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Gaeilge and irish people
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15-04-2006 12:03pm#1
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Well, in coming to the Gaeilge forum you're going to get biased answers
let me provide an alternative viewpoint.
The reality is that the Irish language has little or no use in modern Ireland.
Simply walking around the streets of my town of Longford, going to shops etc one is infinitely more likely to hear languages such as Polish being used than Gaeilge.
Ireland has changed in the past 100 years.
The only major user of the Irish Language is the Government, bound by kilometers of red tape and countless useless acts of legislation to mandate this. The only private organisation, to my knowledge, that uses Gaeilge extensively of their own free will, is the Gaelic Athletics Association (GAA). And the Sinn Fein/IRA.
The fact that Gaelgoirs have been ramming the language down our throats but that most of us can't speak it despite being forced to waste 1/7th of primary and secondary education time on it (at the expense of things that are really needed such as IT) speaks volumes. The Irish people have voted with their tongues, and Gaeilge is the loser.
Also, TG4 still depends on massive government subsidies and has miniscule ratings, despite the fact that it has recently hired a bunch of borderline-porn-star-girls to do the weather and shows a bunch of old Western movies, AND stole the Pop chart shows from RTE 2, speaks even more volumes.
[sarcasm]If you really want the Irish Government's meddling interventionist policy of linguistic-fascism, you're welcome to take it
[/sarcasm] 0 -
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.seanW wrote:And as for the government, they only get away with it because nobody cares. While most of the Gaeilgoiri are ogling Síle Seoige and the TG4 weather girls, most real Irish people (such as those who live outside the Conemarra Gaeltacht) are more worried about things that affect their daily lives, like 2+ hour commutes, runaway crime and anti-social behaviour, relatives dying on hospital trollies, the astronomical cost of living, mortgages, childcare, environmental problems and so on, indeed in some cases poverty
Ok, so because we have an interest in our national language we can't possibly have the time to think about poverty and people dying. Wow, I didn't realise this would take up so much of my time, maybe I should have looked into this before I signed up to be a Gaeilge enthusiast....GaryOr wrote:Hi my name is Gary..
and....... I'm a Irish language enthusiat..
Feels good to get that off my chest... whooo
Lol! 0 -
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Well, in coming to the Gaeilge forum you're going to get biased answers let me provide an alternative viewpoint.
The reality is that the Irish language has little or no use in modern Ireland.
Simply walking around the streets of my town of Longford, going to shops etc one is infinitely more likely to hear languages such as Polish being used than Gaeilge.
Ireland has changed in the past 100 years.
The only major user of the Irish Language is the Government, bound by kilometers of red tape and countless useless acts of legislation to mandate this. The only private organisation, to my knowledge, that uses Gaeilge extensively of their own free will, is the Gaelic Athletics Association (GAA). And the Sinn Fein/IRA.
The fact that Gaelgoirs have been ramming the language down our throats but that most of us can't speak it despite being forced to waste 1/7th of primary and secondary education time on it (at the expense of things that are really needed such as IT) speaks volumes. The Irish people have voted with their tongues, and Gaeilge is the loser.
Also, TG4 still depends on massive government subsidies and has miniscule ratings, despite the fact that it has recently hired a bunch of borderline-porn-star-girls to do the weather and shows a bunch of old Western movies, AND stole the Pop chart shows from RTE 2, speaks even more volumes.
[sarcasm]If you really want the Irish Government's meddling interventionist policy of linguistic-fascism, you're welcome to take it [/sarcasm]
There is a huge amount of people who can speak Irish. It is far higher than those who actually do. There has been a stigma attached to speaking Irish for centuries. Given that there are no monglot Irish speakers left, everyone who speaks Irish is someone who speaks at least two languages. How ironic that morons able only to speak one language are the most vocal at criticising those who can speak Irish, usually on the basis that some other language would be more useful.
People who speak Irish often come across each other in shops, on the street etc., but they speak english to each other because it is assumed everyone speaks english. Therefore, Irish is spoken in private, like some sort of secret club.
Tg4. RnaG and all the other media outlets are helpful, but the real support would be allowing me to ask for assistance in Tesco's as gaeilge, or in other public areas.
There is now a generation of children educated voluntarily through Irish. These Gaelscoil kids unfortunately learn very quickly that the language is to be kept private due to the intolerance of the english only speaking population.
For those of you english monoglots who consider that the fact that no one seems to use Irish is a strong support for your arguments, you might think about why people don't use Irish publicly. In fact in an era when pretty much every nationality has english as a second language, the fact that we have english, but no other language is a drawback.
Everyone (not just english speaking countries) understands english. Go to any holiday resort, and english is often the first language used between people who don't know each other, even if they turn out to be from the same country. It is the world's lingua franca. Countries like Ireland and the UK without a strong language separate from this langua franca, are effectively deprived and disadvantaged.
As for Irish being rammed down your throat, so was French, Maths and especially English. It has been cool to criticise Irish for centuries, you are keeping up a fine old tradition. By the way, I would rather Irish be abandoned in english speaking schools, if the trade off was that those who speak the language could use it publicly (don't tell me to just go ahead. Ever tried to order a sambo in Irish, buy a film ticket? exactly).
As a start, some customer service desks where the service rep was guaranteed to be able to speak Irish in some of our biggest stores (say a Tesco or two) might be nice. One person in about 100 staff. Not a big ask. These people are already there by the way. I just don't know that they can speak Irish, and they don't know I can, so we all speak english together. How nice.0 -
Also, TG4 still depends on massive government subsidies and has miniscule ratings, despite the fact that it has recently hired a bunch of borderline-porn-star-girls to do the weather and shows a bunch of old Western movies, AND stole the Pop chart shows from RTE 2, speaks even more volumes.
Sean, what is the point of this, You can come here and make all the misrepresentations you want, do you really think your going to change anyones mind with piss-weak arguments like that?
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Well, in coming to the Gaeilge forum you're going to get biased answers let me provide an alternative viewpoint.
The reality is that the Irish language has little or no use in modern Ireland.
Simply walking around the streets of my town of Longford, going to shops etc one is infinitely more likely to hear languages such as Polish being used than Gaeilge.
Ireland has changed in the past 100 years.
The only major user of the Irish Language is the Government, bound by kilometers of red tape and countless useless acts of legislation to mandate this. The only private organisation, to my knowledge, that uses Gaeilge extensively of their own free will, is the Gaelic Athletics Association (GAA). And the Sinn Fein/IRA.
The fact that Gaelgoirs have been ramming the language down our throats but that most of us can't speak it despite being forced to waste 1/7th of primary and secondary education time on it (at the expense of things that are really needed such as IT) speaks volumes. The Irish people have voted with their tongues, and Gaeilge is the loser.
Also, TG4 still depends on massive government subsidies and has miniscule ratings, despite the fact that it has recently hired a bunch of borderline-porn-star-girls to do the weather and shows a bunch of old Western movies, AND stole the Pop chart shows from RTE 2, speaks even more volumes.
[sarcasm]If you really want the Irish Government's meddling interventionist policy of linguistic-fascism, you're welcome to take it [/sarcasm]
Irish is more normal is some parts of the country than others. some identify with it and for others its goboodly gook.
I agree that in a place like Longford it is about as useful as a theatre or library.0 -
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