What can we do to revive the Irish Lanuage?

Riddle101

Bit of a long shot but i'll give it a try. Even though Gailge is still part of Irish culture, i feel it's being phased out of exisitance. Nowadays Irish is something we learn about in school and then after school we leave we forget most of it. I don't know about you but i'm proud of my country and culture and i feel sad that the Irish Lanauage isn't of concern anymore. Now i'm not saying that we should all be speaking Irish everyday or adopt itr but i think we need to do more to keep it large in our society, and not because we're Irish or because it's part of our culture but because Irish is one of the very few things that seperates us from the rest of the world. So what do you think, shold the Irish Lanauage be made more bigger and what ways do you think we could make it bigger.

My Ideas of how we could make the Irish lanauge bigger:
(1)Parents could spend at least 1 hour a day with their children and try to help them learn about Irish

(2)Children could be given a task of learning one Irish sentence and knowing what it means everyday

I still have to think of more ideas but you catch my drift

Wibbs

Ban it.

I'm only being slightly facetious with that statement. Look at Basque or any of the eastern European languages that were censored under the soviets. All vibrant languages. The former soviet bloc countries have turned it around in just over a decade. All banned or heavily censored. You go to the Basque country and you will hear a living language being spoken like any other and it's likely it'll survive for another few 1000 years.

Compare to here where the money has been ill spent ramming it down our throats as a living language and here we are nearly 100 years since the formation of the state and it's still a minority language. Just because a few irish schools have sprung up and you hear parents say Slan doesn't make it a living language. Not by a long shot. Very very few speak it fluently and the rest are creating a new language. A kind of pidgin Irish. Now languages change or die out, but I'm no so sure about Irish.

It needs to be hip again and for that it has to be dangerous. People will find that which they can't have to be attractive and be willing to fight for it.

Since we can't ban it or censor it we're kinda boned. The furore that ensued when they spent silly money turning into an official EU language was a good example. Very silly.

A people will only speak a language if they want to. Clearly few enough do, or we wouldn't be having this discussion.

mikemac

Make it relevent.
I don't see the point in getting students to learn abstract poetry as Gaeilge when they couldn't chat up someone in a pub in Irish and lack the vocabulary to maybe order a meal and a few pints in a local pub.

I think it's too late for many people who have now left school unless they want to do a night course on their own steam.

One thing that can be done is more funding for TG4.
Bring back Ole Ole, a soccer program on TG4 and also maybe show League of Ireland football on Friday nights with Irish commentry.
There are some very popular shows on TG4, Ros na Run and Afraic as examples. A credit to their producers! Why don't we have more shows like this?

Oh and finally I'm wondering why some companies has displays in Polish and not in Irish. Bank of Ireland is an example. I know it's all about making money but it ain't good enough

damonjewel

Wibbs wrote: »

Ban it.

Or enforce it! in Ukraine all broadcasting and teaching is in Ukrainian which has meant that Russian is being maginalised

mike65

Thats nationalist politics though, I don't think anyone wants a return to a burn everything British except thier coal mentality.

Riddle101 Point 1 may not be very effective as it presumes 20/30/40 something parents are decent as Gaeilge

Mike.

Wibbs

micmclo wrote: »

Oh and finally I'm wondering why some companies has displays in Polish and not in Irish. Bank of Ireland is an example. I know it's all about making money but it ain't good enough

Money follows the reality and the reality is Irish is a more minority language than Polish.

Spyral

I would like to be able to get irish mp3s so that i could listen to irish on the go. sort of like

"conas atá tú Seamus?" "How are you James?" "conas atá tú Seamus?"

etc increasing in complexity and made available free so that people could 'learn' themselves if they wanted to.

Erin Go Brath

Censor English - the language of the devil.

Make sure all programs shown by the National Broadcaster
are through Irish. Irish voiceover for all recorded programs, and all live
sports, awards programs etc are done through Irish. Schools all teach through the medium of Irish.

A bit more extreme, but a good idea would be imprisonment for
anyone found speaking the English language, electric chair for repeat offenders. That should act as a deterrent!

Wibbs

Erin Go Brath wrote: »

Censor English - the language of the devil.

The language of international trade, science and most of the arts. Throw in Spanish, Chinese and a smattering of French and you have the world covered. All more useful than minority languages that need "saving" like Irish. If it needs saving it's in trouble.

Make sure all programs shown by the National Broadcaster
are through Irish. Irish voiceover for all recorded programs, and all live
sports, awards programs etc are done through Irish. Schools all teach through the medium of Irish.

I pray in whatever language is the lingua franca that never happens unless by consensus. The civil service and the law etc needed Irish and what do we have? 90% of transactions in those areas are done in English. In any case it's the 21st century, people would just switch off or change the channel and watch whatever in the language that is useful. Guess what? That ain't Irish.

In any case it would be far more useful to teach other languages. A language is a medium of communication. Full stop. End of. While each may have it's advantage in the transmission of ideas and concepts, the biggest asset to a language is it's viability as a useful everyday language. Outside a very rarified set Irish fails in that.

Most who lay claim to speaking it, don't speak it very well. At best it's an Irish that would be barely recognisable to native speakers 100 years ago. At worst it's pidgin, that makes the speaker sound like a foreigner in a language they claim to be their (political)heritage(the worst example of the type). There are those that do speak it well but they are a very small minority.

Fratton Fred

Erin Go Brath wrote: »

Censor English - the language of the devil.

Make sure all programs shown by the National Broadcaster
are through Irish. Irish voiceover for all recorded programs, and all live
sports, awards programs etc are done through Irish. Schools all teach through the medium of Irish.

A bit more extreme, but a good idea would be imprisonment for
anyone found speaking the English language, electric chair for repeat offenders. That should act as a deterrent!

Will the last person to leave the country please turn off the lights

Johnmb

One simple, and easy, thing that I've always felt should be done is to reverse the street signs. Have the large letters in Irish, and the smaller letters above it in English. That wouldn't mess things up too much for non-Irish speakers, as the English name would still be there, but it would encourage more use of the Irish names, and hopefully a bit of the Irish language to go along with asking where places are and giving directions etc. Even if the only thing to be used was the Irish name, at least it would help when it comes to knowing how to pronounce letters/letter groups should the individual ever take up the language in the future.

Dummy

Hi Riddle

We speak only Irish at home. It's the norm for us now. We revert back to english if there is a non-irish speaking visitor to the house. But irish visitors will always attempt to converse with us in our home in irish.

About 10 years ago, we had a girl from New Zealand come visit us. She was examining how the Irish maintain their language but also, how the Welsh completely revived theirs. The irish were struggling in maintaining while the Welsh were enthusiastic in reviving and maintaining.

So I guess you have to look at the Welsh model to see what they have done. Whatever it is, that model works.

An RTE radio commentator recently said that, to speak the irish language was very sexy now. But of course it. I speak it !!!


Slán

D

Spyral

I agree.. living in wales what ever they are doing it is totally working.


I think that the prblem is that irish is taugh in schools as if its your first language.. it should be taught like french or german.. from scratch

Fratton Fred

The last few posts have hit the nail nicely on the head.

I have no understanding of the irish language at all, apart from hello, please thank you etc. I am learning it now from my daughter who is learning irish atr school and as she does so, it is starting to come back to my wife.

The problem I have is reading Irish, so a phrase book is useless to me. I can pronounce Welsh words because I understand the sounds groups of letters make, but not Irish. I was stood at a door the other day reading Go raibh Maith Agat (I think) and it was only after standing staring at it and trying to work out what it might say that it dawned on me it actualy said. (It said please close the door, thank you).

My daughter can't understand why I don't know Irish and I would like to learn the basics, any idea where I can start?

gurramok

There was a cd release of lessons in Irish in the Sindo a while back. I was on the first lesson and abandoned it since as i didn't know what the speaker was saying as he spoke too fast.
I was one of those that had a bit of Irish in school and was terrble at it as it was taught wrong. I only know a few words and cannot string a sentence together.

Abandon that Peig sh1te and teach it like French/German. It's no accident that i learnt and understood huge amounts of French than Irish and i struggle to get sentences together in Irish and turned out nearly fluent in French!

As said, do what the Welsh did or the Quebeccans in the 60's to get it taught properly and picked up. I'd love to be able to speak Irish but i'm not going to fork out loads of euro in classes to learn it and you can't expect everyone else to do so!

Tenger

Spyral wrote: »

I think that the prblem is that irish is taugh in schools as if its your first language.. it should be taught like french or german.. from scratch

Totaly agree here. I went to a boys primary school where history,maths and football were dominant. I suddenly enter secondary school an was expected to know how to read and discuss Irish prose. I did French for 5 years and Oral german (1 class a week) for 1 year. I left school being more capable of speaking French and German than Irish.

Another point is practising the language. For my job I learn various foreign phrases and words. I can now speak a few phrases in up to 12 languages. I remember these with cheat sheets however as I use the Polish the most I no longer need the prompts.

If a few more people spoke a few words of Irish we would slowly become more accustomed to it. Simple things like "Cen taime e?, Conas ata tu?, Ca bhfuill ....?, etc.

Patrickisperfec

http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=3158
if you want to learn irish

Killaqueen!!!

Nothing. It's too late to revive the Irish language. The weird thing is, everyone thinks teenagers hate the language but most young people I know wish they could speak the language, and actually want to learn it. It's just that it's taught horribly in school and is incredibly boring.

I agree that it should be taught like French/German. Get rid of the stupid poetry analysis. You could combine teaching the language, with teaching its history/culture e.g a bit of mythology? Maybe not, I dunno.

Whatever it is, something has to be done. Would love if the whole country was fluent in Gaelige and English, never mind something like French,German which would also be good.

Pity it will never happen

Spyral

ni thugim an webshíte mar bhí mo scoil ró-crap ag teaching Oirish.

Dummy

Spyral wrote: »

ni thugim an webshíte mar bhí mo scoil ró-crap ag teaching Oirish.

Res Ipsa Loquitur !

The main reason welsh has succeeded in being revived, is that a significant percentage of the population wanted it to! It should also be remembered that even at the languages lowest point there was still a sizeable percentage of welsh speakers (20%, I think) using the language daily in preference to english whenever possible.

Gaeilge has to rise from a much lower point and within the general population there are few who are interested enough to learn/relearn & try to use it.

Too many see it as a dead language! or as a historic throwback that has no relevance in the modern world, these attitudes are the biggest hurdle Gaeilge has!

Of course English is the language of international business and everyone should be able to speak it, but the same can be said of many European countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland etc, all those countries have relativly small populations and a language that is spoken by few outside their borders. These countries have embraced International Languages such as English, but have taken steps the ensure that their own languages are not overwhelmed. The French have a different approach, by trying the ban "borrowed" words form use with in france, has proven a very difficult polocy to enforce.

GreenHell

I'd love to learn Irish from scratch. Our school system fails horribly at the task of making the language a viable conversation tool, to put it bluntly. No one cares about learning and describing poetry or how someone was as quick as the wind and could light the fire.

Personally I think the language should be taught first for use in everyday conversation and then by achieving merits in speaking, writing, etc you could award leaving cert points or something.

I think as I get older, the more I'll regret not being able to speak Irish, even though as a teenager I couldn't stand it.

randylonghorn

The biggest mistake that was made in trying to revive the Irish language was ramming it down people's throats. So many Irish people came out of the school system with a hatred of Irish as a result of the way it was taught that they never again wanted to speak / hear it.

The best way to teach a language is to:
(a) start early
(b) make it enjoyable.

karen3212

I seriously think that the world needs to pick an easy to learn international language, like Esperanto or something and then people can concentrate on languages they want to learn rather than on Internationally profitable languages. I think that would help Irish here.

Also as already said, have a look at what the welsh did.

randylonghorn

karen3212 wrote: »

I seriously think that the world needs to pick an easy to learn international language, like Esperanto or something and then people can concentrate on languages they want to learn rather than on Internationally profitable languages.

While I take your point, I doubt it will ever happen, as there is no "native" base for Esperanto, nor anyone to advocate its cause.

I do, however, believe that if I live to be an old man I will be living in a world dominated by 2 / 3 languages, with most people able to speak at least one of them, regardless of where they are from (my guess would be English / Spanish / Chinese). Hell, it's happening already to an extent!

Either that or we will have developed Star Trek style Universal Translators, and it won't matter what language we're actually speaking!

FTA69

Teaching Irish like they do French or German will do no good as they are taught terribly as well. Look at the Dutch, German or Scandinavians; most of them have a degree of spoken proficiency in English while we leave school unable to converse in Irish or the European language which we were taught.

Irish should be taught with an 80% emphasis on oral skills, crap like learning to write letters etc should be disposed with and a complete conversational approach should be taken. Reams of grammar, tenses and verbs simply alienate people and it was that method which probably finished the language off. The government should also be doing more to expand Gaelscoileanna.

I also fail to see the point in learning French or German, Polish would be a much more apt language to learn and people would actually get an oppurtunity to use it.

FTA69

FTA69 wrote: »

I also fail to see the point in learning French or German, Polish would be a much more apt language to learn and people would actually get an oppurtunity to use it.

I see little point in learning Polish, unless you have a specific reason to do so, Polish is only spoken in eastern Europe & by Polish communities abroad.
It is inportant to learn at least one of the main international language, English is one of those languages along with Spanish, French & German (in that order) as these languages are widely spoken around the world. Usually as a first language (English in many of the former British colonies, Spanish in most of latin America, French in North Africa & German in central Europe), but in many countries as a second language.
Chinese is another important language in the future, but all chinese learn English already.

FTA69 wrote: »

Irish should be taught with an 80% emphasis on oral skills, crap like learning to write letters etc should be disposed with and a complete conversational approach should be taken. Reams of grammar, tenses and verbs simply alienate people and it was that method which probably finished the language off. The government should also be doing more to expand Gaelscoileanna.

As for Irish, it needs to be taught as a spoken language first, then teach the finer points of grammar later. At least one school lesson needs to be taught through Irish to give the language a "use".

karen3212

karen3212 wrote: »

Also as already said, have a look at what the welsh did.

The important thing to remember is that the Welsh wanted their language to succeed!

edit: here's the strategic plan for Welsh over the next few years http://www.bwrdd-yr-iaith.org.uk/cynnwys.php?cID=6&pID=109&nID=1428&langID=2

FTA69

I see little point in learning Polish, unless you have a specific reason to do so, Polish is only spoken in eastern Europe & by Polish communities abroad.

A sizeable one of which lives in our own country. You are far more likely to use the Polish language in your daily and working life than you are French or German. Learning Polish would give us an oppurtunity to actually utilise it, that and it is the second most spoken language in Ireland.

German in central Europe

German is spoken on a much less wider scale than French or Spanish, Spanish is also a more widely spoken language than English I believe.

FTA69

FTA69 wrote: »

A sizeable one of which lives in our own country. You are far more likely to use the Polish language in your daily and working life than you are French or German. Learning Polish would give us an oppurtunity to actually utilise it, that and it is the second most spoken language in Ireland.

Yes, but all the poles here have/are learning English. They only speak Polish in their own communities or with other Poles.

FTA69 wrote: »

German is spoken on a much less wider scale than French or Spanish, Spanish is also a more widely spoken language than English I believe.

That's right, that is why I put German last. Don't know about Spanish V English, depends whether you are referring to first or second language.

williambonney

Unfortunately most of the polish population here is probably transient. They will disappear with the shrinking economy. Which is a pity because they would do wonders for our gene pool. So learning Polish would be never as beneficial as learning a more main stream language like Spanish or French.

FTA69

FTA69 wrote: »

Learning Polish would give us an oppurtunity to actually utilise it, that and it is the second most spoken language in Ireland.

If those who claim to have Irish used it whenever possible, that situation would soon change.

As someone who is trying to learn it is frustrating not being able to use (try to use) what little I have already learned, there is only so much you can do with TG4 etc.

PS: listening to 2FM, someone said that some Poles are not impressed with Irish people trying to learn their language, they want english!

EamonnKeane

Wibbs wrote: »

The language of international trade, science and most of the arts. Throw in Spanish, Chinese and a smattering of French and you have the world covered. All more useful than minority languages that need "saving" like Irish.

Learning Chinese would be a waste of time unless you're going to China or SE Asia, and it's notoriously difficult. Arabic or Russian would give you a better geographic spread.

Rossibaby

i have very little irish.although i could speak at a decent standard when i was about 8,just everyday convos nothing major.the reason: i had a great teacher who every morning would do irish oral work with us and would give us sentneces and grammer to learn off,and if you passed a test a few days after and remembered it you would get a prize.i even rang my classmates back then and asked them to say what irish we had to learn because it was good craic and you had a goal to achieve to win stuff...it's too tedious in schools generally

That's the crux of the issue, learning anything needs a purpose! if you don't see the point in learning it then you won't be able to learn it. For many Irish doesn't serve any purpose.

dresden8

I was good at Irish in primary, as soon as we got to poetry and prose and that bitch Peig, it was a total turn off. Most boring book ever. Irish just became ****.

Still, there's good looking weather girls on TG4, that's always worth a look.

Nordwind

Irish pornos clearly the way to revive this.

heyjude

randylonghorn wrote: »

The biggest mistake that was made in trying to revive the Irish language was ramming it down people's throats. So many Irish people came out of the school system with a hatred of Irish as a result of the way it was taught that they never again wanted to speak / hear it.

The best way to teach a language is to:
(a) start early
(b) make it enjoyable.

Agreed. Compulsion is never the way to make people want to do something

guinnessdrinker

One thing almost anybody can do is to speak more Irish in day to day life.
I find if you say something to somebody in Irish they will reply in Irish, just simple basic phrases like "go raibh maith agat" and "ta faitle romhat" that everyone one knows and take it from there. Although a lot of people don't like Irish because of school or whatever reason, I have never really seen anyone outright hostile to the langauge being spoken.

WindSock

Starting up Ghaeilge nights, once a week or even once a month in your local community center would be great. Not only would people be attracted to learn and speak as ghaeilge with each other but it would help with reinstating community spirit. Which is all but lost in many parts of this country.

WindSock

Nordwind wrote: »

Irish pornos clearly the way to revive this.

Cad ata do Dhaidi?


Edit: or is it Ce he do dhaidi?
Just goes to show how brutal mine is after 12 years of learning.

No one ever listens to the dialog while watching porn & forget subtitles

karen3212

randylonghorn wrote: »

While I take your point, I doubt it will ever happen, as there is no "native" base for Esperanto, nor anyone to advocate its cause.

I do, however, believe that if I live to be an old man I will be living in a world dominated by 2 / 3 languages, with most people able to speak at least one of them, regardless of where they are from (my guess would be English / Spanish / Chinese). Hell, it's happening already to an extent!

Either that or we will have developed Star Trek style Universal Translators, and it won't matter what language we're actually speaking!

Well yes, I see what you mean, but I know people who've never lived outside their own countries who've learned english for 16 years and are still very handicapped when I try to speak about anything that is not the usual conversation they would have with a foreigner, also they seem to be a bit embarresed when speaking with a native speaker of English.

The point of an Internationl language is that it would be a second language for most people, therefore all learners. I have been trying to learn Chinese and for a European it is very difficult, and even with that I will still only ever be able to speak it very well If I go there and learn with native speakers, assuming they will not want to use me to learn English.

Even with a 2nd or 3rd big language, a person is still very limited with regards to communicating with people around the world.

Killaqueen!!!

FTA69 wrote: »

Teaching Irish like they do French or German will do no good as they are taught terribly as well. Look at the Dutch, German or Scandinavians; most of them have a degree of spoken proficiency in English while we leave school unable to converse in Irish or the European language which we were taught.

Irish should be taught with an 80% emphasis on oral skills, crap like learning to write letters etc should be disposed with and a complete conversational approach should be taken. Reams of grammar, tenses and verbs simply alienate people and it was that method which probably finished the language off. The government should also be doing more to expand Gaelscoileanna.

I also fail to see the point in learning French or German, Polish would be a much more apt language to learn and people would actually get an oppurtunity to use it.

Perhaps it's just the new generations - and Ireland's 2nd language speaking population will increase - but most of the people in my school have a good understanding of the langauge they learn (German, French, Spanish etc.) I don't think it's taught terribly in schools, though of course it varies.

If you think about it, the government could make all public schools Gaelscoileanna, but as has been said, there just isn't the desire to learn the language. I did say earlier, that most teenagers would like to be able to speak Irish fluently but most aren't bothered to actually try - it's that badly taught in school.

McArmalite

What could possibly be the ratio of Gaelscoileanna to ordinary schools ?

According to http://www.gaelscoileanna.ie/index.php?page=about_us

Currently there are 168 Irish medium primary schools as well as 43 Irish medium post primary schools thriving throughout the 32 counties (outside of the Gaeltacht), with 135 and 39 of these respectively in the 26 counties.

According to the education.ie website there are 3,160 schools in the Republic. not sure if that figure includes the gaelscoileanna or not.

Approx ratio = 18:1

randylonghorn

Deleted User wrote: »

According to the education.ie website there are 3,160 schools in the Republic. not sure if that figure includes the gaelscoileanna or not.

It should. That's a hell of an improvement, actually.

Deleted User wrote: »

No one ever listens to the dialog while watching porn & forget subtitles

I would have thought so too, yet I found myself getting very annoyed with a German vid recently. Sub-titles are the devil's txtspk, 'tho, even on real films.

WindSock

I disagree about subtitles. I almost need them to pay attention to a plot(not in porn) as I get distracted all to easily. In fact, I find it much easier to understand Irish when they speak English and have Irish subtitles, rather than the other way around.

Stollaire

"What can we do to revive the Irish Language?"

1) Re-establish (Coláiste Íosagáin) and establish the all-Irish teacher training colleges to insure that teachers can actually teach in Irish. (This is the source of the problem, and an obstacle to the expansion of Gaelscoileanna)

+

2) Introduce a 2 year early immersion Irish language stream in every gnáthscoil around the country.

=

3) Bilingual Irish-English speaking Ireland in 1 generation.

Johnmb

Johnmb wrote: »

One simple, and easy, thing that I've always felt should be done is to reverse the street signs. Have the large letters in Irish, and the smaller letters above it in English. That wouldn't mess things up too much for non-Irish speakers, as the English name would still be there, but it would encourage more use of the Irish names, and hopefully a bit of the Irish language to go along with asking where places are and giving directions etc. Even if the only thing to be used was the Irish name, at least it would help when it comes to knowing how to pronounce letters/letter groups should the individual ever take up the language in the future.

I find that having the Irish in italics make them harder to read as well as being in a smaller font with the english names in CAPITALS emphesizes the importance (or lack of it).

In several other countries where bi-lingual signs (local & english), there is a trend to making the anglicised version of the name into a phonitically correct version instead.
For example Nicosia is pronounced Lefkosia and the signs have been changed accordingly.

An Fear Aniar

Best thing you could do for Gaeilge is stop forcing children to learn it at school. The Irish educational system is a linguistic murder machine.


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