It just occurred to me today......

brummytom

candlegrease wrote: »

........that we are very fortunate the English colonised us for hundreds of years.* If it never happened we would still be speaking Irish exclusively, not that I have a problem with that, but without English we would be completely shut off from the outside world, our economy would never have got going at all due to the language barrier, and the whole country would generally be an awful lot worse off.

What pisses me off though, is the idiots who start complaining about the 800 years of oppression (not that I condone it), and then turn on their music videos or whatever the next day and generally tune into their privileged, English-centred lifestyle. Yes, I know the music videos example is a bit random.

But anyway, thoughts?

*I'm not English.

*Takes a bow* You're welcome...



You're wrong by the way

ScumLord

Captain Darling wrote: »

If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.

Technically she'd just be a transvestite but if you and your family are willing to go along with it then more power to ye.

carlybabe1

candlegrease wrote: »

........that we are very fortunate the English colonised us for hundreds of years.* If it never happened we would still be speaking Irish exclusively, not that I have a problem with that, but without English we would be completely shut off from the outside world, our economy would never have got going at all due to the language barrier, and the whole country would generally be an awful lot worse off.

What pisses me off though, is the idiots who start complaining about the 800 years of oppression (not that I condone it), and then turn on their music videos or whatever the next day and generally tune into their privileged, English-centred lifestyle. Yes, I know the music videos example is a bit random.

But anyway, thoughts?

*I'm not English.

Eh, Im pretty sure that other foreign coutries speak english as well as thier own language, Canada for example, as well as China and Japan etc.

ScumLord

carlybabe1 wrote: »

Eh, Im pretty sure that other foreign coutries speak english as well as thier own language, Canada for example, as well as China and Japan etc.

Many learn it as a second language but any Japanese I've spoken with had very poor English. I almost wanted to learn Japanese just so they'd stop talking English.


I'll go out on a limb and assume the vast majority of Chinese don't speak English either.

European country's are very good for having English as a second language.

Sam Vimes

dsmythy wrote: »

This thread's trouble.

I wonder how the Danes, Dutch, Finns, Greeks, Icelanders, Norwegians and Portuguese ever got by without English as a first language!

Most of those countries are much bigger than Ireland and you'll find that, especially in the smaller ones, they all speak perfect english. So if the english had never colonised us, we'd most likely still speak english as well as we already do.

But if they never colonised us they may never have gone on to colonise anyone and the world would probably be speaking spanish :eek: then we'd be up **** creek

Guy:Incognito

It's just a pity they cut us loose.

carlybabe1 wrote: »

, Canada for example,.

Being colonised did help with that of course.

Their own language is Enlish BTW. It just happens that theres a large section that use French.

Sam Vimes

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Most of those countries are much bigger than Ireland and you'll find that, especially in the smaller ones, they all speak perfect english. So if the english had never colonised us, we'd most likely still speak english as well as we already do.

Many of the smaller countries in Europe have educated their children in at lease one other language, or frequently two for the simple fact that it is expected that they would need to use that language at some point in their lives.

But in all cases, they speak the local lingo when at home, even a small country like Holland has regional dialects.

Ireland would have done the same if things were different!

Mars Bar

Would we really be bilingual though?!

We can't even teach Irish properly, I doubt we would have been able to teach English properly.

However, I do see the other side to my argument:

Would we talk have been able to pick up English as a second language better than Irish as a second language due to the influence of our neighbours.

But if it was the case that we were fluent in Irish, surely we would be a lot more immersed in our own games such as the GAA and not feel the need to watch soccer. Our channels would probably be in Irish full time, meaning that if we were comfortable with our language, we wouldn't feel the need for BBC and the likes. Hence, lessening our neighbours influence on us.

IMO, a good thread for getting ya thinking, but full of what if's and contradictions.

I don't mind too much, England gave my mam and dad jobs and a chance of survival and they met over there. I was born there but only lived there for a couple of years and moved here when I was really young. Ireland is definitely my home, but I have nothing against the English at all.

carlybabe1

Pop's Diner wrote: »

I'm all for learning English as a foriegn language, but the OP is correct. I certainly find it easier to follow whats going on in Corrie, Eastenders and the other one and cheer on my favourite British football club by virtue of having English as my native tongue.

For starters, ye need to get a life, instead of watching that soap crap. Id rather learn swahili than watch that sh*t

Ultimate Chin wrote: »

Im more pissed off the romans didnt get to us. We might actually have a decent road infrastructure if they did

RLOL!!:D:D:D You deffo have a point there, makes one wonder what the road tax is squandered on

candlegrease wrote: »

This is not a joke topic.

Are you sure???

Anyways.............I know people made the point about other countries but my argument goes as follows:

1. We are a very small nation

Small, but there are smaller

2. We are an island, and so much more isolated that other nations.

Eh, HELLO! We're hardly isolated, its not like we're in the armpit of the Antartic. If you look at the history, we are a prime site for countries looking to invade Europe. Why do you think we remained nuetral in both world wars, and why we were invaded by the vikings.

3. I know we wouldn't be completely banjaxed, but the whole colonisation thing definitely helped.

Hows that now?? Other than to instill a couple hundred years of servitude into our culture

Pop's Diner wrote: »

Things in this country should thank the British for :

1. Language

Pretty sure we had our own

2. Architecture

Pretty sure we had our own version of that too, doubt we were all dimwits, and we didnt have the option of education but we still did pretty good

3. Blonde British women (south of Birmingham).

OOH YESSS!! lest we should forget the backcombed straw-like hair, muffin-topped sprayed on jeans, neon tops and matching shoes, white discus sized hoop earring, drawn on eyebrows, and general slapper attitude

ScumLord wrote: »

Many learn it as a second language but any Japanese I've spoken with had very poor English. I almost wanted to learn Japanese just so they'd stop talking English.


I'll go out on a limb and assume the vast majority of Chinese don't speak English either.

Actually any that I have come across have spoken very good english, definately with inflection, but understandabl (sp?) none the less

European country's are very good for having English as a second language.

Pretty sure its the same in Chinese & Japanese schools

carlybabe1

Stekelly wrote: »

It's just a pity they cut us loose.





Being colonised did help with that of course.

Their own language is Enlish BTW. It just happens that theres a large section that use French.

Im pretty sure their main language is french, english is secondary. Ill check, and its not impossible you're right and Im wrong

Spiritoftheseventies

time to close this post!

With the exception of france, many European countries are very open to a second language and have no problems with English language entertainment and many youngsters learn their English from this.

Biggins

bayviewclose wrote: »

time to close this post thread!

..and I agree!

ScumLord

carlybabe1 wrote: »

Actually any that I have come across have spoken very good english, definately with inflection, but understandabl (sp?) none the less



Pretty sure its the same in Chinese & Japanese schools

Maybe I'm wrong, I'm just assuming that the vast majority of dirt poor Chinese wouldn't be thought the language of evil westerners.

nibtrix

carlybabe1 wrote: »

Im pretty sure their main language is french, english is secondary. Ill check, and its not impossible you're right and Im wrong

Whoa, hang on! The main language in Canada is English (if US English). Only in the province of Quebec is French the main language!

ScumLord

ScumLord wrote: »

Maybe I'm wrong, I'm just assuming that the vast majority of dirt poor Chinese wouldn't be thought the language of evil westerners.

You're right, only the intelligent educated who may be able to trade with westerners are taught English & other languages.

India of course have been very successful in this, you'll know how successful the next time you need to phone "customer suport" for many products.

nibtrix

nibtrix wrote: »

Whoa, hang on! The main language in Canada is English (if US English). Only in the province of Quebec is French the main language!

Don't tell the canadians that, they think they have their own dialect of english!

Greenmachine

This thread wants to make me vomit. It reeks of bigotry.

fcleere

Technically she'd just be a transvestite but if you and your family are willing to go along with it then more power to ye.

no technically she would be a hermaphrodite or a transexual :pac:

ScumLord

fcleere wrote: »

no technically she would be a hermaphrodite or a transexual :pac:

Now I know!

kieranfitz

Of corse what everyones ignoring is that if the English hadn't invaded then the French (non Norman type's that is) or the Spanish would have.

brendansmith

Three cheers for the motherland!

Biggins

brendansmith wrote: »

Three cheers for the motherland!

Germany! :eek:

devereaux17

interesting thread.

its hard to say really, britian has played such a long role in the countries history that its hard to imagine what ireland would be like today without them.

if the uk never colonised ireland then france/ spain definetly would have(the british always feared this) it would be an interesting to see today anyway, or on the flip side, ireland would have been a imperial nation and spread the irish language across the globe and today irish would be spoken all over the world.

i honestly feel ireland today is much worse off for britians involvement, we are too subservient to them in my opinion, for example britian is always used as a yardstick for ireland, i was watching sports matters on setanta sports and they were talking about racism in ireland, one of the guys on the panel was saying 'britian is much further ahead of us when it comes to accepting people of other cultures' you probably wont understand what im getting at but i definetly see this.

oh and people who say ireland would have been too small, if growth had continued at the level before the famine and we never became the nation of emmigrants, irelands population would be something like 30 million today, its a vast country with so much empty space. i'm not sure if this is completely right but at the time of the famine we had a population of 8 million and the uk something like 21 million and our population was growing at a much faster rate than that of the uk.

Munster is bigger than Netherlands yet has a population of just over 1 and a half million today.

brendansmith

devereaux17 wrote: »

interesting thread.

its hard to say really, britian has played such a long role in the countries history that its hard to imagine what ireland would be like today without them.

if the uk never colonised ireland then france/ spain definetly would have(the british always feared this) it would be an interesting to see today anyway, or on the flip side, ireland would have been a imperial nation and spread the irish language across the globe and today irish would be spoken all over the world.

i honestly feel ireland today is much worse off for britians involvement, we are too subservient to them in my opinion, for example britian is always used as a yardstick for ireland, i was watching sports matters on setanta sports and they were talking about racism in ireland, one of the guys on the panel was saying 'britian is much further ahead of us when it comes to accepting people of other cultures' you probably wont understand what im getting at but i definetly see this.

oh and people who say ireland would have been too small, if growth had continued at the level before the famine and we never became the nation of emmigrants, irelands population would be something like 30 million today, its a vast country with so much empty space.

Munster is bigger than Netherlands yet has a population of just over 1 and a half million today.

Britain.

devereaux17

lol i always do that but seriously, where u are from brendansmith, people from the west of ireland before the reformation and later cromwels invasion would have had far more interaction with southern europeans than they would have had with people from dublin for example.

britians(:p) control over ireland reated an inferior complex in the irish mentality and as i said has resulted in ireland being a much worse insular place.

flas

Captain Darling wrote: »

If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.

no she would be a hermaphrodite...

Super-Rush

candlegrease wrote: »

........that we are very fortunate the English colonised us for hundreds of years.* If it never happened we would still be speaking Irish exclusively, not that I have a problem with that, but without English we would be completely shut off from the outside world, our economy would never have got going at all due to the language barrier, and the whole country would generally be an awful lot worse off.

What pisses me off though, is the idiots who start complaining about the 800 years of oppression (not that I condone it), and then turn on their music videos or whatever the next day and generally tune into their privileged, English-centred lifestyle. Yes, I know the music videos example is a bit random.

But anyway, thoughts?

*I'm not English.

How would we be shut off from the rest of the world. Would our Japanese TV's, radios, computers etc not work if we only spoke As Gailge.

arybvtcw0eolkf

candlegrease wrote: »

........that we are very fortunate the English colonised us for hundreds of years.* If it never happened we would still be speaking Irish exclusively, not that I have a problem with that, but without English we would be completely shut off from the outside world, our economy would never have got going at all due to the language barrier, and the whole country would generally be an awful lot worse off.

What pisses me off though, is the idiots who start complaining about the 800 years of oppression (not that I condone it), and then turn on their music videos or whatever the next day and generally tune into their privileged, English-centred lifestyle. Yes, I know the music videos example is a bit random.

But anyway, thoughts?

*I'm not English.

In other words - 'Thick Mick' & 'Paddy the Pig' are too stupid to have done it all without a kick up the hole from England.

Jeeze.

.

Dave!

Nobody cares what you think