The Status Of Irish.

Dannyboy83

deise go deo wrote: »

Firstly, there are far more than a small hand ful of jobs available In Irish.

Irish state is bankrupt.
30k jobs on the guillotine block, that's just for starters.

Non-necessities will get it in the neck first.
Which is a luxury and which is a necessity?
A) Cervical cancer vaccines,
Cancer screening facilites
C) Money for the ILL (Irish language lobby)

Secondly, I think you are overestimating how many jobs require someone to make deals with other countrys. Secondly, How many people do you think learn a forrighn language and then use it to work in that country? It just dosent happen to any significant degree.

You know our immigration rate.....remember it exploded from 2004?
Well, English is not the native language of the vast majority of those immigrants.

Have you ever travelled outside the British Isles?

Well thats the problem with personal experience. It rarely gives an accurate reflection of the wider situation.

This is the point that numerous posters have been trying to communicate to you.
I know that you understand, but you are of course pretending not to.

Difficult, Not Impossible. Many universitys around the World offer courses either in or that have a moduel in Irish, There is Even a Gaelthacht in Canada.

An optional module, right?

That is not hard to follow at all, I can clearly see where you are coming from, I just happen to disagree with you.

Luckily Brian Hayes doesn't;)

Three,(English Being One)
The Reason I think Irish should remain Compulsory as well as English is that A) It has benifits beyond other (European)languages in Educational terms,

In that case, why not teach Lithuanian?
Oldest Indo-European language, root language of many.
Or Latin, by far the most beneficial language in Europe - open the door to Slavic, Romance, Germanic, etc. etc.

and People want The Emphsis on learning Irish to Stay at its current level, or Be Increased.

And optional, according to the same survey you are referencing.

Irish people are open to Irish
People open to Irish are open to making Irish optional
Therefore, Irish people are open to making Irish optional

The Reason I say that people are open to it is that People not being open to it has been cited as a reason to make it Optional.

But the states prove that people are open to making it optional, according to that same survery you are referencing.

The reasons to keep it Compulsory in those two years are delt with in the article I linked to in the OP, Its to do with status, I think that it has been clearly shown that people want Irish to be preserved/promoted, When asked in a survey 93% were in favour of this, The vast majority in a secont survey want to Keep the same emphsis on or increase the Emphsis on Irish in the education system. I would like to know how you propose to achieve this if Irish is made optional.

Your point is a paradox.
Statement: 93% want Irish to be compulsory in order for Irish to be preserved promoted.
Condition: Irish cannot be made optional because, due to status reasons, less than 93% will comply

0+0=Fallacy
0+1=Fallacy
1+0=Fallacy
1+1=Tautology

That's a paradox Deise.

Gaelscoileanna are a seprate Issue, I did not cite them to support compulsion in Schools, though they do show that interest in Irish is growing rather than declining and would play an important role in promoting a bi-lingual nation if Irish was kept as a compulsory subject in schools(with the necessary curriculum reforms)

Your postulation is flawed in that the increase of NON-IRISH speaking people increased from 2.1 million in 2002 to 2.6 million in 2006.
In terms of bi-lingualism (that is fluent speakers of two languages), Irish is far from 1st place on the Island.

English/Polish, English/Mandarin, English/Russian, English/Hausa, English/Arabic,

p.s.
Are you aware that the native speaking population is declining?
i.e. emigration

The supports for making Ireland a Bi-Lingual nation do not exist in any other second language.

I'm going to reply to the meaning I think you intended to convey, rather than the actual meaning you conveyed.

That's incorrect.
Irish actually offers the least flexibility of European languages, in that there is no external pool to draw on.

Furthermore, the structures which currently exist through Irish are
A) Artificial, state supported
Painstakingly Home grown

And since we are moving into the realm of fantasy anyway - why not ask Jacque Chirac for support to make French the second language of Ireland?

France would pay out of it's own exchequer to subsidize the language in Ireland, if we amend our constitution and simply put the structure in place.
Vive le Francophone.

Supports such as state services provided through Irish, Irish classes being provided across the country outside the Education system, Organisations like CnaG, Glor na nGeal, Comhludar, The Cultúrlanns in NI that work to devolop the language both in their own community and nationally.

These organisation have failed fantastically at developing bi-lingualism in the form or Irish over the last 90 years.

How many fluent speakers again?
100k at optimistic estimates?
After 90 years?

Not so much a support system as a suppression system.

This also ignores the fact that every pupil in the country can take a cheap ryanair flight 60mins across the water and be completely immersed in another language - impossible to achieve with Irish currently and for the forseeable future.

The vast majority of Irish people will not emigrate, not to mention emigrate to France. So it is their usefulness in this country that that is relevant, Now in this country, the safe money bet is not on French, Its on Irish.

A) Irish is of little use in this country and not even 1/100th of the 55,000 pupils sitting the leaving every year are guaranteed a job through Irish.
So that renders that argument impotent.

Are you seriously asserting that France is the only country where French is spoken?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_internationale_de_la_Francophonie

C)
[cough]
http://www.insideireland.ie/index.cfm/section/News/ext/emmigration001/category/893
[/cough]

Dont get me wrong, I think it is very important that in addition to Irish and English that a forighn language should be learnt, But I think that Irish is justified as one of the Plus Two.

If it's optional, I agree.

Secondly, Irish is more benifical when it comes to learning further languages than French.

No, it isn't.
How did you come to this conclusion?

English shares a vast number of cognates with French dating back to 1066. Therefore, it's a natural progression for an English speaker to move to French as their next language.

Your are claiming that Irish is more beneficial than other languages because it's distinctly different from other languages.
If it doesn't apply to Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian - why does it apply to Irish?

Not at all, The main concern is that if language learning is made optional then language learning and Irish along with them colapse, If all was fair and a language had to be studied then I think Irish would do quite well, The biggest concern in that case is its curriculum,(Which is the biggest concern anyway) Which would drive people from the subject as it just dosent work.

Captain Contradiction.
Keep it up - Irish people are not imbeciles, they see right through this - you are empowering Brian Hayes with this stuff.:)

Care to show me somthing to back this up. Call centers are low paying jobs are they not, Hardly likely to attract people with several languages.

Oh lawd!
oh lawd Deise! Just OH LAWWWWD.

Where do I start with that statement?
Have you ever worked in a call centre? (I have)
You get a bonus for every extra European language you speak fluently, discluding Irish.

You know vast chunks of Europe are tri-lingual - many of them in low paying jobs?
(Srsly, you need to do a bit of travelling or try to meet more foreigners)

I dont see why you feel the need to point out that Irish is not very useful for getting a job in a call center, I never suggested it was.

Yup, in an industry where language is the skill, Irish is non-applicable.
It's a powerful methaphor.

Were it not for the fact that all centres would exit Ireland in a day, the ILL would request legislation to ensure private call centres must cater for Irish also.

Enkidu

RandomName2 wrote: »

ith eat
rith run
caoineadh cry (although keening, an english word, is derived from Irish as an odd example)
scoil school
peann pen
cistean kitchen
cupla couple
pairce park

What does that demonstrate? Some words sound kind of similar. In fact caoineadh and cry don't sound similar at all, except the both star with a c.
Irish and English are as similar phonetically as English and Polish. Most words do not sound similar because Irish is not a Celtic language. Also you are aware there are some words which are similar due to their common descent from Proto-Indo-European.

As for the words that don't obviously have an English origin, I would be surprised if they are entirely indigenous (I suspect a Germanic influence of some sort, but cannot be bothered to do an etymological trawl). The very fact that there is a standardised language (forgetting about the silly dialects for a moment) is homage to the influence of outsiders without whom the language would not have been transcribed.

Why would you have suspicions when the truth is already known. Irish is a Celtic language whose largest influence outside Celtic is the original language of Ireland, the so called Goidelc substratum. After that it's Welsh and then Latin. The Germanic influence is quite low and even then it would North Germanic and not West Germanic.
Also the part in bold doesn't make any sense to me.

(which, before you suggest my calling it the British Isles makes me West-Brit as the saying goes, British literally means Welsh).

Ah yes, indeed. I like Irish as an interest hence I must be a lunatic waiting to call everybody a West Brit. I'll just finish eating my bowl of shamrocks.

But why am I bothering to mention all this? Part of my long campaign, I suppose, to explode the myth of complete uniqueness in any culture in the British Isles

Well there was a unique culture on the British Isles that was supplanted by the arrival of Celtic culture.

This sort of thing is nonsensical. Irish is a language and there are objective facts about its evolution as a language. There is no need to make up facts (like it has a large Germanic influence or that it sounds like English in most of its words) that are known to be incorrect to "explode myths".

cyclopath2001

deise go deo wrote: »

I would ask you to provide some Evidence for your claim that a huge chunk of the population are content to let Irish Die. It should be a simple matter.

In a survey on peoples opinion of Irish 93% wanted Irish to be preserved or promoted, only 6% were content to let it die.

In a survey on Irish in the education system the vast majority want either the same or greater emphasis on Irish in both Primary and Secondary level.

Very disingenuous: in neither survey were people asked if they wanted to 'let Irish die'.

If a langauge is to survive the people themselves must learn it and speak it. They must stop what they are doing and start now, not tomorrow. It does not matter if people say that it would be nice if Irish were promoted or if the emphisis should be maintained. These are just polite platitudes. Only a crank would say they want Irish to die.

The question that should be put is: "Are you prepared to immediately immerse yourself in intensive Irish-language lessons and then speak the language at all times in your daily life forever? Please sign here and pay money for a course starting next week. (We acccept Mastercard and Visa)".

Let us know how many say 'yes'. Then you have something.

Cú Giobach

RandomName2 wrote: »

(in fact, most words are phonetically similar to their English counterparts...

That's really funny, Have you actually encountered the Irish language??
Do you understand the meaning of the word "most"??
You seem to have your own rules on the meaning of a few English words lately.

ShooterSF

deise go deo wrote: »

Simply put, I dont think there is a significant enough proportion of the population who are not open to learning Irish to justify changing the System, as changing the system to an optional one would have negative effects on education in Ireland.

You don't put much value on people's liberties then no?

"You were born in this country and a majority of people want to learn Irish so you're going to too"

Attitudes like that that have this country as socially backwards as it is.

Not that I even agree a majority want to learn it. Then again maybe my class was the only one with a group you could count on one hand that wanted to learn Irish.


Edit - about this:
"In a survey on peoples opinion of Irish 93% wanted Irish to be preserved or promoted"

I would love to know how many of those can't speak the language and are doing feck all to change it. Easy to claim you want some ideal preserved when it doesn't cost you day to day.

I'd like to see the environment preserved or improved but I'm not going to start cycling to work.

Lord TSC

Enkidu wrote: »

Ah man!, don't go doing something like that and waste your time, it's obviously true that there are more jobs for important international languages.

MysticalRain wrote: »

Or they could just step outside their bubble for a second, and go do the googling for themselves.

You know what? You're right. Screw it, I'm done.

What I do find funny is that I've just stumbled accross another topic on another board which Deise has been having the exact same arguement with different people Moreso, he has a poll going where over 55% of people claim the Irish language is dead. Presumably we are meant to ignore that statistic but whatever...

I would love to know how many of those can't speak the language and are doing feck all to change it. Easy to claim you want some ideal preserved when it doesn't cost you day to day.

Hush you with your logic. It has no place here anymore! :P

deise go deo

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

What I do find funny is that I've just stumbled accross another topic on another board which Deise has been having the exact same arguement with different people Moreso, he has a poll going where over 55% of people claim the Irish language is dead. Presumably we are meant to ignore that statistic but whatever...

Well that thread demonstrates quite clearly how many people dont know what a dead language is, Irish is a living language. Its not dead now, never was dead, and I am fully confident that it will out live me and everyone else on this site.

With that I retire from this thread as I have to go study for an exam.:(

RandomName2

Cú Giobach wrote: »

That's really funny, Have you actually encountered the Irish language??
Do you understand the meaning of the word "most"??
You seem to have your own rules on the meaning of a few English words lately.

Actually you're right.

I don't really know much about the fundamentals of the Irish language

I am not even terribly sure how things are supposed to be pronounced in it.

In my Irish oral I stumbled over the word Dubh because one teacher has said it's pronounced DUV and another said it's pronounced GUV. Sometimes 'ch' seems to be pronounced as if you have a terrible amount of phlegm in your throat, and sometimes (thankfully)... not.

I don't know the grammar rules of Irish, but can construct sentences in it from having certain sentences drilled into me.

Out of my year in secondary school there were 100 people. 99 were obliged to take Irish (one foreigner). Of the 99, 2 actively wanted to learn Irish, about half took higher level and worked hard on it as a point earner, the other half didn't give a damn because it probably wouldn't be counted as part of their 7, so just scrapped passes.

So much for 12 years (count 'em) 12 years of learning!

I also worked out the definition of jobs featuring Irish:

All jobs in which Irish is a skill, are those designed solely to promote the learning/use of Irish

Perhaps that also nicely defines why it is a dead language as well!

So remove Irish from the state and: hey presto! It disappears. No wonder the gaelgoiries (if that's how you spell it) are so fiercely dogmatic.

So that's my thousanth post, and like Deise I also must study for an exam (which suffice to say has nothing to do with Gaeilge).

Salut.

---

Edit: In relation to deise's figures: would you say that a billion euro annually (which I would suggest is an underestimate as it would pobably not take into account the cost of all grants to individuals and organisations, to the education system to teach Irish, and to the Gaelteachts, not to mention other miscellaneous stuff like TG4). When you consider how staggeringly enormous our health budget is, and that the Irish budget (the Irish budget - Chirst!) is one sixteenth of it, is that really money well spent?

At a billion euro a year, no wonder you have no fear of it... dying out.

Lord TSC

deise go deo wrote: »

Well that thread demonstrates quite clearly how many people dont know what a dead language is, Irish is a living language. Its not dead now, never was dead, and I am fully confident that it will out live me and everyone else on this site.

Oh, so it was a test? An exam rather than a poll? Why ask the question if you disregard the results? <_<

Cú Giobach

RandomName2 wrote: »

Actually you're right........

Wow, that was a lovely rant you gave there.
(Little bit of advice, if you don't like people pointing out your errors, maybe you should check your facts before you post things on the internet).

Focalbhach

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Oh, so it was a test? An exam rather than a poll? Why ask the question if you disregard the results? <_<

To be fair (and without having looked at the poll) I'm not sure what the point of asking that question was in the first place. There is a well-established definition of a dead language, and Irish does not fit it. 'Minority', certainly, and quite possibly 'endangered', but not 'dead'. I'm sure the poll gauges perceptions on the status of Irish of passers-by in whatever forum it was posted in, but neither deise go deo nor the boards.ie populace have the authority to decide whether Irish is actually dead or not. Whether that was the question that was intended to be asked, I don't know, but it wasn't an appropriate question for a poll.

Lord TSC

While I agree that Irish isn't dead as much as it is dying, the important thing was that Deise asked it. He asked the question "Is Irish a Dead Language?" Presumably, had the result been to his liking, it would have been used for his personal agenda. Regardless, he asked the question and I'm curious as to why? Likewise, he started this discussion with the question "should it be made optional" and in both cases, I find it hard to understand why he'd propose these questions in these ways and then outright reject the answer he recieves. Why even bother if you have no intentions of being open to the results?

Simarillion

I spent 13 years being taught Irish and only 5 years learning French and my French far surpasses my level of Irish.

Nobody in my family can speak a word of Irish, predominantly due to a mental block because of the hatred of being forced to learn it at school.

Now I live in the UK and of the 6 Irish people on my postgrad course none of us can converse in Irish, BUT most of us would like to be able to.

There is no need for anyone in this country to be taught Irish, because as a working language it is generally obsolete. I remember being given a statistic that all governmental publications must be published in both Irish and English, and that of the 29 county councils only in 2 of them were Irish translations requested and only by a handful of people.

That said, I believe the population do appreciate the language, and care that it continues to exist.

I would hope that if FG are elected, that they would change the Irish curriculum before making any decisions on whether it is compulsory or not.

We should be taught conversational basic Irish, so that we can talk to each other about day to day activities, order food, buy a drink, book a hotel room etc.
The idea that we should have to trawl through intricate stories and metaphorical tales and god help us Peig Sayers is completely unnecessary!

compaqlaptop1

deise go deo wrote: »

One of the central parts of this discussion is weather or not the majority are open to learning Irish, That is directly referenced in the Survey, It shows clearly that by far the vast majority want Irish to continue with the same emphasis in the Education system with a large minority wanting greater emphasis.

This survey you referred to on several occasions - http://www.erc.ie/documents/views_of_irish_public_on_education_2004_survey.pdf

1. The one you say backs you up in your view that Irish should be compulsory - Well this survey in on section actually asked t
he specific question 'Make Irish an optional subject after the Junior Certificate Examination'. And the results were strongly in favour of making it optional.

34% said it was very important to make it optional
32.8% said it was important
13.3% said it was neither unimportant or important
10.7% said it was unimportant
5.2% said it was very unimportant
3.9% had no opinion

You have been citing this report as evidence that Irish people would like Irish to remain a compulsory subject when it clearly states they want it optional. So please no explain to me how you can justify forcing everybody to learn Irish when there is clear evidence that the public don't want it to be compulsory.


2. Also you have constantly referred to Irish being the language that is most useful to a person getting a job in Ireland. And when challenged on this, that these jobs are state subsidized and economically unviable, you never disagreed, you simply said from the students point of view it doesn't matter how the job comes about as long as they can get a job.

Well if you want to use your logic, and forgot about the overall economic effect and just look at the situation through the eyes of the student do you not realise that if a student is fluent in either French or German or Spanish they are now able to enter the absolutely enormous job markets in the multitude of countries that speak these languages. There are well over half a billion people speaking these languages, that means a way way bigger job market than is available to someone who can speak Irish and who is only eligible for some state subsidised jobs in Ireland. You can't argue that 'these are foreign jobs, what good are they to the Irish economy' - as you yourself said we should just be considering the situation of solely from the student's point of view where 'a job's a job'. So please tell me now why Irish is more valuable to a student that French, German or Spanish?

Focalbhach

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

While I agree that Irish isn't dead as much as it is dying, the important thing was that Deise asked it.

Fair enough, I think I misunderstood what you were getting at above. That's an entirely reasonable line of questioning* - I'd just hate for the results of that poll to be used as some warped sort of 'evidence' that Irish is a dead language.


*you'll be glad to have my approval, I'm sure

Focalbhach

As an aside, I'm reading Joe Humphreys' God's Entrepeneurs: How Irish missionaries tried to change the world at the moment. One passage tells the story of a priest who was involved in the pro-democracy movement in Malawi in the 1970s, and who communicated sensitive news of human rights abuses to Amnesty and the international media through Irish so as to bypass the local government censors. Who says Irish isn't useful?! :cool:

Oasis_Dublin

It's a styupid leprechaun language loike, get rid of it and teach the goysh chinese or some other progressive language loike. we've already brought in the IMF and accepted money from da brits, why are we pretending we are not British loike?

Cú Giobach

Oasis_Dublin wrote: »

It's a styupid leprechaun language loike, get rid of it and teach the goysh chinese or some other progressive language loike. we've already brought in the IMF and accepted money from da brits, why are we pretending we are not British loike?

Sábhála Dia an Bhanríon. :cool:

deise go deo

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

While I agree that Irish isn't dead as much as it is dying, the important thing was that Deise asked it. He asked the question "Is Irish a Dead Language?" Presumably, had the result been to his liking, it would have been used for his personal agenda.

I did ask that question, I have been taking part in debats like this one for some time, one of the more annoying parts of them is the often repeated put down, 'Irish is a dead language', Made more annoying by the fact that i know Irish isent a dead language. I started the thread in AH to see just how many people actually think Irish is dead.

As for using the results for my own agenda? :rolleyes:

Dont be silly, what kind of evidence is a poll in AH
If I wanted to use a meaningless poll on a forum to back up my arguments i would use this one. P.ie

Regardless, he asked the question and I'm curious as to why? Likewise, he started this discussion with the question "should it be made optional" and in both cases, I find it hard to understand why he'd propose these questions in these ways and then outright reject the answer he recieves. Why even bother if you have no intentions of being open to the results?

How exactly am I supposed to be open to the results of the poll in AH, I know that Irish is not a dead language, Am I supposed to deny fact based on a poll in AH?

As for my question at the start of this thread, It was to encourage people to put forward their opinions, I dont see whats wrong with that.

Oasis_Dublin

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Sábhála Dia an Bhanríon. :cool:

Go bhfoire dia ort!

Cú Giobach

Oasis_Dublin wrote: »

Go bhfoire dia ort!

Tá sé in aice liom an t-am ar fad. :cool:

As bearla...


Mas é do thoile

Dannyboy83

Oasis_Dublin wrote: »

It's a styupid leprechaun language loike, get rid of it and teach the goysh chinese or some other progressive language loike. we've already brought in the IMF and accepted money from da brits, why are we pretending we are not British loike?

Petty nationalism aside, if you're so insecure about your Irishness, why not speak Hiberno Norman-French?
There is no more anti-British language in existence than French, and Hiberno Norman-French is also part of Irish history, undeniably an Irish language.
http://www.ucc.ie/celt/language.html

Irish is spoken fluently by a population group lesser in size than Tallaght - doesn't constitute part of mainstream Irish society/culture by any stretch of the imagination.
Plus French is a useful language, so you're getting some benefit from it:)

Besides, modern day Irish is so anglicized.
If you're insecure about being mistaken for a Brit, why not go back to a purer dialect? A non-anglicized dialect?

Dannyboy83

mogę mówić innym językiem tez.
Jestem zajebiście:)


И еще.
Может быть, я не ирландец:(

Dannyboy83

Papa Smut wrote: »

As bearla...


Mas é do thoile

Merci beaucoup

marienbad

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Merci beaucoup

Ta me... sola perduta abbandonata in landa desolata

deise go deo

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

mogę mówić innym językiem tez.
Jestem zajebiście:)


И еще.
Может быть, я не ирландец:(

Dannyboy, Would you mind repeating that in English Or Irish?

Cú Giobach

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

mogę mówić innym językiem tez.
Jestem zajebiście:)

Good for you.

I hope you have someone to help you with that.

И еще.
Может быть, я не ирландец:(

Well, only you would know that.

cyclopath2001

deise go deo wrote: »

Made more annoying by the fact that i know Irish isent a dead language.

That depends on what you mean by 'living'. A language on a billion euro a year of support has lifestyle issues.

deise go deo wrote: »

As for my question at the start of this thread, It was to encourage people to put forward their opinions,

And you still want Irish lessons to be compulsory even though you do not want people to be forced to speak Irish.

Dannyboy83

deise go deo wrote: »

Dannyboy, Would you mind repeating that in English Or Irish?

If everyone else sticks to the vernacular, I will too

But if everyone wants to speak in languages that other people have explicitly stated in this thread that they do not understand - which is extremely rude - I'm more than happy to return the favour;)



I will explain it in English if you like i.e. the vernacular.
There is about as much sense repeating it in Irish as there is in Polish/Russian/French.

mogę mówić innym językiem tez.
Jestem zajebiście

I can speak in another language also.
I'm the fcuking best
(If you relied on an online translator, as the cupla focal brigade do, you'd get the literal meaning, rather than the contextual)

И еще.
Может быть, я не ирландец

And another.
Maybe I'm not an Irishman
(in reference to Oasis_Dublin's implicit statement that we are faux-British/British-wannabes because we don't speak Irish)