How to revive the Irish language.

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No but i do see how well it's worked out for welsh. Scots gaelic on the other hand had the misfortune of being seen as too "irish" by the unionist community in the north. This is mainly imo due to the polarisation of politics following irish independence movements.

Oh dear. Read up on history, sonny boy.

You can't compare the situation in Wales with Ireland. Welsh did not suffer half as as bad as Irish did under the Crown.

Iwasfrozen

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain wrote: »

Oh dear. Read up on history, sonny boy.

You can't compare the situation in Wales with Ireland. Welsh did not suffer half as as bad as Irish did under the Crown.

Sonny boy? you make the assumption that I'm younger then you. But since your profile says you're 60 I guess that's a reasonable assumption.

And Ireland's sufferage under the crown encouraged us to speak english? That's interesting since the area that suffered the most under the Brits (Northern Ireland) also seems to have the most fanatical support for the language. Weird isn't it? But then the North remains strongly a part of the UK which would lend support to my argument. Looks like you could do with reading up on your history, old man.

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Sonny boy? you make the assumption that I'm younger then you. But since your profile says you're 60 I guess that's a reasonable assumption.

And Ireland's sufferage under the crown encouraged us to speak english? That's interesting since the area that suffered the most under the Brits (Northern Ireland) also seems to have the most fanatical support for the language. Weird isn't it? But then the North remains strongly a part of the UK which would lend support to my argument. Looks like you could do with reading up on your history, old man.

Had a little snoop at my profile, did ya? Fell for the fake age, did ya? You're far more dedicated to this than me!

Wibbs

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Scots gaelic on the other hand had the misfortune of being seen as too "irish" by the unionist community in the north.

Most Ulster Unionists would ally themselves with the lowland Scots tradition which didn't speak Scots Gaelic to nearly the same degree as the highland Scots. So it's not great surprise they wouldn't have taken to it. Though historically going further back among their number Ulster planters did speak Irish for practical reasons if nothing else and a couple of Ulster Presbyterians were scholars of the language. Things as always are never so clear cut.

As for Welsh TTOC makes a valid point, Wales didn't suffer nearly so badly under London rule, at least not unless you go waaaaay back. Welsh didn't suffer nearly as much from emigration of it's speakers either. Plus the Welsh themselves don't have the chip on the shoulder going both ways about the language so it's revival found more fertile ground. IIRC too Welsh didn't get to quite the low levels of fluency found here?

Though IWF also makes a point that Welsh is doing pretty well under the English crown so who knows? Maybe the Scots and the Irish are similar in that they've become "meh" about the language. Maybe it was the highland clearances that was the real killer? The move to urban areas compounding this? They didn't have the famine to nearly the degree of here, but Irish was already in decline in Ireland by the time of the famine, that event just twisted the knife.

oldmangrub

I think people should actually campaign for Irish to become non-compulsory if that's what they're passionate about. I suspect from posts that some people are here to wind up or attack people that they obviously feel a lot of hatred or resentment for. I think unjustified. If you want to do something about it, you can express your will. The only group I know campaigning against compulsory Irish are Fine Gael Óg. There seems to be a lot of support for it here.

I think provisions in the language act are fair. It is not expensive (despite media reports) to provide documents in more than one language and people who have Irish as their first language pay enough tax to cover it. I wouldn't share the right-wing, conservative sensibilities of those who argue against that principle. I'd be quite happy with those documents being published in Polish and Chinese too. It is important to have official documents in Irish, it's not people being petty, it does feel like a slap in the face when they're all in English. To me anyway. But I am backward and ignorant etc.

Irish is my second language and English isn't my first. It's not a hobby anymore than history or geography is and I appreciate people who make an effort to learn it. As to a poster's comment about it being "pigeon" Irish, Irish people speaking Irish is not comparable to an Irish person speaking a foreign language. The pronunciation doesn't suffer, Irish has formed the way we speak English. Whether we like it or not. This isn't the case with Dubliners but there are so many speakers in Dublin and Gaeltachters are getting exposed to them on TG4 that it's becoming a dialect in itself. This is not impacting on how the rest of the country speaks Irish in any way. Whoever called it "Oirish" is just being patronising and snobbish. I'm surprised a poster can't remember who that was. Anyone in this country has just as much right to speak Irish and add to it than I do. It's part of their identity too and picking up a phrase or two from English is normal. It's a living language, it adapts to and for the culture and community it lives in as it should. It is not something dead that we have to preserve in some museum of a Gaeltacht. We're not all crusty old men! (Just me)

I reported a post that hoped for a dying out gracefully for all speakers and supporters of Irish and got ignored. I'm sure if the same post referenced women, the Polish, taxi-drivers, gingers, pudgy people, whatever the poster would have been banned. This thread has taught me that there is a lot of ill-feeling towards the language that I was actually blissfully unaware of until now. I do think Irish should be non-compulsory if that's what the majority of Irish people want. Some people will teach their kids complete hatred towards my "culture" (yes, that's what I think of it, imaginary or not), or even worse, complete ignorance of it and I obviously hate the idea of parents doing that but likewise I'm not fond of people having their kids grow up on the Kardashians. Nothing I can do about it.

Thank you to those of you who support Irish and have even gone the whole hog and learnt to speak it. I have a lot of respect for you and I hope you think as little of the negative comments on this thread as I do. For what it's worth, I always suspect a lot of "anti-Irish" tendancies come from those naturally inclined towards bigotry that would be crazy raving racists only that it's not really the cool thing to be these days. Nobody should take them seriously. (*Chomh maith le sin, rinne mé botún gramadaí cúpla leathanach ó shin d'aontoisc...ionas nach gceapfaí gur Gaeilgeoir lofa mé nó an Coimisinéir fiú! )

Anyway, I think (I might be wrong) that there is an agenda on this here (galvinising a campaign maybe) and it's not really condusive to a proper conversation. All my suggestions got ignored anyway, genius though they clearly are.

I wish you all the best, whatever your values are. I am returning to my hut and the voices in my head. Apparently the girls on the crossroads are doing a peep-show later so have to get my seat. I hope you all escape this thread soon too!

And for the "fun"

Enjoy!

Iwasfrozen

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain wrote: »

Had a little snoop at my profile, did ya? Fell for the fake age, did ya? You're far more dedicated to this than me!

I couldn't help but look at your profile after I saw that heinous nickname you've given yourself.

oldmangrub

^ It's his name. You must be very upset with all the Nigerians and Arab names around these days.
Montrosities... heinous... blah, blah, blah.

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I couldn't help but look at your profile after I saw that heinous nickname you've given yourself.

You know that's my full name? You don't want to be discriminating based on someone's language now, do ya? Could get yourself into trouble, sonny boy

Iwasfrozen

oldmangrub wrote: »

^ It's his name. You must be very upset with all the Nigerians and Arab names around these days.
Montrosities... heinous... blah, blah, blah.

I would be if some Nigerian fella signed up with a 34 letter name in all capitals that messes with the format on my phone.

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain wrote:

You know that's my full name? You don't want to be discriminating based on someone's language now, do ya? Could get yourself into trouble, sonny boy

Yes I do and you could have called yourself TTOC. Writing that ridiculously long name in all capitals was stupid no matter what language it's in. And this should be interesting, how exactly am i going to get into trouble? Anyway that's enough from me for this thread for now. It's obvious some people will never change their opinions.

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I would be if some Nigerian fella signed up with a 34 letter name in all capitals that messes with the format on my phone.

Capitals? You need to get your eyes checked, pal.

oldmangrub

At least he left out the fadaí. Screen would have exploded.

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain

oldmangrub wrote: »

At least he left out the fadaí. Screen would have exploded.

It didn't allow the fadas when I signed up! :pac:

An Coilean

poeticseraphim wrote: »

You don't address any of the issues of funding it when the country is in dire straits and families with children are sliding into poverty and jobs are out there that require German not Irish. Resources are so precious right now. It is actually anti-patriotic to want such subsidies and funding for it in schools when there are much more basic needs not being met. If people cared about their fellow people they would not create another economic drain.

Maybe in a few years we can afford such a debate but not now. I think that is why people feel Gaelgoirs care for no one but themselves....have you seen the pilimary 2013 budget...it's brutal!

All subsidies need to be redirected at the moment and the edutaion budget needs to be totally pragmatic..i am sorry and when we can afford it...then
we can have the discussion.

Any rivival cannot use public money ....in the private sector i fully support it go for it! Infact i would whole heartedly support a private sector led revival. A private sector revival might work..the state usually is not as effective as private enterprise.

Private funding only until the country is on it's feet again.

Perhaps we should withdraw funding from everything except the bare essential public services, but good luck ever reviving economic vitality after we do.
I hope you realise that you would be adding tens of thousands of people to the dole ques, and thats just by removing funding supports from the Irish Language.


Personally I would consider demanding the removal of all funding from Irish to be quite extream to say the least. Of course Irish has to face cutbacks just like everything else, and it has. But to cut the feet from under it in a ridiculus knee jerk reaction is in no ones best interest.

opti0nal

An Coilean wrote: »

I hope you realise that you would be adding tens of thousands of people to the dole ques, and thats just by removing funding supports from the Irish Language.

Paying people to speak Irish is not going to help the economy.

An Coilean wrote: »

But to cut the feet from under it in a ridiculus knee jerk reaction is in no ones best interest.

If Irish needs money to survive then it is not a functioning language.

An Coilean

Wibbs wrote: »

I equally know people who've learned Spanish, French and English to a high degree of fluency, but still don't sound like "natives". Therefore your "plenty of people" also don't sound like natives. In their own country.

Indeed thats true, but change is natural, How many twenty year old Native English speakers do you know that sound like 20 year old Native English Speakers from 100 or even 50 years ago?

Its also a bit odd to expect some one raised in Dublin to sound like some one raised in Galway or Donegall, they don't in English, its no more worring that they don't in Irish.

If his Irish is different from a native Irish speaker at what point does it become some artificial bastardised pidgin? IMHO either speak the actual language some are eager to preserve or don't. Otherwise one may as well learn Esperanto, or klingon.

No, his Irish is different from a Galway or Donegall Native speaker, as is his English. It about as much an 'artificial bastardised pidgin' as Hiberno English is.

It might, nay likely will, but it's Irish once removed. An invention to a large
degree. Some have described it as "Oirish". I gather some of the Ulster "Irish"
is of a similar bent? If the last actual native Irish speaker dies out(which I
doubt. Thankfully) we'll have an artificial cultural construct in it's place, so
ironically consider me a purest on this score.

An invention to a large degree? Where exactly is the large degree of invention?

How by actually speaking the language correctly?

No, by putting themselves above others, suggesting that if you cant speak perfect Irish, then you have no right to speak Irish at all. That is a nasty anacronosim and I for one don't tolorate it.

Which I truly hope remains the case in the face of Oirish.

There is nothing wrong with learning a language as a second Language and passing it on to your children, if there is then most Irish people are speaking Oenglish. :rolleyes:

TG4 exposed in a small way how fluent people are or not. One of the producers of Ros na Run bemoaned the fact that finding male actors with good conversational Irish was becoming difficult. Apparently actresses were not nearly so hard to find.

Well if Fair City cant find a decent set of actors, its understandable enough if Ros na Rún struggels.

An Coilean

opti0nal wrote: »

Paying people to speak Irish is not going to help the economy.

If Irish needs money to survive then it is not a functioning language.

Neither is putting thousands of people on the dole.

And by cut the feet out from under the language I mean make it a second class language in the state, not kill it.

opti0nal

An Coilean wrote: »

Neither is putting thousands of people on the dole.

Where does the money come from? It's economic insanity to pay people to speak Irish.

An Coilean wrote: »

And by cut the feet out from under the language I mean make it a second class language in the state, not kill it.

Being dependent on state hand-outs and coercive laws makes Irish a second class language.

Wibbs

An Coilean wrote: »

Indeed thats true, but change is natural, How many twenty year old Native English speakers do you know that sound like 20 year old Native English Speakers from 100 or even 50 years ago?

The grammar and syntax would be almost identical.

Its also a bit odd to expect some one raised in Dublin to sound like some one raised in Galway or Donegall, they don't in English, its no more worring that they don't in Irish.

We're not talking about accents here, we're talking about changes to the language itself.

No, his Irish is different from a Galway or Donegall Native speaker, as is his English.

Funny I've found little if any difference between the English of a Galwegian or a Donegaler and a Dubliner. It's the same language with some small local word differences.

There is nothing wrong with learning a language as a second Language and passing it on to your children, if there is then most Irish people are speaking Oenglish. :rolleyes:

No, they're actually not.

Well if Fair City cant find a decent set of actors, its understandable enough if Ros na Rún struggels.

Avoiding the point I see(albeit with humour re FC)

oldmangrub wrote:

I always suspect a lot of "anti-Irish" tendancies come from those naturally inclined towards bigotry that would be crazy raving racists only that it's not really the cool thing to be these days.

Riiight so accusing people of patronising, snobbish bigotry and of being crazy raving racists just because they may disagree with aspects of level of funding et al for the Irish language is OK in your book? Never mind the "agenda" stuff. Yes it's true, we have secret handshakes too. I've said too much...

Talk about an ad hominem argument. Jesus, if this is the opinion of some in the Irish language movement I do worry. Funny enough I've personally never heard it from actual native speakers to nearly this degree. It's almost always the second language Gaelgoiri that come out with this stuff.

Well then OMG you may as well write off the vast majority of Irish men and women of being patronising, snobbish, crazy, raving and racist bigots because the vast majority can't speak it more than a cupla focal. Hey work away and be my guest, but I'd prefer not to thanks very much. Nor BTW would I write off the minority of native speakers as cultural anachronisms. Neither tend to use their respective ways of communication as a stick to beat with.

An Coilean

Wibbs wrote: »

The grammar and syntax would be almost identical.

Really, Can't imagine a 20 year old of 100 years ago coming out with 'LOL, Tots awks' or having the foggiest notion what it is supposed to mean.

The standardised language is much the same, but the actual language spoken on the ground in everyday conversations has changed quite substantially.

We're not talking about accents here, we're talking about changes to the language itself.

Funny I've found little if any difference between the English of a Galwegian or a Donegaler and a Dubliner. It's the same language with some small local word differences.

OK, lets take a wider look at English. I think we can agree that English spoken In Ireland, America, England, Austriala etc is the same language.

However you can get substantially variable phonology between and often within these areas, the word 'something' can become someting or somefink or sumit or sum-tin depending on where you are.
In much of England, words ending in r are not pronounced with an r, unless the word is followed by a word starting with a vowel, in which case they do. Ie 'Its my Caa, but its 'the car I own'

There can be grammer differences also, take Norfolk English, in the third person present tense, the plural is dropped, ie 'He Goes' becomes 'He Go'
'Do he do as he do do, do you let me know", is a phrase that is perfectly correct in that dialect, it means 'If he does as he usually does, then be sure to let me know'.
Irregular use of tense, in Suffolk English 'He say he did' instead of 'He said he did' is the accepted form.
Other areas can omit prepositions, ie in Cornish English the phrase 'went chapel' is perfectly acceptable, as is irregular use of the definite article 'He died right in the Christmas'
Cumbrian English even has its own distinct counting system.

None of these various forms of English are 'artificial bastardised pidgion', not in my opinion anyway.

No, they're actually not.

So Native English Speaker learns Irish, Passes Irish to their Kids, Kid has Fluent Irish, although somewhat changed from what would be considered traditional native Irish. And this equals an artificial bastardised pidgion.
Native Irish speaker learns English, passes English to their kids, kid has fluent English, though somewhat changed from what would be considered traditional native English, and this does not equal an artifical bastardised pidgion, you don't see the problem there?

poeticseraphim

An Coilean wrote: »

Really, Can't imagine a 20 year old of 100 years ago coming out with 'LOL, Tots awks' or having the foggiest notion what it is supposed to mean.

The standardised language is much the same, but the actual language spoken on the ground in everyday conversations has changed quite substantially.



OK, lets take a wider look at English. I think we can agree that English spoken In Ireland, America, England, Austriala etc is the same language.

However you can get substantially variable phonology between and often within these areas, the word 'something' can become someting or somefink or sumit or sum-tin depending on where you are.
In much of England, words ending in r are not pronounced with an r, unless the word is followed by a word starting with a vowel, in which case they do. Ie 'Its my Caa, but its 'the car I own'

There can be grammer differences also, take Norfolk English, in the third person present tense, the plural is dropped, ie 'He Goes' becomes 'He Go'
'Do he do as he do do, do you let me know", is a phrase that is perfectly correct in that dialect, it means 'If he does as he usually does, then be sure to let me know'.
Irregular use of tense, in Suffolk English 'He say he did' instead of 'He said he did' is the accepted form.
Other areas can omit prepositions, ie in Cornish English the phrase 'went chapel' is perfectly acceptable, as is irregular use of the definite article 'He died right in the Christmas'
Cumbrian English even has its own distinct counting system.

None of these various forms of English are 'artificial bastardised pidgion', not in my opinion anyway.




So Native English Speaker learns Irish, Passes Irish to their Kids, Kid has Fluent Irish, although somewhat changed from what would be considered traditional native Irish. And this equals an artificial bastardised pidgion.
Native Irish speaker learns English, passes English to their kids, kid has fluent English, though somewhat changed from what would be considered traditional native English, and this does not equal an artifical bastardised pidgion, you don't see the problem there?

An coileen if someone learns English from their non native parent they still have millions of native speakers and a global culture to recieve standarised English everyday. This is not the case with Irish.

I remember talking to a native kurdish speaker who was trying to speak to Kurds who had grown up in Turkey and had learnt Kurdish in the same manner s the Gaelscoil. She could not understand them , she said 'they think they are speaking kurdish but they are speaking turkish with kurdish words' it was a shock to them.

Urban Irish is so influenced by English semantics because the people teaching it and speaking it are Anglophones and speaking it less well than native speakers. That is not a langauge evolving...that is a language losing the grammar structures that enable it to function for good communication. And there are not enough speakers for it to develop new structures fast enough.

And if you have to pay people to speak it...well we just cant afford to keep doing that...it might be cheaper to have them on the dole.

There have too be cuts in subsidies..they are not sustainable.

There is no reason why these people cannot do this in the private sector..infact it might actually do the language good.

But we cannot sustain this for generations....people need to bring the language out of the classroom and into the real work world if Gaelgoirs became more financially independant and wealthy it would help the language so much more.

Have you ever thought that the STATE funding might actually be slowly killing it?

The only language i know of that was successfully revived from obscurity to the mainstream was Hebrew.

Not sure how it was done...but it is the only language that did it...

Irish survived 500 years of oppression without state funding...and nearly 100 years of state funding and promotion is killing it..

I have always suspected some people are more enthused about getting paid thn the language ...i mean if this revival succeeded then lots of people would be out of jobs..

I think Hebrew is a great example for anyone wanting to revive a language ..it is the only example of a language where there were NO natural speakers going to where there are now several million who speak it as a first language.

They had a tougher job of reviving it and no state funding and much of the revival was done in countries hostile to the revival until Israel obviously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revival_of_the_Hebrew_language

It seems they forced people to speak it and harrassed those who did not on the street:eek:

To be honest this IRISH revival knows nothing about revival linguistics and no one seems to actually want to put a plan together (typical of us Irish)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_revitalization

I think over investment in Irish in terms of money and time has contributed to the lack of time given to other languages. And we have not achieved much in return.

And no we are not racists...i have no problem with it being spoken at all or learnt ..just not with public money....maybe in future years when we have recovered economically..we would be better off investing in Mandarin or German and we NEED to devote time to other languages from the start of primary school in this country it is killing our competitivity in the job market and we need it to attract investment.

There is no reason why the revival could not be even more effective privately start a renaissance...only high level stuff not TnG if you had to meet better standards to sell it you would the subsidies could actually be holding things back.

Wibbs

Native Irish speaker learns English, passes English to their kids, kid has fluent English, though somewhat changed from what would be considered traditional native English, and this does not equal an artifical bastardised pidgion, you don't see the problem there?

Poeticseraphim(great username:)) pretty much covers that in the first few paragraphs of their post.

poeticseraphim wrote:

I think Hebrew is a great example for anyone wanting to revive a language ..it is the only example of a language where there were NO natural speakers going to where there are now several million who speak it as a first language.

Modern Hebrew is an interesting one. It was largely an invented language. It had to be. Jewish people were coming from all across the globe and came with local languages and no common language so a "Jewish Esperanto" a lingua franca was required. That's what drove it's success. It wasn't a revival as such.

Irish people already have a lingua franca, a very useful one globally, however it unfortunately comes with a name and history troubling for us(or some of us). Because we can all communicate in this language, including the most erudite and fluent native Irish speaker there's far less selective pressure to learn another language, particularly one local to us, except for cultural reasons. Which I don't deny BTW. So for me the Hebrew model kinda falls at that hurdle. Even an example of a Jew learning Arabic or a Palestinian learning Hebrew has more selective advantage. Irish in the the Israeli model might be more like Aramaic? A minority language that would require a cultural choice on the part of someone to learn.

Irish survived 500 years of oppression without state funding...and nearly 100 years of state funding and promotion is killing it..

Well, yes and no. For some reason Irish started to contract in the 18th century. At the start of that century it was everywhere, by the end it had started to die out in some areas and that spread. By the time of the famine it was declining and the famine and emigration most certainly didn't help. To be fair the new Irish state inherited a language already in pretty serious decline outside Gaelthacht areas.

Cú Giobach

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain wrote: »

It didn't allow the fadas when I signed up! :pac:

I had to PM a mod to get my fada when I signed up, it seems they keep them locked up for security reasons.

Cú Giobach

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

So you agree that the provisions can be changed depending on what we consider to be common sense? that's good i was begining to think this debate was pointless...

And nope it's not the idea of ruling ourselves that was stupid, it was the decisions we made when we were granted it. If the irish government had've been a little less ideological and a little more pragmatic we wouldn't be having this bull **** conversation in the first place because our definition of "irishness" wouldn't be so narrow. Ironically I think staying in the UK would have benifited the irish language. Funny how these things turn out.

Any discussion with you regarding the Irish language is pointless, in the same way as discussing religion with a fundamentalist or race with a white supremacist is.

Don't you mean "your definition" there, because you are the one who keeps going on about how aspects of Irish culture are not yours, whereas people like myself consider all aspects as "ours" even if it is not directly mine since it is the mix that makes up The Irish People.

By the way if you want to see countries that fucked up during the early/mid 20th century a quick glance around will show you quite a few who did a hell of a lot worse .

An Coilean

poeticseraphim wrote: »

An coileen if someone learns English from their non native parent they still have millions of native speakers and a global culture to recieve standarised English everyday. This is not the case with Irish.

Wibbs stated that any new Dialect of Irish in Dublin would be nothing more than an Artifical Bastardised Pidgion, It is my contention that if the Dialect of Irish emerging in Dublin is, then Hiberno English must be also. English was learned by native Irish speakers, passed on to their kids, but the language their kids learned was not what would have been considered traditional Native English.
If Dublin Irish is Oirish, then the English spoken in much of Ireland is Oenglish.

leeomurchu

Great another thread about reviving what is essentially a dead language.

It'd be great if we could all converse as Gaeilge but when it comes to more practical terms like business and trading with Europe I can't imagine they'd be to interested in communicating through Irish.

We don't really have a good trade network in house as it is most of our trade/manufacturing is exported to mainland Europe etc.

I think perhaps it's time to bite the bullet and teach our kids Spanish or some other useful language perhaps mandarin seeing as how we'll all end up speaking it one day

Although I do find it handy having the cúpla focail gaeilge when talking to other Irish folks abroad even though it's usually met with a stone faced look of horror (what's he saying)

Slán

Wibbs

leeomurchu wrote: »

I think perhaps it's time to bite the bullet and teach our kids Spanish or some other useful language perhaps mandarin seeing as how we'll all end up speaking it one day

Please please pretty please can we ban "we'll all be speaking Mandarin one day".. :mad::D

We won't be. No really. I heard similar back in the day about Japanese and... Ignoring the huge cultural and historical value and just the fun that would come from learning it Mandarin isn't a universal language and unlikely to become one any time soon. Why?

1) while it's one of the most spoken languages in the world, it's not spoken much by non Chinese. Compared to say Spanish, which is spoken by more non Spaniards.

2) It's a tonal language so prone to misunderstanding and more reliant on being very precise. Compared to say a Mexican with very basic English and a German with very basic English, they'll not speak english words "correctly" but will be mutually intelligible. Mandarins written form while beautiful is overly complex. The Chinese recognised this themselves and came up with simplified Chinese, but the Indo European alphabet is far less cumbersome.

3) China is economically well dodgy. They're living through the largest commodities bubble in world history. Imagine our bubble scaled up to near unimaginable proportions. They already have ghost cities and are hell bent on building more. Caught a bit of the BBC2 programme where two presenters are traveling through China. One met a bunch of the new rich with their Ferraris and Lambos and many were in construction/property development. Sound familiar? When - and it is a case of when - it goes bang, it won't be pretty. Secondly they're facing a demographic earthquake. Basically they're getting older before they're getting richer. No economy has survived that type of shift unscathed. They're clever buggers so they might, but I doubt it.

If I was looking to learn a future economic language? I'd say Portuguese or Spanish, or maybe French. IMHO *crystal ball* South America and Africa will be the growth areas.

PS Irish is not a dead language.

Debs_Mann

I think with all languages being it Irish or Foreign, there should be more enphasise in schools on speaking the language and using it than getting the grammer correct. It would make things more interesting and more people would be able to speak the languages.

leeomurchu

Wibbs wrote: »

Please please pretty please can we ban "we'll all be speaking Mandarin one day".. :mad::D

We won't be. No really. I heard similar back in the day about Japanese and... Ignoring the huge cultural and historical value and just the fun that would come from learning it Mandarin isn't a universal language and unlikely to become one any time soon. Why?

1) while it's one of the most spoken languages in the world, it's not spoken much by non Chinese. Compared to say Spanish, which is spoken by more non Spaniards.

2) It's a tonal language so prone to misunderstanding and more reliant on being very precise. Compared to say a Mexican with very basic English and a German with very basic English, they'll not speak english words "correctly" but will be mutually intelligible. Mandarins written form while beautiful is overly complex. The Chinese recognised this themselves and came up with simplified Chinese, but the Indo European alphabet is far less cumbersome.

3) China is economically well dodgy. They're living through the largest commodities bubble in world history. Imagine our bubble scaled up to near unimaginable proportions. They already have ghost cities and are hell bent on building more. Caught a bit of the BBC2 programme where two presenters are traveling through China. One met a bunch of the new rich with their Ferraris and Lambos and many were in construction/property development. Sound familiar? When - and it is a case of when - it goes bang, it won't be pretty. Secondly they're facing a demographic earthquake. Basically they're getting older before they're getting richer. No economy has survived that type of shift unscathed. They're clever buggers so they might, but I doubt it.

If I was looking to learn a future economic language? I'd say Portuguese or Spanish, or maybe French. IMHO *crystal ball* South America and Africa will be the growth areas.

PS Irish is not a dead language.

Irish with regard to international trade is a dead language. That was my point.

Did you just skip the entire first sentence of the line you quoted me on. Perhaps our kids should learn a more useful language like Spanish.

Jesus Christ you pick on a whimsical remark for crying out loud!!

Clearly Spanish would be more useful THAT'S WHY I SAID TEACH THEM SPANISH!

pastorbarrett

I returned as a not so sprightly adult to the world of education recently, to re-sit my Leaving Cert in Irish. Yes, it was a means to an end etc but I'm by no means adverse to the language. From what I can tell, at least from a syllabus standpoint, the problems are the following:

1)-course content remains largely boring and predictable. Stories are almost always universally grim, death ridden, provincial etc, of limited interest to your average 16-18 year old. While I understand the need to promote indigenous speakers and talent, why not use at least some translations of more contemporary, popular English texts?

2)- Emphasis on speaking, though much improved, still lies on written text, dare I say it- rote learning.

3) Here's the clincher. Stop force feeding it en masse. You don't want to pursue Irish, don't. You're talented and gifted at the language, great. I believe the language would be better served, particularly looking forward, by those who were nurtured and taught to excel in it by teachers and lecturers with a genuine love and interest in the language.

Wibbs

leeomurchu wrote: »

Irish with regard to international trade is a dead language. That was my point.

Did you just skip the entire first sentence of the line you quoted me on. Perhaps our kids should learn a more useful language like Spanish.

Jesus Christ you pick on a whimsical remark for crying out loud!!

Clearly Spanish would be more useful THAT'S WHY I SAID TEACH THEM SPANISH!

LOUD NOISES!! :eek: Jeez chillax, you'll do yourself a mischief.

leeomurchu

Wibbs wrote: »

LOUD NOISES!! :eek: Jeez chillax, you'll do yourself a mischief.

I think I've done meself a wrong un

Iwasfrozen

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Don't you mean "your definition" there, because you are the one who keeps going on about how aspects of Irish culture are not yours, whereas people like myself consider all aspects as "ours" even if it is not directly mine since it is the mix that makes up The Irish People.

By the way if you want to see countries that fucked up during the early/mid 20th century a quick glance around will show you quite a few who did a hell of a lot worse .

The narrow view of irishness that was a natural result from partition. I don't blame anyone. It's no one's fault. Just another one of the tragedies of irish history.

mickydoomsux

Wibbs wrote: »

PS Irish is not a dead language.

Yes it is.

For some reason the government and a vocal tiny minority of Gaelegoirs have been re-enacting "Weekend at Bernies" with it for decades.

raher1

Bernard dunne was great,ya learn by doing,have the craic.make it real. Remove the academics and snobs.let it breath.

An Coilean

leeomurchu wrote: »

Irish with regard to international trade is a dead language. That was my point.

Jeeze, It seems any kind of qualification of the term will suffice.

-Irish is Dead
-No its not
-Ya, well in terms of how many people ever spoke it on the moon it is.

Iwasfrozen

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Yes it is.

For some reason the government and a vocal tiny minority of Gaelegoirs have been re-enacting "Weekend at Bernies" with it for decades.

I prefer the term brain dead language. It's not dead per se. Not yet. But remove the state funded life support and it won't be long...

leeomurchu

An Coilean wrote: »

Jeeze, It seems any kind of qualification of the term will suffice.

-Irish is Dead
-No its not
-Ya, well in terms of how many people ever spoke it on the moon it is.

Hmmm.. I thought it was fairly clear can't remember the last time I bought something on ebay through Irish let alone stocks and shares.

It's technically not a dead language it's classed as a revived language albeit local to the gaeltacht and Dáil Eireann.

I wonder how much we'd save if it was removed from our road signs??

I'm willing to bet a few pennies it's not spoken on the moon but by all means take a trip up there and let us all know for sure :rolleyes:

Fromthetrees

Just going to repeat what many posters have already said but here,
primary school Irish should be about learning verbs and all the liom, leat, leis, le stuff,
secondary school Irish should be about speaking it, 90% of class time should be about being able to hold a conversation. The thousands of hours spent learning Irish and many/most people can't get passed dia duit, that's bullsh1t.

I'd reduce the amount of time devoted to teaching Irish by half replacing it with any of the major European languages.

Cú Giobach

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The narrow view of irishness that was a natural result from partition. I don't blame anyone. It's no one's fault. Just another one of the tragedies of irish history.

If this "tragedy" was the result of partition then it must be the responsibility of those that partitioned the island.

Wibbs

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Yes it is.

For some reason the government and a vocal tiny minority of Gaelegoirs have been re-enacting "Weekend at Bernies" with it for decades.

Forget the Gaelegoiri, forget the Gaelscoils, forget the cupla focal lip service, the signs and documents the majority can't read and all that other stuff and you're still left with thousands who happily chat away as Gaelige on a daily basis as a tool of communication with others, a living language. That figure is holding pretty stable and has done for well over a decade. The previous century's decline has stabilised at that point. It's outside of that group the issue is more complex. It may grow as a second dialect coming from Gaelscoils, though I doubt it to the degree hoped. It may end up a "childish" version of the language stuck in the idioms of primary school level language. I still don't see much threat to the thousands aforementioned though.

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain

Wibbs wrote: »

Forget the Gaelegoiri, forget the Gaelscoils, forget the cupla focal lip service, the signs and documents the majority can't read and all that other stuff and you're still left with thousands who happily chat away as Gaelige on a daily basis as a tool of communication with others, a living language. That figure is holding pretty stable and has done for well over a decade. The previous century's decline has stabilised at that point. It's outside of that group the issue is more complex. It may grow as a second dialect coming from Gaelscoils, though I doubt it to the degree hoped. It may end up a "childish" version of the language stuck in the idioms of primary school level language. I still don't see much threat to the thousands aforementioned though.

Do you walk around fuming in anger everytime you see a bit of Irish on public signage? You must lead a very miserable life.

Wibbs

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain wrote: »

Do you walk around fuming in anger everytime you see a bit of Irish on public signage?

No. How very odd a comment.

Iwasfrozen

Cú Giobach wrote: »

If this "tragedy" was the result of partition then it must be the responsibility of those that partitioned the island.

It is indeed. But it took two sides to partition the island. That's why you can't blame anyone.

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain

Wibbs wrote: »

No. How very odd a comment.

You seem so incredibly bitter about everything else!

Ficheall

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain wrote: »

You seem so incredibly bitter about everything else!

Maybe you should actually read Wibbs' comment?


On an unrelated note, I love the Irish language. It just always disappoints me how its most vociferous proponents often seem to be a bit dense.

Toirdhealbhach Tadhg O Caoindealbhain

Ficheall wrote: »

Maybe you should actually read Wibbs' comment?


On an unrelated note, I love the Irish language. It just always disappoints me how its most vociferous proponents often seem to be a bit dense.

Couldn't agree more. :eek:

Cú Giobach

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

It is indeed. But it took two sides to partition the island. That's why you can't blame anyone.

I suggest you read up on The Government of Ireland Act 1920.
I'm not going any further with this here, it isn't the place to discuss that topic.

brianbaru

Nah, prisons no good. It costs the tax payer. Hang em and hang em high!

Iwasfrozen

Cú Giobach wrote: »

I suggest you read up on The Government of Ireland Act 1920.
I'm not going any further with this here, it isn't the place to discuss that topic.

And why was there a government of Ireland act 1920 in the first place? Like I said it takes two sides to partition an island. If irish is ever to gain ground with unionists within a united ireland it needs to lose it's connection to nationalism.

An Coilean

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

And why was there a government of Ireland act 1920 in the first place? Like I said it takes two sides to partition an island. If irish is ever to gain ground with unionists within a united ireland it needs to lose it's connection to nationalism.

The Home Rule Movment? Partition was mainly caused by the Arming of Northern Unionists. Just how serious that was tends to be glossed over in our history books, its usually just seen as the cause of the Irish Voulenteers being set up, but before WW1 happened, many in the UK were afraid of a large scale Army mutieny over the issue.
The British Army had made some serious rumbellings about refusing to follow orders if those orders were to force home rule on Ulster.
WW1 was seen early on as a bit of a god send for the British Establishment in that it allowed them to move the most vocal oppisition away from the north and over to France.