Is Irish a dead language?

djpbarry

20goto10 wrote: »

Personally I think all primary schools should eventually be Gaelscoileanna and anyone who wants to be educated in Ireland (and paid by the Irish taxpayer) should have to learn the language. Your political, cultural or religious stance should not be a factor.

Other than a cultural reasons, what other reason is there to have all primary school students taught through Irish?

20goto10

djpbarry wrote: »

Other than a cultural reasons, what other reason is there to have all primary school students taught through Irish?

It's part of the Irish culture. What I meant was using your own culture as an excuse not to learn Irish should not be accepted. i.e Parents saying they are from a different culture and the Irish language/culture does not apply to my Children.

Japer

sensibleken wrote: »

Thats very true about politics. I hated irish in school. I thought it was pointless and associated the language with a 'maidens dancing at the crossroads' view of Ireland that i found incredibly disturbing.

+1. So much time, effort and money was spent on printing and teaching the Irish language, yet nobody or virtually nobody ever uses it or can speak it. Its dead. Let those who want to waste their time on it study it, but do not let them force it on the rest of us. The money and effort should be spent trying to learn french + german , so we can at least communicate with the people who may visit us.

djpbarry

20goto10 wrote: »

What I meant was using your own culture as an excuse not to learn Irish should not be accepted. i.e Parents saying they are from a different culture and the Irish language/culture does not apply to my Children.

So people should be forced to learn through Irish in order to revive the language? How will this benefit said people?

sensibleken

Japer wrote: »

+1. So much time, effort and money was spent on printing and teaching the Irish language, yet nobody or virtually nobody ever uses it or can speak it. Its dead. Let those who want to waste their time on it study it, but do not let them force it on the rest of us. The money and effort should be spent trying to learn french + german , so we can at least communicate with the people who may visit us.

thats not what i was saying at all. French and German are already taught and dont require any more money. Whats needed is that all those languages are taught better.

I love Irish, I certainly do not think its a waste of time learning it any more than theres no point in not learning history, which is just a bunch of stuff thats already happened

I would be ok with optional irish, but more gaelscoilleana.

20goto10

djpbarry wrote: »

So people should be forced to learn through Irish in order to revive the language? How will this benefit said people?

It makes them bilingual and creates a bilingual European Irish society rather than a England-but-not-as-good society that we live in today. It's about improving Irish society as a whole rather than the benefits of the individual. And I don't mean it in a socialistic political way.
<BR /><BR />
With this would follow a more self sufficient society. For example, Irish products, Irish adverts, Irish books, Tv programs etc etc.

P. Breathnach

djpbarry wrote: »

Other than a cultural reasons, what other reason is there to have all primary school students taught through Irish?

Well, cultural reasons are important, so they should not be excluded. It might also be argued that everything that is done in schools is done for cultural reasons: a "science for all" programme is a cultural programme.

Noting your later post, I wish to clarify that a full revival of Irish is not the sort of cultural reason I have in mind (partly because it would be a futile exercise, doomed to fail). For the individual, success in acquiring Irish is enriching.

It is my understanding that children learn languages more easily before adolescence, and that people with more than one language acquire further languages more easily than monoglots. If what have been told is correct, then children who have been through gaeilscoileanna are likely to do better at learning other modern languages in secondary school or in university or by some other means.

RandomName2

Ciaran_B wrote: »

Interesting article on insideireland disputing some of the claims about the ‘death’ of the Irish language. I believe it’s the first in a series of articles looking at the various anti-Irish arguments put forward by it’s opponents.

Link

It’s a good read and makes some good points particularly about the levels of Irish in the Gaeltacht.

As far as I can see there are two ways of looking at it:

A) Irish is dead as it is not widely spoken and has no current spontaneous evolution. Nor is its survival independent of the tax payer.

Irish is alive as it is used in all matters of public service. It is compulsory in the Irish Leaving Cert and for employment in any aspect of the public service or government (presumably even firemen need Irish). It is constantly tinkered with by public bodies, so it sort-of changes. It has lots of Irish tax-payers money spent on it every year, it's in the constitution, and even european tax-payers' money goes towards translation into Gaeilge. Oh: and some people in Connaught and Ring speak it.

Harry Potter badly dubbed into Irish (the dubbing of which was paid for by you and me). Ah, bless.

Latin is dead. Latin is nice. The availability of latin as a secondary school subject should probably be increased, although I might balk at the idea of public servants sitting around attempting to think up of ways to translate the word helicopter or television into latin (What about helicoptus and telavisio?)

djpbarry

20goto10 wrote: »

It makes them bilingual and creates a bilingual European Irish society...

If we are to create a multi-lingual Irish society, would it not make more sense to focus on more widely-used languages than Irish?

20goto10 wrote: »

...rather than a England-but-not-as-good society that we live in today.

Oh... controversial.

20goto10 wrote: »

It's about improving Irish society as a whole rather than the benefits of the individual.

I don't really see how Irish society would be improved if everyone spoke Irish. Wouldn't it be exactly the same except 'as Gaeilge'?

20goto10 wrote: »

With this would follow a more self sufficient society.

Yeah, we tried that before - it was a disaster.

djpbarry

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Well, cultural reasons are important, so they should not be excluded.

I'm not excluding them, I just think greater justification is required. What would be the economic return, for example, in investment into reviving the Irish language?

P. Breathnach wrote: »

It might also be argued that everything that is done in schools is done for cultural reasons: a "science for all" programme is a cultural programme.

It's also a science program.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

For the individual, success in acquiring Irish is enriching.

I'm not disputing that - if an individual wants to learn Irish, then good luck to them. I have absolutely no issue with that. But there's a big difference between a few individuals deciding they want to improve their Irish language skills (and language schools providing the necessary service) and an entire population having the language forced upon them for no good reason (I'm not implying that this is what you are advocating).

P. Breathnach wrote: »

It is my understanding that children learn languages more easily before adolescence, and that people with more than one language acquire further languages more easily than monoglots. If what have been told is correct, then children who have been through gaeilscoileanna are likely to do better at learning other modern languages in secondary school or in university or by some other means.

Then why not learn other modern languages in primary school instead of Irish?

aidan24326

eddyc wrote: »

Compulsion is one of the worst things to have ever happened to the Irish language. Compelling people to learn it makes people sick of it. Not to mention the terrible way in which it is taught.

It is certainly taught very badly in schools. I wouldn't completely blame teachers, they're told to stick to the curriculum. The curriculum itself is the problem. A whole load of pointless literature to the detriment of learning to actually speak the bloody thing. I did the LC when Peig was still on the course. I didn't even bother to read it, as for a start it's mind-numbingly boring and also it was alot of work for only a small few marks out of the total.


There is no justifiable reason why Irish should still be compulsory on the LC course at all. If someone has no interest after JC, then forcing them to carry it on to LC level is beyond pointless. It's ridiculous that we teach (supposedly anyway) kids Irish in school for 13 years and most leave school with only a rudimentary grasp of the language. Jesus after 13 years learning a language you should be fully fluent. It's just that most kids aren't interested in learning it, because it's taught in such a boring way and most people will never need it anyway.

dlofnep

djpbarry wrote: »

Then why not learn other modern languages in primary school instead of Irish?

Like Esperanto?

The reason why we learn the Irish language, is because the Government took a decision to preserve the language, and the public in most part support it. I'm not sure what the problem is. If the welsh people can revive their language without hangups, I don't see why we can't either.

When you choose words like "forced" - you are being emotive. It is a required subject of study, like English & Maths. It is mandatory, as if it were not so - it would not live up to it's title of first official language. So if you have a problem with that, then you should press for an amendment to our constitution.

As it stands, Irish is a mandatory school subject and the public by large, supports it. It will stay that way until the majority of the public say otherwise.

P. Breathnach

dlofnep wrote: »

... If the welsh people can revive their language without hangups, I don't see why we can't either....

Are you sure the Welsh revived their language? My impression is that they didn't lose it as thoroughly as we lost Irish.

djpbarry

dlofnep wrote: »

Like Esperanto?

I was thinking more along the lines of Spanish, French, German and Italian.

dlofnep wrote: »

The reason why we learn the Irish language, is because the Government took a decision to preserve the language, and the public in most part support it.

I don't dispute that. The question is, why do they support it? Another question is, should it be supported?

dlofnep wrote: »

When you choose words like "forced" - you are being emotive. It is a required subject of study, like English & Maths.

No, I'm not being emotive. I had no option but to study Irish in order to sit the Leaving Cert - that's forcing the language on students in my book. You could argue that English and Maths are forced on people as well, but at least the value of teaching such subjects is evident (arguments about the syllabus aside).

dlofnep wrote: »

It is mandatory, as if it were not so - it would not live up to it's title of first official language. So if you have a problem with that, then you should press for an amendment to our constitution.

As it stands, Irish is a mandatory school subject and the public by large, supports it. It will stay that way until the majority of the public say otherwise.

So the topic cannot even be discussed until somebody brings about a constitutional amendment?

I'm not disputing the fact that Irish is obviously an official language of Ireland. Nor am I disputing the fact that support for the Irish language exists among the Irish public. I do however suspect that quite a large number of people resent the hours they lost in Irish classes during their school years, hence the need for the current discussion.

eddyc

20goto10 wrote: »

It's part of the Irish culture. What I meant was using your own culture as an excuse not to learn Irish should not be accepted. i.e Parents saying they are from a different culture and the Irish language/culture does not apply to my Children.

Why should that not be accepted, if wearing a shoe on your head was Irish culture would you make everyone do it regardless of whether they felt it was part of their culture or not?
I am being facetious of course, but where was Irish culture written in stone? Oh yes I remember when we tried to make ourselves as different from Britain as we possibly could for political reasons. Reasons which are completely irrelevant today.

P. Breathnach

eddyc wrote: »

... where was Irish culture written in stone? ...

Have you not heard of Ogham?

sensibleken

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Have you not heard of Ogham?

daaah ya got there before me

eddyc

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Have you not heard of Ogham?

I asked for that one ,

Government dictating to people what their culture is just seems a bit rotten to me, surely if it was their culture they'd already be doing it, am I missing something here?

dlofnep

eddyc wrote: »

Government dictating to people what their culture is just seems a bit rotten to me, surely if it was their culture they'd already be doing it, am I missing something here?

Well yes, to be honest. If people do not have equal access to Irish education, and equal access to Irish language media or equal opportunity to use the language - then they would be forced to use the English language.

eddyc

dlofnep wrote: »

Well yes, to be honest. If people do not have equal access to Irish education, and equal access to Irish language media or equal opportunity to use the language - then they would be forced to use the English language.

Can't we just get these monolingual Irish speakers some translators? It would be a lot cheaper :pac:

dlofnep

djpbarry wrote: »

I was thinking more along the lines of Spanish, French, German and Italian.

None of those languages are modern. They are centuries old. You might want to search for a different adjective to be honest. The only modern language that I know of today is Esperanto.

If you are referring to a modern aspect of society, then I don't feel that case can be made against the Irish language anymore. Irish language media is as modern and relevant as English language media. It is championed in public by young people - rather old men, sitting on barstools.

djpbarry wrote: »

I don't dispute that. The question is, why do they support it? Another question is, should it be supported?

They support it because they see it as an important part of our history and culture, and it should be supported, because without support - it would have a detrimental impact on the language.

djpbarry wrote: »

No, I'm not being emotive. I had no option but to study Irish in order to sit the Leaving Cert - that's forcing the language on students in my book. You could argue that English and Maths are forced on people as well, but at least the value of teaching such subjects is evident (arguments about the syllabus aside).

But you are - nobody makes the case for English or Maths being forced. When you use the word forced, you are consciously or subconsciously turning the discussion into an emotive one, rather than an objective one. I think you would be better served by outlining that it is a mandatory subject, with which you feel should be optional (or indeed, removed from the syllabus - whatever your view may be).

djpbarry wrote: »

So the topic cannot even be discussed until somebody brings about a constitutional amendment?

If you ask why it is supported, I think it is very relevant to highlight it's constitutional role. Not as a means of over-inflating it's number of speakers, but to state that the state is legally obliged to support it.

djpbarry wrote: »

I'm not disputing the fact that Irish is obviously an official language of Ireland. Nor am I disputing the fact that support for the Irish language exists among the Irish public. I do however suspect that quite a large number of people resent the hours they lost in Irish classes during their school years, hence the need for the current discussion.

I think that's a valid concern, and I don't knock you for having such a view. I don't think either of us are content with the current curriculum. I wish to improve the curriculum, and make it more fun - to teach it as a spoken language, rather than a subject. I believe this is a more productive way to address the resentment that a minority of the population may have towards the language.

I'm not trying to be reactionary towards your views - I understand where you are coming from, and I respect your stance. But as someone who has worked hard in my community on the Irish language, where some see failure, I see opportunity to improve the curriculum and make it fun for all.

dlofnep

eddyc wrote: »

Can't we just get these monolingual Irish speakers some translators? It would be a lot cheaper :pac:

I don't think that you understand. There are no monolingual Irish speakers (Well, maybe a handful at best). The argument is around providing equal opportunity for Irish speakers to use the language. If they are continuously forced to use English, then why retain Irish at all? That is the case that is made for Irish language support - and without it, it relegates the language which will have a serious impact on it overall, if minority language studies are anything to go by.

nuac

Go n-éirigh an bóthar leis an Gaeilge!

Hope Irish survives and prospers.

Read thru this thread. A lot of arguments and hair-splitting.

If you like Irish, speak, read and write it in so far as you can.

If not interested, respect others wishes.

I believe all compulsion regarding teaching and use of Irish should go - language would still survive.

Slán

owenc

dlofnep wrote: »

I don't think that you understand. There are no monolingual Irish speakers (Well, maybe a handful at best). The argument is around providing equal opportunity for Irish speakers to use the language. If they are continuously forced to use English, then why retain Irish at all? That is the case that is made for Irish language support - and without it, it relegates the language which will have a serious impact on it overall, if minority language studies are anything to go by.

Look please just stop, stop trying to compare irish with maths or compare it with other languages because the numbers aren't there and the importances aren't there either. You don't need irish for any jobs and let me tell you i'd rather have my maths a levels than an irish a level as without it, it would be quite hard to get a good job.

Wolfe Tone

owenc wrote: »

Look please just stop, stop trying to compare irish with maths or compare it with other languages because the numbers aren't there and the importances aren't there either. You don't need irish for any jobs and let me tell you i'd rather have my maths a levels than an irish a level as without it, it would be quite hard to get a good job.

In your opinion.

I will never use honors maths again, but I will Irish(hopefully)

owenc

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

In your opinion.

I will never use honors maths again, but I will Irish(hopefully)

I'm talking about everyone don't be smart with me. Wait, so are you saying that the whole of this island would be better off with irish a levels than maths a levels aye right!!

oscarBravo

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

I will never use honors maths again, but I will Irish(hopefully)

I occasionally wheel out my rusty Irish, but I use maths all the time.

Wolfe Tone

oscarBravo wrote: »

I occasionally wheel out my rusty Irish, but I use maths all the time.

Note I said honors maths, not relatively basic simple maths. Of course it depends on what you do for a living.....

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

P. Breathnach

oscarBravo wrote: »

I occasionally wheel out my rusty Irish, but I use maths all the time.

And I occasionally wheel out my rusty maths, but use Irish all the time.

[Okay, I wrote it that way for symmetry: I use Irish quite often.]

Individual cases rarely prove anything other than existence (and yes, I know that a proof of existence is sometimes important but not, I think, in this discussion).