Would you prefer to speak Irish?

CianRyan

I honestly hate the Irish language. It sounds horrible.

Mike 1972

Poll missing a few options

e.g.

Irish as THIRD language (Useful continental language second)

or

No interest in learning Irish whatsoever

Poll Fail !

St.Spodo

Fluency in Irish is one thing I definitely want to achieve.

Cú Giobach

Mike 1972 wrote: »

Poll missing a few options
e.g.
Irish as THIRD language (Useful continental language second)
or
No interest in learning Irish whatsoever

Poll Fail !

Basic comprehension fail.

air assault

Id love to be able to speak fluent Irish. Sometimes im ashamed that i cant. Really brought home when Des Bishop met two Korean guys in New York City, that spoke fluent Irish and have never been here.

Mike 1972

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Basic comprehension fail.

Right back at you

A choice between two crap options is no choice at all.

Seomra Mushie

I'd like to be a native Irish-speaker only if I was also fluent in English. The question is, would we have English fluency if we still spoke Irish as a first language?

Mike 1972

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

It's of no practical use. It's of plenty of practical use:

Obtaining employment in various heavily subsidised non-jobs which the state can no longer never could afford ?

Cú Giobach

Mike 1972 wrote: »

Right back at you

A choice between two crap options is no choice at all.

I can just see you approaching some people on the street who are conducting a taste test to see if people prefer Coke or Pepsi and getting all high and mighty saying their survey fails because there is no 7-Up option and you like 7-Up, the people looking at you oddly and saying "Ok... sure, Next please", then having a good laugh in the pub later discussing some of the very odd people they met that day.

The poll is a very specific question ie "Would you rather have been born in an Ireland that spoke Irish rather than English?".
Not "what are your opinions of Irish in general" or "Which language would you prefer Ireland to speak" etc....

Noreen1

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

I'd like to be a native Irish-speaker only if I was also fluent in English. The question is, would we have English fluency if we still spoke Irish as a first language?

??? Thousands of people in the Gaeltachts are fluent in both!
I can't see why the rest of the Country would be any different.

Seomra Mushie

Noreen1 wrote: »

??? Thousands of people in the Gaeltachts are fluent in both!
I can't see why the rest of the Country would be any different.

But that's totally different! People in Gaeltacht areas were of course going to pick up English also, as it is a such a small country and there are no seas between them and English-speaking areas, apart from the few small offshore islands, the inhabitants of which would travel regularly to the mainland. I was more musing about if Britain had not colonised Ireland and the country had remained united.

Cú Giobach

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

I'd like to be a native Irish-speaker only if I was also fluent in English. The question is, would we have English fluency if we still spoke Irish as a first language?

Seeing as Bi- or even Multi-linguism is quite the norm around the world, why not?

From the Linguistic Society of America

Multilingualism isn't unusual; in fact, it's the norm for most of the world's societies. It's possible for a person to know and use three, four, or even more languages fluently.

Seomra Mushie

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Seeing as Bi- or even Multi-linguism is quite the norm around the world, why not?

From the Linguistic Society of America

Going by our woeful form at learning other languages to fluency, I'm not convinced we'd be anywhere near fluent in English.

Er, also, I do know what bilingualism is. How patronising to link that!

Cú Giobach

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

Going by our woeful form at learning other languages to fluency, I'm not convinced we'd be anywhere near fluent in English.

Er, also, I do know what bilingualism is. How patronising to link that!

I doubt our record has anything to do with some inherent lack of ability, but is for the same reason most people from other English speaking countries eg Britain, The US, Australia etc..aren't Bi-lingual, they don't need to be, due to the prevalence of English world wide.

The link wasn't to show what bi-lingualism is, but to back up my comment of it being widespread, as is the norm in internet forums.

Seomra Mushie

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

Going by our woeful form at learning other languages to fluency, I'm not convinced we'd be anywhere near fluent in English.

Er, also, I do know what bilingualism is. How patronising to link that!

Saying that though, our crapness at other languages appears to down the insistence on learning Irish in schools at the expense of other languages. Maybe if we did speak Irish fluently as a nation still, we'd be less defensive about learning foreign languages so maybe we would speak English fluently anyway. Who knows?

Cú Giobach wrote: »

The link wasn't to show what bi-lingualism is, but to back up my comment of it being widespread, as is the norm in internet forums.

And that is also patronising. I know bilingualism is widespread! But Ireland has never been as progressive on this score as other nation and our lack of borders with other countries didn't help either.

Mint Sauce

I have a few words and pharses, learnt through work and from the odd older relation. Would like to learn a bit more though, although sad to say I would rarely get the chance to use it.

Sin uile do anois.

cena

I think they should remove it from school. Teach them french etc at a younger age that well help them with jobs later on in life

Cú Giobach

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

Saying that though, our crapness at other languages appears to down the insistence on learning Irish in schools at the expense of other languages.
Maybe if we did speak Irish fluently as a nation still, we'd be less defensive about learning foreign languages so maybe we would speak English fluently anyway. Who knows?

But Ireland has never been as progressive on this score as other nation and our lack of borders with other countries didn't help either

So nothing to do with English being the main language of communication worldwide? Instead we are traumatised by Irish.
The fact that other English speaking countries also don't have a good record is irrelevant then.

And that is also patronising. I know bilingualism is widespread! .

You must be new to this kind of media, because it is quite common if someone makes a statement such as I did, without backing it up with a link, that there usually follows a flurry of post demanding "proof" of the statement.
You will just have to get used to it.

Seomra Mushie

Cú Giobach wrote: »

So nothing to do with English being the main language of communication worldwide? Instead we are traumatised by Irish.
The fact that other English speaking countries also don't have a good record is irrelevant then.

I don't know if it's irrelevant, I was just trying to muse on whether we would actually be fluent in English. There is no way to answer this, it was just interesting to consider. And as for Irish being traumatising? That's a little strong, but many of us don't have fond memories of learning it growing up.

Cú Giobach wrote: »

You must be new to this kind of media, because it is quite common if someone makes a statement such as I did, without backing it up with a link, that there usually follows a flurry of post demanding "proof" of the statement.
You will just have to get used to it.

I think common sense would probably inform you that most adults, except in remedial cases, know what bilingualism is and that many countries practice it. So it was safe to assume I was aware of it. No need to provide proof for everything.

AngryBollix

Irish is a piece of sh1t, dead, useless c*nt of a language and I wish the government had the stones to take it off life support.

AngryBollix

Wheres the "I hate the irish language" option?

Enkidu

Agricola wrote: »

Not really. If Irish was our first language, we would have an even more insular society than we already have, and thats saying something.

This is not really accurate, from a historical perspective. The Irish upper classes were closely connected with continental European intellectual life. Prior to the flight of the Earls upper-class Ireland was taking part in Renaissance. So if Irish was still spoken, the major change for most of us would be that we would be culturally more European.

AngryBollix

Enkidu wrote: »

This is not really accurate, from a historical perspective. The Irish upper classes were closely connected with continental European intellectual life. Prior to the flight of the Earls upper-class Ireland was taking part in Renaissance. So if Irish was still spoken, the major change for most of us would be that we would be culturally more European.

What language did they communicate in?

Enkidu

AngryBollix wrote: »

What language did they communicate in?

Latin and Bardic Standard Irish. Occasionally Greek.

Doc Ruby

Irish is the most awesome language on earth, where else do you get to call money "silver"? I love Irish and I think we should take pride and pleasure in our beautiful and ancient national language.

AngryBollix

Doc Ruby wrote: »

Irish is the most awesome language on earth, where else do you get to call money "silver"? I love Irish and I think we should take pride and pleasure in our beautiful and ancient national language.

That must be why its a minority language.

Cú Giobach

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

I don't know if it's irrelevant, I was just trying to muse on whether we would actually be fluent in English. There is no way to answer this, it was just interesting to consider. And as for Irish being traumatising? That's a little strong, but many of us don't have fond memories of learning it growing up.

There is no reason to assume we would be any different to any other Western European country, especially those with comparable populations, who all have very high levels of people proficient in English, and due to our geographical position we would probably have a higher level than many others.
Assuming the teaching of Irish has any effect on our ability to speak other European or world languages is quite odd, since we are no different to other English speaking countries in this regard.

I think common sense would probably inform you that most adults, except in remedial cases, know what bilingualism is and that many countries practice it. So it was safe to assume I was aware of it. No need to provide proof for everything.

Since I already stated "The link wasn't to show what bi-lingualism is" why have you repeated a statement about knowing what it is?
This is not a private conversation between you and me, and everything I (and others) write, is written with a wider readership in mind and you will find making assumptions about what such a wide audience knows and doesn't know can be quite problematic, and takes no account of the huge variety of people that read this particular forum.
If you don't like people backing up their statements with links and find it patronising, maybe you shouldn't be getting involved in this kind of media, you will find it happening quite a lot.

hondasam

AngryBollix wrote: »

Irish is a piece of sh1t, dead, useless c*nt of a language and I wish the government had the stones to take it off life support.

Your choice of words make the English language look so appealing.

3DataModem

Where's

"Native English speaker with Irish as important part of cultural heritage ( like Latin is to many countries), but no actual 'language' status."

?

Doc Ruby

AngryBollix wrote: »

That must be why its a minority language.

Your slurs don't even make sense, back to bed you, but wash the sheets first.