Nationalism and the Irish Language

The Corinthian

T runner wrote: »

Yes, it was a homophobic insult. The only reference to "a love that dare not speak its name" is Wildes reference to homosexuality.

Im not surprised you dont elaborate. Youre clearly a coward.

Heh. The author or meaning of the original quote was incidental, it was it's style that mattered. That this style could have alluded to the (poetic) pomposity of your comment towards donegalfella clearly went over your head.

shayno90

Donegalfella, your attitude is typical of those who have given up on the language and Im guessing you have had a bad experience with Gaeilge at school and has only added to your bitterness towards it. I wouldn't consider it a dead language, take for example Des Bishop who immersed himself in learning the language as a foreigner in his brief time in the Gaeltacht and puts the majority of Irish people to shame as all they can do is complain about being forced to learn it. Even during my time at school, despite exams I appreciated the fact the Gaeilge is our native language and apart of my Irish identity despite your remarks, .
You keep supporting your argument with 250 years of English language being spoken, that since the language lost a foothold in the country due to the Famine, it should remain a minority language just so you don't have spend some time learning what your descendents actually spoke.
Also, refrain from linking the Gaeilge to the ira all the time as this narrow mindedness is disappointing and sounds like an anti Irish remark which goes against the point of this thread and is offensive to gaeilgeóirí, you are starting to sound very bitter!!

Permabear

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Bigdeadlydave

Well the way I look at it Irish is an important part of MY cultural identity. Sure if I had no Irish and english was my only language I may as well be a Brit or a yank.

Permabear

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Grudaire

The Corinthian wrote: »

Public opinion's a bitch.

(And not about public opinion being a bitch either )

The Corinthian wrote: »

This is the problem. Irish is not actually a key part of Ireland's identity any more.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Who has the right to determine what Irelands Identity is? (In fact that may be stolen from one or both of you earlier on in the discussion), but it still stands.

Now I didn't see any response about my point on the wealth of understanding that can come about Ireland from even basic Irish. Donegal (For Donegalfella this time ) comes from the Iris "Dún na nGall", or "Castle of the foreigner", makes ya think about Donegal town! But of course there's also the other Irish name for Donegal "Tír Chonaill" or "land of Conall", And I'll let Wikipedia give a short as Béarla explaination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_T%C3%ADr_Chonaill

Bigdeadlydave

donegalfella wrote: »

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The point I was making which you obviously missed was that the removal of Irish would remove one of the biggest cultural differences between ourselves, Brits and Americans etc...... Were did I mention I thought people who just speak English are of said nationalities? Perhaps you should read more carefully in future

And how exactly am I foisting my cultural identity on anyone? Im hardly in a position to change it. In fact I am on the receiving end(if you want to make that argument) as as I said earlier I am still in school.

theredletter

I won't get into this.

All I'll say is that no matter what your opinions are, if you hate it or not, Irish is protected under our constitution. After the launch of the governments plans to increase bilingualism, the funding of the language will continue.

So in short 'na, na, na, na, na'.

Grudaire

theredletter wrote: »

I won't get into this.

All I'll say is that no matter what your opinions are, if you hate it or not, Irish is protected under our constitution. After the launch of the governments plans to increase bilingualism, the funding of the language will continue.

So in short 'na, na, na, na, na'.

I must point out that I have never seen you in Teach na Gealt.

Great to see you in Teach na Gealt, hope you have a long career over there with us

But this is such facepalm of an argument I must question if you are a plant from the other side!?

theredletter

I don't bother with teach na ngealt for various reasons, and I don't need to elaborate on my opinion. Let's just say the government's commitment makes me happy for various reasons.

Also I posted around ten minutes ago at teach na ngealt, before I posted here. You can go and see how genuine I am there.

Meh. I'm so sick of the anti-Irish language feeling. Resistance seriously doesn't bother me. I've spoke in all my life. Language is just coding, people can use it for their advantages and when it suits them. Let them. There will always be people who will criticise. Kinda like how we're all learning Chinese now... for our economic advantage. People abandoned Irish for English.

We might all be speaking Chinese in a few years. Sure what harm can it do?

I think some people are trying to use a sociolinguistic approach and then supporting it with historical references and vague personal heritage. Meh. It's laughable, and this argument is ridiculous. If you care so much, go seek a referendum.

theredletter

"Now, if you want to be authentic about celebrating your linguistic connection to your Irish-speaking ancestors, you have to acknowledge that the Official Standard Irish cobbled together by the government in the 1950s and 1960s bears questionable resemblance to any form of Irish actually used historically in Ireland."

Hmmm...

OK, so Gramadach agus Litriú na Gaeilge was put together only as a guide for educators, the public sector and the media. Native speakers of the language who learn 'school Irish' find great difficulty with certain aspects of this guide (notably verb forms and séimhiu/ urú). The guide was deeply criticised for being too Conamara-focused and so was reissued a few years later with some altercations.

A lot of the guide doesn't 'cobble' together the language, but instead standarises it, which has happened in other languages. Standardisation, as well as some key dictionaries, would give a unification to the language in its written form. A dialect was also 'created' later on, known as the 'lárchanúint' or middle dialect, which is also a standardised form.

The grammatical function of the guide was to find various patterns in the unstandardised written forms available. The most common forms and most useful were given place in the guide, where others were not. (An example of this would be the urú after 'den', 'don' and 'san' which only occurred in Munster Irish, a séimhiú in the rest - therefore it was decided that it would have a séimhiu for the sake of instruction and simplification- many Munster folk still use the urú in speach - as most Irish people say 'I seen, I done').

When it comes to spelling, areas were again simplified. Words like 'oídhche' (meaning night) were simplified to oíche, grádh changing to grá is another example. Many writers were using this 'modern' system before it was standardised, but it became official through government standardisation.

All languages change and evolved naturally. An un-evolving and unchanging language is a dead language (Latin, for example). Some argue that Irish is dead. It may be, I don't care if it is or not. Some people during the time of the standarisation wanted to return to the 17th Century systems of writing. These texts were bardic, very difficult and professional. They were not for everyday use. The standarisition, donegallfella or whatever your screename is, was put together by a panel of linguists, read by fluent speakers and eventually accepted as the national standard.

The guide is actually out-of-date by now and needs to be re-written (actually, I think it is being re-written as we speak!) as Irish has evovled in the last 50 years with a resurgence in dialect-centred writing rather than standardisation. It's about to get more difficult

Presuming the poster's ability in Irish in that comment is unfair and unnecessary. Read up on this stuff before you make these comments.

Grudaire

theredletter wrote: »

I don't bother with teach na ngealt for various reasons, and I don't need to elaborate on my opinion. Let's just say the government's commitment makes me happy for various reasons.

Also I posted around ten minutes ago at teach na ngealt, before I posted here. You can go and see how genuine I am there.

I noticed, I scrambled to get that edit in before you noticed

And you really should, it can be too quiet on there

thebman

Bigdeadlydave wrote: »

I can only speak from my own perspective as a 6th year student..... Its true that some students don't care for Irish but there are many that do. And to say that Irish isn't a key part of our culture is ridiculous! Sure the national anthem is as Gaelige!
I think that the main fault with Irish today is not that it is compulsory its the way that it is taught. For instance by my junior cert I knew more French than Irish despite only studying it for 3 years! Many posters here seem to be under the illusion that students dislike learning Irish.... That may be true but I would be hard pressed to find a friend of mine who doesent prefer it to some other subject he is doing.(maths?) I think an argument could be made that the stuff you learn in higher level maths is as irrelevant to later life as some say Irish is-however due to my limited life experience I will leave that to someone else. Personally I wish I had of been sent to a Gaelscoil as I would have found the LC course much easier rather than struggling my way through it...



And to the guys above moaning "he called me gay!"-seriously, grow up.

Higher level maths is incredibly relevant to life, its just most don't understand what it means and are mindlessly learning off formula rather than its uses.

I can honestly say Irish was the the subject I disliked the most in secondary school as I knew I was only doing it to get into third level and would be dumping all knowledge of it afterwards.

I gave Irish a shot years ago but it was clear to me that it was being taught badly in primary school and that it would serve no purpose to me as nobody anywhere I wanted to go seemed to speak it and I have been proven right.

Irish isn't a part of our culture, it was a part of culture. Why do people claim it is part of our culture when so few speak it? Our culture has changed and it is no longer part of our culture as can be seen by having a conversation with the vast majority of the population who will require you to have it in English as they can't speak Irish properly.

shayno90 wrote: »

Donegalfella, your attitude is typical of those who have given up on the language and Im guessing you have had a bad experience with Gaeilge at school and has only added to your bitterness towards it. I wouldn't consider it a dead language,

If its not dead, it doesn't need to be compulsory, if its not dead it doesn't need grants and support. You can't have it both ways TBH. You can't say its doing fine now give us grants to keep it alive or it will die. If the only thing keeping it alive is massive grants and compulsory teaching then it is dead or at best on life support as it has become irrelevant to the majority of the population.

The Corinthian

Cliste wrote: »

Who has the right to determine what Irelands Identity is? (In fact that may be stolen from one or both of you earlier on in the discussion), but it still stands.

I did not dispute that Irish remains part of Ireland's identity, only the assertion that it is a key part of Ireland's identity - or if it is a key part, it certainly is not one as intended.

I've posted this advertisement before, because it pretty accurately reflects what Irish actually means to most of us; something we can pretend to know when abroad (just so we can underline that we're not English), when in reality it is something that was part of our school years and ceased thereafter, leaving us with little more than a few random phrases and sentences we were once taught to parrot.

And Peig. None of us will ever forget Peig. And trust me, we try.

That is the reality of Irish as a 'key' part of our cultural identity. Not a living language, but something left over from school, that we never use. Of course, it is a living language for some, but the point is that a minority - a tiny one at that - does not get to define Irish culture.

That's the crazy thing; how can we turn the country into a truly bilingual nation, when those promoting Irish seem to be in denial about it?

kowloon

Our history is a far more important part of our heritage than the language, yet history is an optional subject.
I'm not arguing for compulsory history, but learning about where we come from, how we used to live, what made us, as a culture, what we are today is a key part of our cultural identity, and something which is neglected.
I'm not sure speaking another language can lay claim to as much, if Irish disappeared tomorrow it would be a sad loss, but we would still be a distinct people.

The Corinthian

kowloon wrote: »

Our history is a far more important part of our heritage than the language, yet history is an optional subject.

In my youth, History was not actually optional until after the inter-cert. I don't know if this has changed.

As to how Irish history was taught, that's another can of worms, although even as a child I could see it was the most incredible anti-English propaganda that seem to wallow in self-pity. Pre-nineties Ireland was an economic shìthole because of 800 years of oppression, we were effectively taught. Sure, Ireland's relationship with Britain was an unhappy one at best, but it seemed to focus only on the plight of Peig and her extended family of potato farmers, effectively ignoring the Irish middle classes and the cities.

Sometimes I wonder that had we not had the Famine, we would have had to invent it.

OK-Cancel-Apply

Bigdeadlydave wrote: »

The point I was making which you obviously missed was that the removal of Irish would remove one of the biggest cultural differences between ourselves, Brits and Americans etc......

But why do we want these 'cultural differences'? What is it about Irishness that makes a person different to an Englishman or an American?

The biggest problem in this world is that we contrive these reasons to be 'different' from one another.

Permabear

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metrovelvet

Americans speak English and still feel American.

kowloon

The Corinthian wrote: »

In my youth, History was not actually optional until after the inter-cert. I don't know if this has changed.

As to how Irish history was taught...

I meant for Leaving Cert, History was compulsory for the Junior Cert, but so were most subjects. Leaving Cert is where the choice comes into play.
I couldn't agree with you more on the content of school history courses.

History wasn't taught until 5th and 6th class when I was in primary, and when it was it was the bare minimum; Irish was taught from day one and was given more time.

T runner

donegalfella wrote: »

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Nonsense. Being obsessed with TV, movies, and eating out makes us indistinguishable from everybody who has access to these things.

The facts are that people want to preserve Irish and want ther children to learn it. There is no popular support for the state withdrawing its policy of encoraging cultural diversity in Ireland and rightly so.

Donegalfella, as a Unionist you might yearn for the day when Ireland is part of the UK again. However, to state that Irish are culturally indistinguishable from Americans and British would not get agreement from the vast majority of peoples living in any of those nations. Saying that is as pertinent as your comment about how the teaching of history in the ROI caused the troubles in NI. As you would say yourself. Nonsense

Permabear

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T runner

donegalfella wrote: »

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No there are plenty of atheists (of which I am one.) and people of other religions in Irteland and other countries in the world.

TBH your not really in a position to comment on religion in Ireland given your complete misunderstanding of the most recent troubles in NI.

You are a unionist though, you would prefer that all of Ireland was in union with Britain? Do you deny it?

You have indicated in many posts your political preferences. Some of the irrational ones where you allege that the British States banning of Irish in national schools and Irish publications were not intended to harm the Irish language. Your defending of the penal laws, your denial of any British culpability for the loss of 1 million lives from 1845-1848. Your implying that the troubles in Northern Ireland were actually caused by the teaching of history in the ROI. Your utter detestation of Irish nationalism while excusing British nationalism.

metrovelvet

Are you really going to let your enemy,and not even an enemy, define you? Why give them the power?

shayno90

I have to question the motives for Donegalfella starting this thread. Obviously his bashing of nationalism and gaeilge has some sinister undertones which reflect the unionist viewpoint of irish culture, worshiping the crown and how we should fully immerse ourselves into british culture. Im sure you are reading the Irish history books with rose tinted glasses and believe that under British rule Ireland didn't suffer as country. You should be up on a pulpit with Paisley preaching about the demons of the nationalism cause and how we should reject traditional aspects of Irish culture (or as you might refer the Fenian language).

It is difficult to respect your point of view when it is clearly biased towards a unionist viewpoint and you hide this behind facts and figures, so if you any self- respect at least admit what your real motives are for attacking the language.

I am glad that someone like you is not in a position of power as you clearly want to erode Irish culture and have Ireland become an homogenous nation that would fit nicely into the Commonwealth nations where those countries lack a true identity. Your arguments are quite confrontational and have sectarian undertones which is quite disturbing to say the least!!

Permabear

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Eliot Rosewater

shayno90 wrote: »

I have to question the motives for Donegalfella starting this thread....

Before you say something check that its actually true. Going to the first page of this thread its clear Valmont actually started it.


I don't like the progression this thread has taken (I preferred going around it circles, and thats saying something). What shayno90 and T Runner have effectively said is "if your not with me your against me." Ive heard it before. I might suggest that some part of Irish nationalism is irrational, and I'm labeled variously a Unionist or a West Brit. The Unionist insult is funny because those who throw it clearly cant see outside the box: they cant even imagine life without nationalism. If you're not allied to Ireland then you must be allied to Britain.

Can't ye see that is doesn't matter? My basic demands of my country are that is leaves me alone somewhat and that I'm protected from it encroaching upon my human rights. Ill engage in what culture I like, not what culture some lobby groups on Kildare Street tell me is mine.

silverharp

shayno90 wrote: »

I have to question the motives for Donegalfella starting this thread. Obviously his bashing of nationalism and gaeilge has some sinister undertones which reflect the unionist viewpoint of irish culture, worshiping the crown and how we should fully immerse ourselves into british culture. Im sure you are reading the Irish history books with rose tinted glasses and believe that under British rule Ireland didn't suffer as country. You should be up on a pulpit with Paisley preaching about the demons of the nationalism cause and how we should reject traditional aspects of Irish culture (or as you might refer the Fenian language).

It is difficult to respect your point of view when it is clearly biased towards a unionist viewpoint and you hide this behind facts and figures, so if you any self- respect at least admit what your real motives are for attacking the language.

I am glad that someone like you is not in a position of power as you clearly want to erode Irish culture and have Ireland become an homogenous nation that would fit nicely into the Commonwealth nations where those countries lack a true identity. Your arguments are quite confrontational and have sectarian undertones which is quite disturbing to say the least!!

I know DF can well defend himself but as someone who had a nationalist upbringing, I agree with his point of view in this thread. You'd be better served attacking the posts and not questioning the poster which to be honest seems like a route that someone losing an argument would take?

Permabear

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theredletter

Pfft.

At the end of the day Donegalfella has a basic grasp of the sociolinguistic timeline of the decline, and then the resurgence, of the Irish language. His attitude towards the language is flawed and lacks basic common sense. An obviously intelligent fellow, but doesn't really understand how the Irish language system operates. I know a lot of Irish language activists who share some of your opinions, believe it or not, because at the end of the day a language is a language. Irish people are not a Celtic race, biologically, we have created this culture. Did you know that the Céilí band, in itself a uniquely 'Irish' concept, wasn't really developed until the foundation of 2RN. You can speak Irish and be a unionist, you can speak English and be a nationalist. A language is a bloody language.

Some of Donegalfella's points, however, weren't exactly true, particularly in relation to the standardisation of the language in the 1950s. Blasting others for their apparent lack of knowledge of the language rings false, as the user obviously has been misguided in terms of sociolinguistics himself.

Donegalfella and some people on this topic is what is wrong with the Irish language today. Many people can't accept that the Celticisation of Ireland succeeded in many other ways. We have bilingual services, an 'Irish' culture, a very distinct English dialect etc. We have created an identity that is not English without a complete language shift. GAA, for example, is our most popular sport. Who'd have thought that back in the late 19th century? We've managed to maintain our traditions and our heritage in other ways. The Irish language is just one area. I speak Irish, but I listen to bass and drums. I speak Irish, but I don't play GAA. I speak Irish, and I'm not a 'practicing' Catholic. I speak Irish, but I couldn't give a **** what's going on in Northern Ireland. I speak Irish, and the government will continue to line the pockets of those who do for the foreseeable future. Again.

Na, na, na, na, na.