Should we let old cultures and langauges die out?

topmanamillion

Caoimhgh1n wrote: »

Irish has plenty of soul.

And it's living in heaven with all the other dead souls.

Shep_Dog

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Again - they were/are a movement; they have/had culture.

Interesting report from April 2015. It describes the outcome of a complaint against FM104 where abusive terms were used to describe Irish language enthusiasts and where the presenter appeared biased.

The complaints commission had this to say:

The authority found that the tone and manner of the presenter’s contributions were therefore “unfair and contrary to the BAI’s code”.

And also this:

The BAI’s compliance committee held that Irish language speakers did not constitute a group in society and therefore did not come under the code.

Caoimhgh1n

topmanamillion wrote: »

And it's living in heaven with all the other dead souls.

Stop denying the fact it is still a spoken language, you're acting very childish.

topmanamillion

Caoimhgh1n wrote: »

Stop denying the fact it is still a spoken language, you're acting very childish.

Where is it a spoken language? In a few peripheral areas off the West coast. And its fluent spoken use is in dramatic decline even there, despite the vast sums which have been given through grants/tax incentives and employment opportunities.
http://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2015/0529/704583-irish-in-decline-in-gaeltacht-areas-report/

There's 4.5 million people on this island. The vast majority have no interest in speaking a dead language and as a result of it being shoved down their throat and it curtailing their employment opportunities have come to resent it.

Caoimhgh1n

topmanamillion wrote: »

Where is it a spoken language? In a few peripheral areas off the West coast. And its fluent spoken use is in dramatic decline even there, despite the vast sums which have been given through grants/tax incentives and employment opportunities.
http://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2015/0529/704583-irish-in-decline-in-gaeltacht-areas-report/

There's 4.5 million people on this island. The vast majority have no interest in speaking a dead language and as a result of it being shoved down their throat and it curtailing their employment
opportunities have come to resent it.

Irish is also spoken on every continent (except Antarctic). It has speakers in cities and towns around the country too.

Nevermind that though, I'd suggest in the kindest way possible you look up a definition of dead, because you've said yourself that it's still spoken.

gananam

Shep_Dog wrote: »

BTW we'll know more about Conradh's political lobbying when it makes its first return under the 'Regulation of Lobbying Act in in January 2016. It has yet to register, but no doubt, it will.

Just as an aside, Conradh has not yet registered because they are unable to do so in Irish. The good people over at An Clár Brústocaireachta have acknowledged that bodies cannot currently register in Irish and have committed to making this possible in the near future. An Clár Brústocaireachta have accepted that Irish language groups will not be forced to register in English and have allowed Irish language groups (or I suppose any group that would prefer to register in Irish) to defer registration until they can do so in Irish.
Conradh for their part have confirmed that they will register when they can do so in Irish.

gananam

Shep_Dog wrote: »

The problem in Ireland is that Irish enthusiasts refuse to accept that their fellow citizens are making a valid choice when they decide to live their lives through English and not speak Irish.

So its the Irish speakers that have been calling for English to be killed off? Its the Irish speakers that that want to see English made optional throughout the education system? Its the Irish speakers that want to see English dropped as an official language of the state and demand that no more money be spent providing state services in English?

It seems to me that it is certain English speakers that refuse to accept that their fellow citizens are making a valid choice when they decide to live their lives through Irish.

topmanamillion

Caoimhgh1n wrote: »

Irish is also spoken on every continent (except Antarctic). It has speakers in cities and towns around the country too.

Nevermind that though, I'd suggest in the kindest way possible you look up a definition of dead, because you've said yourself that it's still spoken.

A dying language so. What is your definition of "spoken"?
My friend has a habit of saying ciao at the end of every phone conversation. Can I inform her that she is in fact an Italian speaker?
Emigrants saying slainte before they drown their sorrows in a country in a country they have been forced to immigrate to is a fabulous advertisement for the Irish language!

gananam

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The fact Irish needs beurocrats to translate slang like "tweet" and "selfie" shows how dead the language really is. These Irish speaking kids we hear about either don't exist or aren't talking in Irish. If they were translations would come naturally as they do with other living languages.

It's real alright. Depressingly real...

What fact? The one that was first mentioned by you saying, so apparently this happened? That's not a fact, that just you mentioning something you think happened.

Irish like any modern language has institutions to decide what forms of language are accepted in that language. French has Académie française, German has Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung (Council for German Orthography) and Irish has An Coiste Téarmaíochta. These bodies Through the updating of dictionaries and so on set the standard for that language. They decide what it and what is not accepted in the standard form of the language.

What makes you think a bureaucrat made up Tvuít in any case? Tweet in Irish is an interesting one in that there have been a number of alternatives used. As happens in most languages, words like Tvuít in Irish and the other alternatives that are used come about through people identifying a need, obviously in this case when talking about Twitter and coming up with words to fill the gap, some stick some don't. Tweet, Tvuít and Giolc (the pre-Twitter Irish word for the tweeting of a bird) are the ones that stuck in Irish.
What determines which ones stick is use in media and people in online discussions. Again, this process applies to all modern languages.

Different people have their own preferences, I know several radio presenters who would mention 'An Córas Giolcóireachta' (The Twitter Machine) others who would simply say 'ar Twitter', I'v seen Tweet, Tvuít and Tweet written by various people, probably Tweet most often.

Twitter itself was recently translated to Irish by a group of young volunteer Twitter users, there was a discussion on which form to use in the translation, they eventually opted to go with Tweet.

Its not that Foras na Gaeilge invented a new word for Tweet, they merely added a new word for Tweet to the dictionary.
The English language dictionaries do this fairly regularly to, its not the person who decided to add the new word that made it up.

Shep_Dog

gananam wrote: »

Conradh for their part have confirmed that they will register when they can do so in Irish.

I suppose their returns detailing their lobbying activities will in in Irish and not easily understood by most people?

Iwasfrozen

gananam wrote: »

What fact? The one that was first mentioned by you saying, so apparently this happened? That's not a fact, that just you mentioning something you think happened.

Irish like any modern language has institutions to decide what forms of language are accepted in that language. French has Académie française, German has Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung (Council for German Orthography) and Irish has An Coiste Téarmaíochta. These bodies Through the updating of dictionaries and so on set the standard for that language. They decide what it and what is not accepted in the standard form of the language.

What makes you think a bureaucrat made up Tvuít in any case? Tweet in Irish is an interesting one in that there have been a number of alternatives used. As happens in most languages, words like Tvuít in Irish and the other alternatives that are used come about through people identifying a need, obviously in this case when talking about Twitter and coming up with words to fill the gap, some stick some don't. Tweet, Tvuít and Giolc (the pre-Twitter Irish word for the tweeting of a bird) are the ones that stuck in Irish.
What determines which ones stick is use in media and people in online discussions. Again, this process applies to all modern languages.

Different people have their own preferences, I know several radio presenters who would mention 'An Córas Giolcóireachta' (The Twitter Machine) others who would simply say 'ar Twitter', I'v seen Tweet, Tvuít and Tweet written by various people, probably Tweet most often.

Twitter itself was recently translated to Irish by a group of young volunteer Twitter users, there was a discussion on which form to use in the translation, they eventually opted to go with Tweet.

Its not that Foras na Gaeilge invented a new word for Tweet, they merely added a new word for Tweet to the dictionary.
The English language dictionaries do this fairly regularly to, its not the person who decided to add the new word that made it up.

That's how it works in normal living languages. In Irish you have beaurocrats making up words to compensate for the lack of organic integration. Comparing German to Irish is a case in point.

4zn76tysfajdxp

topmanamillion wrote: »

What is your definition of "spoken"?!

People speaking it. There are loads of native speakers still alive who speak it daily. Not, say, millions. Thousands though.

Shep_Dog

gananam wrote: »

It seems to me that it is certain English speakers that refuse to accept that their fellow citizens are making a valid choice when they decide to live their lives through Irish.

The problem is that Irish speakers want to make everyone speak Irish too.

Calina

Shep_Dog wrote: »

The problem is that they want to make everyone speak Irish too.

I don't really have an issue with that. In many respects, they are entitled to their opinion.

The issue lots of people seem to have is they don't trust in their own autonomy. They seem to fear that they will be forced to speak Irish. That is revealing in certain respects but, I would argue, not all that likely.

gananam

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

That's how it works in normal living languages. In Irish you have beaurocrats making up words to compensate for the lack of organic integration. Comparing German to Irish is a case in point.

You are just making baseless claims now. The vast majority of modern languages have institutions that are responsible for the standard version of that language. They decide what words/forms of words are in the language and which are not. When a new word is to be added to the language they decide which version is adopted or create a new word/borrow a word from another language where necessary. Its an intensely boring but necessary part of corpus planning in any language.

Your claims show both a lack of understanding of how modern languages work and a lack of understanding of how the Irish language works. Have you any evidence to support your claims? Let me guess, you don't, as usual.

Shep_Dog

Calina wrote: »

I don't really have an issue with that. In many respects, they are entitled to their opinion. The issue lots of people seem to have is they don't trust in their own autonomy. They seem to fear that they will be forced to speak Irish.

Children don't have much autonomy when they're forced to learn Irish.

Calina

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Children don't have much autonomy when they're forced to learn Irish.

Children don't have much autonomy when they are forced to learn anything. But we send children to school for their greater benefit.

I personally think that Irish is very badly taught. But it is the official language in the country and therefore teaching it should be a requirement for that reason at least. When you're ready to start campaigning to have it removed from the constitution, then fine.

But there are other bilingual countries - Finland springs to mind - where the minority spoken official language is still taught for reasons of cultural identity even though the great mass of Finnish speaking Finns, despite schooling at a young age tend not to speak much Swedish - I'm not implying that Irish is the sole method of defining cultural identity. But removing it certainly damages one aspect of Irish cultural identity and I think it would be regretable.

Iwasfrozen

gananam wrote: »

You are just making baseless claims now. The vast majority of modern languages have institutions that are responsible for the standard version of that language. They decide what words/forms of words are in the language and which are not. When a new word is to be added to the language they decide which version is adopted or create a new word/borrow a word from another language where necessary. Its an intensely boring but necessary part of corpus planning in any language.

Your claims show both a lack of understanding of how modern languages work and a lack of understanding of how the Irish language works. Have you any evidence to support your claims? Let me guess, you don't, as usual.

Do you? Clearly language planning is not a necessity when the idea is alien to the worlds second most spoken and first most learned language.

The Irish language is not comparable to German or French either. These are healthy languages with millions of speakers. There exists a large bobu of people living their lives trough those languages to make up words that are later added to the language. Irish lacks this and instead must create words from the top down instead of mearly deciding what words to put in their dictionary.

Iwasfrozen

Calina wrote: »

Children don't have much autonomy when they are forced to learn anything. But we send children to school for their greater benefit.

I personally think that Irish is very badly taught. But it is the official language in the country and therefore teaching it should be a requirement for that reason at least. When you're ready to start campaigning to have it removed from the constitution, then fine.

But there are other bilingual countries - Finland springs to mind - where the minority spoken official language is still taught for reasons of cultural identity even though the great mass of Finnish speaking Finns, despite schooling at a young age tend not to speak much Swedish - I'm not implying that Irish is the sole method of defining cultural identity. But removing it certainly damages one aspect of Irish cultural identity and I think it would be regretable.

Forcing Finnish children to learn Swedish is almost as asinine as forcing Irish children to learn Irish..

Why Swedish anyway? Isn't Russian also a minority language with historical precedence?

4zn76tysfajdxp

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Forcing Finnish children to learn Swedish is almost as asinine as forcing Irish children to learn Irish..

Why Swedish anyway? Isn't Russian also a minority language with historical precedence?

About 5% of Finnish people speak Swedish as a first language.

Iwasfrozen

Ansley Puny Airplane wrote: »

About 5% of Finnish people speak Swedish as a first language.

Far more than Irish speakers of Irish then.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Far more than Irish speakers of Irish then.

That's right.


Sorry, what's your point?

Iwasfrozen

Ansley Puny Airplane wrote: »

That's right.


Sorry, what's your point?

What's yours? You responded with a statement on how common Swedish is in Finland.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

What's yours? You responded with a statement on how common Swedish is in Finland.

You asked why Swedish is taught in Finnish schools, mate.

Iwasfrozen

Ansley Puny Airplane wrote: »

You asked why Swedish is taught in Finnish schools, mate.

That's clearly not a reason.

Shep_Dog

Calina wrote: »

Children don't have much autonomy when they are forced to learn anything. But we send children to school for their greater benefit.

So, children are fair game for lingusitic bullies.

Calina wrote: »

I personally think that Irish is very badly taught. But it is the official language in the country and therefore teaching it should be a requirement for that reason at least.

Since when was the constitution changed to make Irish our only official language?

Dughorm

Shep_Dog wrote: »

So, children are fair game for lingusitic bullies.

Who are these bullies? Are there religious bullies? artistic bullies? GAA bullies also?

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Since when was the constitution changed to make Irish our only official language?

It wasn't? We have two official languages. Individuals have the right of having both languages available to them.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Calina wrote: »

Children don't have much autonomy when they are forced to learn anything. But we send children to school for their greater benefit.

What exactly is this "greater benefit"?

You sentences don't contradict each other. We can still send children to school and give them some control over what they study.

I personally think that Irish is very badly taught. But it is the official language in the country and therefore teaching it should be a requirement for that reason at least. When you're ready to start campaigning to have it removed from the constitution, then fine.

Flawed logic. Just because a country has official lanmaguges, doesn't mean that said lanaguges should be compulsory - casin point, Zimbabwe has 16 official lanaguges.

Dughorm

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Just because a country has official lanmaguges, doesn't mean that said lanaguges should be compulsory - casin point, Zimbabwe has 16 official lanaguges.

It's interesting to read on wiki where they mention the 16 languages that English is considered the first language although people may use the other ones.

I don't think English is considered the first language here. We have equality of languages. It provides some interesting context on why we are where we are.

Niemoj

If I was involved in politics I would absolutely prioritise Irish, don't force it on people because they'd learn to resent it but for example give businesses generous grants for using Irish in their branding (even if it was alongside English), encourage the production of Irish language programmes, help people financially who wish to learn the language etc.

I love passing by the local dry cleaners and seeing the Irish in traditional font beside the English, or buying milk sold only as "Bainne Úr".

Irish is the language of our 32 county island, it's even older than English! It is a beautiful language and needs to be preserved. We need to create a buzz about it, make people want to learn it only then will it grow in numbers.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

That's clearly not a reason.

It clearly is. :rolleyes:

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Dughorm wrote: »

It's interesting to read on wiki where they mention the 16 languages that English is considered the first language although people may use the other ones.

I don't think English is considered the first language here. We have equality of languages. It provides some interesting context on why we are where we are.

Nope. From Articale 8 of the constitution:

The Irish language as the national language is the first official language.
The English language is recognised as a second official language.

One of the most problematic phrases in the entrie document and the main reason why we are here.

TommyRiordan

There seems to be a massive amount of young people my age taking an interest in learning the Irish language up here in the North. A lot of people are self-teaching themselves even. I only can see the Irish language becoming more used up here. Maybe in the South it will die out but not here.

Iwasfrozen

TommyRiordan wrote: »

There seems to be a massive amount of young people my age taking an interest in learning the Irish language up here in the North. A lot of people are self-teaching themselves even. I only can see the Irish language becoming more used up here. Maybe in the South it will die out but not here.

You can keep it.

TommyRiordan

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

You can keep it.

You're passing ownership of an entire language onto me? Well I'm chuffed! Cheers lad!

bodhrandude

Definitely not the Irish traditional music anyway, that is alive and well, fecking loads of it. How in the hell could this die out and why ignore my first post, traditional music is culture, why is people saying this is dying out, look around you at all the Irish session pubs.

Iwasfrozen

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

....beaurocrats making up words....

Shep_Dog

TommyRiordan wrote: »

There seems to be a massive amount of young people my age taking an interest in learning the Irish language up here in the North. A lot of people are self-teaching themselves even. I only can see the Irish language becoming more used up here. Maybe in the South it will die out but not here.

Why do you think this is happening? Maybe the voluntary model, rather than the compulsory model is the way to go?

Shep_Dog

Dughorm wrote: »

Who are these bullies?

People who support the use of force to make children to speak a language which is not their native language.

Dughorm wrote: »

It wasn't? We have two official languages.

I am glad to hear this. Calina thinks otherwise.

Dughorm wrote: »

Individuals have the right of having both languages available to them.

In schools, Irish is not just 'available'.

TommyRiordan

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Why do you think this is happening? Maybe the voluntary model, rather than the compulsory model is the way to go?

I think it's because we are a lot more hardened and protective of Irish culture and are kept on our toes on a regular basis against genuine hatred. Same reason you see way more GAA tops here too.

Compulsory education of the Irish language is just as successful, some of us went to protestant/mixed Grammar schools where it wasn't taught and so decide to teach ourselves the language because of genuine interest in our culture.

I've always thought the whole excuse down South about bad teaching of the language a load of bollocks tbh.

Calina

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Calina thinks otherwise.

No I don't and you are either deliberately misunderstanding me because of your own biases or you are jumping to stupid conclusions because of those biases. At no point did I say there was only one official language in the country.

There are two official languages in the country and this is precisely why I feel Irish should be taught. It is one of them. Nothing you have said mitigates against the idea of teaching both official languages but you have been strongly arguing against the teaching of one of them.

dlouth15

Caoimhgh1n wrote: »

You're more then entitled to it.

I hope you can agree that the Z was unnecessary though, perhaps sú? Don't have the best of ideas at this time. Haha.

Nothing wrong with loan words in a language or for that matter loan letters where necessary to spell a word of foreign origin.

English, though it has an expanded from the original Latin alphabet, often adopts foreign diacritical marks used in loan words. For example the French cedilla in the word façade.

Another interesting thing I think is that Irish the spelling of loan words into Irish orthography. Telephone becomes telefón. In English on the other hand doesn't appear to do this. Cul-de-sac doesn't become cool-de-sack. Façade doesn't become fassahd. Naive doesn't become nye-eve.

Shep_Dog

Calina wrote: »

No I don't

Originally Posted by Calina
I personally think that Irish is very badly taught. But it is the official language in the country and therefore teaching it should be a requirement for that reason at least.

Freudian slip, perhaps?

Calina wrote: »

you have been strongly arguing against the teaching of one of them.

I have been arguing that children and their parents should be free to choose which languages they will learn. I have never at any time said that teaching of Irish should cease. Now, please put that straw man down.

Calina

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Freudian slip, perhaps?



I have been arguing that children and their parents should be free to choose which languages they will learn. I have never at any time said that teaching of Irish should cease. Now, please put that straw man down.

Here's the relevant info from the constitution.

ARTICLE 8

1 The Irish language as the national language is the first official language.


2 The English language is recognised as a second official language.


3 Provision may, however, be made by law for the exclusive use of either of the said languages for any one or more official purposes, either throughout the State or in any part thereof.

I didn't realise you weren't familiar with the relevant part of the constitution. Sorry for over estimating your information here.

Shep_Dog

Calina wrote: »

Here's the relevant info from the constitution.
I didn't realise you weren't familiar with the relevant part of the constitution. Sorry for over estimating your information here.

It was you who misquoted our constitution.

I wonder if an 'official purpose' could include children's education? If so, there could be a possibility of learning Irish being optional and voluntary.