How to revive the Irish language.

Crooked Jack · 09-05-2012 6:03pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

It's not out native tongue though. Why would we have interest in someone else's language?

Yes it is. The Irish language is the native language of the Irish people. We can argue about how many people actually speak it, argue about how much funding it gets and even argue about its value in today's world, but there is no question that it is our native language, wether you choose to use it or not.

Iwasfrozen · 09-05-2012 6:08pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

Yes it is. The Irish language is the native language of the Irish people. We can argue about how many people actually speak it, argue about how much funding it gets and even argue about its value in today's world, but there is no question that it is our native language, wether you choose to use it or not.

No it's not. For that to be true it would need to be the native language of all irish people. I'm irish and english is my native language so irish is not the native language of the irish people. You could say it's the native language of some of the people and that would be correct but that's very different from all.

Crooked Jack · 09-05-2012 6:15pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No it's not. For that to be true it would need to be the native language of all irish people. I'm irish and english is my native language so irish is not the native language of the irish people. You could say it's the native language of some of the people and that would be correct but that's very different from all.

It is the native language of all Irish people. It may not be the chosen language of everybody, it may not be the first language of everybody, but it is the native language of Ireland and as such the Irish people.

Iwasfrozen · 09-05-2012 6:17pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

It is the native language of all Irish people. It may not be the chosen language of everybody, it may not be the first language of everybody, but it is the native language of Ireland and as such the Irish people.

Nope it isn't because I've provided a counter example of an Irish person who's native language is english not irish. (me) There are many many others but to prove your statement false I only need one counter example.

A_Sober_Paddy · 09-05-2012 6:21pm

We really shouldn't be wasting money on reviving a pretty obsolete language...

We should be spending money on getting our kids educated and creating jobs in this country

Crooked Jack · 09-05-2012 6:31pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Nope it isn't because I've provided a counter example of an Irish person who's native language is english not irish. (me) There are many many others but to prove your statement false I only need one counter example.

I don't think you quite understand the difference between a country's native language and your preferred or first language. For example, if one person in Spain is raised speaking french does that mean spanish is no longer the native or national language.

Interest in History · 09-05-2012 7:29pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

It is the native language of all Irish people. It may not be the chosen language of everybody, it may not be the first language of everybody, but it is the native language of Ireland and as such the Irish people.

In our case, is not "native language" a political term? Or how would you define it?

Interest in History · 09-05-2012 7:42pm

Enkidu wrote: »

To be honest I'm not even interested in the Irish language part of this anymore, I'm more fascinated by the break down in the English language occurring in this exchange.

This is a philosophical statement which is virtually unprovable and I don't see why Irish would need to "create a different person" in order for it not to be about image.

Yes, obviously. What is your point? That Irish isn't magic or special? That's obvious.

We're all the same deep down - Humanistic slogan 101, which I agree with. However this started as you initially claimed speaking Irish was just about image. I was saying that not everybody speaks Irish "to show off" or create an image of themselves, but because it was part of their family's culture or they might like to add it to their culture. This to me is a separate issue to "all of us being the same deep down". In fact I don't understand how it is relevant.

All that tells you is that I'm writing in English, so obviously I'm using the same vocabulary. (I'm also made of quarks and electrons like you chair).

Obviously the issue is the same, because we're taking about the same issue.

What? You seem to have jumped into philosophy land were trivial observations like "we're both speaking English" and "we're talking about the same issue" have become profound. I'd be interested to know however how this shows speaking Irish is about image.

Imagine the following exchange:
Person A: Reading Tolstoy is all about image, fundamentally all things are the same, it does not add anything, you are the same person
Person B: I read Tolstoy because I liked it and found it culturally enriching
Person A: No you didn't, you have a nose like a Nepalese man, this sameness cannot be changed, nothing was added.
Person C: I read Tolstoy because my family was Russian
Person A: Irrelevant all of us are one, this would be true even on horseback in the Steppes speaking Aramaic.

OK OK! I only wanted to say one thing: that since English is the best medium of communication in Ireland, the desire to use another language cannot be for the purpose of enhancing one's communication. To me, this point is reinforced by saying that a person speaking Irish will, anyway, have the same body of information or insights to impart as the Irish person speaking English. Because their cultures are the same.

Then I made the mistake of saying that using Irish was was about image. Maybe I should have said that it was about symbolism or style and would have been less misunderstood. In any case, it was for you to say what it was about, and not for me.

ilovesleep · 09-05-2012 8:09pm

The Galway Girl (song) in irish is beautiful. If that doesn't revive the irish language, I don't know what will.

It's cailin na gaillimhe from Mundy

cremeeggeater · 09-05-2012 8:15pm

As a 5th year student, I love Irish and will conduct the odd conversation in it now and again. I'm nowhere near fluent but I can't wait to return to the gaeltacht.

I do however, dread Irish class. I'm doing honours but intend on taking pass for my leaving purely because of the course. I'm expected to write 3 page essays on topics I struggle with in english and study poetry and prós, both of which strike me as useless in terms of speaking the language.

My suggest would be to change how its taught and spilt the subject into two sperate ones, conversational gaelige and Filiocht etc.

conor.hogan.2 · 09-05-2012 8:28pm

Wibbs wrote: »

To be fair DgD I'd reckon few people wouldn't know that Italian, Spanish and French emerged from Latin. Plus it diverged under very different circumstances to today. It did so rapidly too it seems. Within a couple of generations local Italian started to diverge from the Latin quite noticeably. What's odd about this whole latin thing for me is the lingua franca of the Roman world was Greek. Why didn't Greek take over in the aftermath of the western empire like it did in the eastern? Enkidu to the rescue

It is shocking the amount of people who do not know that. A lot of people seem to think English just popped out as is without much influence and very very few loan words.

I will not comment on the Greek thing. I will get into a rant about how history would have been different if we looked to the east after the collapse of the western roman empire. This has little to do with language anyway.

As for the rest I agree (as far as I can see English is going to continue as the Lingua Franca well into the future) but this does not negate local languages imo even minority ones like Irish.

Iwasfrozen · 09-05-2012 8:32pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

I don't think you quite understand the difference between a country's native language and your preferred or first language. For example, if one person in Spain is raised speaking french does that mean spanish is no longer the native or national language.

A country is not a geographic entity it is a group of people with shared cultural backgrounds. In this case the irish people. Not that it matters because you never mentioned country in the first place. You said that irish was our national language. Which it clearly isn't since it isn't my national language. So if it is not mine it obviously cannot be ours. That's basic logic.

Regardless native language ≠ national language. Something I don't think you understand. Now granted you could say "irish is our de jure national language" and you would be correct in saying so. Though a more accurate way of saying it would be "irish is one of our de jure national languages."

But irish is certainly not our native language and any suggestion that it is is simply incorrect.

conor.hogan.2 · 09-05-2012 8:37pm

Some people need to read the constitution and learn our history.

The majority speak English. The majority only learn English and the majority learn English first.

None of that changes our constitution and the majority of our History (recorded history) in which Irish was the language of this country and still is (in a sense)

Iwasfrozen · 09-05-2012 8:43pm

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Some people need to read the constitution and learn our history.

The majority speak English. The majority only learn English and the majority learn English first.

None of that changes our constitution and the majority of our History (recorded history)

I've done both. By the constitution irish is a national language and by history it was the language of the country for most of recorded time but so what? Neither of these things are important. The constitution is only rule by the dead anyway and history is just the records of what these dead people did. History should only influence us in so much as what we inherit from our ancestors. Ideas and institutions should be kept alive based on their own merit only. They should not be kept alive just because our ancestors thought they were a good idea. Because believe it or not, and here's the kicker, dead people could be wrong too.

deise go deo · 09-05-2012 8:44pm

Wibbs wrote: »

To be fair DgD I'd reckon few people wouldn't know that Italian, Spanish and French emerged from Latin. Plus it diverged under very different circumstances to today. It did so rapidly too it seems. Within a couple of generations local Italian started to diverge from the Latin quite noticeably. What's odd about this whole latin thing for me is the lingua franca of the Roman world was Greek. Why didn't Greek take over in the aftermath of the western empire like it did in the eastern? Enkidu to the rescue

Greek was not the Lingua Franca of the roman world, more so the language of the Roman Political Elite in a similar way to how Norman French was the Language of the Political Elite in England after 1066.

I'd disagree. Even though English speakers do vary quite a bit, it would be damned rare to find two fluent english speakers from anywhere you care to mention who couldn't conduct an easy conversation. Maybe if you included some pidgin English dialects? Even something like Ulster Scots a so called language, but really a dialect and even thats a stretch is pretty easy to understand. Switch on och aye the noo mode in your brain and off you go.

Really, I don't think it would be very hard to find two sets of Native English speakers who would have dificulty makeing themselves understood to each other, remember you have to take all the divergent accents and dialects into account, not just the norms amongst the well educated, take for example someone raised in Glasgow and someone brought up in Harlem, imagine someone brought up in Chinatown in LA trying to converse with Jacky Healy Rae, they could make themselves understood, but it would not be an easy conversation, thats forgetting about all the other places where far more divergent forms of English are spoken.

Plus technology is arguably increasing convergence. The overwhelming presence of English on the web and in IT an example. Look at the amount of American English spellings you see on here. Some more local English spellings are almost extinct. Jail is a classic one. I'd reckon the vast majority reading Gaol the actual British and Hiberno English word would go "huh?". Too many John Wayne westerns have killed it off.

It is true though that there will be a time that translation technology will make the need for a Lingua franca more or less obselete.
With regards Amreicanisms, I would regard them more akin to Loan words between languages rather than a sign of any great convergence between the various forms of English.
You are as likely to here a German say OK as an Irish person.

Wibbs · 09-05-2012 8:44pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

I don't think you quite understand the difference between a country's native language and your preferred or first language. For example, if one person in Spain is raised speaking french does that mean spanish is no longer the native or national language.

IMHO you're confusing aspiration and history with the idea of native. Taking your example, it would be no longer the native language of Spain if 90+% of Spanish people could no longer speak Spanish to any fluency and Spanish needed government and other proactive intervention to secure it's future. If you learned Spanish and went to live in Spain, but found only one in twenty Spaniards could speak with you, would you still consider it their native language? I doubt it.

Languages have grown, prospered and died over the millennia. "Native" is quite the fluid thing. Is Saxon the native language of South East England? Not any more. Is Latin the native language of Italians? Not any more, even though some can still understand it, even speak it*. Irish? While it is a language of Ireland and was the native language of Ireland, it hasn't been the native language of the majority of Irish people for well over a century, more like two. It is native for all by aspiration, hardly by definition.

*I knew an Italian woman who studied Latin in college. Sounded very different to how I learned Latin in school. It used to crack her up listening to upper class English people in particular speak it, though the Monty Python graffiti sketch in the Life of Brian really cracked her up. When she spoke it, damn it sounded sexy.

ViveLaVie · 09-05-2012 8:44pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

A country is not a geographic entity it is a group of people with shared cultural backgrounds. In this case the irish people. Not that it matters because you never mentioned country in the first place. You said that irish was our national language. Which it clearly isn't since it isn't my national language. So if it is not mine it obviously cannot be ours. That's basic logic.

Regardless native language ≠ national language. Something I don't think you understand. Now granted you could say "irish is our de jure national language" and you would be correct in saying so. Though a more accurate way of saying it would be "irish is one of our de jure national languages."

But irish is certainly not our national language and any suggestion that it is is simply incorrect.

The definition of a native language is one that is learned from early childhood.

A national language has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. A national language may represent the national identity of a nation or country.

Therefore, Irish is a national language of Ireland whereas English is the native language of Ireland.

Iwasfrozen · 09-05-2012 8:50pm

ViveLaVie wrote: »

The definition of a native language is one that is learned from early childhood.

A national language has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. A national language may represent the national identity of a nation or country.

Therefore, Irish is a national language of Ireland whereas English is the native language of Ireland.

Exactly, +1 that's what I'm trying to say sorry the last line should be native not national.

ViveLaVie · 09-05-2012 8:51pm

Wibbs wrote: »

*I knew an Italian woman who studied Latin in college. Sounded very different to how I learned Latin in school. It used to crack her up listening to upper class English people in particular speak it, though the Monty Python graffiti sketch in the Life of Brian really cracked her up. When she spoke it, damn it sounded sexy.

I studied Latin in college but I wasn't taught to speak it, just read and write it. Where did she study it? Was it in Italy?

conor.hogan.2 · 09-05-2012 8:52pm

English is my native language.
Irish is one of the national languages of Ireland and is a (the, really as far as pretty much all our recorded history goes) native language of Ireland.

dpe · 09-05-2012 8:59pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

Yes it is. The Irish language is the native language of the Irish people. We can argue about how many people actually speak it, argue about how much funding it gets and even argue about its value in today's world, but there is no question that it is our native language, wether you choose to use it or not.

Its an official language of the Irish people, but "native" implies its somehow the de facto language of the Irish people, which it self-evidently isn't, and the version currently taught/spoken never was either.

Just because a language was spoken by the majority 300 years ago doesn't make it the native language now, that would be like claiming Welsh is the native language of England; why should 300 years be any more valid than 1500?

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 9:02pm

Interest in History wrote: »

To me, this point is reinforced by saying that a person speaking Irish will, anyway, have the same body of information or insights to impart as the Irish person speaking English. Because their cultures are the same.

Well I'm not really sure about this, but it will be a difficult point to argue. I mean nobody has the same insights, e.t.c. as anybody else and everything they know will be part of that.

Then I made the mistake of saying that using Irish was was about image. Maybe I should have said that it was about symbolism or style and would have been less misunderstood. In any case, it was for you to say what it was about, and not for me.

Why should I say what it was about? I'm saying it's a stereotype to say that it is done for image, some do this, but not all. For others it will be about something else, which will depend on the person.

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 9:11pm

Wibbs wrote: »

*Though I have noted more recently that certain TG4 voices appear to increase the more throaty sounds. I dunno an example might be the 4 part in the station's name. Instead of "caa hir" for ceathair you hear "caagghirttt" kinda thing. Is that a regional accent or a pretentious elongation you'd hear in the "Dort" D4 accent as Bearla? I ask because when I hear native blasket/donegal type folks you don't seem to hear that kinda thing. It's much softer.

I think it is probably one of two things:
1. A learner over shooting the mark (they remember Irish has certain sounds and accidentally over do them)
2. Certain dialects can be quite harsh on certain sounds. I'll listen out and see if I catch this. (I've also found out more about Irish in America and then there is slowburner's questions, which I found the answers too, but haven't written a post on yet, I should start a "Stuff Enkidu said he'd find" thread

).

deise go deo · 09-05-2012 9:13pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

A country is not a geographic entity it is a group of people with shared cultural backgrounds. In this case the irish people. Not that it matters because you never mentioned country in the first place. You said that irish was our national language. Which it clearly isn't since it isn't my national language. So if it is not mine it obviously cannot be ours. That's basic logic.

Regardless native language ≠ national language. Something I don't think you understand. Now granted you could say "irish is our de jure national language" and you would be correct in saying so. Though a more accurate way of saying it would be "irish is one of our de jure national languages."

But irish is certainly not our national language and any suggestion that it is is simply incorrect.

This is opening up a debate on the difference between a Country, a State and a Nation, the discription you applied to Country could be said to more accuratly reflect the word Nation. A country does not necessairly need to be a State, Wales and Scotland are Countries, and were before they ever had any form of statehood, Countries usually do have well defined geographical boundries though.

As for the Nation, that can be a much more fluid concept as it usually is attached directly to the people rather than the land they inhabit, though the land they inhabit(Or believe they should inhabit) can often be an important aspect of the concept too. Anyway when it comes to what a given nation is and what defines it, it is always subjective, there will often be differing outlooks on what the Nation is, what it comprises of, who belongs to it and what its culture is. Take Korea for an example, both North Koreans and South Koreans would agree that they both belong to the same Korean Nation, the existance of the most heavily militerised border in the world between dose not change that, but they are still prepared to wipe each other out over differing concepts of what that nation should be.
It is rare that what is considered to be one nation would exist inside one state and that everything that comes from that state is of that nation and everything that comes from outside that state is not (And trying to achieve this has caused extream misery throughout history)

Long story short, in your interpretation, Irish is not the National Language, saying that all other interpretations are simply incorrect however is absurd, my interperation is as valid as yours, you are in no position to judge what is and is not 'correct'.

In my own opinion Irish is the national language of Ireland, English is the Native Language of most Irish people, but it is not the native language of Ireland, or of the Irish nation.

conor.hogan.2 · 09-05-2012 9:15pm

dpe wrote: »

Just because a language was spoken by the majority 300 years ago doesn't make it the native language now, that would be like claiming Welsh is the native language of England; why should 300 years be any less valid than 1500?

Hugely different. There was no single cohesive celtic language spoken in England before or the during the romans being there up until English gained prominence.

Irish was spoken by the majority here for all our recorded history for over a 1000 years and is still spoken by a sizable yet still small minority here.

Iwasfrozen · 09-05-2012 9:29pm

deise go deo wrote: »

This is opening up a debate on the difference between a Country, a State and a Nation, the discription you applied to Country could be said to more accuratly reflect the word Nation. A country does not necessairly need to be a State, Wales and Scotland are Countries, and were before they ever had any form of statehood, Countries usually do have well defined geographical boundries though.

As for the Nation, that can be a much more fluid concept as it usually is attached directly to the people rather than the land they inhabit, though the land they inhabit(Or believe they should inhabit) can often be an important aspect of the concept too. Anyway when it comes to what a given nation is and what defines it, it is always subjective, there will often be differing outlooks on what the Nation is, what it comprises of, who belongs to it and what its culture is. Take Korea for an example, both North Koreans and South Koreans would agree that they both belong to the same Korean Nation, the existance of the most heavily militerised border in the world between dose not change that, but they are still prepared to wipe each other out over differing concepts of what that nation should be.
It is rare that what is considered to be one nation would exist inside one state and that everything that comes from that state is of that nation and everything that comes from outside that state is not (And trying to achieve this has caused extream misery throughout history)

Long story short, in your interpretation, Irish is not the National Language, saying that all other interpretations are simply incorrect however is absurd, my interperation is as valid as yours, you are in no position to judge what is and is not 'correct'.

In my own opinion Irish is the national language of Ireland, English is the Native Language of most Irish people, but it is not the native language of Ireland, or of the Irish nation.

I know the difference between a country and state but that isn't important here. What is important here is the use of the phrase "irish is our national language" vs "irish is our native language" one of these quotes is misleading and the other is downright wrong.

We'll start with the downright wrong one first, which is the latter one. A native language is one which you speak since birth. This is obviously wrong and I'll assume you need no proof that all irish people don't speak irish since birth but if you do need one I offer myself as a counter example.

The first one "irish is our national language" while not wrong is misleading. First off we have two national language is this country so really we should be saying "irish is one of our national languages" and secondly it gives the impression that we speak irish of use it outside of government mandated education which for many people is untrue so an even more accurate way of phrasing this would be "irish is one of our de jure national languages" this gives a much more accurate impression of irish as a language given legal status but having very little outside of that.

As for not seeing english a national language. The consitution, the only basis on which I grudgingly acknowledge irish as being a national language, would disagree with you there.

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 9:30pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Funny how quick all that can happen. From what I gather from yourself and other stuff I've read Bardic Irish went wallop in under a century.

Indeed it did and some of the stuff from the last two decades is a little uninspired (poems about shovels or losing a horse, they lived off writing poetry, but with the nobility gone they turned to the peasants, hence shovels.)

I remember some religious type claiming that because Jesus could talk with anyone that this was some sort of miracle. Hardly, as an educated enough Jew of the first century, he would have had Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and some Latin.

Interestingly enough we have reconstructed Jesus' dialect of Aramaic:
http://www.v-a.com/bible/mark_chapter_1_aramaic_audio.html

Also there is a blog by a guy here:
http://aramaicdesigns.blogspot.com/
Who's an expert in the dialect (and Aramaic in general), he's even raising his daughter in the dialect (!!)

Where it may turn out to be different(along with Spanish and French) is the much wider dissemination of the language. It's empire of the word is no longer attached to one culture to nearly the same degree as in the past. It's dominant use in the technology driving the world is it's empire. That may change things.

This is very true, Ostler explores these issues much better than I can explain, but in essence your point is probably right. English + Others (5-7 languages) will continue to dominate for the foreseeable future, but it may no longer be necessary to learn them due to Machine Translation as deise go deo has said. English will probably function as a lingua franca for longer than typical since it has become culturally detached as you said. What I find really interesting though is that Ostler and other linguists suspect English will be a family of related languages by the 2200s.

deise go deo · 09-05-2012 9:47pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I know the difference between a country and state but that isn't important here. What is important here is the use of the phrase "irish is our national language" vs "irish is our native language" one of these quotes is misleading and the other is downright wrong.

We'll start with the downright wrong one first, which is the latter one. A native language is one which you speak since birth. This is obviously wrong and I'll assume you need no proof that all irish people don't speak irish since birth but if you do need one I offer myself as a counter example.

The first one "irish is our national language" while not wrong is misleading. First off we have two national language is this country so really we should be saying "irish is one of our national languages" and secondly it gives the impression that we speak irish of use it outside of government mandated education which for many people is untrue so an even more accurate way of phrasing this would be "irish is one of our de jure national languages" this gives a much more accurate impression of irish as a language given legal status but having very little outside of that.

As for not seeing english a national language. The consitution, the only basis on which I grudgingly acknowledge irish as being a national language, would disagree with you there.

Then by your defination you could not say that English is our native language either surely?

As for national language, the only basis for the use of the phrase National language with relation to any language in Ireland is the Constitution as this is the only document that actually says that we have a national language, the Constitution clearly says that Irish is The national language, English is not recognised as a National language but as a Second official language, why this is a bone of contention for you I don't know as it makes no difference in reality.

As for the use of either phrase, it really comes down to what you see the 'our' as refering to, if it is 'you and I' then clearly it is wrong, if on the other hand you see the 'our' as refering to the Irish nation then it goes back to subjective interpratations of what the Irish nation is and what can be said of it, in which case, your interpratation is no more valid than mine or anyone elses.

deise go deo · 09-05-2012 9:52pm

Enkidu wrote: »

This is very true, Ostler explores these issues much better than I can explain, but in essence your point is probably right. English + Others (5-7 languages) will continue to dominate for the foreseeable future, but it may no longer be necessary to learn them due to Machine Translation as Iwasfrozen has said. English will probably function as a lingua franca for longer than typical since it has become culturally detached as you said. What I find really interesting though is that Ostler and other linguists suspect English will be a family of related languages by the 2200s.

Two things, first of all, the point about machine translation was me, and secondly English can only be siad to be culturally detached in the West. In the Middle East and Far East it is the language of an outside culture.

Iwasfrozen · 09-05-2012 10:00pm

deise go deo wrote: »

Then by your defination you could not say that English is our native language either surely?

As for national language, the only basis for the use of the phrase National language with relation to any language in Ireland is the Constitution as this is the only document that actually says that we have a national language, the Constitution clearly says that Irish is The national language, English is not recognised as a National language but as a Second official language, why this is a bone of contention for you I don't know as it makes no difference in reality.

As for the use of either phrase, it really comes down to what you see the 'our' as refering to, if it is 'you and I' then clearly it is wrong, if on the other hand you see the 'our' as refering to the Irish nation then it goes back to subjective interpratations of what the Irish nation is and what can be said of it, in which case, your interpratation is no more valid than mine or anyone elses.

Prsuming there are irish people for whom english is not theie native language, which I don't know if there are or not in this day and age, then yes english is not our native language when referring to the irish people. If I am referring to you and I then english is our native language.

Indeed it does and while english is not mentioned officially as a national language for unknown reasons, though it's fair to say to was no love lost between Dav and the Tommy's. It's obvious it has the same legal status as irish, since nearly all of our court cases and referenda are carried out in the bloody language this should be self evident.

There really is only one definition of the irish nation though, islands have pretty demarcated borders so I don't know why the term nation is confusing for in relation to Ireland.

How to revive the Irish language.

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