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Can Ireland become truly bilingual?

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  • 27-04-2015 5:09pm
    #1
    An Ciarraioch
    Registered Users Posts: 5,798 ✭✭✭


    With An Coimisinéir Teanga bemoaning the lack of Irish-speakers currently within the Civil Service, the question of how to encourage practical use of the language must be considered. It's too early to tell what impact the increase in marks for the Leaving Cert oral has had on teaching methods, but clearly an emphasis must be placed on developing conversational fluency from primary school through to the end of second level. The increased use of Irish in social media and technology, with the Duolingo course a notable success, must be welcomed, but can only follow on concrete foundations of personal understanding. Perhaps Wales offers the best example, with Welsh very much a vibrant community language, and growth rising from personal initiatives rather than forced politicised campaigns.


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    #2
    shayno90
    Registered Users Posts: 547 ✭✭✭shayno90


    The transition from a text book language and emphasis on the written exam for students towards daily oral use in schools will be key but slow to achieve. Great strides under-way with the gaelscoileanna at all ages but needs to be used on a par with English for day to day communication rather than the confines of the school environment.
    Most of the pessimism stems from failed language learners and people questioning the value of money being directed into sustaining the language resources. Entitled to question it but short sighted in seeing the long term benefits.
    Far more advantages to being a bilingual than monolingual especially terms of the cognitive benefits, ability to learn further languages, employment prospects etc.


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    #3
    eire4
    Registered Users Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭eire4


    An Ciarraioch wrote: »
    With An Coimisinéir Teanga bemoaning the lack of Irish-speakers currently within the Civil Service, the question of how to encourage practical use of the language must be considered. It's too early to tell what impact the increase in marks for the Leaving Cert oral has had on teaching methods, but clearly an emphasis must be placed on developing conversational fluency from primary school through to the end of second level. The increased use of Irish in social media and technology, with the Duolingo course a notable success, must be welcomed, but can only follow on concrete foundations of personal understanding. Perhaps Wales offers the best example, with Welsh very much a vibrant community language, and growth rising from personal initiatives rather than forced politicised campaigns.



    You bring up a good point about how well the Welsh language is doing. I am no expert at all on the details of why this is so. But certainly there must be some valuable lessons there we in Ireland can learn from Wales. O and by the way I highly recommend the duolingo site. I use it reguarly. Ta se go an mhaith.


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    #4
    AnLonDubh
    Registered Users Posts: 216 ✭✭AnLonDubh


    Teaching Irish in schools has never worked and will not work except for a small minority of students, many of whom do not go on to actually speak the language. The only thing that will work is if people actually learn it in their own time and then speak it to their children.

    Even this will be difficult as you need reinforcement from native speakers to improve the language level of learners (essentially to turn the children of learners into native speakers, as happened in Lithuania). However virtually all studies indicate that the grammar of the language has been degrading in the Gaeltacht for the last forty years, I'm sad to say, and that most native speakers under thirty make pretty big mistakes even in a paragraph length conversation. (See "An Chonair Chaoch" and the citations there in).

    Not pleasant perhaps, but this might be it. At the end of the century, Conamara e.t.c. will mostly likely be almost totally English speaking. (They are currently following the same pattern Roscommon, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Leitrim, Louth and Cavan did a century ago).


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    #5
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,663 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    That being said, outside the 5-year plans of official Ireland, there is a ground swell of support both inside and outside the country - for instance Duolingo and the amount of people of both Irish heritage or simply interested in preserving a Celtic tongue.


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    #6
    Aard
    Registered Users Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    What keeps the language alive in Dublin are the gaelscoileanna. The kids leave school with a good level of Irish, go on to a gaelcholaiste and then sit seven difficult exams through the Irish language. What a feat! I don't know what the situation with funding is, but the more gaelscoileanna that be rolled out, the better the chances of Irish growing as an active daily language. A whole culture grows up around those school, between students, parents, and teachers. There are even 3rd level courses in Irish, something unthinkable in previous decades.


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    #7
    eire4
    Registered Users Posts: 6,626 ✭✭✭eire4


    Aard wrote: »
    What keeps the language alive in Dublin are the gaelscoileanna. The kids leave school with a good level of Irish, go on to a gaelcholaiste and then sit seven difficult exams through the Irish language. What a feat! I don't know what the situation with funding is, but the more gaelscoileanna that be rolled out, the better the chances of Irish growing as an active daily language. A whole culture grows up around those school, between students, parents, and teachers. There are even 3rd level courses in Irish, something unthinkable in previous decades.



    I would agree with that and say the fact that there are not enough places currently in Gaelscoileanna is in fact a promising sign in the sense that it shows there is a growing demand and support for the language. There is a long long way to go but the Gaelscoileanna are a sign of hope for the languages future without a doubt.


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    #8
    JCX BXC
    Registered Users Posts: 18,105 ✭✭✭✭JCX BXC


    Id love Ireland to become Bilingual, itd be great and allow us to become a nation with dual thinking.

    IMO, the way a person thinks is defined alot by the language they speak. Shall they be bilingual, that would allow them to think in a different way.

    A lot of money needs to be put into the idea though. Especially in the cities.

    There are several challenges to the language.
    I'll name a few I think of below

    *Lack of new English words translatable into Irish. Now they just often use the English for it.

    *Very little or no machinery has the Irish language programmed. We need to start with Irish being an option on Mobile phones and PC's. It would greatly help the younger population in learning Irish also.

    *Commercial Ireland has no value for the language. The way to sort this is government incentives. Don't know how exactly, but companies need to be enticed to have Instructions and writing as gaeilge on their products/services.


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    #9
    shayno90
    Registered Users Posts: 547 ✭✭✭shayno90


    Carnacalla wrote: »
    Id love Ireland to become Bilingual, itd be great and allow us to become a nation with dual thinking.

    IMO, the way a person thinks is defined alot by the language they speak. Shall they be bilingual, that would allow them to think in a different way.

    A lot of money needs to be put into the idea though. Especially in the cities.

    There are several challenges to the language.
    I'll name a few I think of below

    *Lack of new English words translatable into Irish. Now they just often use the English for it.

    *Very little or no machinery has the Irish language programmed. We need to start with Irish being an option on Mobile phones and PC's. It would greatly help the younger population in learning Irish also.

    *Commercial Ireland has no value for the language. The way to sort this is government incentives. Don't know how exactly, but companies need to be enticed to have Instructions and writing as gaeilge on their products/services.

    Most Linux distros have Irish as the install OS language as a choice which I always use. Some Android OS version have the choice also with the keyboard as an app on the app store.

    http://appcrawlr.com/android-apps/best-apps-irish-language

    If the language is learnt across the country in schools from the very first day and continues during the the education cycle as the de facto language for the medium of communication then the language can thrive.

    From a commercial point of view English will be the main language but within the work place, Irish can be used and transitioning between Irish and English with international colleagues as in other European nations for example.


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