Should Irish be an optional subject not a cumpulsory one

GaryIrv93

This is a good one - pretend that Indiana Jones is a helpless student surrounded by Ireland's education system telling him that if Irish is forced on kids then it will replace English as Ireland's dominant language. And then being force-fed the Irish language (the blood of kalimah or whatever it's called) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_plI0XlrY9Q

Wibbs

Enkidu wrote: »

All of this is correct. Primitive Irish was quite similar to Latin, for example:
Modern English:
“I swear by my smock(habit),” said the third man, “if you two won’t be still I’m going to leave you here in the wilderness!"
Primitive Irish:
“Tongū wo mō brattan,” esset bīrt trissas uiras, “ma nīt lēggītar kiyunessus do mū, imbit gabiyū wāssākan oliyan dū swi.”
Early Old Irish:
“Tongu tarm chulche”, ol in tris fer, “mani·lécther taue dom, ime·n-imgéb in n-ule ndíthrub airib.”
Normal Old Irish:
“Toingim fom aibit,” ol in tres fer, “mani·léicthe ciúnas dom co n-imgéb in fásach uile dúib.”
Modern Irish:
“Dar m’aibíd,” arsa an treas fear, “mura ligeann sibh ciúnas dom fágfaidh mé an fásach uile daoibh!”

Interesting stuff E. I wonder is primitive Irish more like Latin because of the continental influence before it came here, or just a case of many indo European languages had a similar structure at the time? You'd think it would have become even more like Latin later on when our scholarly written output was mostly in Latin.

Old Irish, especially normal Old Irish, may look as though you could understand it from Modern Irish, but that's because this is a nice example. The grammar is much more complex. A less easy example is:
Ilar mbríathar mbláith rot-char = You have been loved by many gentle words.

Nice phrase

Enkidu

Wibbs wrote: »

Of the language? It's not an international language like English or Spanish. In those examples many more people who aren't from England or Spain speak the language. The vast majority of Chinese speakers are Chinese.. Secondly it's needlessly complex. The written language while beautiful and all that is very cumbersome.

You might be interested in reading "The Chinese language - Fact and Fantasy" by John DeFrancis. He comes to similar conclusions.

Enkidu

Wibbs wrote: »

Interesting stuff E. I wonder is primitive Irish more like Latin because of the continental influence before it came here, or just a case of many indo European languages had a similar structure at the time?

It's more the later. The early Indo-European languages were all quite similar in many ways, that's actually how we discovered Indo-European itself. You'd never think Ukranian and Irish were related, but Old church Slavonic and Primitive Irish are "obviously" related. Primitive Irish and Latin even more so, since the Celtic Languages and the Italic languages would have both evolved from the same dialect of Indo-European.
I think I've given this example before, but the connection between Celtic and Latin is even more obvious from Gaulish:

English: He has given to the mothers of Nîmes
Gaulish: Dede matrebo Namausikabo
Latin: Dedit matribus Nemausicabus

Gaulish is recorded from around 1st century A.D., the primitive Irish above is around 5th century A.D., so the language would have become a little less like Latin (although still more similar than the spelling suggests)

You'd think it would have become even more like Latin later on when our scholarly written output was mostly in Latin.

Really it should have stayed similar to Latin and arguably today we would have the Celtic languages and Romance languages in one large family. I mean Latin and Gaulish are really very similar. However people on the British Isles had a bizarre accent (due to the original language) and this caused the language to mutate around the 6th century. The result here was Old Irish and in Britian Old Welsh/Breton/Cornish, languages which don't look similar to Latin at all.

hooradiation

IloveConverse wrote: »

Yes of course.We could do this and let our language die. Most Germans can speak their own native tongue and English at the same time just fine- Why don't we see them trying the banish the German language from the Abitur (LC)? We should be able to do the same with Gaeilge and English. We need to keep Irish as it's part of our culture.

Just so I'm clear, what you're telling me is that the only thing keeping Irish from ceasing to be is it current compulsory status in our education system
if so - it's in worse shape than I thought, and we ought to drag it around the back of the woodshed and put it out of it's misery.

Speaking of things that need to be shot, your German language analogy is, frankly, embarrassing.

IloveConverse wrote: »

The real attitude is that when it comes to the state of the Irish language we're pathological liars?

' Pathological Liar- A person who tells lies frequently, with no rational motive for doing so.' The majority of 1.77 million people had a reason for doing so- it's embarrassment that we cannot speak our own language.

So, that'd be a yes then.
Good to know.

Voodoo_rasher

Given the way that the education system continues to murder

the Irish language, the opening point you have made is perhaps a very

moot point.

WillieFlynn

IloveConverse wrote: »

The real attitude is that when it comes to the state of the Irish language we're pathological liars?

' Pathological Liar- A person who tells lies frequently, with no rational motive for doing so.' The majority of 1.77 million people had a reason for doing so- it's embarrassment that we cannot speak our own language.

The issue was with the way the question was asked.

Asking if someone can speak Irish makes no distinction between the person who could just about order a cup of tea and some one who could win a nobel prize for literature.

So what is surprising, is that only 1.77 million said they knew Irish.

Leftist

voluntary.

Anyone who says it should be compulsory obviously has strong opinions and are entitled to learn the language or practise it.

However they are not entitled to force everyone else to live by their rules.

These are the same kind of people who thought contraception should be banned and everyone should eat fish on fridays. You can't do that. Not your call on how other people feel.

WillieFlynn

Leftist wrote: »

Anyone who says it should be compulsory obviously has strong opinions and are entitled to learn the language or practise it.

However they are not entitled to force everyone else to live by their rules.

Unfortunately they can.

When FG suggested making it optional for the LC. One of the biggest arguments I heard against change was the damage it would do to Gaeltacht summer schools, and the money and employment it brought into the rural areas. Rather than what I expected, arguments based what is best for the language and students doing the LC.

Jennifer Parker

If Irish is not mandatory for the LC, they should think about a way to encourage students to study at least one modern language instead. Imo it's important to learn another language (other than English) as it not only enables you to speak the language and learn about the culture, it also gives you a knownledge how languages in general can be structured, how they develop and how they are influenced by the environment they are used in.

Leftist

WillieFlynn wrote: »

Unfortunately they can.

When FG suggested making it optional for the LC. One of the biggest arguments I heard against change was the damage it would do to Gaeltacht summer schools, and the money and employment it brought into the rural areas. Rather than what I expected, arguments based what is best for the language and students doing the LC.

it's very hard to remove a law or rule. Unless you have a full referendum and as we've seen in the divorce referendums in the past, you have to push the irish to evolve. they wont' do it themselves.

I'd love to be able to speak it fwiw. I was spoken to in irish in school (wouldn't really say taught) for 14 years. Yet like most students, could not speak it.

Let people learn it if they are motivated to. Less of the conservatives telling the rest of us what to do.

dyawannagoonme

I'm pretty sure if it were optional after Junior Cert it would solve some problems... obviously won't solve the bad teaching problem... this is probably mentioned already above.. if so my bad

nipple

Ficheall

fkt wrote: »

Dublinstiofán wrote: »

Compulsory, that is all.

Compelling.

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Dublinstiofán wrote: »

Compulsory, that is all.

Now there's a new argument for the thread.

LordSutch wrote: »

Dublinstiofán wrote: »

Compulsory, that is all.

Head in the sand :rolleyes:

Ever wonder what outsiders think of the current farce that we have here? Well from experience I can tell you that any friends that have visited me from abroad are firstly curious about the language, then shocked (and amused) that we learn Irish for all our school lives, and yet we dont speak it! "like how can that be"? I then explain that we don't really learn it, we just do Irish lessons in school so that we may pass the Irish exams, "but why if youre not going to speak it"? well because that's what expected of us . . . because of history, tradition, if you want to be in the Gardai, etc.

"So you can't speak Irish fluently after Primary school", hell NO, sure we cant even speak it after another six years in secondary school )

I presumed he was referring to the spelling of 'compulsory' in the thread title...

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Ficheall wrote: »

I presumed he was referring to the spelling of 'compulsory' in the thread title...

That is a beautiful bit of multi-quoting right there. That is all.

conor.hogan.2

Leftist wrote: »

telling the rest of us what to do.

This is how democracy works. Unless it infringes upon your human rights then the will of the majority wins out.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

This is how democracy works. Unless it infringes upon your human rights then the will of the majority wins out.

Works as in "operates", or works in "achieves"?

The idea fails because it implies that the majority always makes the best decision. I could argue, using your logic, that the household charge is a fair and just because the majority elected those who made the deicison. I coudl also argue that, seeings as there has been no mass protest, most people agree with it.

lividduck

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

This is how democracy works. Unless it infringes upon your human rights then the will of the majority wins out.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Traonach

Somebody mentioned something about the "silent majority" wanting Irish to be made optional. If this is true why is there such demand for Gaelscoileanna. Anybody I know who have young children would prefer them to attend a Gaelscoil. The standard of education is generally superior.

WillieFlynn

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

This is how democracy works. Unless it infringes upon your human rights then the will of the majority wins out.

Very true, it works well unless you are in the minority:)

However there are some issues where politicians can only loose votes, if a minority feels very strongly and the majority are more concerned with other issues. Then minority views can win out.

Wibbs

Traonach wrote: »

Anybody I know who have young children would prefer them to attend a Gaelscoil. The standard of education is generally superior.

The latter informs the why of the former. I've found in the parents I know who made that choice that it had remarkably little to do with the language itself. Other reasons were the better teacher/pupil ratios, far higher parent/community involvement, they're seen as more aspirational and "middle class" and among some of the knuckledragger parents the lack of "foreign" kids was a plus(IE Black. Eastern Europeans were "OK" it seems).

Set up any school with more involved teachers, better pupil/teacher ratios, more parent/community involvement and the sniff of exclusivity and watch the queues form. Why do you think private schools have such long waiting lists, no Irish required? Plus for all the vaunted widespread popularity of these schools they make up less than 200 out of 4000 odd schools in the republic. Mostly in middle class urban areas. While the figures made a leap in the late nineties and early naughties it seems to have leveled out since as far as the number of new Gaelscoileanna goes.

It's an argument certainly, but not a terribly convincing one for me.

Happyman42

Traonach wrote: »

Somebody mentioned something about the "silent majority" wanting Irish to be made optional. If this is true why is there such demand for Gaelscoileanna. Anybody I know who have young children would prefer them to attend a Gaelscoil. The standard of education is generally superior.

There isn't 'such a demand', I would imagine most of them have barely got the required quota attending, and the majority are housed in portacabins. A few rounds of cuts will finish a lot of them off and quench any desire for more, I'd imagine. It is ludicrous behaviour to make these demands on an already stretched system and to send your child to inferior schools. They only have one childhood. Fairly typical Celtic Tiger behaviour imo.

p.s. Please show figures that state the standard of education is better or have the manners to preface your guesses with 'in my opinion'.

partyatmygaff

Traonach wrote: »

Somebody mentioned something about the "silent majority" wanting Irish to be made optional. If this is true why is there such demand for Gaelscoileanna. Anybody I know who have young children would prefer them to attend a Gaelscoil. The standard of education is generally superior.

That's not very good logic tbh.

There could be hundreds of reasons for wanting to send your child to a gaelscoil. Just because someone sends their child to a gaelscoil doesn't necessarily mean they want Irish to remain compulsory in secondary school.

As i've been saying for the past few days in this thread on the LC forum Irish should be made optional all the way throughout secondary school. As a niche language, it's nice to study and know (Much like Ancient Greek or Latin) but there's not one valid reason for it to be grouped alongside English and Maths as a compulsory subject.

Wibbs

Happyman42 wrote: »

p.s. Please show figures that state the standard of education is better or have the manners to preface your guesses with 'in my opinion'.

Well they do have a higher ratio of children who go on to higher level studies compared to the rest of the public school systems. However it's not simply "because of Irish". Their catchments are primarily middle class children and areas(for the most part) and these tend to have more involved parents and teachers and smaller teacher/pupil ratios. Similar non Irish language schools also have higher levels of third level involvement. One could argue that bilingualism makes for better children and adults and I would agree, but again the languages themselves aren't the factor merely the fact that there are two. Though some languages do make some brain changes apparently. Arabic and some oriental languages because of their complexity require longer immersion and study compared to most indo European languages Irish included.

conor.hogan.2

Agreed.
The same would be true of French language schools who had involved parents and smaller class sizes. But that would not happen in Ireland.

Bi-lingualism is agreed to be beneficial but the same would be true if we thought kids any two or more languages. Irish is just one option, but considering this is Ireland it along with English are the natural choices to teach in primary education. Then those two along with another language in Secondary school should the child want to.

Happyman42

Wibbs wrote: »

Well they do have a higher ratio of children who go on to higher level studies compared to the rest of the public school systems. However it's not simply "because of Irish". Their catchments are primarily middle class children and areas(for the most part) and these tend to have more involved parents and teachers and smaller teacher/pupil ratios. Similar non Irish language schools also have higher levels of third level involvement. One could argue that bilingualism makes for better children and adults and I would agree, but again the languages themselves aren't the factor merely the fact that there are two. Though some languages do make some brain changes apparently. Arabic and some oriental languages because of their complexity require longer immersion and study compared to most indo European languages Irish included.

Ratios? The numbers attending each school is smaller, of course the ratios will be higher. Where are you getting the figures from, can you link to a source?

Wibbs

Happyman42 wrote: »

Ratios? The numbers attending each school is smaller, of course the ratios will be higher. Where are you getting the figures from, can you link to a source?

OK it's a wiki and full of laughably silly figures on the amount of Irish speakers in the country but this section is pretty accurate from what I've read before; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelscoil#Social_status_and_function
Like I said I dont believe the language is the thing, it's more the social catchment area(and other things I outlined). More middle class kids go to third level anyway.

Traonach

Happyman42 wrote: »

p.s. Please show figures that state the standard of education is better or have the manners to preface your guesses with 'in my opinion'.

Calm down boy, it's an internet chat forum.

Happyman42

Traonach wrote: »

Calm down boy, it's an internet chat forum.......................

..............where it is manners to quote sources. I prefaced my remarks with 'in my opinion' or 'I'd imagine', thereby indicating that it was...eh....my opinion. Comprendre? Otherwise your statement is just ordinary sad trolling.

@Wibbs, sorry I can't take a page from Wiki that is so slanted, it might have been written by Peig, as a source.

Traonach

Happyman42 wrote: »

..............where it is manners to quote sources. I prefaced my remarks with 'in my opinion' or 'I'd imagine', thereby indicating that it was...eh....my opinion. Comprendre?

I'll give you a medal.:)

Happyman42

Traonach wrote: »

I'll give you a medal.:)

Any sources for your delusions yet? :rolleyes: