How to revive the Irish language.

Cú Giobach

ViveLaVie wrote: »

Oh wow Welsh! I was in Wales recently and I'm really intrigued by the language now. Is it difficult? Did you teach yourself

Doing a course. I personally don't find it difficult because of messing with languages all my life, but what I find interesting with it is that having Irish is mostly a great help but sometimes a hindrance.
There are many grammatical similarities with Irish that actually cause me to jump from one language to the other.

Like: Tá xxxx agat. and Mae xxxx gyda ti. You have xxxx.

The Welsh is pronounced, Ma xxxx gut-a-tee. Which when I was starting kept making me go to the Irish agat, saying Mae xxxx agat-a-tee. It even felt right.

Because many words are similar to Irish and what is tricky grammar for someone with just a Germanic language having Irish really is a great help, and then there are those words similar to English of course.

Enkidu

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Out of interest, could someone post a detailed outline of how it is taught wrongly in schools? That's not me being smart or snarky; just curious as to what the detailed problems are with how it's taught....

Well, others will comment on other things, such as focusing too much on grammar.

However a major flaw, the biggest in my opinion, is that those who teach it have almost zero experience with it as a spoken language and often think the native language is wrong. In schools we are sort of taught "Oirish" as Wibbs said and most teachers only know Oirish. I have been shocked to see teachers debate the simplest points of grammar and act as if it is some kind of arcane spell for summoning a demon of the outer realms that even they barely understand after their degree.

Of course I'm really only applying this to secondary school teachers. Primary school teachers often simply don't know it and don't want to. I remember my favourite primary school teacher, a fantastic mathematics teacher, you could just see him struggling through the Irish lessons. One of the reasons I don't like Irish being compulsory is that it's often a burden for some very good primary teachers.

Interest in History

An Coilean wrote: »

Interesting editing of the quote there. What ever his aims, there are some serious flaws in the document, despite presenting it as self evident, there is no attempt to actually show that the Political Elite and the Irish speaking community are one and the same, and the reality is they were and are not.
Both groups are seperate from one annother and have often been openly hostile to one another.

The introduction of Irish into the school curriculum is roundly condemned and unsupported claims are made as to the damage this had on the education recieved by children.
The problem is that modern educational research vindicates the introduction of a second language into the educational sylabus. Far from being damaging, current research shows that learning two or more languages from an early age is beneficial to the cognative development of children, it is recomended European best practice.
That the document fails to mention this, and attempts to portray what by modern educational thought is seen as beneficial as a negative, is a serious flaw and speaks of serious bias.

I guess that my editing of the quote reflects the narrowness of my interest in the overall question. I don't see any significance in the community speaking one language or the other, so to me the Revival is to be examined just in terms of its political dynamic.

It's in this context only that I remembered the Kilfeather paper so I won't contest your general opinions on it.

However: I do see the Revivalists as an elite group, able to look after their interests in a special way in society through their political influence. They are not unique in this, especially in our political system. And as you say, their group is not co-terminus with the purely politcal ruling group.

Enkidu

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Dw i ddim yn siarad i yn dda iawn nawr, ond dw i'n gobeithio bydda i'n gallu yn fuan.
I can't speak it very well now, but I hope I'll be able to soon.
Getting comfortable with it, (though I can't write that in Welsh).
I can't get used to writing, speech has always been it for languages with me, I even find English hard and have to spell check constantly, plus go over punctuation and even grammar.

Wow! Well keep up the good work. I think Welsh is probably one of the best languages to have a speaking bent when you're learning since the written language is basically extremely archaic as you probably know. Wikipedia has some nice info:
Literary Welsh

Also, just for interest, Learn Welsh in Japanese.

Cú Giobach

Enkidu wrote: »

Wow! Well keep up the good work. I think Welsh is probably one of the best languages to have a speaking bent when you're learning since the written language is basically extremely archaic as you probably know. Wikipedia has some nice info:
Literary Welsh

Also, just for interest, Learn Welsh in Japanese.

Japanese lol.

The writing I cannot get my head around, though I can chat online and with Welsh tourists, basically but comfortably (the tourists nearly have a heart attack when this scruffy, country Irish bloke addresses them in Welsh ) the written word does still elude me, I don't think I'll ever really have the motivation to get to grips with it.
The course is totally verbal by the way and with no grammar rules (except for some essential basics) until you actually have quite a surprising amount of the language, the speed and ease of learning is consequently quite amazing, and that's not just me, all those doing it agree.

An Coilean

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Out of interest, could someone post a detailed outline of how it is taught wrongly in schools? That's not me being smart or snarky; just curious as to what the detailed problems are with how it's taught....

Well personally I don't think that the main problem is how Irish is taught in schools, certainly back in the dark days of priest ridden schools and learning Peig of by heart that was the case, but that is long gone now.

There are still a number of areas where further improvment could be made.
The marks given for Oral+Aural was raised to 50% this year, and the numbers taking Higher Level Irish jumped 11% because of it.
However, Even though the Marks are 50-50, because of the syllabus, well more than 50% of classtime has to be spent on Stories Poetry etc.

A change that could be brought in, that would not reduce the time spent on other subjects would be the teaching of additional subjects like Art through Irish in primary schools.

The structure of Irish in secondary could also be changes, such as taking the poetery, literature, history of Irish parts of the course and making it a second subject.

This would mean that the normal Irish class would be dedicated to learning the language, and those that wanted to could take the poetry, literature.

This second subject could also replace the current Irish syllabus in the Gaeltacht/Gaelcholaistí, as the current Irish course is a bit of a joke in those schools.

Interest in History

Eoin247 wrote: »

There are two options for irish in education in the upcoming years.

1. Make it non compulsory (preferable)
2. Actually teach it properly in primary schools that aren't gaelscoils.

Unfortunately option two will probably not happen (without the availability of a large amount of money to train/replace these teachers.)

That option has been tried.

The teachers were put through the mill in the 1920's and 1930's, with great duress applied to them, to bring them up to proficiency in Irish. Some huge percentage (60%?) of all places in the Training Collleges were allocated autmatically to candidates from the Gaeltacht.

Thre is a history of St Patrick's Collge in Drumcondra which tells how soon the Gaeltacht guys switched to English. A general history called 'Compulsory Irish' by Adrian Kelly has it all as well.

Wibbs

Cú Giobach wrote: »

I can't get used to writing, speech has always been it for languages with me, I even find English hard and have to spell check constantly, plus go over punctuation and even grammar.

Funny enough CG I can get used to listening to languages pretty quickly if I'm surrounded by one and have a general gist of basic stuff. The indo-European ones anyway(Basque made blood come out my ears). My ear falls in pretty quickly, but there's some weird disconnect between my ear and the rest of the language centres in the brain, especially the bit that operates the tongue. Trust me it has no difficulty as Bearla,:) but anything else...

Did French in secondary school (and failed it) however I've had full on conversations with French people who could understand English, but who spoke only French to me and I spoke only English to them. They were a tad bemused(and positively apoplectic with laughter when I tried to pronounce French words:)). I get the gist of Italian and Spanish too and Dutch is fairly easy for me. Haven't been around German folks for long enough to tell. I've been on the lash with Italians who had no English and was fine, but if I had to say something it was down to finger pointing and charades. Even watching foriegn films I start to ignore the subtitles more and more. I can't explain what I'm doing or how I'm doing it, it's very subconscious. Actually it's harder if I try to think about it.

I'm a really shíte mimic, so maybe that's it? Can't do accents in English at all. I could live in the US or Oz for years and would come back sounding the same. Actually my dad did just that with zero trace of either accent. Even when he'd use "local", words for things such as "stationwagon" for "estate car" or "elevator" for "lift", he'd say it in his own accent. Odd. Some folks go to New York for a holiday weekend and come back with an accent along with the lingo. I wonder do such people find learning languages easier because of this?

cena

I'll get shot for this bit I think its time to let it rest.

Rovi

Wibbs wrote: »

I'm a really shíte mimic, so maybe that's it? Can't do accents in English at all. I could live in the US or Oz for years and would come back sounding the same. Actually my dad did just that with zero trace of either accent. Even when he'd use "local", words for things such as "stationwagon" for "estate car" or "elevator" for "lift", he'd say it in his own accent. Odd.

For the most magnificent example of this phenomenon, have a listen to Sean Kelly's commentary on cycling races on Eurosport if you have a chance.
Having spent almost 20 years as a professional cyclist in a succession of continental teams, and almost another 20 years since intermittently living and working there as a TV pundit and pro-team manager, he uses the French terms and pronunciations for many 'cycle racing' words, but delivered in the most wonderfully flat South Tipperary accent you've ever heard.

Grayson

An Coilean wrote: »

First off, who said anything about people speaking Irish Instead of English. No one is looking for that, its just a strawman argument thrown about time and again by those opposed to the revival movement.
A bilingual Ireland, Irish and English speaking is what is aimed for.

The benefits of this are many and varied, yes it would create employment, major international business would have to employ Irish people to deal with their Irish customers through Irish, and to translate their marketing campaigns etc as happens in other countries that have their own language.

Perhaps you dont think speaking Irish will have any effect on a persons own fealing of Irishness, but why don't you ask an Irish speaker? They will more than likely tell you that it dose hold significance to their identity.

As for History, up till very recently Irish history was was written in Irish, huge amounts of it was never translated into English. If you want to have anything more than a shallow insight into much of Irish history, you have to know Irish.


The reason it should be Irish rather than any other language, is that there is demonstrable public support for it being Irish, time and again, any time the question has ever been asked, the answer has always been the same.
Creating a bilingual Ireland rather than staying the monolingual nation that we are would be beneficial for everyone, Bilingualism has proven cognative benefits.
It may come as a shock to some people, but no, English alone really is not enough.

So, in your first paragraph you're saying that no-one would speak Irish. If that's the case, there is no practical usage. We're just training to give people an additional language.

In the second paragraph you said that it would generate jobs because you would have to get trained staff to work in Irish, for all the Irish speakers.

But you've already said that no-one will be speaking the language and everyone will still speak English. Who are all these trained linguists for? And even if everyone does speak Irish and English, surely you can hire someone who speaks both? You don't need to hire two separate people to do the same job.

You also said that learning Irish has made the people who speak it more Irish Or felt more Irish. Does that mean there's something lacking in everyone else?
Also, it doesn't mean it made them feel more Irish. It may be the other way around. The people who managed to learn it in school or learned it after school were the people who had an interest in Irish. That would mean all the other people in the country didn't have the same interest level. They didn't feel that anything was missing so there was no need to learn Irish.
Of course, you could create an emotional need to learn Irish (Like you said you would create a need for jobs) but to do that you would have to convince people that something was lacking from their lives that Irish would fix. But that's a bad tactic. There are plenty of very patriotic Irish people who don't speak Irish and if someone started telling them they weren't Irish enough, they'd be told, quite rightly to Feck off.

As for the history... Are you stating that people who don't speak Irish have a lesser understanding of the history of Ireland? I can understand the idea that a scholar of Irish history who specialises in a period where there are ancient documents that are written in Irish would get some benefit. Just as a classics scholar gets benefits from speaking Greek or Latin. But for someone like myself (who has a greater interest than your average Joe), I can still read my history books and biographies in English and still get a detailed understanding. Unless I'm reading the source material, I'm not going to find a lack of Irish challenging. And lets face it, 99.99% of people do not need to read the source material.

You said that "Bilingualism has proven cognative benefits". We already teach every secondary school student French or German or Spanish. Those benefits exists without Irish.

You also said that time and time again, it's been proven that people want it? Do you have a source for that? And did the poll specifically state that people wanted to speak Irish more than any other language (except English of course). I mean, if I walked up to someone and said "Would you like to be fluent in French?" I'm pretty certain 99% would say yes.


And you say that English alone isn't enough. Enough for what? The 99.9% of Irish people who speak English as their first language (and most of them can't speak Irish) are getting along fine. But you're implying that they are missing something that they need since English isn't "enough". What is it that they're missing?

See, I'd join the campaign to keep Irish compulsory if I could see the benefits. But I can't. The aim of making Irish compulsory is to make sure that in 50 years time people can speak it (I'm assuming there would be a change in tactics regarding the teaching. Because if it's still taught the same way, we'd have wasted another 50 years on top of the 90 years that have already been wasted (I'm using 50 as the figure because someone said it would take that long as it would take generations to achieve). I think we can both agree, when most school leavers struggle to hold a basic conversation in Irish, the program has been an abject failure. It's been a near complete waste of time and resources and based on it's lack of success rate, it should be abandoned). If we're going to spend all that time and money on a project that most of us won't even live to see succeed I'd like people to be able to state real tangible benefits.

I can see the benefits of teaching another live language.
I can see the benefits of more teaching Science, maths and history.
Even a compulsory music program has it's long term benefits.

So why should time be spent with Irish to create this non Irish speaking world in 50 years time?

Editing to add: BTW, in that duration, with the amount of time and money we'd spend on it, we could probably attain something more beneficial. maybe have the first Irish colony on the moon
They won't speak Irish, but they will drink Guinness.

Grayson

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Japanese lol.

The writing I cannot get my head around, though I can chat online and with Welsh tourists, basically but comfortably (the tourists nearly have a heart attack when this scruffy, country Irish bloke addresses them in Welsh ) the written word does still elude me, I don't think I'll ever really have the motivation to get to grips with it.
The course is totally verbal by the way and with no grammar rules (except for some essential basics) until you actually have quite a surprising amount of the language, the speed and ease of learning is consequently quite amazing, and that's not just me, all those doing it agree.

I've started learning French and Spanish using the Michel Thomas audio course. Since there are so many words that French, Italian and Spanish have in common with English he actually teaches English with an accent. So for the first disc, you actually learn minimal French/Spanish, but you do learn loads of English words in French and Spanish. So you build up a sizeable vocabulary very quickly and feel confident moving forward.

opti0nal

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Out of interest, could someone post a detailed outline of how it is taught wrongly in schools? That's not me being smart or snarky; just curious as to what the detailed problems are with how it's taught....

It's not a question of teaching well or badly. It's a question of what language the children choose to speak.

Cú Giobach

Wibbs wrote: »

Funny enough CG I can get used to listening to languages pretty quickly if I'm surrounded by one and have a general gist of basic stuff. The indo-European ones anyway(Basque made blood come out my ears). My ear falls in pretty quickly, but there's some weird disconnect between my ear and the rest of the language centres in the brain, especially the bit that operates the tongue. Trust me it has no difficulty as Bearla,:) but anything else...

Did French in secondary school (and failed it) however I've had full on conversations with French people who could understand English, but who spoke only French to me and I spoke only English to them. They were a tad bemused(and positively apoplectic with laughter when I tried to pronounce French words:)). I get the gist of Italian and Spanish too and Dutch is fairly easy for me. Haven't been around German folks for long enough to tell. I've been on the lash with Italians who had no English and was fine, but if I had to say something it was down to finger pointing and charades. Even watching foriegn films I start to ignore the subtitles more and more. I can't explain what I'm doing or how I'm doing it, it's very subconscious. Actually it's harder if I try to think about it.

I'm a really shíte mimic, so maybe that's it? Can't do accents in English at all. I could live in the US or Oz for years and would come back sounding the same. Actually my dad did just that with zero trace of either accent. Even when he'd use "local", words for things such as "stationwagon" for "estate car" or "elevator" for "lift", he'd say it in his own accent. Odd. Some folks go to New York for a holiday weekend and come back with an accent along with the lingo. I wonder do such people find learning languages easier because of this?

Your post has really got me thinking.
I can now understand that chat we had a while back regarding the "English language" accent some Irish people speak Irish with.
Not being an expert on such things I can only give my own feelings, but I do know without doubt that one of, if not the hardest thing to do in speaking a new language is getting out the first few words "outside the classroom" so to say.
It is so hard for many that they give up at that point and never break out, it can seem strange at first just making what can seem like a meaningless noise expecting someone to understand it .
That is all about confidence and once you break that barrier and realise nobody is laughing at you and they just respond to what you said it gets easier and easier. Though each new language, even for people who speak many, does involve the sweaty palms, palpitations and basic nerves, with the big effort needed to get out those first few words.
I don't know if that is what you are meaning though.

As for doing accents, I can do foregin accents but only non English speaking ones if I can speak a little of the language (even just a few words), all you do is follow the phonological rules of the language when speaking English, good fun.
My accent has never changed (I'm told that by others) yet I have no difficulty with languages so I wouldn't put that high up there.
I think it is more about practise and what you get used to, and though I could be wrong I've never gotten this "I'm bad at languages" thing, most of the planet is at the very least bi-lingual and speaking more than one language is quite natural for humans, monolingualism is the exception.
I think it boils down to confidence, practise and drive.

An Coilean

Grayson wrote: »

So, in your first paragraph you're saying that no-one would speak Irish. If that's the case, there is no practical usage. We're just training to give people an additional language.

Where did I say that no one would speak Irish? I clearly said Irish and English speaking, now you may assume that some one who can speak Irish and English will never speak Irish, but that is a false assumption to make.

And even if everyone does speak Irish and English, surely you can hire someone who speaks both? You don't need to hire two separate people to do the same job.

Indeed they can, but they would have to be able to speak Irish meaning that those staff members of a large multinational company dealing with Irish customers would have to be based in Ireland, instead of the UK or any number of other English speaking countries, meaning more jobs here.

You also said that learning Irish has made the people who speak it more Irish Or felt more Irish. Does that mean there's something lacking in everyone else?

I did'nt say that, personally I would feel something missing if I was not able to speak Irish, and most Irish speakers I know would feel the same way, but I am not going to cast aspersions on those who can't speak Irish by claiming that they are less Irish than anyone else.

As for the history... Are you stating that people who don't speak Irish have a lesser understanding of the history of Ireland? I can understand the idea that a scholar of Irish history who specialises in a period where there are ancient documents that are written in Irish would get some benefit. Just as a classics scholar gets benefits from speaking Greek or Latin. But for someone like myself (who has a greater interest than your average Joe), I can still read my history books and biographies in English and still get a detailed understanding. Unless I'm reading the source material, I'm not going to find a lack of Irish challenging. And lets face it, 99.99% of people do not need to read the source material.

Before about 200 years ago, Irish history was written in Irish, it is quite dificult to gain any kind of deep understanding of preceeding Irish history without Irish, of course the main events are all covered in English, but you wont get to far off the beaten track before you start needing Irish to read source materials that are not available in English.

You said that "Bilingualism has proven cognative benefits". We already teach every secondary school student French or German or Spanish. Those benefits exists without Irish.

Indeed, but unlike Irish, it is very difficult to achieve a functional bilingualism in French, German etc, because the infastructure to support it simply dose not exist. The oppertunities to use them are simply not there, and neither is the demand.

You also said that time and time again, it's been proven that people want it? Do you have a source for that? And did the poll specifically state that people wanted to speak Irish more than any other language (except English of course). I mean, if I walked up to someone and said "Would you like to be fluent in French?" I'm pretty certain 99% would say yes.

There are any number of polls on peoples attitude to the future of the Irish language, time and again the result has been that people are in favour of preserving and promoting the language.
Naturally if you ask someone would they like to be able to speak French, they will say yes, but if you ask them should French be one of Irelands official languages, you will get a different responce.

And you say that English alone isn't enough. Enough for what? The 99.9% of Irish people who speak English as their first language (and most of them can't speak Irish) are getting along fine. But you're implying that they are missing something that they need since English isn't "enough". What is it that they're missing?

Over two thirds of the worlds population is bilingual, monolingualism is not the norm, and given that bilingualism has a positive impact on the cognative development of children, I think it is safe to say that Bilingualism is more desireable than monolingualism. So I will rephrase it, one language is not enough, if we want to provide the best possible future for the youth of this country, then we owe it to them to ensure that Ireland becomes Bilingual(At least) Now I think we can all agree that English will be one of those languages, as far as I am concerened it makes perfect sence to make Irish the second language.

Grayson

An Coilean wrote: »

Where did I say that no one would speak Irish? I clearly said Irish and English speaking, now you may assume that some one who can speak Irish and English will never speak Irish, but that is a false assumption to make.




Indeed they can, but they would have to be able to speak Irish meaning that those staff members of a large multinational company dealing with Irish customers would have to be based in Ireland, instead of the UK or any number of other English speaking countries, meaning more jobs here.



I did'nt say that, personally I would feel something missing if I was not able to speak Irish, and most Irish speakers I know would feel the same way, but I am not going to cast aspersions on those who can't speak Irish by claiming that they are less Irish than anyone else.



Before about 200 years ago, Irish history was written in Irish, it is quite dificult to gain any kind of deep understanding of preceeding Irish history without Irish, of course the main events are all covered in English, but you wont get to far off the beaten track before you start needing Irish to read source materials that are not available in English.



Indeed, but unlike Irish, it is very difficult to achieve a functional bilingualism in French, German etc, because the infastructure to support it simply dose not exist. The oppertunities to use them are simply not there, and neither is the demand.



There are any number of polls on peoples attitude to the future of the Irish language, time and again the result has been that people are in favour of preserving and promoting the language.
Naturally if you ask someone would they like to be able to speak French, they will say yes, but if you ask them should French be one of Irelands official languages, you will get a different responce.




Over two thirds of the worlds population is bilingual, monolingualism is not the norm, and given that bilingualism has a positive impact on the cognative development of children, I think it is safe to say that Bilingualism is more desireable than monolingualism. So I will rephrase it, one language is not enough, if we want to provide the best possible future for the youth of this country, then we owe it to them to ensure that Ireland becomes Bilingual(At least) Now I think we can all agree that English will be one of those languages, as far as I am concerened it makes perfect sence to make Irish the second language.

You do realise that there are multinational call centres all over Ireland. European support for most multinationals are based in Ireland. Learning a foreign language does have it's benefits. far more than Irish. You're talking about developing Irish so there will possibly be a demand for it. But a demand already exists for foreign languages. And by focussing all your energy on Irish, you're excluding the others.
It's unlikely that a huge amount of jobs will be created because people speak Irish and English. Jobs in government already exist as every piece of legislation (Domestic and European) has to be translated into Irish. Additional call centre positions etc..won't be created for it as existing English positions will fulfil the role. Most support for Irish businesses are based in Ireland. I can't see many multinationals moving positions back here. So we're talking about very few positions.
If you're going to allocate all that time and money, surely IT is a better bet for creating Jobs. There are over 200,000 IT graduates in India every year. If we want to compete on a world stage then we have to have a populace who are IT literate and can compete on an international scale.
Financially it makes no sense to try and make Ireland a bilingual country.


As for the history argument, sorry but that's rubbish. By you're statement you're saying the few people who speak Irish have a better understanding of Irish history? Can you prove that at all? Can you actually provide any evidence to show that students taught history through Irish have a better understanding of the history of this country than students who were taught through English? Because otherwise you're just insulting everyone out there who takes an interest in the history of the country but doesn't speak Irish.

As for the survey's. If they're so popular, then please post one.

Phoenixuk

I work for a multinational service centre based in Ireland, and we have about 200 staff on phones and email connections daily dealing with issues around the world.

Do you know what languages we support?

English.
French.
German.

We have people that speak everything from Slovenian to Korean, but no business is ever done in these languages. I know of FOUR agents in the building that consider themselves fluent in Irish, and never use it (unless they're cracking jokes at me for being the token English). Irish isn't dead, but reviving it as a primary language will not happen unless it becomes something people do business in. Money talks.

You don't go to school to learn to be a cultured, refined individual, you go to school to learn how to learn.

You go to college and university to expand on that learning and improve your prospects in the future in the world of work.

Irish offers students nothing other than (from what I can tell) the option of government work, which to be honest isn't all it's cracked up to be, and a few points on top of the score that they get for free. Which helps them not at all when they arrive at University. Your Particle Physics lecturer will not give you a better grade because you have attempted to complete your thesis in Irish.

That doesn't happen when people actually need you to explain your ideas.

You want to make a living working for a massive multi-national entertainment firm? Better speak English, because they're (usually) American or one of the up and coming Asian groups that all use English to speak to the marketplace.

Want to work for the large banking firms? Better speak English, because everyone else in the industry does.

Want to make movies/music/theatre? Better make them in English if you actually want an audience (French if you want an award for being Artistic).

Pharmaceuticals? Same deal as Entertainment.

Want to fly a plane? You see where I'm going with this.

Irish as a language could be revived if the work and process is put in place, but what then? Congratulations on preserving the language, but... what are you going to do with it? The business world does not want Irish, or Welsh, or Khazakstani, or Pnang-nang, or any of the other million and one native languages disappearing slowly into history.

Actually scratch that, everyone should start learning Cantonese the way things are going in China...

tdv123

I think instead of teaching the old Irish language we should just invent a new one and call that the Irish language instead. And instead of calling it Gaeilge call it something cool & modern like "Izapato" you know something that the hommies can really get down with & jam to.

Grayson

This is something I never knew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Irish_language#Independent_Ireland_and_the_language

In 1928, Irish was made a compulsory subject for the Junior Certificate exams, and for the Leaving Certificate in 1934.[19] However, it is generally agreed that the compulsory policy was clumsily implemented. The principal ideologue was Professor Timothy Corcoran of University College Dublin, who "did not trouble to acquire the language himself"[20]

Typical. We set a guy who didn't speak a language to decide how it should be taught

Interest in History

Grayson wrote: »

This is something I never knew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Irish_language#Independent_Ireland_and_the_language


Typical. We set a guy who didn't speak a language to decide how it should be taught

This was quoted in connection with the fact that Professor Timothy Corcoran was the chief ideologue of the policy of compulsion.

Two points: he was Father Timothy Corcoran, a Jesuit, and he was professor of Education in University College Dublin. He was completely unqualified for that post but at the time there was a strong strand of thinking in the Catholic Church in favour of isolating their Irish flock from the the evils of the outside world by establishing a different language here. And the Church part-controlled UCD and fully controlled the system of education in general.

But he was not the chief ideologue. That was Eamonn de Valera, but he was following after people like Ernest Blythe and Eoghan MacNeill of the first independent government. None of them gave a damn about education as will be seen from their own statements - see google.com/site/failedrevival.

After 1922 the education system was fully in the hands of two interest groups who used their power to advance their own ideologies - the Catholic Church and the Irish Revivalists.

Wibbs

Phoenixuk wrote: »

Actually scratch that, everyone should start learning Cantonese the way things are going in China...

...down the toilet? This learn Mandarin/Cantonese stuff fascinates me, particularly if it comes from any Irish people who really should know better considering our own overconfident "boom". Beyond personal or academic interest why one would choose to learn the language(s) of a country with the highest commodities boom in world history, government hidden debts, artificially controlled currency, bubbling resentment in the sticks and a shrinking workforce on the back of a very strong demographic shift is beyond me. They said similar of Japanese in the 80's. Oh wait...(and they were and are in a much more solid economic condition).

Cú Giobach wrote: »

It is so hard for many that they give up at that point and never break out, it can seem strange at first just making what can seem like a meaningless noise expecting someone to understand it .
That is all about confidence and once you break that barrier and realise nobody is laughing at you and they just respond to what you said it gets easier and easier. Though each new language, even for people who speak many, does involve the sweaty palms, palpitations and basic nerves, with the big effort needed to get out those first few words.
I don't know if that is what you are meaning though.

NOt quite, though I get what you mean. In my case it's almost like a dyslexia of speech.

I think it is more about practise and what you get used to, and though I could be wrong I've never gotten this "I'm bad at languages" thing, most of the planet is at the very least bi-lingual and speaking more than one language is quite natural for humans, monolingualism is the exception.
I think it boils down to confidence, practise and drive.

Oh sure that's a huge part of it, however like anything else humans can do, some are very good, most are OK and some are very bad at it. I know an Italian chap who has lived here for over 20 odd years. Married to a local. Has from day one taken classes (and still does every few years), really worked at it, yet you'd swear he stepped off the plane a couple of months ago. His reading comprehension is fine. In fact he reads as many books in English as Italian, but speaking english is a struggle. On the other hand another Italian I know, was barely here a year and for the first couple of sentences over a phone you'd think him a local. On average women are better at languages than men, so there's a difference too. However I would agree with you that for the majority they can pick up another language to some level of fluency with application.

Still with Irish I still can't get over the issue of no matter how well I learned Irish I'd still sound like a foreigner to the few fully native speakers, in my own country. That's what makes the whole thing seem quite artificial and forced to me, never mind how few opportunities I'd have to actually speak it outside of rarified circles.

Cú Giobach

Some of the arguments here against speaking Irish seem badly thought out.

First, Not being a monoglot English speaking nation is disadvantageous, well try telling that to the people of Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and The Ukraine, to name just a few, and see where you get.

Second, People point to the business that already deal here that need people who speak a European language, since we already have most people learning Irish in school though unsuccessfully for many, please explain how if that time and effort put into learning Irish was successful, why these companies would pack up and leave?

Third, Irrespective of whether or not a large number of people in Ireland end up learning and speaking good Irish we will always be an English speaking nation also, interestingly that English is here to stay is often pointed out by those against teaching Irish, yet they still say learning Irish is a negative thing as if we will stop speaking English, which they know won't happen.

LeeroyJ.

Phoenixuk wrote: »

I work for a multinational service centre based in Ireland, and we have about 200 staff on phones and email connections daily dealing with issues around the world.

Do you know what languages we support?

English.
French.
German.

We have people that speak everything from Slovenian to Korean, but no business is ever done in these languages. I know of FOUR agents in the building that consider themselves fluent in Irish, and never use it (unless they're cracking jokes at me for being the token English). Irish isn't dead, but reviving it as a primary language will not happen unless it becomes something people do business in. Money talks.

You don't go to school to learn to be a cultured, refined individual, you go to school to learn how to learn.

You go to college and university to expand on that learning and improve your prospects in the future in the world of work.

Irish offers students nothing other than (from what I can tell) the option of government work, which to be honest isn't all it's cracked up to be, and a few points on top of the score that they get for free. Which helps them not at all when they arrive at University. Your Particle Physics lecturer will not give you a better grade because you have attempted to complete your thesis in Irish.

That doesn't happen when people actually need you to explain your ideas.

You want to make a living working for a massive multi-national entertainment firm? Better speak English, because they're (usually) American or one of the up and coming Asian groups that all use English to speak to the marketplace.

Want to work for the large banking firms? Better speak English, because everyone else in the industry does.

Want to make movies/music/theatre? Better make them in English if you actually want an audience (French if you want an award for being Artistic).

Pharmaceuticals? Same deal as Entertainment.

Want to fly a plane? You see where I'm going with this.

Irish as a language could be revived if the work and process is put in place, but what then? Congratulations on preserving the language, but... what are you going to do with it? The business world does not want Irish, or Welsh, or Khazakstani, or Pnang-nang, or any of the other million and one native languages disappearing slowly into history.

Actually scratch that, everyone should start learning Cantonese the way things are going in China...

Amen to this, I work for a big search machine with colorful letters in Dublin and you want to know how big the demand for Irish is? 0. (and this is more than 4000 employees)...

Everything this post above states is the truth and facts.

Cú Giobach

Wibbs wrote: »

...down the toilet? This learn Mandarin/Cantonese stuff fascinates me, particularly if it comes from any Irish people who really should know better considering our own overconfident "boom". Beyond personal or academic interest why one would choose to learn the language(s) of a country with the highest commodities boom in world history, government hidden debts, artificially controlled currency, bubbling resentment in the sticks and a shrinking workforce on the back of a very strong demographic shift is beyond me. They said similar of Japanese in the 80's. Oh wait...(and they were and are in a much more solid economic condition).

NOt quite, though I get what you mean. In my case it's almost like a dyslexia of speech.

My image of you changes by the day,
Not in a negative way.

Oh sure that's a huge part of it, however like anything else humans can do, some are very good, most are OK and some are very bad at it. I know an Italian chap who has lived here for over 20 odd years. Married to a local. Has from day one taken classes (and still does every few years), really worked at it, yet you'd swear he stepped off the plane a couple of months ago. His reading comprehension is fine. In fact he reads as many books in English as Italian, but speaking english is a struggle. On the other hand another Italian I know, was barely here a year and for the first couple of sentences over a phone you'd think him a local. On average women are better at languages than men, so there's a difference too. However I would agree with you that for the majority they can pick up another language to some level of fluency with application..

Well as I mentioned earlier, what you get used to plays a large part, people who have been blind from birth and regain their sight much later in life have difficulty making sense of the visual world, even if they can actually see it in the same way as a person sighted from birth, often they have to shut their eyes to block out all the "noise" they are receiving.

We are naturally pre-disposed to language and certainly not just one, so I guess you could say monolingualism and a subsequent inability or severe difficulty in learning another language in adulthood is almost a disability created by not using the brain to its full extent, the same as someone who never walked from birth to adulthood would have difficulty in walking when they first got out of the bed and would be considered to have a disability created by never having used their legs, one that is not inherent in them but created by circumstance.

Interest in History

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Some of the arguments here against speaking Irish seem badly thought out...

Undeniable...

Surely the only fundamental question is this: should the Revivalists be able to impose their views in the general education system, giving Irish an importance above and beyond that desired by other sections of the population?

As a concrete example: should pupils who don't want to do Irish in the Leaving Cert be denied that choice?

Enkidu

Wibbs wrote: »

Still with Irish I still can't get over the issue of no matter how well I learned Irish I'd still sound like a foreigner to the few fully native speakers, in my own country. That's what makes the whole thing seem quite artificial and forced to me, never mind how few opportunities I'd have to actually speak it outside of rarified circles.

I do understand what you mean.

I'm fortunate in that I've linguistic training in the IPA, so that allows me to emulate sounds pretty well. I've read Dutch novels out loud to a guy from Holland, knowing only the phonology of Dutch and the guy thought I was a native speaker and I don't understand a word of Dutch though. Also I have family from the Gaeltacht, so I am now at the point where native speakers think I'm native.

Some people are shockingly good at this. I know a Lithuanian guy who learned the pronunciation of Irish first and when he spoke people thought he was a native speaker with poor grammar. He'd only been learning six months. I should say though he was academic about it, learning from phonology manuals published by DIAS.

Cú Giobach

Interest in History wrote: »

Undeniable...

Surely the only fundamental question is this: should the Revivalists be able to impose their views in the general education system, giving Irish an importance above and beyond that desired by other sections of the population?

As a concrete example: should pupils who don't want to do Irish in the Leaving Cert be denied that choice?

Quite simply, If I mention the "positives" of compulsion I will have to answer to the Anti-brigade and if I mention the "negatives" of compulsion I will have to respond to the Pro-brigade, not an argument I am interested in getting into, on either side.
So please excuse me if I don't respond to any points raised on that topic, I'm sure there are plenty of other people here who will engage you on that matter.

What I am interested in, is the learning of language in general and will discuss the pros and cons of that, obviously including Irish.
Points I raise here are not surrounding compulsion, only questioning whether actually learning Irish is a negative or positive thing for the people of this island.

Wibbs

Cú Giobach wrote: »

We are naturally pre-disposed to language and certainly not just one,

Yes, but the "certainly not one part" I'd have some issue with. We evolved language, but for much of our history as small bands of hunter gatherers we'd likely speak just the one, with a smattering of another for trade. That smattering would increase capacity, but that capacity might be quite variable in the population. look at such HG tribal types today and the local area languages tend to be dialects very related to each other, to the point where even the description of dialect is a stretch. Australia is an interesting one, that goes agin this. A large amount of barely related languages among different tribes and few can speak more than their own.

It's possible as we settled down into more sedentary farming communities who had to trade with each other extra capacity was evolved in, but IMHO full fluency in two languages is more a happy accident of our evolution rather than a selected for given and it varies in individuals.

I'd go further. Studies have consistently shown women are better at picking up language. It's been my oddball theory that one big reason for this is evolutionary. Women were significantly more likely to be exchanged in marriage* between groups as a social/political bonding process between such groups and this was a selection pressure on their ability to pick up languages and the result of that is still with us today. There was much less selection pressure of that nature on men. If language ability, particularly learning a second language was inbuilt in humans across the board, it would be unlikely we'd see such a gender difference.

I guess you could say monolingualism and a subsequent inability or severe difficulty in learning another language in adulthood is almost a disability created by not using the brain to its full extent, the same as someone who never walked from birth to adulthood would have difficulty in walking when they first got out of the bed and would be considered to have a disability created by never having used their legs, one that is not inherent in them but created by circumstance.

It's a stretch way too far to label it a disability. Most (able bodied) people can run to some degree. Some are very good at it all the way up to Usain Bolt, and others are just awkward and slow. They can improve with training, but may never reach even the average. The fact is perfectly normal individuals are wired differently. There is a lot of diversity within the framework of "human". Just as some people can be more mathematically minded than others, some can be more language orientated.





*women tend to travel more. You even see this today in small rural towns throughout the world including Ireland. There are usually big demographic diffs in the unmarried genders by the time people reach say 30. Way more single men about, because the women have migrated to areas of higher population density.

Wibbs

Enkidu wrote: »

Some people are shockingly good at this. I know a Lithuanian guy who learned the pronunciation of Irish first and when he spoke people thought he was a native speaker with poor grammar. He'd only been learning six months. I should say though he was academic about it, learning from phonology manuals published by DIAS.

It's an interesting area alright. On the opposite side of your example I knew a French guy who had fluency in quite a few languages. If he posted on Boards you would be convinced he was a native, even narrow that down to a native Dubliner. Apparently it was the same with him in Spanish and Italian. However on meeting face to face he sounded like a really bad inspector Clouseau impersonator.

To me some languages seem easier to sound native in, depending on the origin of the speaker of course. EG Spanish people with full English fluency still sound Spanish. You can usually spot even the best of them within a sentence or two. Whereas with some Scandinavians they sound like natives with a mid Atlantic twang. Hell if her name and fame didn't inform you you'd bet the house that Ulrika Jonsson was a native English speaker.

I recall reading about different sounds that different languages have, that apparently if you don't learn them when very young it's difficult in later life to hear and imitate those sounds. EG the Spanish "E/I" is different to the English usage. It's hard for them to hear the difference between "ship" and "sheep", sheet" and "shít", "peace", "peas" and "piss" and so on(some swap B with V I've noticed). Indeed someone trying to rip off a Spanish accent simply turns all I's into E's and you get the gist of Manuel from Fawlty towers. Similarly with German. Their W is different to the English W. Swap out all W's for V's in a sentence and you're doing a pantomime German accent. So is this why some Scandinavians are better at sounding "english"? Have they fewer phonetic diffs?

Further, are their phonetic diffs in Irish that as a native English speaker I'll find difficulty with? Though I suppose growing up hearing the language in media and school I presume not. I've known English folks living here to have a go at learning some Irish and they found some of it very difficult regarding pronunciation. The soft G for example.

Cú Giobach

Wibbs wrote: »

Yes, but the "certainly not one part" I'd have some issue with. We evolved language, but for much of our history as small bands of hunter gatherers we'd likely speak just the one, with a smattering of another for trade. That smattering would increase capacity, but that capacity might be quite variable in the population. look at such HG tribal types today and the local area languages tend to be dialects very related to each other, to the point where even the description of dialect is a stretch. Australia is an interesting one, that goes agin this. A large amount of barely related languages among different tribes and few can speak more than their own.

It's possible as we settled down into more sedentary farming communities who had to trade with each other extra capacity was evolved in, but IMHO full fluency in two languages is more a happy accident of our evolution rather than a selected for given and it varies in individuals.

I'd go further. Studies have consistently shown women are better at picking up language. It's been my oddball theory that one big reason for this is evolutionary. Women were significantly more likely to be exchanged in marriage* between groups as a social/political bonding process between such groups and this was a selection pressure on their ability to pick up languages and the result of that is still with us today. There was much less selection pressure of that nature on men. If language ability, particularly learning a second language was inbuilt in humans across the board, it would be unlikely we'd see such a gender difference.


It's a stretch way too far to label it a disability. Most (able bodied) people can run to some degree. Some are very good at it all the way up to Usain Bolt, and others are just awkward and slow. They can improve with training, but may never reach even the average. The fact is perfectly normal individuals are wired differently. There is a lot of diversity within the framework of "human". Just as some people can be more mathematically minded than others, some can be more language orientated.





*women tend to travel more. You even see this today in small rural towns throughout the world including Ireland. There are usually big demographic diffs in the unmarried genders by the time people reach say 30. Way more single men about, because the women have migrated to areas of higher population density.

If the learning of more than one language was something not inbuilt into all of us then this would become obvious in childhood, almost any child can easily pick up a number of languages and bring multilingualism to adulthood. The only people who seem to have difficulty are those who "don't use it and consequently loose it" or those with learning disabilities.