A very Important issue

Blackjack

A very important issue for me and others, anyway.

As a Native speaker, I am astounded that the present Government has allowed the situation to arise where in a Modern EU that Irish will not be recognised as an official Language.
Personally, I find this an insult to myself and to many others that my first language does not warrant an official listing, whereby EU documents will not be offered in my Native language. I am not generally a doom-monger, but if this is the intention as far as the EU is concerned, then I feel that it is only a matter of time before the Government of this country adopts the same approach and allows the language, our first official language, to die out without any effort to prevent this.

There are many people in this country who go about their daily business communicating through the Irish Language. This is their way of life and to allow a situation that permits this to pass into history un-noticed without so much as an objection from the Irish people would be a fallacy of Biblical proportions.

Panu Petteri Höglund, A Finnish National who has studied Irish in UCG has created a petition online that is intended to be presented to the goverment. At the time of writing 32,519 people have signed this petition. Many more signatures are needed.
The petition can be seen here:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_p...d.cgi?gaedhilg

when signing, please refrain from making unnecessary or politically motivated comments, as this detracts from the aim of the petition.
Click here for the Online petition

If you have not already signed, please do so. Please inform others of this petition also.

bubbles

Irish is dead - get over it man and move into the real world. The quicker Irish is removed from being force fed into school kids the better.

In 20 years, when all the people who speak irish die off due to old age, the better the state will be. Imagine all the money that would be saved if everything the government produce, documents, signs etc where just in english - and think about much less ink and paper would be needed to print stuff no one plays attention to?

Blackjack

Evidently you have lots of respect for peoples culture, including that of your own country?.

sionnach

blackjack, have you ever previously tried to obtain an eu document of any type in irish? or any eu document at all for that matter? Also do you think that there are people out there who would have need of eu documents and could read them in irish but not in english?

sionnach

Originally posted by Blackjack
Evidently you have lots of respect for peoples culture, including that of your own country?.

btw irish is also my first language, i respect our culture, i am just of the opinion that the only effect of having irish as an official eu language is extra expense to the eu to no effect.

Blackjack

Not quite my point. If we allow this to happen, then it's only a matter of time till it happens at our own Governmental level. And, as a matter of fact there are several people who would prefer to receive documents in Irish rather than english.
Should we just allow it to die out without so much as an effort to maintain it?

I am not asking for your agreement.
However, if you do agree, then please sign the petition. If you don't, then don't feel compelled to sign.

bubbles

A very important issue me arse. Someone should rightly this thread to the crappy ****holeness of the 'Irish' board to let Bard get his little pro ancient launguages grubby hands on it.

Last thing we need is precious bandwidth to be wasted on people trying to salvage something dead and useless.

bus77

No , I dont think this should be made an offical EU language.

Rabies

Originally posted by bus77
No , I dont think this should be made an offical EU language.

*boogle*
It is a very confusing language. VHS is much easier to understand.

angelofdeath

you're link is broken petition is here

http://www.petitiononline.com/gaedhilg/petition.html

btw sionnach, bubbles, theres currently 34,675 people who disagree with you and im one of em

BuffyBot

btw sionnach, bubbles, theres currently 34,675 people who disagree with you and im one of em

I'd love to know what % of them signed the petition knowing exactly what the issue is. I'm sure quite proportion of them have been "scared" into it by rumours and half-truths.

flogen

I'd love to know what % of them signed the petition knowing exactly what the issue is. I'm sure quite proportion of them have been "scared" into it by rumours and half-truths.

Id love to hear what the half truths and rumours are, then

I signed it, and i know exatly what the issue is, the EU are not recognising Irish as an official language. thats it. so far anyway, as blackjack says its only a matter of time until the Irish officials do likewise. As i said on my signature im not fluent in Irish, far from it. However i do hope to learn one day, and even if i dont we should still retain our native language as it is the basis of our culture.

flogen

Lex_Diamonds

Originally posted by flogen
However i do hope to learn one day, and even if i dont we should still retain our native language as it is the basis of our culture.

flogen

Cultures merge into others, changing irreversibly, or simply evaporate over time. Its the way of the world so just accept it and move on.

Silent Bob

Originally posted by flogen
Id love to hear what the half truths and rumours are, then

I signed it, and i know exatly what the issue is, the EU are not recognising Irish as an official language. thats it. so far anyway, as blackjack says its only a matter of time until the Irish officials do likewise. As i said on my signature im not fluent in Irish, far from it. However i do hope to learn one day, and even if i dont we should still retain our native language as it is the basis of our culture.

flogen

Irish has never been an official language of the EU. According to others in this thread it is doing fine as it currently is even though it hasn't been an official language. ever.

How is it's continuance to be an unofficial language going to change anything?

Through the minority language programs of the EU Irish is already treated as an equal and offical language for primary documentation (such as treaties) and any person is entitled to address the European courts through Irish.

How will this lead to the destruction of Irish at a national level?

BuffyBot

Flogen

Pretty much what Silent Bob said.

Irish has never been recognised as an offical language of the EU. Yet people are fluffing the issue by making it sound like it's being scrapped, and it's the first stage in it's elimination - which is isn't!

Sangre

Originally posted by angelofdeath

btw sionnach, bubbles, theres currently 34,675 people who disagree with you and im one of em

So roughly 1% of the population agrees with this? Wow, that is a huge majority there, French and English haven't got a chance.
I'd say half those people signed it because it only takes 10 seconds and they enjoy the buzz they get from makeing a difference, even if its in a subject they dont care about.

ReefBreak

Originally posted by flogen
Id love to hear what the half truths and rumours are, then

I signed it, and i know exatly what the issue is, the EU are not recognising Irish as an official language. thats it.

flogen

You have no clue what the issue is. Read this. Irish was never an official working language. Today's Irish Times has an excellent letter on the subject, which includes:

The EU already supports Irish through it's minority language programs and the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, which has two main offices, in Brussels and Dublin. Irish is an equal and official language for primary documentation (such as Treaties), and any EU citizen has the right to address the European Courts in Irish. However, providing this service for MEPs and bureaucrats would serve no purpose.

angelofdeath

The Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovene and Maltese languages are to be included in the list of twenty official languages of the eu, the number of people speaking these languages is similar to the number of people speaking Irish (380,000)

ReefBreak

Originally posted by angelofdeath
The Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovene and Maltese languages are to be included in the list of twenty official languages of the eu, the number of people speaking these languages is similar to the number of people speaking Irish (380,000)

Yes, but the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovene and Maltese people actually speak Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovene and Maltese. They do not speak English on a day-to-day basis like we do, so you couldn't leave any of them out. Catalan is spoken by 10 MILLION people, yet that isn't included, because the vast majority also speak Spanish. Inlcuding Irish on the list would be pointless and waste of time and money. Simple as that.

angelofdeath

you make a fair point and i wish to subscribe to your newsletter

i think some people are very protective of their culture and heritage, and dont want to see anything happen that could possibly lose some of that heritage, the irish currency is gone, maybe people were a little freaked when they heard about this and didn't fully understand the implications of it, maybe jumped to a few conclusions, (myself included), but now after reading more about it i've realised that its not that big of a deal,sorry flogen, blackjack if i sound like im going back on what i said, but i only posted facts untill now, not my opinion

Kold

As someone who couldn't give a crap i would like to hear my voice heard.




That is all.

angelofdeath

or get your post *cough* spam count up

LoneGunM@n

Thanx for clearing that up for me ReefBreak ... I too was one of the people who jumped to conclusions & sent the e-mail for the petition to my address book ... thankfully the petition website wouldn't let me sign the petition!!

I agree that it isn't necessary for the EU to recognise it as an official language!!

On a more personal note though, I hope that the Irish language isn't allowed to die out ... but I do believe that it should be a choice subject for post primary ... or if it is to remain as a core subject, that the level/standard of teaching should be increased, because for me, that is what led to my apathy towards the subject in school :mad:

ColinM

Blackjack - for someone whose first language is not English, I am pleased to observe that you clearly have a much better grasp of it than most of those for whom English is their only language.

I used to always pity the poor intellects who used to cry "What good is Irish to me? I'll never have any use for it when I leave school ...". Those were the same people who invariably said the same thing about algebra, chemistry, Latin, Shakespeare, etc. What they really meant was "It hurts my brain when I attempt to use what little of it I have. Can I please go home to watch Neighbours?"

I don't think these are actually hard times for the Irish language though. It is definitely a lot "cooler" to speak Irish these days, so there is not the same stigma attached to actually liking it or being good at it. Nowadays, more and more parents are choosing to send their children to Irish-speaking schools (although there are reasons for this other than a love for the language alone). I think much of the stigma attached to learning and speaking the Irish language came from the Irish population's general poor sense of self-worth. That is something which I believe has been slowly changing over the last decade or so.

Whether we have official documents produced in Irish or not, I don't think the Irish language has actually had a healthier outlook in quite a while.

Victor

Take a read of http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/Treaty/cv00850.en03.pdf and do a search on the word "language" and you will see that Irish is actually gaining from the Constitution, not losing.

The Beer Baron

I went to an all-Irish speaking primary school and (oddly enough for a slacker like me) scored amongst the top in the school in Jr Cert and quite well in Leaving.

Since then I have all but forgotten it.
Why? Because it's like everything else I learned in school or my scant years of 3rd level education I never really utilised it in my day to day life and therefore jetisoned it, subconsciously, from memory. And I'm sure I ain't the only one who can say that.

I describe Irish in schools as "Lá Brea Brothallach" syndrome.
Every fúcking essay a teacher collects starts like that, why?
The same essay, the same stock phrases.
Because that's what they TELL them to write. And the teacher only gets it from a book and from leaks from An Rionn Oideachas or whatever its called.

All I remember from Irish class was the teacher writing the essay out on the blackboard and us being made to regurgitate it. Pointless, utterly pointless.
English, of course, was thought in the same way. As children you're able to absorb more info and of course, parrot it off- but there's no comprehension at the same time.

Tbh I think that if Irish was taken OFF the curriculm people would learn it of their own volition and therefore ENJOY it. It's a facinating and lyrical language, but who really wants to speak it when it's rammed down your throat?

Ok, so whilst they speak it rather badly, I have been approached in the North by kids in Nationalist areas wishing to proove their Irishness and simularly test mine by speaking to me in rather dogged Gaeilge- @ least they try- they learn it because they want to. Hell I mean people learn Klingon in their spare time, which is all well and good, but I don't think it should be thought in schools.

Basically- take Gaeilge off the curriculm- watch a flood of interest and a revitalising of the language. Tedious Lá brea brothallaching has stifled the language imho- the way its thought in schools is the reason the language has died.

dathi1

Roma Nigerian English will be the official language of Eire in 2030 ...is good man.

Irish=Bad Everything else good.

dump your planxty and get into fela kuti.

Victor

Originally posted by dathi1
Roma Nigerian English will be the official language of Eire in 2030 ...is good man.

Oh get a life.

Blackjack

Basically- take Gaeilge off the curriculm- watch a flood of interest and a revitalising of the language. Tedious Lá brea brothallaching has stifled the language imho- the way its thought in schools is the reason the language has died.

Agree with pretty much all you say, although I am not sure it would allow the language to develop if it were removed from the curriculum. Mind you, if it were optional after leaving cert that would probably make more sense.

You are completly correct with regard to the Lá breá brothallach thing - the manner in which the language is taught is piss poor and does not allow people to use any imagination. I remember when studying the poetry and prose finding it the most boring rubbish ever, whereas something akin to the modern novels in English were of far more interest.

As someone who really only uses the language to converse to family members, (can't get TG4) I can assure those who don't appreciate its uses, that it is invaluable.

Thanks also to those who have signed the petition.

sceptre

Special thanks to everyone who actually went and checked and found out it was a whole load of bollix

Originally posted by angelofdeath
maybe people were a little freaked when they heard about this and didn't fully understand the implications of it

Possibly. Checking would have been good first though.

I did

Victor

Originally posted by The Beer Baron
Tbh I think that if Irish was taken OFF the curriculm people would learn it of their own volition and therefore ENJOY it. It's a facinating and lyrical language, but who really wants to speak it when it's rammed down your throat?

What needs to happen is for the working language to be separated from the literature and composition. I failed English and Irish in my Intermediate Cert and barely passed them in my leaving cert. Why? Because I had no imagination to do composition and couldn't comprehend / recite the literature.

De Rebel

Looks like this is going to run and run

Repeating my post from a previous thread....

In practice, in terms of working languages, the Brussels simultaneous translation service will often drop to 3 or 4 languages for routine meetings. The official paperwork will appear in all of the official languages, but frequently the English and French versions appear ahead of the others and are often the only ones available for meetings.

The points made by Sceptre and Vinnyfitz are well made. We have “struggled by” for 31 years in the EEC/EEU/EU without Irish ever having designation as an official or a working language, and it has never prevented us from being successful in the primary objective we set ourselves when joining the EEC (Screwing every last penny we could out of the Germans)

If the will of the majority is to live with the ambiguity that is Article 8 of the Constitution of Ireland then so be it. (and it has to be said that the lofty ideal of the first section of that article is brought crashing to the ground by the pragmatic if not cynical third section – so typical of De Valera and so revealing of the fact that he had no intention of restoring the Irish language to primacy). I'd rather we look to the century ahead and leave the language behind along with the other vestiges of the 19th/20th century (Draining the Shannon, the "Sinn Fein" philosophy ( the Arthur Griffith sense), dancing at the crossroads etc.

Or as signatory number 45 to the petition put it "Long live the land of saints, scholars, heroin, corruption, small-minded bigotry, paedophilia and drunken violence"