Is the Irish language still relevant to our daily lives?

segadreamcast

Is the Irish language still relevant? Throughout the last year, several debates have cropped up on this subject, all of which seem to float around the primary issue: is the language still relevant to our daily lives?

Indeed, in the education domain, many are still arguing over whether or not Irish should be compulsory whilst, in politics, we see that the 'Dingle/An Daingean' controvery has yet to die down.

Irish speakers take solace in the fact that Gaeltacht's are seemingly booming - however, could this be simply down to a NEED for students not to fail Irish? On the flipside, totally contradicting this, we see that Chinese is now more commonly spoken than Irish in our country.

Personally, I hear somebody speaking Irish perhaps once a year here and - as a result - I don't feel it's really relevant to our daily lives or our Irish identity, though does anyone feel any differently?

I've read several debates on this before - though I'd be interested to see your opinions reflected in terms of a poll on the matter...

grimloch

I hear it in school and thats about it. Signsposts and forms have Irish on them but again thats it and seeing as I read them in English it wouldn't be a part of my life there.

It's safe to say that to me, at least, it doesn't really exist outside the educational circle.

THEZAPPA

no i dont think it is relavent to our daily life's....

i never speak the language and dont tend to.........

the only time i do speak it is in school,so.....................

and i never hear people talking in the lauguage outside school!

Chong

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

Speaking from a neutral stand point, the Irish Language is a part of your countries national identity. Its quite a beautiful language , the only problem is that its very badly thought in Primary and Secondary Levels.

THEZAPPA

yeh your right in some ways,it is apart of our country.........

but it isent taught bad in some secondary schools...........

but it is taught very bad in primary............i never learnt a thing!

but the school i in at the moment they teach irish well.......

BizzyC

Not voting on this one.
In general, I dont think it's relevant to the daily lives of the majority.
However, I do think that it is an important part of our identity, heritage and culture, and as WDK pointed out, should be taught better in school.

I came from a school where I didn't have a class. They didn't give me an Irish teacher because I was the only honours student in 6th year, I was better than the 2 main teachers the school had anyway. I learned more Irish from going to Summer courses in the gealtacht than I ever did in secondary school.

THEZAPPA

i learnt more in reading a irish book than what i did learn in primary school!

Eoin Madsen

I had a good rant about this over on the Gigsmart Forum a couple of months ago.

Synopsis: if it was part of our identity we'd make it part of our daily lives. The majority of us don't, simple as that.

kawaii

If it's relevant in our lives it's 'cos the government make it relevant for the sake of being relevant...

THEZAPPA

we dont need irish,we need deutsch!

pauln

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

I voted yes, If only because it's something unique to being Irish and anything that can reinforce our identity in the world and keep the lines from getting blurred is a good thing in my book.

I think the language is only going to slip away more and more as the years go on if there isn't a major reform of the way it's taught in primary and secondary schools.
It should be taught more along the same lines as the modern European languages, with more emphasises on the modern day to day usage of it rather then getting bogged down in the technicalities of it.

After some 12 years of Irish and 6 of German I've come away a much better German speaker, with little or no Irish skills to speak of. I think that sums up the teaching of Irish in this country, It's terrible.

Funny thing is since leaving secondary my appreciation of the language has increased and have probably learned more since leaving then I ever did while there.

kawaii

Nah, 日本語 tbh...

Flukey

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

People judge the relevance of the Irish language by whether we speak it or not. Certainly, few of us speak it, but it still surrounds you in many ways. It is part of our culture. The place you live in and all place names, steet names, etc. are in two languages. Not only that though, but even many of the English names come from the Irish names, in two ways. First we have the direct translations and then we have the mispronounciations of the original Irish names. Sometimes the Irish and English names have direct connections and sometime they don't. The classic example of them not doing so is Dublin. As most of you will know, Dublin comes from Dubh Linn, meaning Black Pool. The Irish name used for Dublin, Baile Átha Cliath has a completely different meaning and in fact relates to a different places. It refers to the crossing of the hurdle ford. Baile Átha Cliath and Dubh Linn were two separate settlements on the Liffey which grew and became what is now Dublin. Both names have survived.

Any place in Ireland called Ballysomething comes from Baile, meaning own. Kil or Kill at the beginning of a name comes from Cill, an old Irish word for church. There are many other names or words as part of names that come from Irish. Dún means fort. Derry comes from Doire meaning a wood.

There are lots of everyday words in use that come from Irish that we use. Probably the most obvious is Taoiseach. Organisations like RTE or CIE use the Irish names for themselves. Irish is everywhere around you in obvious and not so obvious ways.

So yes, you may not speak it or hear it very often, but for these few reasons I've given and for many, many others it certainly has a big relevance to us and our culture. Anyone who thinks otherwise is only kidding themselves or has absolutely no understanding of their identity, their culture or their country. Whether we speak it or not has very little to do with that.

THEZAPPA

deutsch ist sehr sehr gut..

ich bin deutsch.....

irisch ist nicht so gut..........

kawaii

If I had my compu I'd 日本語 you so bad right now...

Chong

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

A lot of brave men and women faught a war so as not to be speaking German.

kawaii

Lol...

Eoin Madsen

Flukey wrote:

People judge the relevance of the Irish language by whether we speak it or not. Certainly, few of us speak it, but it still surrounds you in many ways. It is part of our culture. The place you live in and all place names, steet names, etc. are in two languages. Not only that though, but even many of the English names come from the Irish names, in two ways.

But those are just the names of things. That's very different to the language itself. I wouldn't suggest we abandon teaching of our history or change whatever the locals of any given place call their home, but teaching the language is another thing entirely. It's no longer relevent in the day to day lives of most Irish people. We speak English, it's our first language. People can spend their time bitching and moaning about how the English changed our culture blah blah while drinking pints of Guiness in the local GAA club but it doesn't change anything about the fact. It's in our past, not our present. Who we are now is what defines our cultural identity, not the redundant parts of our history.

The time which is wasted on teaching Irish could be spent teaching people a useful skill. It's easy for some of us to sit at home, at work, or in college, on our expensive computers arguing about preserving our "identity" and other abstractions like that, but there are a lot of people without that luxury that will have a hard enough time getting by without wasting 3-4 hours of learning almost every week for 13 years on something that won't ever put food on the table. To non-native speakers, Irish has no practical use except it's rather ineffective self-perpetuation. It shouldn't be taught in schools, and it shouldn't be a requirement for college or teaching.

If we're going to learn a second language in school it should (at least optionally) be one that will help in later life: French, German, Polish or better still, Mandarin.

Imo, studying Irish should be left to the scholars who have the interest in it, and the time for higher cultural persuits.

rubadub

If we, the americans and candians spoke spanish, and if the "international language" was spanish the results of the poll may be different. Many resent speaking the language of "the oppressor" and that is why they are so adamant to keep Irish there rather than just give in to practicality. A lot of french and german people can speak english, but do not, due to the seemingly international hatred of "the brits", whereas the dutch, who have no real beef with the brits, speak it freely.

Goodshape

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

BizzyC wrote:

Not voting on this one.
In general, I dont think it's relevant to the daily lives of the majority.
However, I do think that it is an important part of our identity, heritage and culture, and as WDK pointed out, should be taught better in school.

Agreed. Daily lives - not so much so, but it's still important. I think it took me until I started traveling outside of Ireland to fully realise that. It's a damn shame and also a bit embarising to admit that yes, we do have a language and yes, it is beautiful... but no, I don't know a word of it.

And it's not a 'hatred of the brits' thing either. It's a national identity thing. Practically everyone speaks (or can speak) English in Europe, and much of the rest of the world. But then they turn to their mates and start blabering away in 'their own' language and your left thinking 'damn, wish I could do that'.

Eoin Madsen

Goodshape wrote:

It's a national identity thing. Practically everyone speaks (or can speak) English in Europe, and much of the rest of the world. But then they turn to their mates and start blabering away in 'their own' language and your left thinking 'damn, wish I could do that'.

I've had the same experience, and tbh, I'd think I'd learn Irish properly if I had the time. But unless people want to learn it, they won't. You can't lay the ultimate blame on the education system, flawed as it is. The language is dead because the people of Ireland don't really want it to be alive, in spite of what they might claim. If every person that thinks Irish should be forced on unwilling students just shut the **** up and went to learn the language themselves they might actually succeed in resurrecting it.

Live and let live. For the vast majority of us the Irish language is only a part of our history.

pauln

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

Eoin Madsen wrote:

I've had the same experience, and tbh, I'd think I'd learn Irish properly if I had the time. But unless people want to learn it, they won't. You can't lay the ultimate blame on the education system, flawed as it is. The language is dead because the people of Ireland don't really want it to be alive, in spite of what they might claim. If every person that thinks Irish should be forced on unwilling students just shut the **** up and went to learn the language themselves they might actually succeed in resurrecting it.

Live and let live. For the vast majority of us the Irish language is only a part of our history.

I don't agree with that point. The education system is most peoples first interaction with languages other then English and despite twice the effort being put into Irish then the other languages it still fails as a subject and if anything instils this "hatred" of the language in most people.
That's my experience of it anyway and the reason why I never felt interested in learning Irish at school.

aidan_walsh

pauln wrote:

I don't agree with that point. The education system is most peoples first interaction with languages other then English and despite twice the effort being put into Irish then the other languages it still fails as a subject and if anything instils this "hatred" of the language in most people.
That's my experience of it anyway and the reason why I never felt interested in learning Irish at school.

Then perhaps the solution is a reform of how Irish is taught, rather than abandoning it.

pauln

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

aidan_walsh wrote:

Then perhaps the solution is a reform of how Irish is taught, rather than abandoning it.

I'm with you on that, I don't think abandoning it would be a good thing, but reform is badly needed.

Catsmokinpot

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

its a shame that the english language took hold so well, we just dont use it enough, but it is still part of our heratige and people have fought and died for our right to use it so i think it should be kept. its a deadly language aswell its so unique in its makeup i love it to bits even though im not very good at it.

crazymonkey

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

I do my best to use the little irish i have, and feel its very sad as a nation we are loseing this important part of our heritage and culture,,, I was on the lash last sat night with the Gf who is Lativan, and in the Taxi rant she got talking to some guy, Who said to her that he was 100% Irish, So started talking to him in the Irish i had thaught her, and of course he did not understand her, So then he dropped his claim, to being 70% Irish, i think this is embarrassing as a nation we cannot speak our own langage,,

larryone

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

Does anyone here think that the auld teanga has been made a bit more popular amongst young people as a result of influences such as Hector Ó hEochagáin?

Dizzyblabla

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

I like Irish, and I've found that alot of foreigners who come over here like to learn a cúpla focail aswell, there was one Spanish guy who worked with me who said "Is maith liom cailíní"!! I thought it was great! not the usual póg mo thóin rubbish!
another French girl actually started classes, I find it amazing that so many Irish people here say that there is no need for it and say how much they dislike the Irish language, and others come here and try their best to learn some...

miss_gonzo

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

I love the irish language and would love to learn a bit of it
it really is beauitful, maybe in disuse in daily life but imporant in preserving irish culture

OfflerCrocGod

It's dead.

luckat

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

Irish is there, flowing under our consciousness - uisce faoi thalamh.

The way Irish is taught is one of the nastiest things about a thorougly nasty "educational" system. People are made to feel guilty for not learning something that is made to seem boring and difficult.

Go to one of the one-week Gaeltacht courses and you'll learn more Irish - and enjoy it more - than in a year in (almost) any school.

Dizzyblabla

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

I used to go to Ballingeary in West Cork... 5 times I went, 3 weeks and 3 days out the country, the best years of my life!

Dimitri

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

If you mean relevent to me as an individual than yes i feel it is i often speak a kind of half irish half english when i'm with one or two of my friends because they're both fluent(btw they're not from the gaeltacht) however if you dont use irish in conversation than i cannot possibly see how it is relevent in your daily lives. Personally i enjoy using our own language for me it is a non violent expression of nationalism and because the language is an integral part of our country i feel by using it i'm supporting the heritage of Ireland in my own small way.
Just my 2c on the subject anyway.

The Real B-man

Nope

Diarmsquid

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

I use it daily, whenever i wanna talk about something to my brother, Mam or Dad and i don't want my little sis to hear what im sayin, i can talk to them in irish and she stands there clueless. It's very relevant for me. I can't do that with other languages because
A) I'm not as good at them as Irish and
My mam, dad, brother and i did different languages in school. Irish was compulsory so we all learnt it.

And it is important to our nation's identity

Random

Irish is a language which holds no bearing or usefulness for me at all.

It is a language which took the place of learning a useful foreign language in school. As stated already, chinese would be more worthwhile then Irish.

It's also unfair that you need it to join the Guards etc.

Sleepy

I'd rather have learnt Latin tbh It'd have been far more useful a language.

One thing I don't get is how people consider Irish to be a beautiful language... I don't think it sounds particularly nice at all. French or Italian, I can see the beauty in, Irish I'd consider more like German: an assault on the ears

The only relevance of Irish these days is to serve as a barrier or a nuisance. A lack of it will block you from a number of careers or college courses where you'll have no need to use the language at all. It forces our government to waste money on translation and publication of documents that are scarcely (if ever) read in Irish. Have a read of a government department's published accounts in Irish sometime (or ask someone fluent to do so for you), half the words are made up due to the fact that the Irish language has been dead/dying so long that the financial terms don't have Irish translations! It stops an otherwise decent television channel from being comprehensible without subtitles for the majority of the country (and that station has only gotten reasonable viewership through broadcasting English programs or sporting events which one could watch in martian and understand.

I can see an argument for it's cultural importance but tbh, the very same argument could be made for the paintings of Jack Yeats, the writings of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce or Brendan Behan and I don't see any of those things being forced upon students for 12 years.

I think Eoin Madsen had it right: the language belongs with the scholars, not with the schoolchildren of Ireland. Teach them something that will be beneficial to their lives: IT, philosophy, how to cook, drive or wire a plug, proper sex education. In fact, given that most students have 5 hours of Irish a week and roughly a 32 week school year there's 160 hours a year over the 5 years of secondary school you've got 800 hours to teach them all of these things in place of Irish.

I'd rather have a nation of good drivers that aren't having as many unplanned children that can cook for themselves, think for themselves, use a computer and have a basic knowledge of things like DIY than a nation of fluent Irish speakers tbh.

cooker3

The first thing I would do as taoisheach is probably learn how to spell that term but secondly I would stop irish been mandatory in schools, make i optional for those who want it.
Irish is a pretty useless language and I never understood how people call it beautiful, just don't see it myself

Dun

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

I have to laugh at the responses where we're informed Irish is probably taking the place of another 'more useful' language. As a language graduate (and no, Irish wasn't included) I know rightly that only a teeny tiny percentage would learn a language. And don't go on about how much German / Spanish / French you know from secondary school, cause you don't; you think you do, and if you want proof, go speak to someone in another country how has been learning English for as long as you have been learning the other language and see if you're as fluent as them.

There comes a laziness in regards to language learning with the Anglo-Saxon mentality that speaking English brings, and I think it's pointless to say we should be learning Mandarin when most of us make a pitiful attempt even at learning French.

For the vast majority, I sincerely believe it's the laziness factor that's really giving these responses. "Everyone speaks English, why should we bother?".

Macka

I've always felt that the way Irish is taught is appalling, I had better Irish in primary school than I did at the end of 6th as I decided to pay more attention to French, the obviously more practical of the 2 languages. I was never comfortable with the way Irish is forced upon us, in my opinion it would be better if they kept Irish compulsory for primary school but made it optional in secondary. This way evreyone would have a grounding in the language and may keep it up in secondary over French, German or Spanish.

Goodshape

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

ciaranfo wrote:

It is a language which took the place of learning a useful foreign language in school.

To be fair, we have arguably the most useful forign language by default - English. What we (most of us) don't have is a language of our own to go along side it.

Dun wrote:

For the vast majority, I sincerely believe it's the laziness factor that's really giving these responses. "Everyone speaks English, why should we bother?".

Agreed. I think more primary and pre-schools should be taught in Irish. I've got two younger sisters which were sent to irish language schools for a the first few years of their education and while they're not fluent (they didn't keep it up) they still know more of the language than anyone else in the family.

segadreamcast

Er, who moved this to Gaeilge forum? Whilst arguably the most appropriate place - it's gonna totally screw up the poll - the idea was to see the opinions of average people, not people who have some sort of an inbuilt interest in Irish...?

passive

Shhh... You're just saying that cos the polls gonna be in their favour in about 3 minutes :P.

I've voiced my opinion on this enough so i won't go on for a few pages...I'd be part of the anti-shovinggaeilgedownourthroats crowd in any case and think the "cultural identity" thing is a bull**** buzzword. I sometimes speak Irish with friends briefly when out drinking or whatever. It's a novelty. I'd wager that half the people who voted for irish here (until it was moved from AH) don't speak it on any regular basis and just mean "well, you know, in THEORY, it's important and relevant to me...like...ideally."

Unfortunately we normal Irish people will have to put up with this whole thing for some time more due to the advantageous gaelscoilleanna and the newfound trendiness of irish... Hopefully it's just a phase .

Anyway shift this back to AH. It's completely against the charter of the gaeilge forum which, if i recall correctly, specifically prohibits "whinging about irish and saying you don't like it" (but not in so many words)

foxybrowne

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

Its a pity this poll is in the "Gaeilge" forum (its a pity its anywhere). Most people who try and use a bit of Irish in their daily life are trying to do something positive with regards to the language. Lets move on from this endless debate about "relevance".

Gwyllin

*cries* I feel like I'm almost the only one who really loves Irish. Irish is relevant because it is a language. We need lingual diversity. If the whole world spoke the same language(English! which it soon seems to do!), nothing would be exciting anymore about languages. I'm proud of the Irish language, even though it isn't my own mother tongue. It's a beautiful, uniqe and OLD language worth saving! Me loves Gaelic!!!

Dave!

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

No, it's not relevent to our daily lives, but it should be. It's part of our culture, and it's a shame to see so many people trying to get rid of it. Without our history and language, what makes us different from England? I'm not saying "I hate the Brits", but our society is following theirs; we wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, speak the same language... We're disintegrating as a country! I think the language is very important and should be mandatory still. However, there should be a MAJOR reform in the education system that puts more emphasis on oral Irish at a young age, and which links up with using it in our daily lives, such as maybe having the Gardaí speak as Gaeilge firstly, and English secondly. Like someone said, other countries in Europe speak English fluently, and then can turn around to their mate and speak in their own tongue. It's embaressing that such a small % can speak Irish(myself included). I'm going to keep learning it, but it's alot harder now that I'm not in school, etc.

Odaise Gaelach

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

Nothing distinguishes a nation more than a language does.

I absolutely love Irish - what other language in the world has Aífreann as the word for Mass and Ifreann as Hell?

Gwyllin

Ha ha ha! That's a good one!

What Dave said was good! It's not enough with an Irish translation of all placenames next to the English version.

Kenshi

crazymonkey wrote:

I do my best to use the little irish i have, and feel its very sad as a nation we are loseing this important part of our heritage and culture,,, I was on the lash last sat night with the Gf who is Lativan, and in the Taxi rant she got talking to some guy, Who said to her that he was 100% Irish, So started talking to him in the Irish i had thaught her, and of course he did not understand her, So then he dropped his claim, to being 70% Irish, i think this is embarrassing as a nation we cannot speak our own langage,,

Just because an Irishman or woman doesn't speak Irish doesn't make them any less Irish. That's like saying Americans arn't American because they Speak English, Brazillians arn't Brazillian because they speak Portuguese, the Mexicans arn't Mexican because they speak Spanish, the Senegalians arn't Senegalian and because they speak French. Catch my drift?

TerrorFirmer

DaveMcG wrote:

I'm not saying "I hate the Brits", but our society is following theirs; we wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, speak the same language... We're disintegrating as a country!

Its called the western world you moron, of course we wear the same clothes and listen to the same music as English people. Would you rather we all started wearing aran jumpers and listened to ceili recordings to preserve our national identity. Try actually thinking about the stupidity of that statement you made. :rolleyes:

As for the language, we speak English as primary, sorry but that's not going to change. The idea of having Public representitives speaking only Irish is idiotic, its a bit late in time now to enforce a redundant language. Sure, its a shame, no one denying that.

Like someone said, other countries in Europe speak English fluently, and then can turn around to their mate and speak in their own tongue.

Now the difference here is that given the global use of English, its important or at least alot easier to learn english. Try comparing the global uses of English and Irish?

If theres anything as bad as trying to fit into a clique, its wanting to be different just for the sake of being different.

Dave!

No, it's not relevant to our daily lives and our Irish identity

Wow, you threw away any sign of an intelligent and mature discussion by the first sentence.

That's that debate ruined, cheers!