Gaeilge, dead language?

Crash

Irish being compulsory in schools is not the problem, the course is the problem. it is taught in most cases substandardly, it is not based on being orally proficient (which in a language where the intention would be day to day use, its a bit of a ****ing joke) and it has so much ****e thrown into the course that its a disgrace.

For instance, studying Peig for my leaving just made me want to kill someone. seriously.

Thirdfox

europerson wrote:

Great question!

Sex is a biological factor that's wired into our brains... teaching (or the lack of it) will not put people off sex as it is inherent to human nature to reproduce... the learning of a particular language most certainly isn't inherent to our nature.

Chinese will be more and more important as time goes by... vast untapped economy there with people who are beginning to have more spending power.

I think choice should be given to people... take Latin for example, it was re-introduced to my old school 2 years ago and now it has become really popular. Maybe the compulsoriness of the teaching just fostered hatred towards it?

Kwekubo

Nietzschean wrote:

Which is more beneficial to kids today :
A) Spend 14 odd years learning irish, at the end of which only a few can speak it properly.
Spend 14 years learning chinese/japense/spanish and being conversational in it.

As was said above, do you seriously believe that any of those languages is inherently easier to learn than Irish?

The problem is definitely in language teaching - an EU report last week said that Ireland is the most monolinguistic country in Europe, withe 66% of people knowing only English.

This, in a country where children learn Irish and other languages for years during their school career. There's something wrong.

I personally think all school children should be taught Esperanto for one or two years in primary school. Learning any language makes learning subsequent ones easier, and since that much would be more or less sufficient to gain fluency, you could go on to French, Japanese etc much more easily. Everyone would know what tenses, verbs, past participles etc are before they get to first year!

John

ardmacha wrote:

This kind of argument is hardly convincing. Taxi is a Greek word which is the same in all European languages. People have no problem in English saying that the stopped off after going to the Gym for a Cappucino, before collecting the child from the creche. Use a similar sequence of words in Irish and it apparently shows that it is not a real language.

Touché (see what I did there).

We are always told that compulsion is the problem, if sex education is compulsory in schools will this put people off sex?

It's nothing to do with it being compulsory. People learn Irish for 40-50 minutes a day in school. Outside of that time they don't use Irish, there is no need for it and therefore they don't bother. English is compulsory and I don't think you can argue that few people can communicate in English. Maths is used all the time. Granted no one is doing double differentiation all day, everyday but it gets used.

Taking a foreign language is compulsory and I'd find more use for French and German (which I didn't learn at school and wish I could have) in my daily life than I do with Irish in all my life. Therefore I will use and want to use these languages more. In fact I'd say I have a better vocabulary in French, German, Latin and probably even Polish compared to Irish. These languages are of use to me, Irish is not.

And sex is always interesting, compulsory or not.

THis is a bit like people in "deprived" areas who put their children off education, on the basis that it is no use. Not having any education, the children indeed find that they have no use for it. Similarly people with no culture.

It's of no use to me. I've made a personal decision that I don't need to have Irish much like I haven't learned Cant (which people in Ireland speak too). And if those without Irish are your definition of those with no culture then I feel sorry for you. There's a huge world out there outside of the Irish language and not having Irish does not occlude you from enjoying other aspects of Irish culture or indeed be proud of being Irish.

Awayindahils

cuckoo wrote:

*builds air raid shelter*

*realises that the shelter doesn't have a window, so i won't have a view of the ensuing war*

*carefully cuts hole in ceiling of shelter, build ingenious skylight/vertical tunnel contraption with mirrors*

*puts on microwave popcorn*

*sits back and waits for the entertaining hostilities to commence*

i was going to wade my way through this topic to see what had been said. Saw this, started laughing and promtly gave up.

rsynnott

John2 wrote:

I don't think it's covered by that law at all. Yes the management has the right to refuse admission but it's a discriminatory policy.

As of a year or so ago, there are loopholes in the equality laws for pubs.

Roundtower2 wrote:

the thing i didn't understand about that debate - is surely there are automatic translations from english-to-irish and irish-to-english in the Dail? maybe not? but similar translation services are available in the Welsh Assembly and the EU parliament.

Possibly not; the issue, after all, hardly ever comes up.

I seem to remember there was a motion presented in Irish at some USI thing a year or so back; caused a lot of fuss.

europerson

Kwekubo wrote:

I personally think all school children should be taught Esperanto for one or two years in primary school.

Esperanto, despite what anyone says, is not a real language, and I don't see how learning it would, therefore, help anybody.

I abhor the attitudes of those who act like because someone hasn't learned Irish, they are a lesser being (mentioned upthread). This has happened to me on several occasions and p*ssed me off no end. A lot of people don't realise that Irish isn't compulsory in most schools in the North, where I went to school, in fact my school didn't even offer it at all. I genuinely didn't have the opportunity to learn it, despite considering myself Irish. I took a short course in college but as everyone well knows, Irish is a difficult language which requires years of study, or at least an intensive course, not an hour a week for 2 months.

The reason the Irish are so monolingual is that the teaching of languages at school, including English, is terrible. I believe Latin should be compulsory in secondary school as a base for the Latin languages, and that English grammar should be taught properly in primary school. I remember going into first year French and the teacher using words like 'preposition', 'past participle', 'subjunctive clause' and no-one had a clue what she was on about because they had never been taught these terms! How can you expect people to learn another language if they don't even know how their own works? The UK and Ireland are the only countries I know of in Europe where the first language grammar is basically not studied at all.

europerson

Elliott Juicy Thinner wrote:

I believe Latin should be compulsory in secondary school as a base for the Latin languages, and that English grammar should be taught properly in primary school. I remember going into first year French and the teacher using words like 'preposition', 'past participle', 'subjunctive clause' and no-one had a clue what she was on about because they had never been taught these terms! How can you expect people to learn another language if they don't even know how their own works? The UK and Ireland are the only countries I know of in Europe where the first language grammar is basically not studied at all.

I agree about Latin. English grammar is taught in primary schools, but unfortunately much of its technicalities are left up to pupils themselves. I knew what these things were when I did German and French in first year, but only because I taught myself (I found it genuinely interesting: I still do, in fact).

My brother went on work experience to a primary school the week before last, and he said that the standard of spelling, grammar and puctuation was atrocious. This is something that, in my opinion, needs to be tackled urgently. He did a spelling test with fifth and sixth class pupils, and he said that they were, for the most part, appallingly bad, with scores of five and six out of twenty. From correcting their English work, he said there were commas for full stops, no quotation marks, and definitely no apostrophes. This is a national emergency, and desperately needs to be sorted out.

Time Magazine

Latin is not a useful language. It is completely dead, thirty-two (infinitely) times moreso than Irish.

Irish is far more pertinent in Irish people's lives, is irrevocably linked to our cultural identity and is a valuable tool when you're in Leeds with your girlfriend bemoaning your racist neighbours.

In fact, the proposition that Latin should become compulsory is proof that Irish needs to become uncompulsory. There would be far less grá [see what I did there?] for Latin if it was compulsory. Irish would hold much more gravitas [wahey!] if it was optional at Leaving Cert.

But mandatory up to and including JC for me; or otherwise it'd die.

John

Angry Banana wrote:

Latin is not a useful language. It is completely dead, thirty-two (infinitely) times moreso than Irish.

Not a useful language? It's the base root of a large proportion of modern languages. If you know Latin, picking up French, Spanish and Italian is very, very easy.

Then there's the fact that an awful lot of science, history and theology is written either completely in Latin or with a large amount of Latin terms. You'd be surprised how much easier remembering scientific names are once you understand a bit of Latin.

RDM_83

Don't see how it can be claimed that Irish is a vital living language that is so important to our culture and then say that it will become extinct if it is not kept cumpulsory surely if it is so important people would keep learning it(the fact that there was protests organised when Enda Kenny whose not even close to power raised the idea of it not being cumpulsory till leaving cert raises some questions-possibly there is a fear that there would be less teaching jobs for Irish grads if this was the case might have been a strong motivator).
p.s its only the grants and stuff that actually annoy me- I'm a fluent english speaker, how come I can't have subsidised accommodation on campus with other english speakers.

Andrew 83

I'm strongly in favour of the Irish language and strongly opposed to removing its compulsory status. I wrote something about it on a thread in some other board on boards.ie. I'll try and find it later and repost it rather than writing up my views again.

Andrew 83

Here's what I posted on the Politics board about a year ago. I'd elaborate my point that French is taught very badly too with little to no influence on the spoken word. My Irish is miles better than my French and I think that's because there was much more emphasis on the spoken word in my Irish teaching than my French.



I think the Leaving Cert Irish course that currently stands is excellent (I was in the first year to complete it in 2001, I can't speak for the pre-2001 LC course which many of you may have done) but the problem is, as many of you ahve eluded to, that some people don't have a good enough mastery of the language before they go into 5th year.

What I would do to fix it is this:

a) reinstate the old system whereby Infants was taught through Irish, I don't know why they ever got rid of this. Teaching can then be either through English or Irish from 1st class onwards.

b) place a lot more influence on oral speaking. When I was in primary school we spent a couple of hours each day in class discussions as Gaeilge all the way through school. It meant I had a better grasp of the language at 12 than many of my friends at 18. That needs to be done in all primary schools and then in secondary school classes it needs to be the same as well. The same goes for French, German etc as well. The reason English is learnt so well by people in toher countries is that they watch American films, Tv etc. This means they interact with the spoken word a lot more, this needs to be replicated with a higher emphasis on the oral side of things. If you can speak the language well grammar can become second nature before you try to teach it.

RDM_83

I can understand those ideas if you consider Irish to be that important to the Irish society (though as far as I have seen the older generations don't speak any more Irish and there was extremely strict incentives to at least pass your Irish exams-not sure about this but I think when my mother was in school your leaving cert was considered void if you didn't pass Irish).
But it doesn't answer the question as too why there is financial incentives for Irish speakers.

Ron DMC

ilovemybrick wrote:

true of gaeilgóirí in some parts of the country but not all.go to an ceathrú rua and see. go to the aran islands and listen. your point doesnt take into account that in this country we spend the majority of our time communicating in english and then also speak irish.

Having been down here in An Ceathrú Rua for the last two days, I can confirm that the Irish used here is immaculate. My Irish is far from perfect myself, so hopefully some time spent here will let some of the magic rub off on me.

Pet

You should try understanding kerry irish.

Irish + so-thick-it-could-cut-butter Kerry accent + extremely fast, stammery style of speaking = near gibberish.

Even when my Irish was good I still had problems.

Crash

My finest day was when my kerry uncle called me a stingy bastard. I personally consider being called a stingy bastard by a kerryman a complement

and you're right, kerry irish is near impossible, especially from certain areas.

Pet

My finest day was when my kerry uncle called me a stingy bastard. I personally consider being called a stingy bastard by a kerryman a complement

You must have hung the teabags out to dry a few too many times so.


Still, at least they don't eat their dinner out of drawers like Cavan people..

james80000

Firstly I think that all of the arguments on this thread have been excellent and it is very possible to see both sides of the argument if you do not feel very strongly either way.
There are two things to be considered here, first, if Irish is useful as a language. Apart from using it abroad as aforementioned in situations where you have something to say about people around you (extremely fun), it is 99% useless. There is absolutely no point in it being our first language, everybody here speaks English, very few speak Irish of a similar standard. Before everybody attacks me over this one, just think about it with only logic in mind for a minute, it is most definitely useless and learning a foreign language is much more beneficial in terms of business, science, almost every industry except 'the preservation of dead languages'.
However, (a very important one), the people on this thread that have shot down the Irish language have forgotten that Irish is part of something mysterious and very abstract (certainly not logical) and that is, to use a cliché, Irish identity. It shows that we are different, that 'being Irish' is not simply being born in this country (which I incidentally wasn't!). When I came to this country at the age of 9, i was pretty annoyed at having to learn this language and couldn't see the point of it. That is how most people feel after 18 years!!! However my view has since changed. I believe it important to keep the language alive, and unfortunately, the only way to do this is to make it compulsory at least for a while, otherwise people will simply give up as there is no real USE as such for it. However, going out to An Cheathru Rua and having a conversation through Irish can show a part of our culture and a part of Irishness that cannot be let die. Real rural Ireland.
Irish should be kept alive. Perhaps not in such ridiculous forms as grants, needless translations or special housing. I think the age of 18 is a good place for people to make up their own minds about it, I would have chosen to give it up after the Junior Cert, but glad I didn't now. The oral part of the course is absolutely key and, there isn't much doubt about it, the course needs a radical overhall.
We shall see if this EVER happens.

John

Andrew 83 wrote:

Here's what I posted on the Politics board about a year ago. I'd elaborate my point that French is taught very badly too with little to no influence on the spoken word. My Irish is miles better than my French and I think that's because there was much more emphasis on the spoken word in my Irish teaching than my French

That's in your case and I'd stick my neck out here and say that most people aren't better in Irish then they are in their foreign language. I struggled to pass ordinary level Irish and I got a B1 at honours French without too much bother. I can happily converse in French and understand to some degree a lot of French writing. Our class had a lot of emphasis on speaking French, maybe French was just taught badly at your school?

ilovemybrick

RDM_83 wrote:

p.s its only the grants and stuff that actually annoy me- I'm a fluent english speaker, how come I can't have subsidised accommodation on campus with other english speakers.

the scholarship (it is a scholarship awarded by the college and definitely not subsidised accomadation seeing as the receptees have to pay full accomadation and then receive the scholarship) is awarded on the basis of people who will add to the community of college through the medium of irish. it is not simply a grant given to fluent irish speakers.
though your point about the grant system with regards to irish (it not being properly managed and being open to some "interpretation" by some) is bona fide your example is not. the scéim cónaithe is not simply gaelgóirí handing out grants to other gaelgóirí simply because of the language they speak.

RDM_83 wrote:

But it doesn't answer the question as too why there is financial incentives for Irish speakers.

and posting with incorrect spelling in english is?

look at other countries like Italy,America (in louisiana and New Mexico at least), France, Canada, Turkey, Scotland, Wales, Spain, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Brazil, Argentina and many others where there are grants and support for people speaking a native or culturally important language. Simply because you disagree with it does not mean it is wrong.

Kwekubo

europerson wrote:

Esperanto, despite what anyone says, is not a real language, and I don't see how learning it would, therefore, help anybody.

Of course Esperanto is a real language! It has been used around the world in all conceivable situations for 120 years - whatever you want to say, you can say it in Esperanto. What other criteron is there for a language? (Just to clarify, I speak Esperanto fluently myself - I taught it to myself in my spare time from a book in transition year - so I'm not totally blowing hot air.) Uses? Well, first of all there is the obvious advantage of being able to talk to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people around the world without one person having to talk uphill linguistically to the other. Then there's the benefit, as I mentioned above, of understanding language better in general, as happens with all language learning - only in this case you get the full benefits after eight to ten months instead of eight to ten years.

Andrew 83 wrote:

What I would do to fix it is this:

a) reinstate the old system whereby Infants was taught through Irish, I don't know why they ever got rid of this. Teaching can then be either through English or Irish from 1st class onwards.

b) place a lot more influence on oral speaking. When I was in primary school we spent a couple of hours each day in class discussions as Gaeilge all the way through school. It meant I had a better grasp of the language at 12 than many of my friends at 18. That needs to be done in all primary schools and then in secondary school classes it needs to be the same as well. The same goes for French, German etc as well. The reason English is learnt so well by people in toher countries is that they watch American films, Tv etc. This means they interact with the spoken word a lot more, this needs to be replicated with a higher emphasis on the oral side of things. If you can speak the language well grammar can become second nature before you try to teach it.

I like the way you think. It just seems so obvious to worry about oral fluency first, then writing.

Is there some sort of new scheme in College that's coming on stream for Irish speakers, in addition to the Scéim Chónaithe?

RDM_83

If the Scéim Chónaithe system is based on the contribution to college life is that not serving the same role as the Trinity Annual Trust?
I'm not sure of the details but the examples of countries you've given seem to be in relation to 'minority' languages, Irish is going to be the 21st official EU language next year, which means it may be considered as a language that is spoken most of the time by most of the people in the country in which case grants and awards for fluent Irish speakers are actually discriminating against a minority-or its a minority language that needs financial incentives and promotion so it doesn't die out. I don't see how it can be both at the same time.
One of my lecturers was saying that the person who discovered the high altitude winds published his research in Esperanto thinking everybody would read it-he was Japanese and also published in his own language-nobody read it outside japan and the Japanese military used them to send balloon bombs to the states, where i think they actually killed two people on the mainland.(this may be an urban legend, but the balloons were real)

In relation to spelling, I do Science, i'm not sure if i've hand written anything this year, when I use my mobile I use predictive text, maybe everything I write gets turned into 'american' english but frankly couldn't give a fcuk about that, this a forum? did you actually have spend a long time trying to figure out what I was saying so whats the point would understand if was something important (like my thesis, where i had to relearn the difference between Affect and Effect now that showed what damage Bavaria can do to those hours in school grhhhh)

Kwekubo

RDM_83 wrote:

I'm not sure of the details but the examples of countries you've given seem to be in relation to 'minority' languages, Irish is going to be the 21st official EU language next year, which means it may be considered as a language that is spoken most of the time by most of the people in the country in which case grants and awards for fluent Irish speakers are actually discriminating against a minority-or its a minority language that needs financial incentives and promotion so it doesn't die out. I don't see how it can be both at the same time.

Indeed. Irish is registered in the north as a European minority language. However, it won't be on a totally equal footing with the other 20 languages as regards some translations and services etc.

RDM_83 wrote:

One of my lecturers was saying that the person who discovered the high altitude winds published his research in Esperanto thinking everybody would read it-he was Japanese and also published in his own language-nobody read it outside japan and the Japanese military used them to send balloon bombs to the states, where i think they actually killed two people on the mainland.(this may be an urban legend, but the balloons were real)

I think this story is true - well, more or less. The article was published in an Esperanto science journal which, it would appear, no-one in the American authorities read.

ilovemybrick

RDM_83 wrote:

If the Scéim Chónaithe system is based on the contribution to college life is that not serving the same role as the Trinity Annual Trust?

through the medium of irish. so, no.

RDM_83 wrote:

Is there some sort of new scheme in College that's coming on stream for Irish speakers, in addition to the Scéim Chónaithe?

yup. the scéim is to be extended with 10 places reserved for first year gaelgóirí out in Trinity Halls.

Ace7

Lets discuss Welsh language revival. They have had a lot more success there, but nobody really explains why.

I've heard the Welsh wanted to revive it, and thus it has. Well, why do they want to revive it and the Irish don't?

Are the Welsh stupid to revive it and for wanting to revive it? Of what use is Welsh? Seems like many of the knocks against Irish could also be said about Welsh. Welsh is not an international language. Is reviving Welsh a waste of tax payers money?

Welsh is not spoken outside Wales, right? Like Irish, Welsh is more a 'rural' language rather than the language of industry/business/commerce. English is a much more useful language and more widely spoken than Welsh. etc. etc.

Maybe Welsh is taught better than Irish is. But I've heard that for English speakers, Welsh - like Irish - is still a hard language to learn.

How many school children will use Welsh after leaving school? Maybe not that many, same as with Irish. Maybe some view Welsh as a waste of time. But Welsh has somehow been revived.

I've heard that Welsh hadn't died out as much as Irish has, and so that made it easier to revive. But is that the whole story, or are there other reasons?

I'm sure there are some in Wales who view Welsh as an old, poor, backward, farming, type language. So it has had its opponents and obstacles. And yet it has still been revived. So whats been the difference between Wales and Ireland, between the Welsh people and the Irish people, and between the two celtic languages?

I think it would be great if a lot of people weighed in with their thoughts on this. Thanks.