The Irish language is failing.

Un Croissant

Just watching the news and the Irish language is failing, even in the Gaeltacht.

I dont want to get into a debate with the misty eyed brigade about Irish being our first language etc.

Languages are only relevant if they are used. History or nationalism doesn't appear to be enough.

So with that in mind, how can we improve the position of Irish? Do we want to?

While it will never be our first language again, considering mass culture and the internet age, is there a case to be made for a strong second language?

Or should we look elsewhere? I guess I'm inviting the "let's all learn Chinese" gang to join the discussion.

EoghanIRL

Annual Irish bashing thread.

Un Croissant

EoghanIRL wrote: »

Annual Irish bashing thread.

A hand of friendship was extended to the Irish language. To help in survive and grow, but Eoghan slaps it away.

mikeym

What does the minister of the gealteacht think....

Oh wait he dont speak Irish too well.

Banjoxed

mikeym wrote: »

What does the minister of the gealteacht think....

Oh wait he dont speak Irish too well.

Think the problems that the Irish language have are too deep seated for it to matter a damn who the minister is. Generations of us under all governments were taught the language badly and left school with no love for what was an obligation.

RayM

mikeym wrote: »

What does the minister of the gealteacht think....

Oh wait he dont speak Irish too well.

He thinks it's uafásach!

(unless he wasn't an avid viewer of Bosco as a child. In which case, he thinks it's terrible)

Grayson

Cueva wrote: »

Teach it properly, tell children to use the duolingo app to learn Irish as well.

That's true. There's always an argument about whether or not it's "worth" saving. It always decends into an argument about how it enriches people or how it makes people "more" Irish.

The simple fact is that we have been teaching it to kids for decades and we've been teaching it badly. We leave school knowing foreign languages better and we spend less than half the time learning them.

We can only have an argument about whether or not it should be saved if we already know it can be saved. And so far we've been absolutely useless at teaching it.

Knasher

I've long been of the opinion that all languages but English are going to decline in the long term. It is the language of the internet and of most mass market entertainment, more and more people learn it as a second language, and unlike people with English as a primary language, they actually have cause to use it.

Technology could be the end of other languages, but recently I've though that it could also be its salvation. Translation software has advanced incredibly fast. It is far more accurate than it was 5 years ago. Voice syntasis sounds a lot more natural. It isn't inconceivable that in 20 years, you could choose to talk to anybody in the world in Irish, or read any website, or watch any TV show. If Irish were a language that I could have used as part of my daily life, then I think I would probably still be able to speak it today. If the technology ever gets us there, then I think the romanticism of it could see it have a resurgence.

But honestly, that is the only hope I hold for it.

Slutmonkey57b

"It's all because it's badly taught!"

If only Irish speakers had been in charge of deciding how it was taught for the last 100 years!

Those pesky Brits!

Timberrrrrrrr

mikeym wrote: »

What does the minister of the gealteacht think....

Oh wait he dont speak Irish too well.

And you don't speak English very well

wendell borton

The welsh language is going strong at the moment, couldn't we just copy them.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

"It's all because it's badly taught!"

If only Irish speakers had been in charge of deciding how it was taught for the last 100 years!

Those pesky Brits!

Sorry, I must have missed it, who blamed the British for this?

seanin4711

when its bet into you

ancapailldorcha

Give people the choice on whether to learn it or not. Most will refuse I expect but those who decide to learn the language will likely attain a better standard of fluency due to their interest in it and their culture. These individuals would also make for excellent teachers of the language.

The current system of spending ridiculous amounts of time, resources and taxpayers' money forcing it down pupils' throats is woefully inadequate. Time children should be using to learn practical real world skills such as coding, science, critical thinking and so on is wasted on inadequate instruction in a language barely spoken in the country. It also breeds resentment for the language which is a shame. Our education system needs a serious overhaul and I'm not alone in thinking this.

Aongus Von Bismarck

I like the Irish language and hope it doesn't disappear. I'm not very good at reading or speaking it myself, but I have noticed that my favourite Irish writers working with the English language have all come from native or fluent Irish speaking backgrounds.

Flann O'Brien, Con Houlihan, John B. Keane.

There's a lovely cant to how they wrote.

Gatling

If anything it's growing. It's dipping at gealtrach areas possibly due to emigration amongst the younger generations.
My kids are fluent and learning at 6 and 3 respectively .
For some moans about how it was taught is a cop out imo people just aren't motivated to learn for many in my generation 35+ many were told by there parents you don't need it ,why would you want to learn a dying language.
My kids came through a irish parent and toddlers group and on to naoinra where it's taught using high scope learning and learning thorough play.
It's been taught at universities in the states and growing in popularity there

UCDVet

I was absolutely amazed at how quickly and effectively my phone can translate languages. I went to France and I could record people talking in French, and read it in English, I could snap pictures of signs in French and see it in English, and I can type something in English and have it read aloud in French.

I can only imagine how much better it'll be in 10 years.

I just don't see any point in learning a second language these days.

WesternZulu

The Irish language could learn a lot from their Celtic cousins across the water in Wales.

In 1962 a Welsh language activist called Saunders Lewis delivered a speech on radio about the imminent death of the language unless action was taken.

The Welsh language has grown in strength since. I live in Wales and hear it every day without fail...and to be honest I am quite jealous that they have that and Ireland doesn't.

Too much time is spent on old stories and poems in Irish when more time should be spend on actually being able to have full blown conversation in the language itself.

It seems that in Wales more time is given to conversational language rather than the written word and this has allowed the language to prosper. I've often heard fluent Welsh speakers say that their comprehension of written text to be poor...but so what, they are keeping the language alive though daily dialogue.

Iwasfrozen

Un Croissant wrote: »

Just watching the news and the Irish language is failing, even in the Gaeltacht.

I dont want to get into a debate with the misty eyed brigade about Irish being our first language etc.

Languages are only relevant if they are used. History or nationalism doesn't appear to be enough.

So with that in mind, how can we improve the position of Irish? Do we want to?

While it will never be our first language again, considering mass culture and the internet age, is there a case to be made for a strong second language?

Or should we look elsewhere? I guess I'm inviting the "let's all learn Chinese" gang to join the discussion.

Irish is dying and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Let it die. We'll mourn it when it's gone.

Tombi!

I don't know if it's dying. I'd say maybe people aren't living in a gaelteacht, sure and in that case the people who only use it as a language and not another language are dying. But I've known international people to have an interest in the language as well.
Plus with Irish music being reasonably popular, I'd also argue that bands do try to translate songs into English or even learn it in Irish.

I'd like to see more gaelscoils. That's schools where all subjects (except English) are taught through Irish. Obviously English is accepted at times and the goal is to learn the subjects in general but I feel that most people, if they attend both a primary and secondary gaelscoil will still have the language if they make a genuine effort long after they leave school.

I never attended a secondary school that spoke English, I was in a gaelscoil so I can't comment on how it was taught in English speaking schools but I will say that using it daily really does help you maintain a memory of it. I still have my Irish and it's reasonably decent. I'm quite sure in a few weeks of practice I'd be fluent.

I left school around 8 years ago I think. And I just recently started seeing how good my Irish is after not using it and I was very surprised at my ability.

Shep_Dog

Gatling wrote: »

If anything it's growing. It's dipping at gealtrach areas possibly due to emigration amongst the younger generations.

It's failing in the Gaeltact areas because of movement of of English-speakers into those areas. Jobs too would be an issue. Outside of state-funded Irish-language jobs, all the good jobs are for people who speak English.

To maintain an Irish-speaking community, one would have be very determined to exclude outside influences. M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Village' could be the blueprint for the survival of Irish in the future.

tipparetops

the Irish language is not growing.
the reason it is not growing is down to parents and teachers. Most parents dont care and most teachers cant teach it because they dont fully speak it.
the other problem with the language is that there is a snobbery with some of the speakers, a middle class snobbery, begging the question whos language is it.

Edgarfrndly

The Irish language could only recover if something genuine is done to improve the curriculum. Forcing children to spent 13 or 14 years remember trivial nonsense isn't going to reduce their apathy for the language. Introduce a conversational Irish class, which actually fosters an environment to speak the language is the only way to stop it's decline.

The biggest barrier to learning any language isn't grammar, poetry, tenses or irregular verbs. It's confidence. Being confident enough to use whatever you have, without fear of being corrected every 10 seconds.

I had a great conversation with Benny the Irish Polyglot about improving the Irish curriculum a year or two ago - and we agreed that there needs to be a huge shift towards spoken Irish, and less focus on syntax and grammar.

my teapot is orange

It raises the bigger question of should we be teaching it at all. I read on another forum recently how foreign science students in Ireland are amazed that first year of undergrad degrees is spent bringing everyone up to the level that they were at in school. There isn't much ICT or technology teaching in school and I think nowadays more and more people are going to need this even where it isn't there core role. That 40 minutes every day could be put to better use. The education system should be preparing students as best it can for the world they live in today, not pandering to the sentimental or political ideas from the past.

Boom__Boom

The most reliable data the census actually showed a percentage decline in the people who speak Irish on a daily basis between 2006 and 2011.

The number of speakers increased slightly but it didn’t increase by as much as the overall population increased.

The most relevant aspect of the census was the difference between the number who said that speak Irish on a daily basis and the number who said they were fluent.

There was 1.77 million people in 2011 who said they could speak Irish.
The number who said they speak it on a daily basis was 77,185.
This works out as less than 5% of those who say they can speak Irish speaking it on a daily basis.

Basically 19 out of the 20 people who say they can speak Irish choose not to do so on a daily basis. That’s before you even look at the other 2.8 million who say that can’t speak Irish.

The overall population was 4,581,269 which mean that the percentage who speak it daily (77,185) works out at 1.68%. If everyone who says that can speak Irish spoke it on a daily basis that percentage would be 38.64%

Blaming education is a massive cop-out. The situation is that over 95% of the people who say they can speak the language don’t do so on a daily basis, which to me says that the simple fact is that the Irish people simply choose not to speak Irish.

If people think that Gaelscoileanna are going to change these percentages much, they need to speak to the teachers there about how much the pupils there use Irish outside the schools.

tipparetops

Boom__Boom wrote: »

The most reliable data the census actually showed a percentage decline in the people who speak Irish on a daily basis between 2006 and 2011.

The number of speakers increased slightly but it didn’t increase by as much as the overall population increased.

The most relevant aspect of the census was the difference between the number who said that speak Irish on a daily basis and the number who said they were fluent.

There was 1.77 million people in 2011 who said they could speak Irish.
The number who said they speak it on a daily basis was 77,185.
This works out as less than 5% of those who say they can speak Irish speaking it on a daily basis.

Basically 19 out of the 20 people who say they can speak Irish choose not to do so on a daily basis. That’s before you even look at the other 2.8 million who say that can’t speak Irish.

The overall population was 4,581,269 which mean that the percentage who speak it daily (77,185) works out at 1.68%. If everyone who says that can speak Irish spoke it on a daily basis that percentage would be 38.64%

Blaming education is a massive cop-out. The situation is that over 95% of the people who say they can speak the language don’t do so on a daily basis, which to me says that the simple fact is that the Irish people simply choose not to speak Irish.

If people think that Gaelscoileanna are going to change these percentages much, they need to speak to the teachers there about how much the pupils there use Irish outside the schools.

1.77 million, we really are a nation of fibbers.

Boom__Boom

tipparetops wrote: »

1.77 million, we really are a nation of fibbers.

Yeah I can see if being a bit exaggerated, but the main point still stands.

A huge huge number of people who say they can speak Irish simply don't do so in their daily life.

Really don't see changes in the way Irish is taught education changing that.

ancapailldorcha

Boom__Boom wrote: »

The most reliable data the census actually showed a percentage decline in the people who speak Irish on a daily basis between 2006 and 2011.

The number of speakers increased slightly but it didn’t increase by as much as the overall population increased.

The most relevant aspect of the census was the difference between the number who said that speak Irish on a daily basis and the number who said they were fluent.

There was 1.77 million people in 2011 who said they could speak Irish.
The number who said they speak it on a daily basis was 77,185.
This works out as less than 5% of those who say they can speak Irish speaking it on a daily basis.

Basically 19 out of the 20 people who say they can speak Irish choose not to do so on a daily basis. That’s before you even look at the other 2.8 million who say that can’t speak Irish.

The overall population was 4,581,269 which mean that the percentage who speak it daily (77,185) works out at 1.68%. If everyone who says that can speak Irish spoke it on a daily basis that percentage would be 38.64%

Blaming education is a massive cop-out. The situation is that over 95% of the people who say they can speak the language don’t do so on a daily basis, which to me says that the simple fact is that the Irish people simply choose not to speak Irish.

If people think that Gaelscoileanna are going to change these percentages much, they need to speak to the teachers there about how much the pupils there use Irish outside the schools.

I grew up in Donegal and I knew of 2 fluent speakers. 2. You haven't backed your claims up with any sort of evidence and, to be honest saying that over 95% of the people who say they can speak Irish are actually fluent is absurd.

Boom__Boom

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I grew up in Donegal and I knew of 2 fluent speakers. 2. You haven't backed your claims up with any sort of evidence and, to be honest saying that over 95% of the people who say they can speak Irish are actually fluent is absurd.

The figures I used are from the 2006 and 2011 census.

cso.ie

tipparetops

Boom__Boom wrote: »

Yeah I can see if being a bit exaggerated, but the main point still stands.

A huge huge number of people who say they can speak Irish simply don't do so in their daily life.

Really don't see changes in the way Irish is taught education changing that.

a bit exaggerated, I reckon 1.7 million exaggerated.

Boom__Boom

tipparetops wrote: »

a bit exaggerated, I reckon 1.7 million exaggerated.

Look the figures are from the census.

I have no doubt that the 1.77 million figure is somewhat exaggerated.

I also have no doubt that the 77,185 daily speaker figure is exaggerated. [although not by as much as those who say they can speak Irish]

However it is the best evidence available, and trying to estimate how much the exaggeration of both figures is pointless and literally pure speculation.

The basic point is that there are vast vast numbers of people who say they can speak Irish who don't do so on a daily basis.

Edgarfrndly

Boom__Boom wrote: »

The most reliable data the census actually showed a percentage decline in the people who speak Irish on a daily basis between 2006 and 2011.

The number of speakers increased slightly but it didn’t increase by as much as the overall population increased.

The most relevant aspect of the census was the difference between the number who said that speak Irish on a daily basis and the number who said they were fluent.

There was 1.77 million people in 2011 who said they could speak Irish.
The number who said they speak it on a daily basis was 77,185.
This works out as less than 5% of those who say they can speak Irish speaking it on a daily basis.

Basically 19 out of the 20 people who say they can speak Irish choose not to do so on a daily basis. That’s before you even look at the other 2.8 million who say that can’t speak Irish.

The overall population was 4,581,269 which mean that the percentage who speak it daily (77,185) works out at 1.68%. If everyone who says that can speak Irish spoke it on a daily basis that percentage would be 38.64%

Blaming education is a massive cop-out. The situation is that over 95% of the people who say they can speak the language don’t do so on a daily basis, which to me says that the simple fact is that the Irish people simply choose not to speak Irish.

If people think that Gaelscoileanna are going to change these percentages much, they need to speak to the teachers there about how much the pupils there use Irish outside the schools.

Your analysis of the census results are flawed. 1.77 million isn't the number of Irish speakers in Ireland. It's the number of people who can speak Irish in the state including during school.

When you look at the real number of people who speak the language outside of school on a daily or weekly basis, you see a more accurate number.

Daily speakers: 77,185
Weekly speakers: 110,642

That puts the number of habitual speakers at over 187,000. If you include the ever-growing number of Irish speakers in the north, that puts the number of habitual speakers at well over 200,000. It's still a small percentage of the overall population of the island, but reasonable when compared to other European minority languages.

It isn't a cop-out to blame the education system. It's an objective reality. The fact is - after 13 years of education, there is a serious lack of fluency in the Irish language in English-medium schools. This isn't a reflection of the difficulty of the Irish language - but rather a reflection on the lack of focus on immersion and conversational classes.

The Government needs to decide what it wants out of the Irish language. Genuine speakers, or grades on a sheet of paper.

Berserker

Never warmed to the language at all myself even though I did very well in it at school. Always preferred French as a second language. I have to be honest and say that I cannot see a way of reviving the language. For it to flourish, it needs to be spoken in everyday life, in the family home for starters and I cannot see that happening.

Shep_Dog

Edgarfrndly wrote: »

It isn't a cop-out to blame the education system. It's an objective reality. The fact is - after 13 years of education, there is a serious lack of fluency in the Irish language in English-medium schools. This isn't a reflection of the difficulty of the Irish language - but rather a reflection on the lack of focus on immersion and conversational classes..

If people really wanted their children to speak Irish, genuinely and sincerely, they would find a way. Some do. But the majority of the population is simply not interested. If the Irish lobby were to agree to stop foisting Irish on the unwilling, the resources could be better applied to those who want to learn Irish.

An Ciarraioch

As has been said here, there needs to be a complete overhaul in the curriculum, with the emphasis on conversational Irish right from junior infants, with the language taught in the same manner as English (French and Spanish largely follow the same mistakes as Irish). There can be no excuses in terms of people who want to learn, after all between RnaG, TG4, Duolingo and availability of social media in Irish, audiovisual resources have never been better. Above all, people have to want to speak Irish in their communities - I don't think I've ever heard the language spoken in Dingle, which is supposed to be the capital of the Kerry Gaeltacht, so developing a bilingual culture in that circumstance is challenging, to say the least.

Grayson

Boom__Boom wrote: »

Look the figures are from the census.

I have no doubt that the 1.77 million figure is somewhat exaggerated.

I also have no doubt that the 77,185 daily speaker figure is exaggerated. [although not by as much as those who say they can speak Irish]

However it is the best evidence available, and trying to estimate how much the exaggeration of both figures is pointless and literally pure speculation.

The basic point is that there are vast vast numbers of people who say they can speak Irish who don't do so on a daily basis.

Does the number who says they speak it daily include those who do so as part of their job?

Edgarfrndly

Shep_Dog wrote: »

If people really wanted their children to speak Irish, genuinely and sincerely, they would find a way. Some do. But the majority of the population is simply not interested. If the Irish lobby were to agree to stop foisting Irish on the unwilling, the resources could be better applied to those who want to learn Irish.

You're presenting a false dichotomy. I'd love to learn spanish, but learning a language as an arduous and lengthy task. It isn't as simple as just "wanting" someone's child to learn the language. There are a lot more obstacles at hand.

A lot of parents make a conscious decision to send their children to Gaelscoileanna, but the queue to get into them can be extremely lengthy. Some have to put their child's name down the day they are born to stand a chance.

It isn't about the decision of the parents. It's about what sort of curriculum do we want with respect to the Irish language. It is absurd to ignore the reality that children fail to acquire any reasonable level of fluency, despite 13 or 14 years of instruction. It isn't an issue of desire. I desired to be able to speak Irish in school, but I just found the instruction poor and far from optimal. It's an issue about poor instructional methods, that are extremely outdated.

Like I've previously mentioned, I think if a lot more attention was given to conversational Irish - we'd be having a much different discussion right now about the language.

ancapailldorcha

Boom__Boom wrote: »

The figures I used are from the 2006 and 2011 census.

cso.ie

1.77 million said they could speak Irish. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they're telling porkies.

An Ciarraioch

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

1.77 million said they could speak Irish. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they're telling porkies.

Presumably, anyone who knows "Dia dhuit", "Sláinte" and "Go raibh maith agat" ticked the box - a question concerning degree of fluency on a sliding scale would tell a more useful story here.

Dughorm

Boom__Boom wrote: »

A huge huge number of people who say they can speak Irish simply don't do so in their daily life.

Ach cén fáth?

One of the academics on the news said that the younger generation in the Gaeltacht regions were speaking English to each other and speaking Irish to the older generations.

Sure, if this is remotely true then those regions will be "gan teanga" in a few years.

And I bet the kids in the gaelscoileanna are chatting as béarla when the teacher isn't looking either

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Dughorm wrote: »

Ach cén fáth?

One of the academics on the news said that the younger generation in the Gaeltacht regions were speaking English to each other and speaking Irish to the older generations.

Sure, if this is remotely true then those regions will be "gan teanga" in a few years.

And I bet the kids in the gaelscoileanna are chatting as béarla when the teacher isn't looking either

Rebellious feckers!

Said it a million times, saying it again: if you want Irish to survive, teach it as a languge to be enjoyed, not a school subject to be endured; if you don't, don't.

Dughorm

I remember being on a train in Portugal and the voice-over woman had the sexiest Portuguese tone - really made me want to learn the language....

Maybe we need Siún Nic Gearailt to do a few recordings for the Luas there

wakka12

We should learn from Israel, they successfully revived hebrew in their country and funnily enough used Ireland as a model of how not to revive a dead(ish) language.

Sand

Edgarfrndly wrote: »

The Government needs to decide what it wants out of the Irish language. Genuine speakers, or grades on a sheet of paper.

That is the key question: what do we want out of the Irish language? Why do we want it to survive? What is the purpose of spending so much time and money on it?

It certainly doesn't seem to have the purpose of bringing it into daily usage given almost 100 years of compulsory education and various discriminatory laws have failed to achieve that objective.

At this point the Irish government views the Irish language like Liverpool fans view Stephen Gerrard. An exercise in self-deluding nostalgia, with a hard militant edge who think its still relevant.

irishguitarlad

I learned spanish as I love the sound of it. Never liked the sound of irish.

tipparetops

wakka12 wrote: »

We should learn from Israel, they successfully revived hebrew in their country and funnily enough used Ireland as a model of how not to revive a dead(ish) language.

that was 1948, we had our chance than as well and did not take it.
In 1948 Israel introduced a policy of only Hebrew being used by public bodies,
so for example if you wanted get a driving licence the form was Hebrew only.
Public Servants would only speak Hebrew, everyone had to learn the language.
schools thought Hebrew as the main language.

Israels government practically forced the people to learn the language.
It was a great policy and one Ireland should have adopted.

Dughorm

wakka12 wrote: »

We should learn from Israel, they successfully revived hebrew in their country and funnily enough used Ireland as a model of how not to revive a dead(ish) language.

That's really interesting - good article about it on www<dot>pij<dot>org/details.php?id=226

“Israel is the only country in the world where mothers learn their mother tongue from the mouths of their children.”

Can't see that passion happening here unfortunately - our kids spout americanisms!

Manach

There does exist a level of goodwill for the language. This is evidenced by the amount of learners of it present on sites such as duolingo. If the international community can assist to such a degree then might it at some level be matched by its homeland.

Iwasfrozen

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

As has been said here, there needs to be a complete overhaul in the curriculum, with the emphasis on conversational Irish right from junior infants, with the language taught in the same manner as English (French and Spanish largely follow the same mistakes as Irish). There can be no excuses in terms of people who want to learn, after all between RnaG, TG4, Duolingo and availability of social media in Irish, audiovisual resources have never been better. Above all, people have to want to speak Irish in their communities - I don't think I've ever heard the language spoken in Dingle, which is supposed to be the capital of the Kerry Gaeltacht, so developing a bilingual culture in that circumstance is challenging, to say the least.

As long as Irish is made optional in secondary school I can agree with this.

Dughorm

Sand wrote: »

That is the key question: what do we want out of the Irish language? Why do we want it to survive? What is the purpose of spending so much time and money on it?

It certainly doesn't seem to have the purpose of bringing it into daily usage given almost 100 years of compulsory education and various discriminatory laws have failed to achieve that objective.

At this point the Irish government views the Irish language like Liverpool fans view Stephen Gerrard. An exercise in self-deluding nostalgia, with a hard militant edge who think its still relevant.

But it is for nostalgia - I would doubt even the most enthusiastic would expect it to be used as a viable language of commerce for the vast majority of the country.

I think I would prefer if a lot of the funding put towards so many competing quangos and local pressure groups in Gaeltacht areas was put towards free evening classes for the general public who are genuinely interested - it would be a more democratic use of all the funding thrown at the language.

Irelandcool

Create TV animated shows that are exclusively in irish (kind of like japanese anime). etc etc.