Calls for all students in Wales to be taught in Welsh

An Coilean

BognarRegis wrote: »

You're minimising.

The proposal is one of compulsory immersion for many years, with no possibility of escape. It's proposed in a way which takes no account of the desire of the people who would be affected.

Exposure to a language is what happens when one encounters street sign
s in both Irish and English.

Indeed there is a difference between being exposed to a language through minimal contact such as seeing a street sign and more comprehencive contact such as Immersion education.

That however is neither here nor there with regard to the question of weather there is a right not to be exposed to a language. You suggested there is, can you back that up?

I wonder if your concern for children being forced through education in a language other than their native language extends to native Irish speaking children being forced into English Medium schools due to lack of provision of Irish medium education places?

BognarRegis

An Coilean wrote: »

That however is neither here nor there with regard to the question of weather there is a right not to be exposed to a language. You suggested there is, can you back that up?

I said imposed, not exposed.

An Coilean

BognarRegis wrote: »

I said imposed, not exposed.

Well thats just lovely, I fail to see how there is a substantive difference between the two but if it will keep you happy then it is neither here nor there with regard to the question of weather there is a right not to have exposure to a language imposed upon you.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Just to mention another country, The Canadian province of Quebec apparently might move to decrease their language Nazis influence, it's a real bone of contention with some Canadians I know. The big funding which is reserved to the French language that is. They're the biggest lobby group in the area of course so I predict any attempt will end in failure.

Iwasfrozen

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Just to mention another country, The Canadian province of Quebec apparently might move to decrease their language Nazis influence, it's a real bone of contention with some Canadians I know. The big funding which is reserved to the French language that is. They're the biggest lobby group in the area of course so I predict any attempt will end in failure.

Quebec would be much better out of that union. Even in terms of the economy the left wing Quebecois differ strongly from the Anglo-Saxon Canadians.

BognarRegis

An Coilean wrote: »

Well thats just lovely, I fail to see how there is a substantive difference between the two but if it will keep you happy then it is neither here nor there with regard to the question of weather there is a right not to have exposure to a language imposed upon you.

There is a big difference in meaning. Imposition is far more intrusive.

Let's get this straight: the proposal is that children be forced to speak Irish.

An Coilean

BognarRegis wrote: »

There is a big difference in meaning. Imposition is far more intrusive.

Let's get this straight: the proposal is that children be forced to speak Irish.

You're just being pedantic to avoid the question thats being put to you now. You suggested that there is a right not to be exposed to a language or not to have exposure to a language imposed upon you. I ask again, is that what you are actually trying to claim and if it is, can you back that up?

topper75

shruikan2553 wrote: »

Is it really worth it for a company to provide translations between irish and english when the people who speak irish all speak english

Is music worth it? Is it worth it for a parent to hug their child? Is football worth it? No, no, and no. And to answer your question - again no.

However, ....

kowloon

topper75 wrote: »

Is music worth it? Is it worth it for a parent to hug their child? Is football worth it? No, no, and no. And to answer your question - again no.

However, ....

I'd be pretty angry if my company forced everyone to go out and hug a child, I'm not sure the parents would appreciate it either :pac:

shruikan2553

topper75 wrote: »

Is music worth it? Is it worth it for a parent to hug their child? Is football worth it? No, no, and no. And to answer your question - again no.

However, ....

Those things are stuff people do and pay for because they enjoy it. Companies are there to make a profit. Why would they pay to have their services through irish when an irish speaker has the ability to speak english at the level of a native speaker? I dont think there are any irish speakers who dont have a decent level of english

Iwasfrozen

An Coilean wrote: »

You're just being pedantic to avoid the question thats being put to you now. You suggested that there is a right not to be exposed to a language or not to have exposure to a language imposed upon you. I ask again, is that what you are actually trying to claim and if it is, can you back that up?

No one has a right not to be exposed to a language but everyone has a right not to be forced to speak a language against their will. Which is exactly what would happen if all imprimary schools were made Irish speaking.

An Coilean

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No one has a right not to be exposed to a language but everyone has a right not to be forced to speak a language against their will.

If thats true then surely there is an obligation on both the state and wider society to facilitate the use of Irish to the best of their ability, no?
We would not want to see the rights of Irish speakers infringed by being forced to speak English against their will, now would we?

Iwasfrozen

An Coilean wrote: »

If thats true then surely there is an obligation on both the state and wider society to facilitate the use of Irish to the best of their ability, no?
We would not want to see the rights of Irish speakers infringed by being forced to speak English against their will, now would we?

If we were talking about monoglot Irish speakers I would agree with you but we aren't. On one hand we have sinister state backed forced cultural indoctrination and on the other some crank trying to make a political point. And you somehow try to equate the two.

Doc

If I grew up and went to an Irish speaking primary school then went on to study at an Irish speaking secondary school I would like the opportunity to continue my education in whatever subject I wished to study through Irish. I'm sure Welsh speakers would feel the same.

You should be able to receive good third level education in your countries national language and currently that option is realistically unavailable for most courses here or in Wales.

Obviously many issues are going to prevent this from happening the two most obvious being the cost involved and lack of lectures with the required language skills. The only way to overcome the second is interpreters and then we are back to the first problem cost.

I don't speak Irish very well at all and regret that all my years of learning it haven't resulted in a better grasp of the language. Obviously this is partly my own failure and partly my various teachers and the curriculums failure. I think this has to be addressed first before looking at 3rd level. The cost of implementation would have to be justified by an appropriate level of demand and that demand will only exist if people are coming out of secondary school with university level Irish.

Mardy Bum

lewiscymru wrote: »

It happens in Catalonia (with Catalan and Spanish) and is hugely successful.

Catalan is widely spoken in Barcelona unlike Irish in Ireland. Not sure how much Welsh is spoken currently in Wales.

An Coilean

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

If we were talking about monoglot Irish speakers I would agree with you but we aren't. On one hand we have sinister state backed forced cultural indoctrination and on the other some crank trying to make a political point. And you somehow try to equate the two.

I thought we were talking about rights here rather than your perception of this or that state program or the actions of individual citizens.

It seems that what you originally presented as being a right* not to be forced to speak a language against your will is only available to some citizens and not to all, you are suggesting that the 'right' not to be forced to speak a language against your will is one that only monoglot citizens can enjoy. Tell me, why should citizens who were either raised bilingually or who later become bilingual through their own efforts be stripped of that right.

It further seems astounding to me that in a state that is itself officially bilingual that there should be descrimination against citizens on the basis of being able to speak both official languages.


*I should note that I believe that rights by definition are something that are held equally by all citizens of the state.

Students should be taught Economics at an earlier age instead.

shruikan2553

Doc wrote: »

If I grew up and went to an Irish speaking primary school then went on to study at an Irish speaking secondary school I would like the opportunity to continue my education in whatever subject I wished to study through Irish. I'm sure Welsh speakers would feel the same.

You should be able to receive good third level education in your countries national language and currently that option is realistically unavailable for most courses here or in Wales.

Obviously many issues are going to prevent this from happening the two most obvious being the cost involved and lack of lectures with the required language skills. The only way to overcome the second is interpreters and then we are back to the first problem cost.

I don't speak Irish very well at all and regret that all my years of learning it haven't resulted in a better grasp of the language. Obviously this is partly my own failure and partly my various teachers and the curriculums failure. I think this has to be addressed first before looking at 3rd level. The cost of implementation would have to be justified by an appropriate level of demand and that demand will only exist if people are coming out of secondary school with university level Irish.

In NUIG I had the option of taking chemistry through irish, although then it turned out you could only to it in irish if you were taking the subject for the full year. The problem is out will have to choose at times between an excellent lecturer vs a poor lecturer with fluent irish. There would be some good irish speaking lecturers but the college would be limiting themselves.

In the perfect world both irish and english speakers would get what they want but we have to find a common language if we want to live together and we have english for that. English is the main language in this country and I dont see any reason why the english speakers would want to or should change

Iwasfrozen

An Coilean wrote: »

I thought we were talking about rights here rather than your perception of this or that state program or the actions of individual citizens.

It seems that what you originally presented as being a right* not to be forced to speak a language against your will is only available to some citizens and not to all, you are suggesting that the 'right' not to be forced to speak a language against your will is one that only monoglot citizens can enjoy. Tell me, why should citizens who were either raised bilingually or who later become bilingual through their own efforts be stripped of that right.

It further seems astounding to me that in a state that is itself officially bilingual that there should be descrimination against citizens on the basis of being able to speak both official languages.


*I should note that I believe that rights by definition are something that are held equally by all citizens of the state.

That's very true and I don't deny it. I think a lot of these problems would be solved if we had taken the route the Americans had taken and have no de jure national language while keeping English the unofficial de facto working language of the state. Then we would have no need to provide services for Irish speakers at an uncompromising cost to the Irish tax payer. Alas we didn't and thanks to Dev's short sightedness we're stuck with the mess we are in.

The crazy old crank has a right to demand services in Irish. I don't like it but logically I don't deny it. But while the crazy old crank has a right to speak the language of his choice so too do parents have the right to have their children educated in the language of their choice. This proves a problem because such duplication of resources is simply unrealistic to provide so a line must be drawn somewhere and even though it infringes on the rights of Irish speaking parents English speakers are in the vast vast vast majority and accordingly the vast majority of schools should be english medium schools.

I think I'm mellowing in my old age tbh. I'd be happy with state services being provided in Irish as long as Irish was not a mandatory subject post primary school. I've even started to stop hating the Irish version of my name. :P

ZeitgeistGlee

An Coilean wrote: »

Not sure what is so confusing about it, If an Irish speaker wanted to live their lives without having to speak English they would quickly find themselves in dificulty.


Irish is only compulsory for less than an hour a day a few times a week between the ages of 4 and 18, if you don't get an exemption.
English on the other hand is essentially compulsory for the rest of the time and if you try to speak Irish outside of those few hours a week in the classroom you are liable to get abuse for it.

I see you're now defaulting immediately to the same dishonest tactics from the last discussion AC. :rolleyes:

Irish is still compulsory though, that by itself renders it impossible for Irish to be "oppressed" as a language in favour of English. The fact that people who chose to communicate exclusively through Irish would have a greater degree of difficulty than someone who did so through English is irrelevant because it still doesn't mean Irish-speakers and the Irish language are oppressed.

All government documents are translated to Irish, and interaction with government agencies is still possible exclusively through Irish (though you'll whine it'll take time to source a fluent speaker) even though 99.99% of the population can communicate through English. You have a subsidised television channel, schools, newspapers and lobby groups worth tens of millions of euro on a yearly basis. How in God's name are you oppressed? :rolleyes:

Wibbs

Mardy Bum wrote: »

Catalan is widely spoken in Barcelona unlike Irish in Ireland.

Yes there is quite the difference between the Catalan and Irish experience. As you say MB Catalan is far more widely spoken than Irish is(or has been in a century). Catalan media is widespread, so it's much more immersive than Irish. It's also much closer to Castilian, so Castilian speakers who might move to a Catalan area have far less of a learning curve than exists between Irish and English. Plus you could move to Barcelona and only learn Catalan and could live and work there without knowing much if any Castilian. Come to Ireland and only speak Irish and outside of a very small subsection of Irish society you'd be kinda screwed. The two situations are not comparable. Neither is the resurgence/birth of modern Hebrew(which usually comes up in these threads).

An Coilean

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

That's very true and I don't deny it. I think a lot of these problems would be solved if we had taken the route the Americans had taken and have no de jure national language while keeping English the unofficial de facto working language of the state. Then we would have no need to provide services for Irish speakers at an uncompromising cost to the Irish tax payer. Alas we didn't and thanks to Dev's short sightedness we're stuck with the mess we are in.

You think that Irish speakers having the same right to avail of services through their language as English speakers is a mess, seems like petty begrudgery to me.

The cost of providing services bilingually rather than monolingually is minimial when done in the right way, there are plenty of countries that are officially bilingual and multilingual, talking up the cost to the tax payer is a red herring in my opinion.

The crazy old crank has a right to demand services in Irish. I don't like it but logically I don't deny it. But while the crazy old crank has a right to speak the language of his choice so too do parents have the right to have their children educated in the language of their choice. This proves a problem because such duplication of resources is simply unrealistic to provide so a line must be drawn somewhere and even though it infringes on the rights of Irish speaking parents English speakers are in the vast vast vast majority and accordingly the vast majority of schools should be english medium schools.

An Irish speaker is a 'crazy old crank' for wanting to use one of the country's official languages? This seems like little more than name calling to me.
I'm not sure where the duplication of resources comes in, where there is demand for education through the medium of Irish, provide it. As it is demand is greater than supply for both primary and second level education through Irish. Expanding existing Gaelscoils and establishing new ones in line with demand will not lead to duplication, just a greater proportion of children reciving their education through Irish rather than English.

I think I'm mellowing in my old age tbh. I'd be happy with state services being provided in Irish as long as Irish was not a mandatory subject post primary school. I've even started to stop hating the Irish version of my name. :P

I'm not getting this, are you saying that your objection to state services being provided in Irish is the compulsory status of Irish in the education system? Again I have to say that this strikes me as petty and is hardly a reasonable basis for denying a minority language community their rights.

ZeitgeistGlee

An Coilean wrote: »

You think that Irish speakers having the same right to avail of services through their language as English speakers is a mess, seems like petty begrudgery to me.

The cost of providing services bilingually rather than monolingually is minimial when done in the right way, there are plenty of countries that are officially bilingual and multilingual, talking up the cost to the tax payer is a red herring in my opinion.

So in the worst recession in the country's history where billions of Euro has to be raised through additional taxes and levies and further billions cut from public spending it's "petty begrudgery" and a "red herring" that some people take issue with money being spent on bilinguality which offers practically no objective benefits to the country as a whole?

Irish speakers are not an entirely separate subsection of society to English speakers, the vast, vast, vast majority of Irish speakers are fluent in English (and if we're to believe a previous post, have a better grasp of "the King's English" than the rest of us). You're not precluded from access to services offered wholly through English (and I can't think of any governmental ones which are) in the same way someone with no or very limited English is.

An Coilean wrote: »

I'm not getting this, are you saying that your objection to state services being provided in Irish is the compulsory status of Irish in the education system? Again I have to say that this strikes me as petty and is hardly a reasonable basis for denying a minority language community their rights.

So you believe an inherent right exists to mandatorily proliferate Irish even against the desire of students and/or their parents? That it's "petty bugrudgery" that people want to be educated in the language of their choice? Funny, that reads amazingly like hypocrisy to me.

An Coilean

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

Irish is still compulsory though, that by itself renders it impossible for Irish to be "oppressed" as a language in favour of English. The fact that people who chose to communicate exclusively through Irish would have a greater degree of difficulty than someone who did so through English is irrelevant because it still doesn't mean Irish-speakers and the Irish language are oppressed.

All government documents are translated to Irish, and interaction with government agencies is still possible exclusively through Irish (though you'll whine it'll take time to source a fluent speaker) even though 99.99% of the population can communicate through English. You have a subsidised television channel, schools, newspapers and lobby groups worth tens of millions of euro on a yearly basis. How in God's name are you oppressed?

You're the only one talking about oppression, your post reads as a misrepresentation of my arugment bodering on strawman.

I was not claiming that Irish is oppresed, I was simply highlighting that the compulsion to use English is pervasive in our society while Irish is only compulsory as a school subject and that bemoaning the compulsory nature of Irish is very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black to an Irish speaker.

All government documents are not translated to Irish, there is actually a very short list of what is to be translated under the official languages act. Also it is very common that state bodies do not provide any service through Irish and if they do it is of a very broken and limited nature when compared to the service provided in English.

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

So in the worst recession in the country's history where billions of Euro has to be raised through additional taxes and levies and further billions cut from public spending it's "petty begrudgery" and a "red herring" that some people take issue with money being spent on bilinguality which offers practically no objective benefits to the country as a whole?

Yes it is, the amount of money spent on the exceptionally limited service provided to Irish speakers through Irish by the state is a pitance and describing it in terms of 'an uncompromising cost to the Irish tax payer' is simply hyperbole. Its like complaining about the 'uncompromising cost to the Irish tax payer of filling in the potholes in Carlow'.
Irish speakers are tax payers too and have a right to expect that their taxes go to providing a service from thei state in their own language as well as in English. The Irish language sector has seen severe cuts well above the norm over the last few years, I maintain that complaining about money spent on providing services in Irish is petty begrudgery.

So you believe an inherent right exists to mandatorily proliferate Irish even against the desire of students and/or their parents? That it's "petty bugrudgery" that people want to be educated in the language of their choice? Funny, that reads amazingly like hypocrisy to me.

Not sure how you got that from my post, where exacty did I even hint at 'an inherent right to mandatorily proliferate Irish even against the desire of students and/or their parents'
It seems your desire to see hypocrisy in what I wrote has lead to you read something that simply was not there, nowhere in my post have I suggested anything like a right to force people to learn Irish against their will, my post simply pointed out that resentment of Irish being compulsory is no basis for denying Irish speakers their right to access state services through Irish.

BognarRegis

An Coilean wrote: »

You're the only one talking about oppression, your post reads as a misrepresentation of my arugment ...very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black...

The irony is quite compelling here. You're one who tried attriibute to me an opposition to 'exposing people to Irish'. Attributing to me words that I never used.

An Coilean wrote: »

nowhere in my post have I suggested anything like a right to force people to learn Irish against their will.

You did however imply that a right not to be forced to speak Irish did not exist. You did this by demanding others to prove such a right existed.

I believe it is wrong to force people to speak Irish: do you?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

BognarRegis wrote: »

I believe it is wrong to force people to speak Irish: do you?

Not aimed at me, I know, but FWIW, it's wrong to be forced to speak any langauge. It's practical, however, to learn at least one.

BognarRegis

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Not aimed at me, I know, but FWIW, it's wrong to be forced to speak any langauge. It's practical, however, to learn at least one.

There is certainly a lot of merit in learning a language in addition to one's maternal language. The crux is "who chooses the other language?". The child, its parents or the state?

Mardy Bum

BognarRegis wrote: »

There is certainly a lot of merit in learning a language in addition to one's maternal language. The crux is "who chooses the other language?". The child, its parents or the state?

The vast majority of Spanish people can speak English as well as Spanish and depending on the area also Catalan. They can do this because it is necessary now to speak English in most European countries. Irish people struggle to speak anything other than English (and that is also a struggle). I'm not sure what it is like in Wales. Children should be learning a prominent European language from an early age or Mandarin.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

BognarRegis wrote: »

There is certainly a lot of merit in learning a language in addition to one's maternal language. The crux is "who chooses the other language?". The child, its parents or the state?

Is there? Surely the merit of a second langauge is for the student to decide?

If there comes a point where the sutdent chooses optional subjects, than surely it's up for said student to decide. We don't force them to do woodwork, or art, or economics, or biology - why not? Because we assume (rightly or wrongly) they'll have a rough idea what they want to do in third level. If they even want to do third level.

We are talking about education systems. They exist to serve students. They do NOT exist to serve external interest groups - be they lingusitic, commercial, scietific or whatever.

And if a system needs to say to a sudent at the age of about 15 "we do not trust you to make wise choices regarding ovour future" then said system has already failed in education the student.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Mardy Bum wrote: »

The vast majority of Spanish people can speak English as well as Spanish and depending on the area also Catalan. They can do this because it is necessary now to speak English in most European countries. Irish people struggle to speak anything other than English (and that is also a struggle). I'm not sure what it is like in Wales. Children should be learning a prominent European language from an early age or Mandarin.

People from most English-native speaking countries struggle with second languages simply because they aren't as nessecary - it's only when you go to another country that, as a native English speaker, you actually need a second language.

Mardy Bum

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

People from most English-native speaking countries struggle with second languages simply because they aren't as nessecary - it's only when you go to another country that, as a native English speaker, you actually need a second language.

Yes this is probably the biggest issue but it is a short sighted one. They are not necessary immediately but jobs are available in many places other than native English speaking countries. Teaching is also a huge reason why languages are not well spoken.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Mardy Bum wrote: »

Yes this is probably the biggest issue but it is a short sighted one. They are not necessary immediately but jobs are available in many places other than native English speaking countries. Teaching is also a huge reason why languages are not well spoken.

Well, it's the individual who will decide how useful to them it is. But then why make a language compulsory when the vast majority of students will stay in Ireland? It will be useful to some, granted, but not to all, and even so, how do you predict which langauge the student will need? If any?

One of the major problems I have with the irish education system is the amount of unnnessecary and uninteresting crap on it (and this goes for all subjects). Let the student decide - if they find something useful or interesting, let them learn it by all means. But if they don't, why waste their time?

Mardy Bum

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Well, it's the individual who will decide how useful to them it is. But then why make a language compulsory when the vast majority of students will stay in Ireland? It will be useful to some, granted, but not to all, and even so, how do you predict which langauge the student will need? If any?

One of the major problems I have with the irish education system is the amount of unnnessecary and uninteresting crap on it (and this goes for all subjects). Let the student decide - if they find something useful or interesting, let them learn it by all means. But if they don't, why waste their time?

Learning a foreign language is compulsory in most European countries throughout secondary school. A language is never unnecessary (unless it is a dead or dying one).

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Mardy Bum wrote: »

Learning a foreign language is compulsory in most European countries throughout secondary school. A language is never unnecessary (unless it is a dead or dying one).

... again, because most European countrues are not native-English speaking.

I'd argue that the most useful language of all is a dead one - Latin. But again, that's for the student to decide.

Wibbs

Mardy Bum wrote: »

The vast majority of Spanish people can speak English

The vast majority? Eh no they really can't MB. They're nowhere close to the Scandinavians in english language proficiency.

Irish people struggle to speak anything other than English (and that is also a struggle).

Actually we speak English very well. I have found your average Irish person to have a wider vocabulary than your average Canadian or Scot for example and we tend to be more inventive and more playful with the language. There's a reason why this small nation has produced so many world class writers in English(among other languages).

Children should be learning a prominent European language from an early age or Mandarin.

Oh god not Mandarin again. No. Just no. It'll never be a world language*.

I do agree with the learning of a European language. Have Irish as a subject in primary, but after that the choice is the parents/student.


*Don't confuse numbers with popularity. The overwhelming majority of Mandarin speakers(and Cantonese etc) are Chinese, while there are more English speakers in Pakistan, the US, etc than there are in England. It's a tonal language so too open to misinterpretation when local accents come into play(this can even happen within China) and its writing system while attractive to look at is daftly complicated.

Cool Mo D

Mardy Bum wrote: »

The vast majority of Spanish people can speak English as well as Spanish and depending on the area also Catalan.

You must be joking, the Spanish are as bad as us at learning a foreign language. Go to Madrid and try to talk to people in English - the vast majority have a few words at best.

lewiscymru

Mardy Bum wrote: »

The vast majority of Spanish people can speak English as well as Spanish and depending on the area also Catalan. They can do this because it is necessary now to speak English in most European countries. Irish people struggle to speak anything other than English (and that is also a struggle). I'm not sure what it is like in Wales. Children should be learning a prominent European language from an early age or Mandarin.

As someone who has lived in Spain, I can assure you the vast majority of Spaniards do not speak English. Outside the touristy areas you'll notice the English they speak is very limited. Only around 51% of EU citizens actually speak English (to some degree).

I also have to correct the person who said you could live in BCN with only Catalan. This isn't true, whilst all public services and signage is usually Catalan only, the main language on the streets is undoubtedly Spanish and if you were to speak to someone you would nearly always address them in Spanish if you didn't know which language they spoke. If you go to a club, shop or any other business everyone speaks in Spanish and quite often Spanish is the only language they speak. I think something like 40% of people living in BCN speak no Catalan at all.

An Coilean

BognarRegis wrote: »

The irony is quite compelling here. You're one who tried attriibute to me an opposition to 'exposing people to Irish'. Attributing to me words that I never used.

For the irony to be compelling is quite the achievement considering that its not ironic in the first place, even if I was actually doing as you claim.

Asking someone a question and misrepresenting their argument are quite different things.

You have yet to answer the question as it happenes, maybe this time?

You did however imply that a right not to be forced to speak Irish did not exist. You did this by demanding others to prove such a right existed.

Oh dear, now you have contradicted yourself, either I tried attriibute to you an 'opposition to exposing people to Irish' or I was implying that a right 'not to be forced to speak Irish' did not exist. I could not have done both.

I believe it is wrong to force people to speak Irish: do you?

Depends on what you mean by force. Put a gun to someones head to force them, threathen them with imprisonment or loss of employment unless they speak Irish, yeah that would be wrong.
Irish being compulsory in school, no I don't believe there is anything objectivly 'wrong' with that. Compulsory second language learning is the norm in the vast majority of countries in Europe, I see nothing wrong with that.

You are going on about a supposed 'right not to be forced to speak Irish' No I dont think any such right exists.
We are talking about rights here, there are conventions of wording when speaking about rights, and those conventions are used for a reason.
In general you have a right to something or to do something, they are worded positivly to give you something, for example you have a 'right to an Education', not a 'right to not be uneducated' you may think that they mean the same thing, but there is a subtle difference and that difference is important.
If all you have is a right not to be uneducated, then so long as the state teaches you what 2+2 is, they can claim you are not 'uneducated' and your rights are not being breached. Having a right to Education infers a greater obligation on the state.

A 'right not to be forced to speak a language' is to be blunt an arséways way of putting it. Correctly it should be rendered a 'Right to speak your own language' the problem with this, and the reason I believe you have been putting it arséways is that a 'Right to speak your own language' does not mean that you have a right not to be exposed to or compelled to learn another language in the education system.

So to answer your question, yes, I believe there is a right to use your own language, but I dont think there is any right to not learn another language.

ZeitgeistGlee

An Coilean wrote: »

You're the only one talking about oppression, your post reads as a misrepresentation of my arugment bodering on strawman.

I was not claiming that Irish is oppresed, I was simply highlighting that the compulsion to use English is pervasive in our society while Irish is only compulsory as a school subject and that bemoaning the compulsory nature of Irish is very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black to an Irish speaker.

Except that you quoted a post of mine replying to the concept of Irish-language oppression to make your counterargument about English being a de-jure mandatory language, which is factually untrue.

As for your "pot vs kettle" argument, that doesn't hold water because the so-called "compulsory" nature of English is based on its objective greater communicative usage vs Irish's compulsory status being objective fact which there is no alternative to. You may choose to communicate socially through Irish, I cannot walk into an Irish class and speak English.

Of course your example conveniently doesn't take into account Gaelscoils or Gaeltacht areas but that's hardly surprising based on previous experience.

An Coilean wrote: »

All government documents are not translated to Irish, there is actually a very short list of what is to be translated under the official languages act. Also it is very common that state bodies do not provide any service through Irish and if they do it is of a very broken and limited nature when compared to the service provided in English.

You cannot bemoan a lack of parity of availability when a lack of parity of use exists. As we dealt with before you are also entitled to deal with Government service providers (such as Garda) through Irish. That fact however that there exists only a tiny fraction of Irish speakers who cannot comprehend English, versus the vast majority who simply choose not to renders the above practically frivolous.

An Coilean wrote: »

Yes it is, the amount of money spent on the exceptionally limited service provided to Irish speakers through Irish by the state is a pitance and describing it in terms of 'an uncompromising cost to the Irish tax payer' is simply hyperbole. Its like complaining about the 'uncompromising cost to the Irish tax payer of filling in the potholes in Carlow'.
Irish speakers are tax payers too and have a right to expect that their taxes go to providing a service from thei state in their own language as well as in English. The Irish language sector has seen severe cuts well above the norm over the last few years, I maintain that complaining about money spent on providing services in Irish is petty begrudgery.

Because practically all of you English fluently, you just choose not to so it is not objectively a valuable cost vs money spent on other areas like Health Care. I can't drive on a road riddled with potholes without risk of damage to my vehicle, you can walk into a hospital and speak English with no risk of personal damage.

I'll also have proof about those cuts to Irish services relative to other survives as well when you get the chance (and not ones that come from an Irish language lobby group either as you were so fond of last time).

An Coilean wrote: »

Not sure how you got that from my post, where exacty did I even hint at 'an inherent right to mandatorily proliferate Irish even against the desire of students and/or their parents'
It seems your desire to see hypocrisy in what I wrote has lead to you read something that simply was not there, nowhere in my post have I suggested anything like a right to force people to learn Irish against their will, my post simply pointed out that resentment of Irish being compulsory is no basis for denying Irish speakers their right to access state services through Irish.

You've stated you believe there is an inherent right to "expose" children to Irish in school as a mandatory subject whether it be their desire or not, that's perfectly accurate to what I said.

If your position is that children should be "exposed" to other languages than English due to their objective benefits then how about instead of Irish we give them access to another European one so they'll have English and two European languages by the time they finish Secondary? Surely objectively that would be a more worthwhile language "exposure" than Irish currently provides.

I haven't seen any demonstrated resentment against people accessing services through Irish (questioning the validity of that access is not resentment) either.

Mardy Bum

Wibbs wrote: »

The vast majority? Eh no they really can't MB. They're nowhere close to the Scandinavians in english language proficiency.

Actually we speak English very well. I have found your average Irish person to have a wider vocabulary than your average Canadian or Scot for example and we tend to be more inventive and more playful with the language. There's a reason why this small nation has produced so many world class writers in English(among other languages). Oh god not Mandarin again. No. Just no. It'll never be a world language*.

I do agree with the learning of a European language. Have Irish as a subject in primary, but after that the choice is the parents/student.


*Don't confuse numbers with popularity. The overwhelming majority of Mandarin speakers(and Cantonese etc) are Chinese, while there are more English speakers in Pakistan, the US, etc than there are in England. It's a tonal language so too open to misinterpretation when local accents come into play(this can even happen within China) and its writing system while attractive to look at is daftly complicated.

The vast majority of Irish secondary schools will have 2 honours and 2 pass English classes in each year and perhaps another SEN class. We are struggling at literacy as numerous studies such as PISA have shown and now education policy is concerned mainly with literacy and numeracy in both primary and secondary.
I am not confusing it but if someone wants to emigrate to Asia where a lot of business opportunities await it would be suitable to learn it.
I will rephrase my original assertion; a larger percentage of Spanish people speak another language i.e English than Irish people speak.
Numerous jobs in Paypal and other MNC require two languages at least so it is important children are encouraged/forced to do a foreign language like schools in Germany.

An Coilean

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

Except that you quoted a post of mine replying to the concept of Irish-language oppression to make your counterargument about English being a de-jure mandatory language, which is factually untrue.

The original point came from Ruudi_Mentari where they mentioned 'just not the way it was enforced' to which you replied with 'To say that something is enforced would require that Irish be purposely suppressed and yet that's entirely untrue'

So we see the poet you were replying to was not making a point about Irish being oppressed today but in the past. Obviously Irish was suppressed in the past, but you are still the only one talking about oppression of Irish today.

As for your "pot vs kettle" argument, that doesn't hold water because the so-called "compulsory" nature of English is based on its objective greater communicative usage vs Irish's compulsory status being objective fact which there is no alternative to. You may choose to communicate socially through Irish, I cannot walk into an Irish class and speak English.

Sorry but the fact remains that English is far more compulsory in our society both publicly and privatly than Irish ever was.

You cannot bemoan a lack of parity of availability when a lack of parity of use exists. As we dealt with before you are also entitled to deal with Government service providers (such as Garda) through Irish. That fact however that there exists only a tiny fraction of Irish speakers who cannot comprehend English, versus the vast majority who simply choose not to renders the above practically frivolous.

You can't use a service thats not available, while there is a commitment to provide these sewrvices, they reality is that they are very rarely available and if they are, they are of poor quality. My fear is that you think a service in Irish is freely available and people are just not using them, nothing could be further from the truth.

Because practically all of you English fluently, you just choose not to so it is not objectively a valuable cost vs money spent on other areas like Health Care. I can't drive on a road riddled with potholes without risk of damage to my vehicle, you can walk into a hospital and speak English with no risk of personal damage.

If the road you want to go down is that the state can decide which official language its citizens can speak, ie the state can decide to force all citizens to speak English by not providing services through Irish, then you can hardly complain when it goes the other way and the state decides to force kids to learn Irish.

I'll also have proof about those cuts to Irish services relative to other survives as well when you get the chance (and not ones that come from an Irish language lobby group either as you were so fond of last time).

http://www.gaelport.com/default.aspx?treeid=37&NewsItemID=9014

Here is a report on some of the cutbacks for this year, similar cutbacks have been made each year since the economic crisis began.

For example:
''The Irish Language Support Schemes, which are part-financed with receipts from the National Lottery, have been cut by 25% for 2013''.

You've stated you believe there is an inherent right to "expose" children to Irish in school as a mandatory subject whether it be their desire or not, that's perfectly accurate to what I said.

Where did I say this?

If your position is that children should be "exposed" to other languages than English due to their objective benefits then how about instead of Irish we give them access to another European one so they'll have English and two European languages by the time they finish Secondary? Surely objectively that would be a more worthwhile language "exposure" than Irish currently provides.

How would it be more worthwhile? Where is the benefit to a major reorientation of the education system that will see hundreds if not thousands of teachers unemployed only to be replaced by others most of whom will have to be hired from other countries at no saving to the state only to end up with students emerging from secondary school with a level of language proficiency in two forighn languages that will not be even close to sufficient to compete with native speakers of that language when looking for a job and which they will have even less chance of using outside of school than Irish unless they emigrate.

More worthwhile? Don't see it to be honnest.

Hilly Bill

If a Welsh speaker wants to be taught in Welsh then fair enough but to force non Welsh speakers to be taught in Welsh just makes in very difficult for them to get the best results in that course.

BognarRegis

An Coilean wrote: »

Depends on what you mean by force. Put a gun to someones head to force them, threathen them with imprisonment or loss of employment unless they speak Irish, yeah that would be wrong.

How about forcing them to speak Irish in subjects other than Irish? Threatening their entire education if they don't comply? That's force. You might like to call it 'imposed exposure' but in plain English, it is force. That is what is proposed. It's coercive to deny people an education, for example in Geography or Maths because they decline to learn them in Irish.

An Coilean wrote: »

Irish being compulsory in school, no I don't believe there is anything objectivly 'wrong' with that Compulsory second language learning is the norm in the vast majority of countries in Europe, I see nothing wrong with that.

Just because people are not given a choice in other countries does not make it right. Irish is a special case because so much effort is expended teaching children a language they don't use.

An Coilean wrote: »

You are going on about a supposed 'right not to be forced to speak Irish' No I dont think any such right exists. We are talking about rights here, there are conventions of wording when speaking about rights, and those conventions are used for a reason.
In general you have a right to something or to do something, they are worded positivly to give you something, for example you have a 'right to an Education',

How about the right to freedom of expression (in English)?

An Coilean

BognarRegis wrote: »

How about forcing them to speak Irish in subjects other than Irish? Threatening their entire education if they don't comply? That's force. You might like to call it 'imposed exposure' but in plain English, it is force. That is what is proposed. It's coercive to deny people an education, for example in Geography or Maths because they decline to learn them in Irish.

Again, it depends, if a child was put into a school where the medium of Instruction was Irish and no heed was taken of the childs lack of Irish which resulted in them suffering acedemically, then yeah, that would be wrong, on the other hand if the childs language needs were accomodated by the school and they were helped to make the transition so that they did not suffer undue negative consequences then I don't see what the problem would be.
Imagine moving to France and complaining suggesting that it was morally wrong of the state to provide education only through the medium of French.

At the end of the day this does not happen in Ireland and it has not been suggested that it will be introduced, on the other hand it happens often enough to children raised throguh Irish who are forced into English medium schools due to lack of spaces in Irish medium schools, yet you don't seem to worked up about that.

Just because people are not given a choice in other countries does not make it right. Irish is a special case because so much effort is expended teaching children a language they don't use.

No but it does suggest that it is a normal practice that the majority of Europe is happy with, which does call into question the suggestion that it is wrong.

How about the right to freedom of expression (in English)?

What about it? Did you not read to the end of my post, I did say 'I believe there is a right to use your own language', does that not cover it?

BognarRegis

An Coilean wrote: »

Imagine moving to France and complaining suggesting that it was morally wrong of the state to provide education only through the medium of French.

Or living in Ireland where English is the principal language and being forced to learn Irish when you would prefer to learn a different second language.

An Coilean wrote: »

At the end of the day this does not happen in Ireland and it has not been suggested that it will be introduced,

Yes it has - see post 1.

ALL pupils in Wales should have to learn up to a third of their lessons through the medium of Welsh, a language campaign group claims today.
In a policy paper to the Welsh Government, the group is calling for teaching at least a third of the curriculum through the medium of Welsh in every school."
Do you think this could be done in Ireland, or is Wales a completely different situation?

I take it that despite your passion for 'forced exposure to Irish' as you call it, the Welsh suggestion is a bit too extreme for you?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

An Coilean wrote: »

Irish being compulsory in school, no I don't believe there is anything objectivly 'wrong' with that. Compulsory second language learning is the norm in the vast majority of countries in Europe, I see nothing wrong with that.

Doesn't make it the best way though. As I said earlier: why do we trust students at the age of 15 to pick auitable subjects for themselves, but not to drop Irish?

You are going on about a supposed 'right not to be forced to speak Irish' No I dont think any such right exists.

But it should. Unless you've signed a contract requiring you to speak it as a term of employment. It's a moot point anyway, because no adult on this island is force to speak anything.

An Coilean wrote: »

Again, it depends, if a child was put into a school where the medium of Instruction was Irish and no heed was taken of the childs lack of Irish which resulted in them suffering acedemically, then yeah, that would be wrong, on the other hand if the childs language needs were accomodated by the school and they were helped to make the transition so that they did not suffer undue negative consequences then I don't see what the problem would be.
Imagine moving to France and complaining suggesting that it was morally wrong of the state to provide education only through the medium of French.

I agree with our first point, but the scenario you produce is a fallacy, unless a 15-year-old student chooses to move to France.

In any case, the scenario outlined in the OP, was where about one-third of the cucciulum would be taught in Welsh. To have the same thign with Irish here, would take a massive overhaul, and a hell of a lot of resources that you outline above that we simply do not have and can not afford. It would also be a turn in the wrong direction: this is education we're talking about - it's purpose is to educate - not to promote the Irish langauge. It's simply not something enough people want and not something enough teenagers are going to get on board with.