nonsense. The poster was trying to divert all the blame for lack of good healthcare on the Irish language. It was unfair, and typical hyperbole.

Sand wrote: »

No longer is it a question of whether the amount of money we spend on aspirational projects like Irish is best spent when we are cutting back on life and death medical tests for Irish children. No. That is not comfortable ground.

I'm perfectly comfortable with discussing it - but not when people are eager to look past the real cause of economic problems in Ireland, and instead focusing the entire blame on a language.

I see you've also conveniently look past the important point that many countries across the world are multilingual - with people who speak minority languages with even less penetration than Irish. They respect that the individual languages are apart of their country, but yet - the same old brigade come on here and attack the Irish language.

Not once did I ever see any of you attack the cost of translations into Polish. It is a distinct agenda for most posters in this thread, which is essentially anti-celtic, for lack of better words. Anytime you can have a good old bash against anything remotely related to Irish culture, or Irish self-preservation - you will. I don't think you are motivated whatsoever by the health-care of children (which is an admirable motivation), but rather just jumping on the anti-Irish bandwagon.

Sand wrote: »

Yeah, itd be great if we all wore Aran sweaters, danced at the crossroads and could ignore what was posted in Irish as well as English. Come back to me when you are ready to discuss just how *critical* you think open ended drunken sailor spending on Irish is when spending on cancer tests for children is being cut back.

I will when you are willing to accept that this country is not economically crippled because of the Irish language. Irish uses up a portion of our tax like many other things - but a healthy economy is able to support such things. But when you have a Ceann Comhairle taking limos from one part of the airport to another - and our health minister spending over €400 to wash her hair - these are the real issues that are impacting our health service.

There should be a proportional amount of funding towards the Irish language, but we will never agree on what the amount is - as the anti-Irish brigade don't actually want the language to be supported, and the Irish language community do. It's a never-ending circle of nonsense.

For now, you're going to have to accept that Ireland - like many other countries around the world supports more than one language. This is not an issue in Wales, nor is it in Scotland. It is not an issue in Spain, nor is it in Switzerland.

Irish is not a dead language, and has seen a massive surge in the past 10-20 years and it will continue to surge. The fact that Gaelscoilenna are popping up all over the country is a testament to the demand for Irish.

RedPlanet

dlofnep wrote: »

Not once did I ever see any of you attack the cost of translations into Polish. It is a distinct agenda for most posters in this thread, which is essentially anti-celtic, for lack of better words.

Actually i think the phrase your looking for is: it's Anglo-normative.
Yes i'm coining that phrase.
But seriously, i agree with the naysayers on this one, the Irish language needs to be taken off life-support. You can't suspend a language in time, either it grows and evolves or it dies or it morphs into something else.

Permabear

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murphaph

Taxipete29 wrote: »

For those playing the money could be better spent card, we have consistently thrown money at the health service for years with little improvement. The amount of money there is not the problem and everyone knows it.

Pete, that's exactly the SAME problem. Money is wasted on these translations for documents nobody has any interest in and money is wasted in the HSE on a grand scale. Both issues need sorting.

murphaph

desertcircus wrote: »

There seems to be a problem with perception here. The original poster suggested it might be time to reassess spending on Irish, and several people decided that he actually meant he wanted no money whatsoever given. Stop setting up straw men.

Cheers. Glad somebody noticed amidst all the blind indignation of the Gaeilgoirs. Spend the blasted money on irish for all I care, just spend it on something bloody useful that actually fosters the language, not on useless translations of cryptic official documents that most people have absolutely no interest in and can read in english it they really want to.

How many Gaeltacht excursions for kids could be paid for with the money blown on having language officers and stupid translations in place. If we actually spent the money wisely, we could dispense with language officers as enough people would be able to well, SPEAK Irish effectively when they have left school!!

It's no different from saying we should consolidate the IT departments across the HSE and fire a load of their useless 'managers' to improve the service at the chalk face, but when you mention Irish people get needlessly emotive and indignant :rolleyes:

daithicarr

donegalfella wrote: »

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The point is that people want the language to be continued to be taught and funded, but that the method in which this is done could be more carefully examined. is it having the desired effect.
Does this expenditure help in any way towards the promotion of irish as a spoken language ? probably no this particular expenditure doesn't. but could it possibly be that it is the fault of those who miss spend the money, as they seem to in other fields , rather than the fault of the language.

As for the 76 copies sold, perhaps they were just terrible books, I am sure there are many other Irish books sold in this country, how much money was spent on books which did sell etc.

It is less the languages fault , but more the teaching methods fault, people learn Irish and a third Language, equally few are competent in french, spanish, german etc. Since nobody learnt it should we scrap the teaching of them as well? or perhaps revise the methods used.
And While those languages may be more commercially useful, one could argue that the populations of those country's generally speak English quite well, so maybe the whole world just learns english and we can save a few quid not teaching foreign languages as well.