Would you prefer to speak Irish?

deise go deo

quietriot wrote: »

Gaelscoils boomed during the celtic tiger years - the years when we had a massive influx of people coming from other countries to live here. It's not like a load of people suddenly just made enough money to send their kids to these schools. It was a motivated movement.

People like to pretend otherwise but there's a massive issue with xenophobia in this country. There's an integration problem, certainly, but there's also a genuine attitude problem held by an enormous amount of people here.

Thats far from true actually, The number of Gaelscoils was growing steadly long before the Celtic Tiger Years, the numbers kept growing during that time, but not any more rapidly than before or since.

Whether there is a problem with xenophobia in this country or not, you have not shown that it has anything to do with Gaelscoils. Gaelscoils have kids from foreign backgrounds too.

quietriot

deise go deo wrote: »

Thats far from true actually, The number of Gaelscoils was growing steadly long before the Celtic Tiger Years, the numbers kept growing during that time, but not any more rapidly than before or since.

No no, they exploded in growth during the celtic tiger years.

GaryIrv93

PhlegmyMoses wrote: »

Again, why not teach both? It's more useful to become proficient at computer progamming than to read Ulysses but both have their merits.



Wales. Parts of France teach Occitan as a compulsory language etc. I'm sure there are others.



We would just replace it with a different language so we wouldn't save money. So we get back to usefulness. Well, the most useful languages to speak currently, from a business point of view, would probably be Chinese and Portuguese as China and Brazil are the two economies experiencing a really big boom at the moment. So if we follow the x>y argument to its logical conclusion, we should be learning these. Do you reckon our kids would be any happier learning these? Do you reckon our schools would be better at teaching them? Probably not. We would get a load of kids who hate the subject and would finish up barely able to speak a word like they do with Irish now. Still useful? We should probably perfect how we teach languages before we overhaul what languages we teach.

Anyway, I digress. For me, it's not an either or situation. There is room in the school system to learn both.

would it not be more useful to teach a language that's widely spoken, like spanish, rather than a language that very few people (in ireland, and ireland only) actually use?

not just teach irish better, make it non-compulsory so students could learn a more useful language, more languages need to be introduced in schools, eg. finnish, swedish, russian etc. students could also learn irish in their own time at home or elsewhere (if they want to). also it's sort of a violation of freedom being forced to learn a language that you don't want to learn. that's the trouble with compulsory irish. students aren't given enough freedom of subject choices in schools as it is.

Paz-CCFC

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Therein lies the problem: the census does not differentiate between basic and fluent, so you can hardly say that the number has grown if the actually amount of Irish spoken is minimal. Anecdotal eveidence is all you're going to get because at the end of the day that's all that exists.

I mean, I speak "some level" of Irish, but then I also speak some livel of French, Italian, German, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish (varying degrees of fluency, all better than Irish).

I agree that not everyone would be competent at the language, but I think a lot of those would be able to hold a conversation. Those who haven't spoken it in a while would be a bit rusty at first, but they wouldn't be long picking it put. To be honest, we're just going back to our respective bits of anecdotal evidence - you've found that people overestimate their level of Irish, I find that people underestimate it.

I am not sayign that the langauge is not growing, but you need to take into account other factos such a rise of poopulation, quality of Irish spoken and how many of these 1.1 million "made an attempt" because they were forced to in school before you say "interest is growing".

But, despite the rise of population, the percentage of those claiming to be able to speak Irish has generally risen (though there's been a slight drop since 2002, coinciding with the highest levels of immigration this country has ever seen). Since 1946, the amount of non-Irish speakers has remained much more static.

And why do people says they were "forced" to learn Irish as if the fact that they were forced to do it is a terrible thing. Kids are forced to go to school, when they'd prefer to be out playing - is that a terrible thing? They (and most working adults) are forced to get up early to go to school/work - is that a bad thing?

Paparazzo wrote: »

Good way of finding out how many people truely speak irish every day though.

Not really. Number of households that fill out the census form through Irish doesn't automatically equal the number of everyday speakers. I speak the language everyday, yet I filled out my form through English.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Out of 1,624,134 total dwellings. Irish language = 0.4%.


Audio and large print versions of the form were also available as was assistance from enumerators, so literacy issues should not be a major factor.

If you can competently read and write in English, but can only speak Irish, why would you go to the bother of getting the audio? Many people see filling out the census as a chore - they want to be done with it ASAP.

Wibbs wrote: »

Perhaps not all the speakers are fluent P? If they were even close to fluent I doubt this debate would be happening.

To be fair, I think you know that my wording wasn't to suggest that 1.7 million people in Ireland might be fluent.

Everleigh Hallowed Chrysalis wrote: »

I suspect that's a major source of ire, alright.

It's really annoying when people come into After Hours and frankly embellish figures of how many people actually speak Irish fluently/natively. Lying to yourselves and to everyone else isn't gonna make people join your crusade, folks.

Not as annoying as people who try to cast aspersions on nationally-collected statistics without backing up their points with figures of their own.

GaryIrv93 wrote: »

why should irish be kept compulsory? foreign languages are more useful, and irish isin't the general spoken language in Ireland, it's english. what kind of a country forces it's youth to learn a language, that the vast majority don't use and will never use again? if it stops being taught as a compulsory subject, the government would save much more money, and student's time wouldn't be wasted.

You could argue the exact same thing about Maths or English, yet these don't seem to have half as much opposition as Irish. Why should I have to learn things like calculus, when all I really need is some of the more basic stuff? And when will learning reams Shakespeare and Eavan Boland quotes benefit me? Funnily enough, despite


As for the benefits of learning Irish fluently - one of the main ones is that bilingualists generally find it easier to learn another language than monolingualists. Seeing as other languages rather than English or Irish tend not to be taught until secondary (as far as I know), it is very beneficial for primary school students to fluently learn Irish. At the very least, it can be used as a stepping stone. I think this is a much more likely reason to suggest the growth of Gaelscoileanna, as opposed to the laughable notion that racism/xenophobia is the driving force behind it.

GaryIrv93

Because Irish is not used on anything but road signs and by an absolutely microscopic amount of people in a remote part of the country? Why support it? How many jobs does it create in Ireland? It is a dead language. Let it go.

Kids should be taught the foundation of skills they'll use in life. Irish is not one of them. Having them do two foreign languages from a young age would be far more beneficial.

Agreed. instead of irish, more subjects should be introduced, for example: driving skills, because driving is an example of a skill that most of us will use later in life. but also more subjects should be optional, with irish being removed as a compulsory subject. it's one thing to learn irish, but it shouldn't be forced on students.

i watched some youtube video where USI students were campaigning against fine gael's proposed policy to abolish compulsory irish for the LC. one girl said - ''students won't bother to choose irish and it'll die out sooner'' or something along those lines. that's not their choice, it should be the student's choice whether they want to learn irish or not. it makes no difference whether students do it for the LC or not - just because they did the exam in irish, doesn't mean that the student will ever use it again. the language will die out sooner or later, no matter what we do.

Wibbs

Everleigh Hallowed Chrysalis wrote: »

Why "should" it die?

+1 and it won't.

quietriot wrote: »

Why support it? How many jobs does it create in Ireland? It is a dead language. Let it go.

1) it's not a dead language. Forget the cupla focal merchants, the fact is quite few thousands actually speak it and speak it daily among themselves as an expression of themselves and not some cultural ballsology and aspiration of small but vocal(usually as Bearla) hardliners. 2) it is a part of the tapestry of our culture and I for one would hate to see it lost. TBH I can't see it happening even with the all too hectoring ayes and nays fighting about it among themselves.

Gaelscoils boomed during the celtic tiger years - the years when we had a massive influx of people coming from other countries to live here. It's not like a load of people suddenly just made enough money to send their kids to these schools. It was a motivated movement.

People like to pretend otherwise but there's a massive issue with xenophobia in this country. There's an integration problem, certainly, but there's also a genuine attitude problem held by an enormous amount of people here.

Sadly that does seem to be a part of it. In fairness I'm going on personal experience here, but I have more than once and more than is comfortable heard those whispered sentiments when parents I've known were choosing a Gaelscoil over a local everyday primary. That and the higher level of parent/teacher involvement in said schools.

deise go deo

quietriot wrote: »

No no, they exploded in growth during the celtic tiger years.

You are wrong.

GaryIrv93

And why do people says they were "forced" to learn Irish as if the fact that they were forced to do it is a terrible thing. Kids are forced to go to school, when they'd prefer to be out playing - is that a terrible thing? They (and most working adults) are forced to get up early to go to school/work - is that a bad thing?

in a way, yes, forcing children to go to school is a terrible thing. most kids only go to school because they're forced to. and kids don't get paid to go to school - so they feel like slaves. wheras adults aren't forced to go to work. they can choose whether or not to come in, but if they didn't then they'd lose their jobs. adults are also paid to work and they have the freedom of choosing which line of work to go into. kids don't, they have to go to school and that's it (for whatever reason) but they aren't paid to.

You could argue the exact same thing about Maths or English, yet these don't seem to have half as much opposition as Irish. Why should I have to learn things like calculus, when all I really need is some of the more basic stuff? And when will learning reams Shakespeare and Eavan Boland quotes benefit me? Funnily enough, despite


As for the benefits of learning Irish fluently - one of the main ones is that bilingualists generally find it easier to learn another language than monolingualists. Seeing as other languages rather than English or Irish tend not to be taught until secondary (as far as I know), it is very beneficial for primary school students to fluently learn Irish. At the very least, it can be used as a stepping stone. I think this is a much more likely reason to suggest the growth of Gaelscoileanna, as opposed to the laughable notion that racism/xenophobia is the driving force behind it.

[/QUOTE]


with maths and english though you need to use them daily, i agree that most people shouldn't be learning Shakespeare and calculus in school because they're so complicated. but no matter what job you go into, maths and english will be needed in every job at some point, but never irish, unless irish is specifically relevant to the job.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Wibbs wrote: »

Forget the cupla focal merchants, the fact is quite few thousands actually speak it and speak it daily among themselves as an expression of themselves and not some cultural ballsology and aspiration of small but vocal(usually as Bearla) hardliners.

Agus a haon, a Bhibbs. Nine times out of ten the most vocal pro-gaeilge, "it's our culture waa waa waa" whinger you'll hear is a gaeilgeoir nua, eager to show off their new hobby. Native speakers just get on with living their lives.

AlmightyDublin

Gaeilge Abú!!!! Tá mé ag dul chuig scoil lan-ghaeilge agus táim an bhrodúil as!

PhlegmyMoses

quietriot wrote: »

Kids should be taught the foundation of skills they'll use in life. Irish is not one of them.

Learning any language gives you a foundation for learning further languages. There are plenty of Irish language jobs here. Loads in the media with the likes of TG4, Raidio Na Gaeltachta, RTÉ etc and various government jobs and teaching positions. These jobs exist because of the movement to keep the language alive. In fact, there is an argument to be had that the Irish language creates more jobs in this country than the likes of French and German would if we scrapped Irish and put them in their place.

The problem with your point regarding usefulness is that it is based on the presumption that many of our kids would miraculously become so fluent at another language that they would not only be able to speak the language, but speak it to the level required to operate in the business world. But this only happens through necessity - when you have to learn the language to get by, when only knowing your own language completely limits your opportunities. This is why we see so many people who speak English so well from the Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands. Not to mention the fact that they can relate to English from a cultural point of view because most of their favourite bands sing in English, most of their favourite movies are in English. They have so many more incentives to learn English than an Irish kid does Spanish or German. Cultural immersion is a hugely important factor here. It's why so many people in the states closer to the Mexican border are starting to learn Spanish.

We only need to look at Britain, our closest cultural comparison, to see that even without the "burden" of having to learn a "dead language" that the number of people with a second language that they are fluent in is relatively negligible. The same can be said for vast swathes of France, Italy and Spain to a lesser extent. When you speak English fluently, there is less of a motivation to become fluent in anything else. If your statement that Irish only serves a miniscule amount of the population is taken as a given, how would this change if we were to force our kids to learn French? We might get a few more who are fluent, maybe a fair few, but the vast majority will never need to use it because we speak English. There will not nearly be the same amount of vested interest in keeping the French language as a going concern here as there is in Irish. Most kids today already spend 40 mins 4-5 days a week speaking a foreign language for 5-6 years and cannot string a coherent sentence together past "My name is John, where is the swimming pool?"

Jesus, I'm coming across like I dislike the idea of learning a foreign language. I really don't. I just think that this idea that removing Irish from the curriculum would cause our kids to become fluent in other languages is flawed. We'd just end up like Britain. At least the Irish language provides a healthy number of jobs in this country. For me, it's fine to keep Irish going AND learn another language.

Gaelscoils boomed during the celtic tiger years - the years when we had a massive influx of people coming from other countries to live here. It's not like a load of people suddenly just made enough money to send their kids to these schools. It was a motivated movement.

People like to pretend otherwise but there's a massive issue with xenophobia in this country. There's an integration problem, certainly, but there's also a genuine attitude problem held by an enormous amount of people here.

Correlation ≠ Causation. I really don't agree that the number or people going into Gaelscoils increased because of xenophobia. I can't prove my statement, it's just an opinion, but then neither can you. It just seems ridiculous that Gaelscoils are some kind of safe haven for the kids of candidates for poster of the year on Stormfront.

Anyway, spent too much time on this as is. I'll come back to it if I can muster the will to write another essay :P

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

I agree that not everyone would be competent at the language, but I think a lot of those would be able to hold a conversation. Those who haven't spoken it in a while would be a bit rusty at first, but they wouldn't be long picking it put. To be honest, we're just going back to our respective bits of anecdotal evidence - you've found that people overestimate their level of Irish, I find that people underestimate it.



But, despite the rise of population, the percentage of those claiming to be able to speak Irish has generally risen (though there's been a slight drop since 2002, coinciding with the highest levels of immigration this country has ever seen). Since 1946, the amount of non-Irish speakers has remained much more static.

And why do people says they were "forced" to learn Irish as if the fact that they were forced to do it is a terrible thing. Kids are forced to go to school, when they'd prefer to be out playing - is that a terrible thing? They (and most working adults) are forced to get up early to go to school/work - is that a bad thing?

As I said, you have to take into account other factors. My point being that the census figures only show an increase in the number of people who claim to speak Irish. This in no way reflects ability or even interest, as was your initial claim.

I say "forced" to because it's compulsory in school. And, on my case, it was a very inpleasant part of my childhood. I would much rather have learn French, as I went there on regular family holidays, but even in secondary school, I was told I couldn't until my Irish improved. There are a lot of similar cases, some expressed on this thread, where learning Irish was an unpleasant experience.

You then seem to argue that, even if Irish is unpleasant, you should be forced to do it anyway. How is this going to promote interest in the langauge?

PhlegmyMoses

quietriot wrote: »

It's ok though, the language will be wiped out within 100 years, no matter how hard you clinger-ons (to it) grip at it.

I actually don't really care if it's alive in 100 years. I haven't spoken Irish properly since I finished my degree. I just disagree with your idea that we would be better served learning a different language. For me, nothing would change.

deise go deo

quietriot wrote: »

It's ok though, the language will be wiped out within 100 years, no matter how hard you clinger-ons (to it) grip at it.

They were saying that 300 years ago, Irish outlived them, don't see any reason why it won't outlive us.

DyldeBrill

There are huge benefits to going to an all Irish school.I have gone to all three levels of education through Irish and some of you would be quite surprised with the jobs that one could get.If we can do it through Irish, then we certainly can do it through English.I'm studying communications in NUIG atm, I have job interviews coming up from quite a few companies (Not because I'm a brainbox, but because our lecturer organises this, but I'm sure you got that )

A lot of English companies have a lot of interest in the people than emerge from our course.Its not just TG4 and that, that give us job offers.

I'm not clinging on to the language whatsoever.I'm happy out speaking it! and tbh I think this thread has slightly gone off topic.People are trying to get at each others throats now it seems

It's ok though, the language will be wiped out within 100 years, no matter how hard you clinger-ons (to it) grip at it.

You are wrong...because there are people like myself and others like deis that will help keep it alive, and I can honestly say that it won't be a struggle.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

DyldeBrill wrote: »

There are huge benefits to going to an all Irish school.I have gone to all three levels of education through Irish and some of you would be quite surprised with the jobs that one could get.If we can do it through Irish, then we certainly can do it through English.I'm studying communications in NUIG atm, I have job interviews coming up from quite a few companies (Not because I'm a brainbox, but because our lecturer organises this, but I'm sure you got that )

A lot of English companies have a lot of interest in the people than emerge from our course.Its not just TG4 and that, that give us job offers.

I'd be very surpirsed to learn that irish is any advange in a job application, unless it's useage is necessary for practical reasons.

DyldeBrill

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

I'd be very surpirsed to learn that irish is any advange in a job application, unless it's useage is necessary for practical reasons.

Why would it surprise you?

Stillwater, Red shoe, RNaL, RTÉ are just examples here

It opens up serious avenues.Opens my options.I can apply for jobs through English and Irish...where as you would be restricted to just English.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

DyldeBrill wrote: »

Why would it surprise you?

Stillwater, Red shoe, RNaL, RTÉ are just examples here

It opens up serious avenues.Opens my options.I can apply for jobs through English and Irish...where as you would be restricted to just English.

As I said, jobs where it would be of practical useage. Also you in a specialist field whereby Irish is going to be more nesscary than most other subjects. It's also limiting in that it's only an advantage in Ireland, whereas French or German would open probably the same number of doors in Ireland and many others abroad.

DyldeBrill

Wibbs wrote: »

The major growth has been in Gaelscoils. Though major may need some defining. 100 odd schools out of 4000 odd overall, while a start is hardly a cultural brush fire.

Oh I'm smiling alright, but I'm not the source of amusement.

Really. You're actually serious? Can you begin to count up the literal billions ploughed into the language since the foundation of the state. The compulsory teaching from primary through to the LC. The requirements for various universities, civil service jobs, the law etc. Requirements that were even higher in the past and still the language declined.
Newspapers and other periodicals cease trading for pretty much only one reason. Lack of circulation figures/readership. This makes advertisers go feck that and funding dries up. No successful newspapers has ever gone to the wall unless a government agency bans it or they're crippled by legal fees. Those two papers failed because they didn't have enough readers. Their niche market was too tiny to sustain them, even though both were subsidised by an outside agency.

How many references do you want on how much TG4 is subsidised? It says quite a bit, especially in the face of the claim that the UK government has funded the Irish language more than our own. It'll more than surprise me, my monocle will fly across the room.

Perhaps not all the speakers are fluent P? If they were even close to fluent I doubt this debate would be happening.

I have slides here that will answer any question of yours my lecturer has sent them on.I can send you this through email if you wish.I warn you there is a fair bit to read but you seem so sure on your points.Maybe they are just teaching us rubbish in college....surely not?

To say the government has done enough for the language or that they have put enough funding into Irish is a bit of a joke.All you have to do is look through the history of Irish in the educational system.

Gaelscoils suffer big time with lack of funding.The fact that students have to learn from english text books and then translate them back into Irish.It just adds to the work, Irish text books should be made available in ALL subjects and not just a few.The educational system is to blame big time for this!It amazes me that you actually think enough funding went into bunscoils and meanscoils

I shall send you those bits if you wish to read through them tomorrow,.

DyldeBrill

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

As I said, jobs where it would be of practical useage. Also you in a specialist field whereby Irish is going to be more nesscary than most other subjects. It's also limiting in that it's only an advantage in Ireland, whereas French or German would open probably the same number of doors in Ireland and many others abroad.

nooope! There are people working with the BBC and that.We have 2 Irish classes a week the rest is Camera work, radio shows, blah blah blah.Then there is growing interest in the US, OZ and so on.

38 people finished my course last year.34 people are now working, one is travelling and three are doing a masters.At least there is work out there for us Irish speakers

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

DyldeBrill wrote: »

nooope! There are people working with the BBC and that.We have 2 Irish classes a week the rest is Camera work, radio shows, blah blah blah.Then there is growing interest in the US, OZ and so on.

38 people finished my course last year.34 people are now working, one is travelling and three are doing a masters.At least there is work out there for us Irish speakers

All this proves is that you're doign a good course with good chances of finding employment.

Twee.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

According to census 2010 1.7 million people in the country consider themselves to be native Irish speakers.

A really unfortunate statistic.

I did a paper recently on support of Irish language in the arts versus Welsh language in the arts (in Wales, obvs), and looked at a lot of statistics for speakers.

From CSO http://www.cso.ie/en/newsandevents/pressreleases/2007pressreleases/2006censusofpopulation-volume9-irishlanguage/

"Almost 1.66 million people aged 3 years and over were able to speak Irish in 2006 compared with 1.57 million in 2002. Putting this in percentage terms we see there was a slight decline from 42.8 per cent in 2002 to 41.9 per cent in 2006. Ability to speak Irish was higher among females (45.3%) than males (38.4%)."

Able to speak Irish. Not speak Irish on a daily basis, natively or fluently. Just able. The statistics mean nothing.

07438991

No I would not like to speak Irish because I would not be able to talk to anybody - feck all people I know would have enough Irish to communicate effectively!

Also, maybe add more options to your survey - i.e. a native English speaking native that wants french or some other language as their second language! Irish sucks and making it compulsory on school curriculum is worse (imo)

SharpshooterTom

Nationalism is a complete load of poo.

I'd rather have a one world language, whatever that may be. Since it looks like English is the worlds language, best have that.

Nationalism is wrong and immoral and I hate patriotic people with a passion. So to see the Irish language die wouldn't be such a bad thing. People are only wanting it for tribal/nationalistic reasons anyway.

The time when humanity got rid of borders and flags and lived together the better. So you nationalistic people please think about that. You're a dying breed anyway.

NinjaK

Gnobe wrote: »

Nationalism is a complete load of poo.

I'd rather have a one world language, whatever that may be. Since it looks like English is the worlds language, best have that.

Nationalism is wrong and immoral and I hate patriotic people with a passion. So to see the Irish language die wouldn't be such a bad thing. People are only wanting it for tribal/nationalistic reasons anyway.

The time when humanity got rid of borders and flags and lived together the better. So you nationalistic people please think about that. You're a dying breed anyway.

lol so much dribble

Wibbs

DyldeBrill wrote: »

I have slides here that will answer any question of yours my lecturer has sent them on.I can send you this through email if you wish.I warn you there is a fair bit to read but you seem so sure on your points.Maybe they are just teaching us rubbish in college....surely not?

If your lecturer claims that the British state has funded the Irish language more than the Irish state, then yes he or she is quite plainly talking rubbish.

To say the government has done enough for the language or that they have put enough funding into Irish is a bit of a joke.All you have to do is look through the history of Irish in the educational system.

What? No really. Think about this before you dig deeper holes in this debate. Whatever about the mistakes made in the on the ground teaching of the language(ditto for english, never mind others) the Irish language has been pushed in education, legislation, broadcasting and government employment for nearly a century. There have been huge amounts of funding thrown at the language in that time.

Gaelscoils suffer big time with lack of funding.The fact that students have to learn from english text books and then translate them back into Irish.It just adds to the work, Irish text books should be made available in ALL subjects and not just a few.The educational system is to blame big time for this!It amazes me that you actually think enough funding went into bunscoils and meanscoils

That's a different debate. However do you have any idea the costs of translating all textbooks in all subjects into Irish? You may have noticed that we're broke. Hell, more than broke. Yet you want to throw even more money at a minority language just to try and prove some cultural point? That's real head in the clouds thinking. It would be kinda ill advised if we were rolling in it, but now?

Even so, as has been pointed out in another thread on this subject, in the past more schools than today were educating through the medium of Irish all the way up to LC. My own mother and uncles were schooled through Irish all the way to the LC back in the 40's. This was in Dublin BTW. Today, none have any Irish. Irish was a requirement for more jobs in the past too. Yet for all that Irish declined. The majority of people, Irish people just didn't want it enough, or felt no real connection to it culturally, beyond some aspirational lip service.

IMHO The uptake of Irish will always be a relatively small one. It has it's "natural" level that it hovers around and attempts to up that level nationally are doomed to failure. History has shown this to be the case. I am all for supporting that natural level BTW.

I shall send you those bits if you wish to read through them tomorrow,.

You could post them up here DB. Just add them as attachments, then we all could have a look. That is if you've permission to do so.

Twee. wrote: »

"Almost 1.66 million people aged 3 years and over were able to speak Irish in 2006 compared with 1.57 million in 2002. Putting this in percentage terms we see there was a slight decline from 42.8 per cent in 2002 to 41.9 per cent in 2006. Ability to speak Irish was higher among females (45.3%) than males (38.4%)."

Able to speak Irish. Not speak Irish on a daily basis, natively or fluently. Just able. The statistics mean nothing.

And very misleading. Massaging the figures with terms like "able", but with no scale of ability or way of gauging that ability. Never mind that it's self reported and as we all know self reported surveys aren't worth jack. If they were all men on the internet would have ten inch mickeys

Boards has a fairly good spread of the modern Irish population of young and educated. I can pretty much guarantee nowhere close to 40% of us can speak Irish beyond asking to go to the toilet. EG Translations into english of posts in Irish is required by the site (outside the Irish forum). Ditto for other "foreign" languages. Indeed it may as well be a foreign language. One of the reasons why is because so few of the mods have enough Irish to read them. Out of 600(800?) mods, there are literally a handful who can read/mod/reply to such posts. The other reason is so few of the other posters in the community have enough or any Irish to read them.

Gnobe wrote: »

I'd rather have a one world language, whatever that may be. Since it looks like English is the worlds language, best have that.

Oh god no. Talk about from one extreme to the other. I'd hate if we all spoke the same language. Humanity would lose so much of the nuances of culture and mind. There are concepts easily handled by say Chinese or Irish or Spanish, that English would really struggle with and vice versa.

Cú Giobach

Gnobe wrote: »

The time when humanity got rid of borders and flags and lived together the better. So you nationalistic people please think about that. You're a dying breed anyway.

Although it is almost impossible to get an accurate figure, there were approximately 30 new countries formed within the last 30 years, how do you explain that if nationalism is dying out?

Sleepy

DyldeBrill wrote: »

That's fair enough...YOU have no interest in learning the language but that does not mean that its a dead language.

Fair enough, it's not dead. It's on the life support provided by it's compulsory position on the educational syllabus, the idealism of a minority who see a value in it and make the effort to speak it and bullying the government into wasting millions translating documents into a bastardised version of the language that nobody ever reads.

I've professional experience of the latter, €10k of public money thrown away on a translation that would have been meaningless to any "native" Irish speaker since the language hasn't evolved enough to have the vocabulary available for technical financial terms

The words used in the document were invented by a translator in Brussels but if the "native" speakers of the language could only decipher these new words by translating their composite parts to English and re-combining them to get the English word, it's both (a) a sign that the language isn't a real living language (as otherwise it would be forming words for these modern concepts through usage rather than EU translators having to make them up) and (b) those "native" speakers can better comprehend the documents in English.

And no, the answer isn't wasting 50k on a "better" translation. In 10 years of use, the system I was involved in developing, has to the best of my knowledge, been used *once* to produce an Irish language output (and that was just for a certain official who wanted to show off his cuplá focal).

As I've pointed out already, the language is growing.Having Irish can prove very helpful, especially when coming to terms with some of our history.It is not explained in English but can be easily explained in Irish.Examples of this can be given.

And as I've pointed out, it's utterly useless in the modern world since whilst Naonra's and Gaelscoils are becoming popular with middle-class parents who want to give little Tarquin and Honor an edge in their college matriculation later in life via a handy A in Irish and reduced exposure to the difficulties less nationalistic schools face with non-English speaking Immigrant and Special Needs students, the language is clearly not evolving to handle a modern lexicon.

Yes French, German etc are all major languages but if you really wanted to learn those languages then you would have done it out of your own interest.You would be speaking them now, so please don't give me that.You have highlighted your ignorance, fair enough if you do not wish to learn the language, but do not call it a dead language when it's obviously not!

I can speak both a reasonable college-level of French and passable Junior Cert level German actually.

And if it's "fair enough" that I don't wish to learn the Irish language, why was it forced upon me in school and why is it now being forced upon my children? Why do we give bonus points for sitting exams through it? Are we still allowing students to study courses at a lower level of points if they choose to do them through Irish? Why are we even attempting to teach things like Economics or Finance through Irish when the language has no practical application to those subjects and, as such, the words used to describe elements of them don't exist in the common lexicon of the Irish speaker?

I have no problem with people wanting to learn Irish. I wouldn't even object to it as an elective subject in secondary school (as I said in my OP, I quite fancy the idea of learning Latin: I've nothing against learning for it's own sake). I object to it being regarded as being equally important to Literacy and Numeracy. To more time being dedicated on it in the primary school syllabus than Science.

So, who's more ignorant? The man who'd rather spend his time learning something he sees a value in, or the man who wishes to force everyone else to study something because he places a value on it?

deise go deo

Wibbs wrote: »

What? No really. Think about this before you dig deeper holes in this debate. Whatever about the mistakes made in the on the ground teaching of the language(ditto for english, never mind others) the Irish language has been pushed in education, legislation, broadcasting and government employment for nearly a century. There have been huge amounts of funding thrown at the language in that time.

State support for the language has been luke warm at the best of times. The state has never really pushed Irish in any sphere, in education we have a compromise that dosent work, because the state failed to revive the language through education in the early days of the state, Irish fell into a kind of twighlight zone, the state could neither let it go entirely as that would be unpopular politically, but neither could it be bothered to do anything about the ineffective and often counterproductive system that Irish was thaught through.
The one actually usefull development in education for Irish, the Gaelscoil movement was not pushed by the state, it was pushed from the bottom up by parents, and often against staunch state oppisition, look up the history of the establishment of one of the first Gaelscoils in Dublin in Ballymun. State obstruction to Gaelscoils was not just in the early days either, it's still prevelant today, have a look at the hoops Gaelscoil Rath Tó in Meath had to jump through just to get state recognition.

The first peice of legislation dealing with the Irish Language was the OLA in 2003, 81 years after the foundation of the state, would you call that pro-active?

Broadcasting: Are you joking? RnaG started life as a pirate radio station because there was nothing available in Gaeltacht areas in Irish, People had to go to jail just to get some basic level of TV broadcasting in Irish.
At times in the 70's/80's before TG4 was set up, a grand total of about 0.07% of RTE's brodcast material was in Irish.

That is supposed to be pushing the language? :rolleyes:
I would hate to see how bad it would have been if the state had only been paying lipservice to it.

Nothingbetter2d

the irish language is already dying... just watch TG4 and you'll see in programs such as ros na run that half the words they use are english because there is no irish word for it.

stop wasting valuable tax payer's cash on having to have every official document & road sign, translated into irish.

spend those millions of euros on school or hiring more doctors for our hospitals.