Is Irish a dead language?

SeanW

deise go deo wrote: »

So let me see, you dont beleive there is a legitimate basis for Irish to be Compulsory. Would this be at any stage of school? I assume you extend this concept to all subjects? Otherwise it would be pure hypocrisy.

I would extend it to EVERYTHING bar mathematics. Make everything (save Maths as previously said) elective fully throughout Secondary School. Provide a wider range of choice particularly in larger schools, English, Irish, European languages, Oriental languages (the Chinese are going to take over the world anyway), Geography, Sciences, Information Technology etc.

aDeener

donegalfella wrote: »

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yet, despite this, you are bizarrely in favour of keeping english mandatory for LC :rolleyes:

aDeener

SeanW wrote: »

I would extend it to EVERYTHING bar mathematics. Make everything (save Maths as previously said) elective fully throughout Secondary School. Provide a wider range of choice particularly in larger schools, English, Irish, European languages, Oriental languages (the Chinese are going to take over the world anyway), Geography, Sciences, Information Technology etc.

i would be of your belief, although i think economics is vital too

P. Breathnach

To return to the question of Irish literature: I think Endiku has focused on high art literature (and I am accepting that some of the material under discussion is not literature in the narrowest sense) and has not paid as much attention to other forms as I think they merit.

In particular, the amhrán is a form that merits respect and could command the interest of students. It would help greatly if it were not treated narrowly as "poetry" (as I encountered it at school) but as song where the narrative is very important (as I encountered it in pubs and house parties in Connemara). Úna Bhán and Dónal Óg and Máirín de Barra are wonderful and beautiful elements of our cultural heritage.

There is also cultural value in other verse forms, including the caoineadh (lament) and the aor (satire).

Enkidu

P. Breathnach wrote: »

To return to the question of Irish literature: I think Endiku has focused on high art literature (and I am accepting that some of the material under discussion is not literature in the narrowest sense) and has not paid as much attention to other forms as I think they merit.

Guilty as charged I'll admit! I don't have much personal experience with it.

P. Breathnach

Enkidu wrote: »

Guilty as charged I'll admit! I don't have much personal experience with it.

If you find the time and opportunity, there is treasure there for you to find.

daithicarr

donegalfella wrote: »

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Do you have any evidence to back up this claim that only a minority support it, previously evidence has been given which supports the contrary, however you refute this as lies by people with an agenda without providing any evidence of how its inaccurate and certainly no evidence at all that a large majority don't care for Irish.

Permabear

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RandomName2

There is no real need to speak Irish. Any need is based on red-tape bureaucracy and fake rules. What option does the average Joe have? I didn't want to do Irish for LC but had no real choice in the matter.

If the enforced Irish policy were withdrawn there would be no need for anyone to learn it. I won't say 'speak', because that doesn't happen anyway; apart from a handful of people who genuinely love Irish (who I am surprised would not hate what is being done to their language) - and also a couple of pedants who whitter on about their culture and smile smugly when other people can't understand them. Oh, and Sinn Fein (who just use a coupla focal as a nod to cultural nationalism)

Pat D. Almighty

RandomName2 wrote: »

There is no real need to speak Irish. Any need is based on red-tape bureaucracy and fake rules.

Eh....what?

P. Breathnach

RandomName2 wrote: »

There is no real need to speak Irish. Any need is based on red-tape bureaucracy and fake rules....

You can say the same about speaking English or any other language. It's not a question of a need to use a language, but a right to use it. I know families where the primary language in the home is Irish, and that is the way they want it. Are we to order our public life so that it is biased against their wishes? Would that not amount to "fake rules"?

... I won't say 'speak', because that doesn't happen anyway; apart from a handful of people who genuinely love Irish...

That handful of people amounts to some tens of thousands, the majority of whom live in Irish-speaking communities.

and also a couple of pedants who whitter on about their culture and smile smugly when other people can't understand them....

Perhaps I am one of your pedants, as I speak Irish fairly well as a second language and identify quite strongly with the cultural heritage that is involved. If I happen to smile, how can you know whether or not I am feeling smug? Why should you have any feelings about my occasional use of Irish?

It's an odd phenomenon that gaeltacht people (with, admittedly, some exceptions) are not very hostile to people who are seen as imposing English on them. To illustrate: I was in the gaeltacht recently, and encountered a local man walking with a small child who, I learned, was his grandson. He stopped to converse with me and, as I was a "stróinséir", he used English on the supposition that I did not speak Irish. After a minute or two, the child said something in Irish and I responded to him. Only then did his grandfather use any Irish. Where is the language oppression there?

You might also see why many people think that there is little Irish spoken in the gaeltacht: locals generally default to English in the presence of strangers, and do it as a courtesy.

Enkidu

P. Breathnach wrote: »

You might also see why many people think that there is little Irish spoken in the gaeltacht: locals generally default to English in the presence of strangers, and do it as a courtesy.

I've noticed that as well. I was near Kilkerrin once and talking to a few people, all of whom were speaking English. Even people passing by me, near the pub, were speaking English. When I tried Irish, obviously the group I was speaking to switched to Irish, but also people walking by continued to speak Irish. I found it very odd, that my English speaking was causing not only those near me to switch language, but also people within earshot.

P. Breathnach

Enkidu wrote: »

I've noticed that as well. I was near Kilkerrin once and talking to a few people, all of whom were speaking English. Even people passing by me, near the pub, were speaking English. When I tried Irish, obviously the group I was speaking to switched to English[*], but also people walking by continued to speak Irish. I found it very odd, that my English speaking was causing not only those near me to switch language, but also people within earshot.

I marked what I presume is a typo: [*].

I envisage sunshine, no cars moving, things happening at a gentle pace, and see a scene that Myles na gCopaleen would have been happy to use.

Enkidu

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I marked what I presume is a typo:
[*].

I envisage sunshine, no cars moving, things happening at a gentle pace, and see a scene that Myles na gCopaleen would have been happy to use.

Yes, that was a typo, corrected. It was a bit strange. Of course people were talking Irish away from the group, but near me people did switch to English, even if not talking to me. Although I've seen research into this that some very small proportion of people is all it takes for an Irish speaking atmosphere to change into an English speaking one.

deise go deo

In my expereince it just feels like you are being unfair if you speak Irish around someone who you know dosent understand what you are saying.

In the ciorcal comhrá I am in there was a lad a while back who dident have any Irish(or much Intrest in Irish)

It was hard to keep talking in Irish knowing he hadent a clue what was being said. It felt like you were leaving him out.

RandomName2

Pat D. Almighty wrote: »

Eh....what?

In two decades I have had no need to use it. In fact apart from the necessity of spending time on it for Leaving Cert at the expense of my other studies I have spent no time on it. I have attempted to eradicate the terribly produced literature which accompanied the Irish curriculum (although to be fair it was a bit better in the LC than it had been before). If public funding was withdrawn from Irish, there would be no money to be 'made' from Irish.

I knew a German artist who wanted to teach his art but was not allowed on the grounds that he could not speak Irish. Of course he never met anybody who could understand Irish and not English, as such a person does not exist.

RandomName2

P. Breathnach wrote: »

You can say the same about speaking English or any other language. It's not a question of a need to use a language, but a right to use it. I know families where the primary language in the home is Irish, and that is the way they want it. Are we to order our public life so that it is biased against their wishes? Would that not amount to "fake rules"?


That handful of people amounts to some tens of thousands, the majority of whom live in Irish-speaking communities.


Perhaps I am one of your pedants, as I speak Irish fairly well as a second language and identify quite strongly with the cultural heritage that is involved. If I happen to smile, how can you know whether or not I am feeling smug? Why should you have any feelings about my occasional use of Irish?

It's an odd phenomenon that gaeltacht people (with, admittedly, some exceptions) are not very hostile to people who are seen as imposing English on them. To illustrate: I was in the gaeltacht recently, and encountered a local man walking with a small child who, I learned, was his grandson. He stopped to converse with me and, as I was a "stróinséir", he used English on the supposition that I did not speak Irish. After a minute or two, the child said something in Irish and I responded to him. Only then did his grandfather use any Irish. Where is the language oppression there?

You might also see why many people think that there is little Irish spoken in the gaeltacht: locals generally default to English in the presence of strangers, and do it as a courtesy.

Well that was politeness. But actually, I think that Gaeltacht areas perhaps should be made a bit separate. These areas should be considered primarily Irish speaking areas, and treated as such (and the laws of the areas should reflect that).

Outside of these areas I think Ireland should be considered an English speaking area.

I assume you wouldn't be one of these pedants; unless you deliberately approached people in the east of Ireland, talking Irish, and treated them as not properly Irish if they happened not to understand you.

But people can speak whatever they like within their own homes. They can believe whatever they like, too. There is a difference, though, when you force your culture, which in all honesty is a minority, on other people.

Also on a historic basis I am surprised that Irish speakers like the 'modifications' made to the language by public servants... and what seems like an over-bias of the Ulster dialect.

Rebelheart

RandomName2 wrote: »

There is no real need to speak Irish. Any need is based on red-tape bureaucracy and fake rules. What option does the average Joe have? I didn't want to do Irish for LC but had no real choice in the matter.

If the enforced Irish policy were withdrawn there would be no need for anyone to learn it. I won't say 'speak', because that doesn't happen anyway; apart from a handful of people who genuinely love Irish (who I am surprised would not hate what is being done to their language) - and also a couple of pedants who whitter on about their culture and smile smugly when other people can't understand them. Oh, and Sinn Fein (who just use a coupla focal as a nod to cultural nationalism)

And I didn't really want to do English or maths in the Leaving but I had no real choice in the matter.

I'm still waiting for my knowledge of Shakespeare, Austin and the rest of those oh-so-gay blowhards to be of benefit to my career. Wafflers of the highest order - not forgetting, of course, that William Shakespeare is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest plagiarists in the history of literature. I'm also waiting for the calculus, trigonometry, quadratic equations and all the rest of that pointless nonsense for Leaving Cert maths to be of benefit to my career. Yet I was forced to do them by the "red-tape bureaucracy" and "fake rules" that you speak of regarding Irish. What option did I have? None. All the maths that I've ever needed - i.e. for day-to-day calculations - I learnt long before the Leaving Cert.

mikemac

Rebelheart wrote: »

I'm also waiting for the calculus, trigonometry, quadratic equations and all the rest of that pointless nonsense for Leaving Cert maths to be of benefit to my career. Yet I was forced to do them by the "red-tape bureaucracy" and "fake rules" that you speak of regarding Irish. What option did I have? None. All the maths that I've ever needed - i.e. for day-to-day calculations - I learnt long before the Leaving Cert.

And that is all most people ever need.
But it's not pointless nonsense. People in certain roles in banks use them, odds makers and risk managers in companies like Paddy Power do as do actuaries who calculate your insurance premium.

Pointless nonsense as you don't see a benefit to it but some people do well with it and then take it further at 3rd level.

Maybe all subjects should be options, no mandatory. I'm not sure.

But I don't dismiss anything as readily as that

Rebelheart

donegalfella wrote: »

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True to form you omitted all the positive comments from your "survey", Donegallfella. Well done.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yes, and once again Shakespeare and your chosen English-language wafflers have a practical application in the lives of the average person after Leaving Cert? You are seriously deluded if you really believe that. And I can just see millions of Irish people using quadratic equations and calculus as I type....

But, in your hatred of the Irish language, you continue to keep your head in the sand on the utter irrelevancy of the English and maths curricula to the daily lives of the vast majority of people after they finish the Leaving Cert.

Permabear

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Rebelheart

feelingstressed wrote: »

And that is all most people ever need.
But it's not pointless nonsense. People in certain roles in banks use them, odds makers and risk managers in companies like Paddy Power do as do actuaries who calculate your insurance premium.

Pointless nonsense as you don't see a benefit to it but some people do well with it and then take it further at 3rd level.

Maybe all subjects should be options, no mandatory. I'm not sure.

But I don't dismiss anything as readily as that

Exactly my point; I put forward the same argument against the English and maths syllabi in the Leaving Cert which the other poster put against the Irish syllabus. It works both ways, but people here single out the Irish syllabus as being uniquely useless. That's factually incorrect, or at best an utterly subjective argument.

Maths, for example, is of use to some occupations but when the subject is made compulsory people who have no intention of going down that route are still forced to learn it. For them, it is pointless. Most Irish people do not choose careers where a knowledge of maths is needed to the level of Leaving Cert calculus, quadratic equations or the like. What's sauce for the goose ....

Laminations

Rebelheart wrote: »

Yes, and once again Shakespeare and your chosen English-language wafflers have a practical application in the lives of the average person after Leaving Cert?

I'd also like a reply on this DF. I'd like to know what practical application studying English literature has? Isn't that what your doctorate is in? And how are you applying that knowledge/skill? In fact are you productive, is your skill utilised to produce anything? you will call for pay restraint and cuts but don't you live off investment earnings? Do you actually contribute anything, other than being a cog in the market correction mechanism you see as the only regulation anything every needs.

RandomName2

Rebelheart wrote: »

And I didn't really want to do English or maths in the Leaving but I had no real choice in the matter.

I'm still waiting for my knowledge of Shakespeare, Austin and the rest of those oh-so-gay blowhards to be of benefit to my career. Wafflers of the highest order - not forgetting, of course, that William Shakespeare is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest plagiarists in the history of literature. I'm also waiting for the calculus, trigonometry, quadratic equations and all the rest of that pointless nonsense for Leaving Cert maths to be of benefit to my career. Yet I was forced to do them by the "red-tape bureaucracy" and "fake rules" that you speak of regarding Irish. What option did I have? None. All the maths that I've ever needed - i.e. for day-to-day calculations - I learnt long before the Leaving Cert.

You have never used English since your Leaving Certificate?

No, okay, okay, maths should probably be made optional for leaving certificate (the only worry is that people wouldn't bother about it much at JC on the grounds that they would not be using it at LC)

Rebelheart

RandomName2 wrote: »

You have never used English since your Leaving Certificate?

No, okay, okay, maths should probably be made optional for leaving certificate (the only worry is that people wouldn't bother about it much at JC on the grounds that they would not be using it at LC)

I have no problem with all three subjects being compulsory up to Junior Cert. Providing - and this is a big proviso- that the respective syllabi were changed dramatically to practical spoken Irish and English (how many people still leave school saying "I done", "I seen", and the like?) and making the aim of maths to calculate faster and more efficiently.


But I'm still at a loss to understand how knowledge of Shakespeare, Keats, Austen or the like - who constitute the Leaving Cert English syllabus - will benefit the vast majority of people after they do the Leaving Cert. What an abject waste of my time to have to read them. I still find Jane Austen, to take one of many, to be an absolutely frivolous pointless little girl with not much of an imagination or life. Not to mention seriously neurotic. My old neighbours have far more engaging life stories and an infinitely more colourful and entertaining command of language.

Rebelheart

donegalfella wrote: »

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Considering there are, as a matter of historical record, no reliable statistics on this issue prior to the Famine once again you are just making it up as you go along to fit into your prejudice. That you persist in treating a (patently ridiculous) claim in 1799 as authoritative does not bode well for your academic pretensions.

Permabear

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P. Breathnach

RandomName2 wrote: »

... I assume you wouldn't be one of these pedants; unless you deliberately approached people in the east of Ireland, talking Irish, and treated them as not properly Irish if they happened not to understand you.

But people can speak whatever they like within their own homes. They can believe whatever they like, too. There is a difference, though, when you force your culture, which in all honesty is a minority, on other people.

But here's the rub: people in the gaeltacht are approached by people from the English-speaking population of Ireland, and are expected to deal with them in English. That means that we don't have equivalent expectations of English speakers. If a woman from Carna in Dublin should speak English, should not the Dubliner in Carna speak Irish?

We are considering a problem that does not have a simple solution.

Also on a historic basis I am surprised that Irish speakers like the 'modifications' made to the language by public servants... and what seems like an over-bias of the Ulster dialect.

Gaeltacht people don't pay any great attention to the caighdeán oifigiúil or the neologisms created for them in committee rooms in Dublin. They have more important things to be worrying about, such as the likelihood of rain.

Laminations

P. Breathnach wrote: »

But here's the rub: people in the gaeltacht are approached by people from the English-speaking population of Ireland, and are expected to deal with them in English. That means that we don't have equivalent expectations of English speakers. If a woman from Carna in Dublin should speak English, should not the Dubliner in Carna speak Irish?

This is unique to English but applicable to more than just Irish speakers. When people are in Spain or Germany many times they will speak English (all be it slower and more patronising) to communicate rather than the native language. English should be seen as more of an international language with countries or areas preserving their native tongue as they see fit, but you can never expect too much in the foreign language fluency department from English speakers

Permabear

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