How to revive the Irish language.

deise go deo · 09-05-2012 1:02pm

dpe wrote: »

Fair enough, but I still think there's a question to be asked before you ask how Irish can be revived, which is why should it be revived? I still haven't seen anyone articulate that other than vague arguments about culture.

I actually think Ireland is ahead of the curve here; the world is going to end up with two or three primary languages anyway (English, Spanish and Mandarin) and everything else will be a hobby language. May as well get on the assimilation train now. Even the French will have to accept the inevitable eventually.

That is a concept that holds very little curency outside of the English speaking world, Many English speakers like to think that eventually their language will replace all others, suggest it in a non English speaking country and you would be laughed out the door and down the street though.

You might think other nations will give up their language, but they won't, attachment to your native language tends to be very strong, if not, then just about every language in Eastern Europe would not exist, including Polish.

In my own opinion, I doubt it is possible for a language to exist for long as a world ingua franca, eventually it will splinter into different languages under the weight of differing cultural use, it has already happened historically to Latin, which did not die as people seem to think but rather it splintered into the various romance languages. In my opinion it is already happening to English, English is spoken in many parts of the world, but get a Native speaker from two different parts of the world together and you will clearly see difficulties in comunication, even places that are in constant contact with each other such as the US and UK have divergent forms of the English language with many different words for the same thing and even different spelling in some cases. Nevermind the divergence between areas not in regular contact, a Native speaker from the UK wopuld find it very hard indeed to actually comunicate with an Enlglish speaker from the Far east.

Anyway, with the advance of technology, the need for a lingua franca is becoming a thing of the past, it wont be too long before translation technology means a conversation can be translated from any modern language into another in realtime online.

Wibbs · 09-05-2012 1:23pm

Enkidu wrote: »

Well Norwegian is one of the softest languages in Europe. I just don't really understand what you could be referring to. Welsh has more harsh consonants than Irish and has similar intonation, could you give a real example otherwise I suspect this is just a stereotype you've concocted.

Indeed. Nothing agin Welsh folks as it's a lovely language but in the examples given Welsh can sometimes sound like a nation of catarrh sufferers clearing their throats. If there was a Welsh Countdown the contestants would say "can I have another consonant Carol, preferably a G"

Irish is a lot softer to the ear than Welsh IMHO*. Or English for that matter. Again IMHO English is quite harsh if you step back and listen objectively to it. I certainly don't see the "Irish is harsh" argument at all.

*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.

Wibbs · 09-05-2012 1:36pm

deise go deo wrote: »

In my own opinion, I doubt it is possible for a language to exist for long as a world ingua franca, eventually it will splinter into different languages under the weight of differing cultural use, it has already happened historically to Latin, which did not die as people seem to think but rather it splintered into the various romance languages.

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

In my opinion it is already happening to English, English is spoken in many parts of the world, but get a Native speaker from two different parts of the world together and you will clearly see difficulties in comunication, even places that are in constant contact with each other such as the US and UK have divergent forms of the English language with many different words for the same thing and even different spelling in some cases. Nevermind the divergence between areas not in regular contact, a Native speaker from the UK wopuld find it very hard indeed to actually comunicate with an Enlglish speaker from the Far east.

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.

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.

Interest in History · 09-05-2012 1:41pm

Enkidu wrote: »

You do know Irish and Welsh have very similar phonologies. What is it about Welsh you find nice in comparison to Irish?

Actually Russian is also close, with its narrow and broad consonants..

dpe · 09-05-2012 1:46pm

deise go deo wrote: »

That is a concept that holds very little curency outside of the English speaking world, Many English speakers like to think that eventually their language will replace all others, suggest it in a non English speaking country and you would be laughed out the door and down the street though.

You might think other nations will give up their language, but they won't, attachment to your native language tends to be very strong, if not, then just about every language in Eastern Europe would not exist, including Polish.

In my own opinion, I doubt it is possible for a language to exist for long as a world ingua franca, eventually it will splinter into different languages under the weight of differing cultural use, it has already happened historically to Latin, which did not die as people seem to think but rather it splintered into the various romance languages. In my opinion it is already happening to English, English is spoken in many parts of the world, but get a Native speaker from two different parts of the world together and you will clearly see difficulties in comunication, even places that are in constant contact with each other such as the US and UK have divergent forms of the English language with many different words for the same thing and even different spelling in some cases. Nevermind the divergence between areas not in regular contact, a Native speaker from the UK wopuld find it very hard indeed to actually comunicate with an Enlglish speaker from the Far east.

Anyway, with the advance of technology, the need for a lingua franca is becoming a thing of the past, it wont be too long before translation technology means a conversation can be translated from any modern language into another in realtime online.

People often cite the break up of latin as the likely fate of English, but there are three big differences, English has always absorbed loan words from other cultures (the whole damn language is almost entirely loan words), its structure is all about vocab rather than grammar (and despite English language nazis like my grammar teacher telling me otherwise, there are plenty of ways to skin a cat in English), so it can readily absorb words, and finally the growth of English came at a unique time in history when communications and media have allowed the different variants of English to cross-pollinate; its simply not true to say that Asian flavours of English have drifted so far from the "core" English language (not that there is one) to make them incomprehensible. I'm pretty well-travelled, and while I've struggled with accents from time to time, I've never really spoke to another English speaker I couldn't understand at all. (Whereas I was once on a boat in Brazil with Chileans and Spaniards from somewhere in northern Spain and they could barely understand each other, everyone ended up speaking English). English is easily the most popular second language choice pretty much everywhere, and I can guarantee you all those Poles here during the Tiger years wouldn't have picked Ireland over the UK if the majority language was Irish; Ireland was an easy choice because 60% of Poles already speak English along with half of Germans, Austrians, Finns and Belgians, 80% of the Dutch and nearly 90% of Swedes and Danes.

Maybe machine translation will be the saviour of language variety, but I still don't think it would help the uptake of Irish.

Oh and for the record, I've had that conversation about the eventual dominance of a few languages in quite a few non-English speaking countries and no-one's laughed me out of court; I met a Quechua speaker in Potosi in Bolivia who hadn't even bothered to learn Spanish as a second language, he'd gone straight to English. In Moscow I met Russians who couldn't get any kind of decent job unless they learned English (the ones I met were working for a Japanese corporation in Moscow, who's official working language, even in Japan, is English). I've worked for a German company myself who were exactly the same. No-one suggested they were going to give up their native languages, but there's a point where you end up using English so much it becomes a fait accompli.

Interest in History · 09-05-2012 1:48pm

languagenerd wrote: »

.... I was merely pointing out that the E.U. currently hire a large number of Irish-language translators, hence, there are currently some jobs in it and some need for Irish translators.

And these are plum jobs too. They leave much time for the encumbants to combine them with a second career in translating other languages into English as part of the Brussels system

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 1:48pm

dpe wrote: »

I wasn't aware Irish speakers went about their daily business by bursting into song, it must be a regular Rogers & Hammerstein extravaganza out in the Gaeltacht.

Here is an example of normal speech:

You've cited Welsh as having a sing song intonation. Fair enough, I'm not arguing that it doesn't. The up and down intonation of Welsh is one of the language's nicest features.

However the argument is bizarre. It would be like if I said:

Hypothetical post wrote:

Finnish: 14 cases
English: 2 cases
Icelandic: 2 aveolar taps
English: 0 aveolar taps

Ha!, English is retarded like a bunch of thicks who can't tell the difference between subject and object and their r is like a fish having sex with the back of their throat.

I mean, it is an objective fact that Welsh is more guttural.

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 1:49pm

Interest in History wrote: »

Actually Russian is also close, with its narrow and broad consonants..

That's true actually, the Slavic languages in general have this feature (although Russian is probably the best example)

dpe · 09-05-2012 1:56pm

Enkidu wrote: »

Here is an example of normal speech:

You've cited Welsh as having a sing song intonation. Fair enough, I'm not arguing that it doesn't. The up and down intonation of Welsh is one of the language's nicest features.

However the argument is bizarre. It would be like if I said:

I mean, it is an objective fact that Welsh is more guttural.

Which is why I said "to an outsider" Irish sounds etc etc. I'm neither Irish or Welsh, but I've lived in both countries, and to me, the Irish I hear (which in my defence is pretty much GAA commentators and newsreaders) sounds horrible. Maybe if I understood the language it would be wonderful, but I don't speak much Italian or Russian either but still prefer the sound of them to Greek or German. NB. I've never claimed English was in intrinsically nice-sounding language.

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 1:57pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Why didn't Greek take over in the aftermath of the western empire like it did in the eastern? Enkidu to the rescue

The "Greek World" had turned its attention eastward at that point and seemed less relevant to Western Europe. Also everybody thought they were still speaking Latin until the 9th century, so they believed they still had a lingua franca. A bizarre situation actually everybody operated on the assumption that they still speaking the one Latin from Spain to Italy, even though it was no longer true. It was only noticed when people began to read some Latin prose in France and Spain around the 9th century that they saw that the words were too different for this to be the case.

Wibbs wrote: »

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.

Loads of words like that, "connexion" for example.

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 2:05pm

dpe wrote: »

Which is why I said "to an outsider" Irish sounds etc etc. I'm neither Irish or Welsh, but I've lived in both countries, and to me, the Irish I hear (which in my defence is pretty much GAA commentators and newsreaders) sounds horrible. Maybe if I understood the language it would be wonderful, but I don't speak much Italian or Russian either but still prefer the sound of them to Greek or German. NB. I've never claimed English was in intrinsically nice-sounding language.

There's nothing wrong with that, J.R.R. Tolkien found Irish unpleasant to the ear. However a lot of outsiders have told me that they find Irish beautiful, so I think it is "To me..." rather than "To outsiders...".

Interest in History · 09-05-2012 2:06pm

Enkidu wrote: »

What? I speak Irish because my Granny and Aunt spoke/speak it and I find it really interesting. How is my speaking Irish about "Image". Also could you explain the meaning of the sentence in bold? You could say that sentence about virtually every pair of languages on the planet (and it would still be just as false or true as it is for Irish and English).

The sentence in bold referred to said that the lived experience of people in Ireland will be the same for all people (on average, of course.) So to explain: every (OK, almost every) speaker of Irish to-day in Ireland has English as his/her mother tongue. We got it with our mother's milk - literally and metaphorically. Even though we may have heard some Irish as we grew up we very early on start to get information from the surrounding English language world. We proceded almost at once into the 'English street'. Whether at home or in the street we eat all have the same foods, experience the same climate, occupy the same moral environment and value system, sit the same school exams, and join the same mix of employments producing the same goods and services, have the same basis of property ownership and uses, wear the same dress, drive on the same side of the road, have the same bacteria in our stomachs, and exercise the same norms of relationships between ourselves as parents, children, partners, citizens, taxpayers, etc. etc.

So if my Irish neighbour drinking from a glass calls it a 'gloinne" and not a "glass", this does not indicate to me that he and I are of are of a different culture.

TheDoc · 09-05-2012 2:11pm

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Why should we prop up a dying language instead of letting nature take its course?

Because nature isnt silencing the morons fast enough....

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 2:23pm

dpe wrote: »

English has always absorbed loan words from other cultures (the whole damn language is almost entirely loan words),

As did Latin. Latin borrowed the arse out of Etruscan and Greek. However, neither Latin nor English compare to Japanese (70-80%) or Armenian (>90% loan words).

its structure is all about vocab rather than grammar

This is strange, the structure of a language is its grammar and English has typical Germanic grammar.

so it can readily absorb words,

All languages can, there's nothing exceptional about English that allows it to absorb words more efficiently.

and finally the growth of English came at a unique time in history when communications and media have allowed the different variants of English to cross-pollinate

This is closer to the truth. People often cite strange arguments about English being somehow structurally set up to be the best language. The truth is that English is a pretty typical Germanic language. What is important though is that English was the language of the two most powerful and technologically advanced nations. That is, it was the language of two sequential superpowers. Any language (within limits and there are limits) would have succeed in such an environment. In fact if a language didn't, that would probably tell you there was something odd about it.

I recommend a reading of Nicholas Ostler's "The Last Lingua Franca". You can see in that book (and his earlier "Empires of the Word") a systematic comparison of various Lingua Franca's over the course of human history and English is honestly not that different. In particular I would encourage the chapters concerning the eventual linguistic break up of English.

Interest in History · 09-05-2012 2:25pm

Enkidu wrote: »

That's true actually, the Slavic languages in general have this feature (although Russian is probably the best example)

When I was learning and using Russian I was able to score brownie points on pronunciation beacuse of my early years with Irish. Ditto with the case structure of Russian often matching the Irish one. With using the genitives in particular there was often a direct grammatical match.

So it grates on me to hear the blunt 'modern' Irish which seldom preserves the Caol and the Leathan and which renders the 'ch' as a 'k'. And there is the decline in the application of the case grammar and the curtailed use of the range of tenses. (Caoilfhionn Nic Phaidín is rich on these trends.) Sometimes it seems that we are on the way to creating a sort of gaelic-flavoured Esperanto.

To me it is tragic that all students have to take Irish in the Leaving Cert. If only those who are forced to do Pass Irish were allowed to drop out and leave the field to the students who want to do it and who consequently are likely to be good at it. The politicians won't allow this, of course, because of the usefulness of its "patriotic" symbolism to them. I guess that there is also a language lobby that gets material advantages from the present scene, but it is the politicians who set that scene and furnish the advantages.

What they've done with this language of ours is truly abhorrent and they should be flung into Dante's sixth level of hell for it.*

* or was it seveth?

(Am I starting to rant? Seems to go with the territory. Maybe it's time to quit....)

Interest in History · 09-05-2012 2:32pm

dpe wrote: »

Fair enough, but I still think there's a question to be asked before you ask how Irish can be revived, which is why should it be revived? I still haven't seen anyone articulate that other than vague arguments about culture.

You also have to ask what is meant by "revival". Who? Whom? Numbers? Locations? In science, technology, law, business, in a national community or as a special cultural interest/hobby of a small number of devotees? we have seen that the first type of revival does not work, whereas the second type does.

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 2:37pm

Interest in History wrote: »

Whether at home or in the street we eat all have the same foods, experience the same climate, occupy the same moral environment and value system, sit the same school exams, and join the same mix of employments producing the same goods and services, have the same basis of property ownership and uses, wear the same dress, drive on the same side of the road, have the same bacteria in our stomachs, and exercise the same norms of relationships between ourselves as parents, children, partners, citizens, taxpayers, etc. etc.

Well we have the same climate, drive on the same side of the road, share the same basis of property ownership as most of Europe and have the same bacteria in our stomachs. The rest I don't know (except for relationships with tax payers, I guess they're the same). I mean I'm not sure if the rest would be the same for somebody from rural Cavan like me and a Dubliner. Hell, they'd even vary on an individual level. Besides what are you driving at?

We do some stuff the same (you apparently include very broad things in this statement, like having the same bacteria. I guess we're all composed of electrons and quarks as well) hence speaking Irish is about image.

Of course you excluded things like song, literature and idiom, the things that language does affect.

So if my Irish neighbour drinking from a glass calls it a 'gloinne" and not a "glass", this does not indicate to me that he and I are of are of a different culture.

Okay, and this means what exactly? Nobody claimed different nouns implies a different culture. My grandmother spoke Irish, culturally she wasn't that different from the typical "religious granny" in let's say Dublin, however she didn't speak Irish to be "cool at the organic food market".

Interest in History · 09-05-2012 2:47pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

.... Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam

It is not nice to tell us Irish that we lack soul.

We received our mother tongue from our parents, intertwined with hugs, care, food, cooing and nursery rhymes.

It's wrong to scorn another person's language.

Birroc · 09-05-2012 2:51pm

Enkidu wrote: »

There's nothing wrong with that, J.R.R. Tolkien found Irish unpleasant to the ear. However a lot of outsiders have told me that they find Irish beautiful, so I think it is "To me..." rather than "To outsiders...".

People talk about Irish language being important for our culture and showing our uniqueness but one thing is for sure, foreigners do not come to Ireland to listen to Irish speakers - nobody likes getting spat at.

I think (if it's that important to people) that we should show off our uniqueness/nationality in other more interesting or active ways e.g. Irish dancing, Irish music, hurling, bogball, poets/writers (English-only), beautiful countryside etc - instead of wasting money promoting a dead language (we translate EU documents FFS!), we could promote some of the things I mentioned. For example wouldn't it be great if every county had a decent hurling team or would it be better to have people watching more TG4?

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 2:55pm

Birroc wrote: »

People talk about Irish language being important for our culture and showing our uniqueness but one thing is for sure, foreigners do not come to Ireland to listen to Irish speakers - nobody likes getting spat at.

The rest of you post is understandable frustration concerning the waste of money. However does it need to be preceded by garbage about the language itself (spat at - I'm not even sure what aspect of the language this would refer to.) Also my post did not claim that people came here for Irish.

Interest in History · 09-05-2012 3:06pm

Enkidu wrote: »

Of course you excluded things like song, literature and idiom, the things that language does affect.
QUOTE]

In the first place, you can't select your culture, meaning not just re-naming objects, but altering your identity. You simply have your identity, and then you can add some acquisitions to your range of knowledge. But it is the same person adding the acquisitions, not the acquisitions creating a different person.

Taking those particular things that you mention being added to your cultural repertoire by learning another language, you would in the first place have to know the other language well and in the second place that it would have to have the potential to be culturally enriching.

That in turn would assume that the language was taught and learned at a level at which precision in the use of language can be appreciated, and the nuances in the use of vocabulary and grammer in that language can be recognised in both its literary and colloquial forms.

It would also assume that the language in question is a medium through which its native population encountered the fullest range of social and cultural situations and expressed their interactions with those situations in linguistically highly developed forms.

Subject to those conditions, the learning of any language can be enriching.

Wibbs · 09-05-2012 3:15pm

Enkidu wrote: »

The "Greek World" had turned its attention eastward at that point and seemed less relevant to Western Europe. Also everybody thought they were still speaking Latin until the 9th century, so they believed they still had a lingua franca. A bizarre situation actually everybody operated on the assumption that they still speaking the one Latin from Spain to Italy, even though it was no longer true. It was only noticed when people began to read some Latin prose in France and Spain around the 9th century that they saw that the words were too different for this to be the case.

Yea thinking on it more IIRC Greek was more common among the roman upper classes. Having Greek tutors for your sprogs was a status symbol. That and the "high class Latin" The rest of Italian Romans spoke "vulgar" Latin. Then the Church probably sealed Greeks fate in the west when they went with classical Latin as their language of the learned and rich. Irish seems to have gone in a somewhat similar way to Latin. There was the high end Bardic Irish of the elites and the Irish of everyone else. The former died out when the culture did(in practical terms) and the Irish of everyone else stayed around.

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. Latin seems to have changed rapidly enough and Greek, once widely understood in the Roman world retreats to the eastern empire. To the degree that when John Scottus demonstrated his knowledge of it, the foremost Greek scholar in the Roman church(of which there were apparently few enough) was flabbergasted this yahoo from an island from the middle of nowhere had such a grasp of it.

Actually those Irish monks would have been all biliingual. Given the amount of places they went, they'd have had to be. The Iona lot would have had Irish, Latin and Saxon(though I think Bede describes one dude the local king got shot of, because his Irish accent and faltering Saxon pissed him off:D). The Carolingian guys had Irish, Latin, early French(Frankish?). God knows how many languages Columbanus had. That fcuker had more wanderlust than an Aussie backpacker. St Patrick would have had Latin, Welsh, Irish, French. The ancient world seemed to be much more fluid with language full stop. Monoglots being unusual. 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.

I recommend a reading of Nicholas Ostler's "The Last Lingua Franca". You can see in that book (and his earlier "Empires of the Word") a systematic comparison of various Lingua Franca's over the course of human history and English is honestly not that different. In particular I would encourage the chapters concerning the eventual linguistic break up of English.

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.

Interest in History · 09-05-2012 3:21pm

Enkidu wrote: »

.....Besides what are you driving at?

We do some stuff the same (you apparently include very broad things in this statement, like having the same bacteria. I guess we're all composed of electrons and quarks as well) hence speaking Irish is about image.

My grandmother spoke Irish, culturally she wasn't that different from the typical "religious granny" in let's say Dublin ......".

My reason for the bacteria was to underpin, in a different mode, that we are all the same. And I can't see any general cultural difference between us as we conduct our debate. We are obviously using the same vocabulary with both the same technical meanings and the same nuances. The question at issue is the same for each of us although viewed from different angles. And now it appears that your granny is also just like mine! Where is it going to end?

And all this sameness would not change by one iota if you got into a commentator's box in Moscow and gave us a commentary about an ice hockey match Irish. Or if we went to a pub afterwards and you sang
'Eilín a-rúin' instead of 'There is a taverne in the town..'

wilkie2006 · 09-05-2012 3:54pm

I can understand why people hated learning Irish in school - I did - but I think it'd be so, so sad for the language to die out.

I'd be really interested in hearing teachers' attitudes about the curriculum; it's not working - why? How can it be fixed?

I think what's needed is a passionate, forward-looking Irish teacher who can revamp the school-level Irish language programme.

Crooked Jack · 09-05-2012 3:59pm

Interest in History wrote: »

It is not nice to tell us Irish that we lack soul.

We received our mother tongue from our parents, intertwined with hugs, care, food, cooing and nursery rhymes.

It's wrong to scorn another person's language.

I'm not scorning anyone's language, merely bemoaning the lack of interest in our native tongue.

Iwasfrozen · 09-05-2012 4:27pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

I'm not scorning anyone's language, merely bemoaning the lack of interest in our native tongue.

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

paddyandy · 09-05-2012 4:39pm

There is plenty of representation from the speak irish industry here .AFTER many decades
it might be more to do with money than "our native tongue " shtick . A 'dead' horse probably kept alive on a money machine . Leave it graze on the Gaelteacht Fields .

Enkidu · 09-05-2012 4:56pm

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.

Interest in History wrote:

But it is the same person adding the acquisitions, not the acquisitions creating a different person.

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.

Interest in History wrote: »

Subject to those conditions, the learning of any language can be enriching.

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

Interest in History wrote:

My reason for the bacteria was to underpin, in a different mode, that we are all the same.

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.

Interest in History wrote:

We are obviously using the same vocabulary with both the same technical meanings and the same nuances.

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).

Interest in History wrote:

The question at issue is the same for each of us although viewed from different angles. And now it appears that your granny is also just like mine! Where is it going to end?

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

Interest in History wrote:

And all this sameness would not change by one iota if you got into a commentator's box in Moscow and gave us a commentary about an ice hockey match Irish. Or if we went to a pub afterwards and you sang
'Eilín a-rúin' instead of 'There is a taverne in the town..'

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.

Carson10 · 09-05-2012 5:19pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

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

Too true. we live in the 21st Century and our native tongue is English. Irish is for those who think their above everyone else.

Also like those annoying teachers at school who talked in Irish on the corridors about their wine hunts to the South of France during the summer.

IRISH is DEaD and its all an IMAGE. Take your Irish and your Saturday Morning Organic Markets and go move to the Gaeltacht.

languagenerd · 09-05-2012 5:28pm

Carson10 wrote: »

Irish is for those who think their above everyone else.

You've just randomly decided that. That's your opinion, not a fact.

Sweeping generalisation, much? Anyone could say "French is for people who think they're great", "Breton is for people who think they live in the past", "Spanish is for people who think they should own everything", "English is for people who think they have entitlements" or whatever, that doesn't make it true...

How to revive the Irish language.

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