Scrap the Irish Language Commissioner

An Coilean

opti0nal wrote: »

Like the Irish lobby ignore the rights of English speaking children?

Free the hostage children, them we can talk.

I'm not really interested in talking to you, optional, I'v found its like banging your head against a wall for no reason.

opti0nal

Coles wrote: »

Eh? Why wouldn't a Garda be able to speak Irish. The vast majority of Gardaí have been through 14 years of Irish classes,

Most of the population have been forced through those same Irish lessons and don't speak or understand spoken Irish. No doubt, if the Garda had struggled to use 'cupla focal', it would still not have been good enough for a determined Irish speaker.

Are we to expect that Irish speakers will deliberately engage in law-breaking behaviour so that they can test the Irish of the Garda?

An Coilean suggests that we might need more Irish speaking Garda to cope with the output of Irish language schools.

awec

Again, if the person was in any way a decent individual then he'd have spoken in English to a Garda who wasn't comfortable speaking in Irish.

The guy tried to be a smart arse and got arrested for his troubles. No complaints here.

Mr Whirly

In fairness the poll results show that the overriding majority are in agreement on this. If a small minority want to pursue this they should have to fund it out of their own pockets. I bet their commitment would diminish greatly.

Talk is cheap unless it's As Gaeilge. Let them fund it themselves.

Iwasfrozen

Coles wrote: »

'They'? Is there any evidence that this wasn't just an isolated problem within the force? All the Gardaí I know are very proud Irish men who value the language.

One of those characteristics can exist without the other. Look at me, I'm Irish and I couldn't give a damn about the Irish language. There are many like me and you may not like it but you don't have a say in the matter.

How many natives speakers of you language are there Coles and what is the percentage in the population as a whole? Here's an article you may enjoy.

In fact this figure may in itself be too optimistic. If one considers the numbers of persons in the Gaeltacht who use Irish on a daily basis outside of education – 17,687 – and compares it to the population of the entire state – 3,990,863 – then one reaches a percentage figure of 0.44%. Given that the number of active native speakers can scarcely be higher than that of those in the Gaeltacht who use Irish on a daily basis outside education, the percentage of native speakers in present-day Ireland would be between 0.4% and 0.5%, i.e. not more than 20,000 at the most. Given this alarmingly low figure, it is understandable that the statistics office and the government in general does not wish to be more accurate in this matter.

Source

Taking their figure of 0.44% and applying it to the number of guards in the country, circa 13.5k source, we get (13.5k/100)*0.44 = 59.4 garda who can speak irish assuming the fluency rates are the same as the general populace.

Now take a random county, say Offaly (why not) the population of Offaly is 100(76,687/4,588,252)=1.67% the population of the country.

Taking 1.67% of 59.4 we get (59.4/100)*1.67 = 0.99 guard in Offally who speaks Irish, approximately one. solitary. guard. and you expect him to stop every car in the county? I hope he's getting a pay increase.

An Coilean

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

One of those characteristics can exist without the other. Look at me, I'm Irish and I couldn't give a damn about the Irish language. There are many like me and you may not like it but you don't have a say in the matter.

How many natives speakers of you language are there Coles and what is the percentage in the population as a whole? Here's an article you may enjoy.


Source

Taking their figure of 0.44% and applying it to the number of guards in the country, circa 13.5k source, we get (13.5k/100)*0.44 = 59.4 garda who can speak irish assuming the fluency rates are the same as the general populace.

Now take a random county, say Offaly (why not) the population of Offaly is 100(76,687/4,588,252)=1.67% the population of the country.

Taking 1.67% of 59.4 we get (59.4/100)*1.67 = 0.99 guard in Offally who speaks Irish, approximately one. solitary. guard. and you expect him to stop every car in the county? I hope he's getting a pay increase.

I hope you dident spend too much time on that post because it is almost entirly bullshít.

I mean for one thing, you are confusing Native speaker with functional fluency, and both of those things with someone who uses Irish every day in the Gaeltacht.
Your source is also quite suspect, I had a quick look at it and to be honnest it is quite poorly put together, out of date and biased. Even at a glance i found information that was simply wrong.

You are also saying that only fluent Irish speaking Gardaí would be allowed interact with the public. That as has been pointed out before is bull, pure and simple.

What you have is a badly put together strawman.

Iwasfrozen

An Coilean wrote: »

I hope you dident spend too much time on that post because it is almost entirly bullshít.

Nah was a five minute job.

An Coilean wrote: »

I mean for one thing, you are confusing Native speaker with functional fluency, and both of those things with someone who uses Irish every day in the Gaeltacht.

The reality is that the majority of Irish speakers do not live in the Gaeltacht.

What's your figure for the % of fluent Irish speakers, I'll be happy to adjust my maths (and please don't say 1.7 million or I may have convulsions)

An Coilean wrote: »

You are also saying that only fluent Irish speaking Gardaí would be allowed interact with the public. That as has been pointed out before is bull, pure and simple.

What if he wants to interact with the public? You really like telling other people what to do.

An Coilean

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Nah was a five minute job.

What's your figure for the % of fluent Irish speakers, I'll be happy to adjust my maths (and please don't say 1.7 million or I may have convulsions)

The number of functionally fluent Irish speakers is around 150,000 which workes out at about 3.3%

The problem however is that your premis is flawed.

Iwasfrozen

An Coilean wrote: »

The number of functionally fluent Irish speakers is around 150,000 which workes out at about 3.3%

The problem however is that your premis is flawed.

Think you're being a bit optimistic there, I wouldn't put it above 100k.

opti0nal

An Coilean wrote: »

I'm not really interested in talking to you, optional,

Indeed, just like the Irish language movement: not interested in talking to anyone unless it's in Irish.

But, do help me with a bit of English/Irish translation: Is 'Coles' the English translation of 'Coilean'?

An Coilean

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Think you're being a bit optimistic there, I wouldn't put it above 100k.

Actually, I think i'm being a bit conservative.

I mean how many of the 835,000 students being educated through the medium of English have fluent Irish? If we say 12,000 which is a figure I recall being quoted somewhere, thats still only 1.4%, an estimate well below the national average.

Then there is the 40'000 educated through the medium of Irish.

Then there is the 77,000 daily speakers outside of the education system.

Then we would have to estimate how many of the people who speake Irish weekly or less often have fluent Irish, again if we took a conservative estimate of just 1%, thats still about 17,000.

That works out at 146,000 and thats ignoring Irish speakers north of the border.

An Coilean

opti0nal wrote: »

Indeed, just like the Irish language movement: not interested in talking to anyone unless it's in Irish.

But, do help me with a bit of English/Irish translation: Is 'Coles' the English translation of 'Coilean'?

No, An Coilean means 'the cub'.

Iwasfrozen

An Coilean wrote: »

Actually, I think i'm being a bit conservative.

I mean how many of the 835,000 students being educated through the medium of English have fluent Irish? If we say 12,000 which is a figure I recall being quoted somewhere, thats still only 1.4%, an estimate well below the national average.

Then there is the 40'000 educated through the medium of Irish.

Then there is the 77,000 daily speakers outside of the education system.

Then we would have to estimate how many of the people who speake Irish weekly or less often have fluent Irish, again if we took a conservative estimate of just 1%, thats still about 17,000.

That works out at 146,000 and thats ignoring Irish speakers north of the border.

Where are you getting these figures from?

awec

The number of fluent Irish speakers is an irrelevant figure entirely.

How many people know Irish alone? How many people speak Irish first and foremost and only speak English occasionally?

Wee Susan from Dublin might be fluent in Irish (as a by product of being forced to learn it) but she's very rarely going to speak it, which makes her irrelevant in all of this. She has no requirement on the language.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

An Coilean wrote: »

I was not there, as such I am basing my opinion of his behaviour on the only available information that says ''The witnesses and the Gardaí all agreed that the driver was polite to the extent of being passive''

If you want to argue that he was impolite or disrespectful then I would have to ask on what that claim is based?



Refusing to speak in English is not an arrestable offence, nor can it be made an arestable offence by claiming that it is obstructing a Garda in the course of their duty. The obstruction was caused by the failure of the Gardaí to have an appropriate precedure in place to accomodate the use of Irish by members of the public as they are obliged by law to do.




In what way is standing up for your rights disrespectful? Again the only information we have on the drivers behaviour was that he was polite to the extent of being passive. Personally I consider trying to deny someone their rights as far more disrespectful than making a principled and polite stand in the face of that imposition.

1 - You can not say that the only one source is available therefore it is automatically right, so you can not say you "definitly" know what happened.

2 - You can be polite and disrespectful at the same time. If the guard asked him to speak English and he refused when he can speak English, he's still being disrespectful to an officer of the law. I'd also say it was extremly bad manners, irresepctful of the scenario. If it were me and not the guard, i'd consider the other person rude. And if he were doing it to prove a point, I would assume that as trying to make me look ignorant. Thank you for that.

3 - I've answered the issue of the guard being the obstruction before. They have a common language, one person refuses to use it and it's the other guy's fault???

4 - I also answere the "standing up for rights" point in the post you quoted. Go back and read it.

Coles

Here's an interesting fact.

It's great to see such a huge increase in the number of Irish students achieving the highest grades in the Leaving Cert. Shows a real passion for the language, doesn't it?

An Coilean

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Where are you getting these figures from?

875000 students in the education system.
http://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Statistics/Key-Statistics-2011-2012.pdf

40,000 educated through Irish.
Now that you mention it though, that figure is for outside the Gaeltacht only, there are another 10,000 students educated through Irish in the Gaeltacht.
http://www.gaelscoileanna.ie/assets/Dalta%C3%AD-Galltacht-Gaeltacht-6-Co..pdf

77,000 daily Irish speakers outside the education system, Census 2011.

1,690,000 claim to speak Irish weekly or less often, Census 2011.
If just 1% of them is actually fluent in Irish, that workd out as about 17,000.

awec

An Coilean wrote: »

875000 students in the education system.
http://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Statistics/Key-Statistics-2011-2012.pdf

40,000 educated through Irish.
Now that you mention it though, that figure is for outside the Gaeltacht only, there are another 10,000 students educated through Irish in the Gaeltacht.
http://www.gaelscoileanna.ie/assets/Dalta%C3%AD-Galltacht-Gaeltacht-6-Co..pdf

77,000 daily Irish speakers outside the education system, Census 2011.

1,690,000 claim to speak Irish weekly or less often, Census 2011.
If just 1% of them is actually fluent in Irish, that workd out as about 17,000.

What does speaking Irish in this context mean? You are going to have to clarify this.

Are you saying that 1.6 million people are forced to speak Irish at least once a week in order to get by in a particular situation, where English is not an option?

Or that 1.6 million people might say to their partner that they're off to their leaba?

Coles

opti0nal wrote: »

Most of the population have been forced through those same Irish lessons and don't speak or understand spoken Irish.

How did you manage to not include the rest of my quote!? That's a bit sinister.

awec

According to Wikipedia which quotes a eurobarometer study (whatever that is) more people in Ireland speak French than Irish as a second language. Is this true?

An Coilean

awec wrote: »

What does speaking Irish in this context mean? You are going to have to clarify this.

Are you saying that 1.6 million people are forced to speak Irish at least once a week in order to get by in a particular situation, where English is not an option?

Or that 1.6 million people might say to their partner that they're off to their leaba?

It means that on their census form, when asked 'Can you speak Irish'? 1.77 million people answered - yes, of whom 1.69 million said that they spoke Irish Weekly or less often.

Lord TSC

Coles wrote: »

Here's an interesting fact.

It's great to see such a huge increase in the number of Irish students achieving the highest grades in the Leaving Cert. Shows a real passion for the language, doesn't it?

Source for the figures?

awec

An Coilean wrote: »

It means that on their census form, when asked 'Can you speak Irish'? 1.77 million people answered - yes, of whom 1.69 million said that they spoke Irish Weekly or less often.

Which really means absolutely nothing at all given how vague it is.

An Coilean

awec wrote: »

According to Wikipedia which quotes a eurobarometer study (whatever that is) more people in Ireland speak French than Irish as a second language. Is this true?

I don't think so, if it is, they were not around on census night for some reason.
Maybe you could provide the link?

Coles

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Source for the figures?

:eek: You guys are never going to learn! Every time I publish a graph you challenge the figures. And every time they turn out to be above reproach. Every time.

The figures are available from the State Examinations Commission.

awec

Coles wrote: »

:eek: You guys are never going to learn! Every time I publish a graph you challenge the figures. And every time they turn out to be above reproach. Every time.

The figures are available from the State Examinations Commission.

Have Irish grades improved more than the grades of all other subjects?

Coles

Are you guys starting to see what's happening? You shouldn't feel threatened by it.

Anyway, it's your language

awec

An Coilean wrote: »

I don't think so, if it is, they were not around on census night for some reason.
Maybe you could provide the link?

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Ireland

On the right hand side with the bar chart, but the pdf citation isn't loading for me. I just took that directly off the page.

Mr Whirly

Would all the people championing Irish here be happy to pay an optional tax out of there wages/dole to pay for the preservation of the language? If not why do you expect the majority of people to have to contribute towards it at the moment?

awec

Coles wrote: »

Are you guys starting to see what's happening? You shouldn't feel threatened by it.

Anyway, it's your language

What's happening?