Irish from a Catalan perspective

aindriu80

“Don’t allow Irish to become a political tool” – Catalan Ombudsman
Maitiú Ó Coimín spoke to Rafael Ribó, the Catalan Ombudsman, about language rights in Catalonia and Ireland
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/don-t-allow-irish-to-become-a-political-tool-catalan-ombudsman-1.2111222

What caught your attention in the amendments on the Official Languages Act 2014?

I read the entire document, and maybe I dare too much to make recommendations to another country, but I think my experience can add to it. In head four, it mentions which documents should be published in Irish. I would say, every one of them. If it were to be done electronically, it would cost nothing. All documents from public bodies should be available in Irish.
Civil servants and the number of them who should be obliged to know Irish is mentioned as well. Should every civil servant be obliged to have Irish, as they were in the 1970s? I would say yes, and why don’t you go back to the same system?
Language rights are not for the civil servant or the Government but for the citizen. If you do not provide civil servants in positions where they can offer services in Irish, you are preventing and in some ways prohibiting the use of Irish. Put the emphasis on the citizen.
Every civil servant in Catalonia must have Catalan, at level C or higher, and thus every citizen can use Catalan and Castilian with the State and nobody is made to change language.
With regards to the extension of language schemes, I heard the politicians speaking about an extension to seven years? Why? You would have enough time to prepare administrative systems within three years.
The final head that caught my attention was number 13, where it is written that private companies on contract from public companies should provide services in Irish. Why wouldn’t every company, private and public, who provide services to the people, English speakers and Irish speakers, provide those services in Irish? I am talking about the menu in a restaurant, the barman, private health companies, call centres and shops. That is my frank opinion.

What are the differences between Catalonia and Ireland’s cases and what can we learn from each other?

Never ever forget that Irish is an official State language. Catalan is not. Irish is even an official language of the European Union! Catalan is spoken in an area where 13 million people live and is not recognised because we do not have a state. 95% of the population understand Catalan, 80% speak it and 60% can read it because every subject is taught through Catalan in every school. After two years, we begin Spanish and after four years we begin English.
That is my recommendation for the people of Ireland – increase the number of Gaelscoileanna. I know that there are Irish-speaking schools in the Gaeltacht and there are several Gaelscoileanna in Dublin and so that number must be increased. The Irish-speaking schools are the main tool and the most important one.
The second recommendation is to prevent anyone from harming language rights. It is a civil right. No administrative body should say “Irish doesn’t exist here”. The language right should be there for everyone in the Republic.
Does the Madrid Government accept the Catalan approach?
The Education Minister is trying to bring in a law that would change things for us. He said, while discussing his bill: “We must Spanisize the children of Catalonia.”
The children of Catalonia are taught through Catalan. Even the children who are native Spanish speakers, they learn Catalan at school. The system makes sense; they have three languages by the time they are 14 years old. The results in our schools are better than schools in monolingual regions.
Many oppose the Government because of these recommendations. They gave €6,000 to every child who chose Spanish-medium education. It is very tricky because there are no public Spanish-medium schools. There are private English schools and Spanish schools and parents in those schools are asking the government for the grant. That money comes from Catalan taxpayers.
Most of the parents in Catalonia are in favour of Catalan because it provides employment opportunities and other such things for their children.
You mentioned money; what would you say to those who claim language rights cost too much?
I asked when I came here: “is State money spent on publicising the great English-language works that came from Ireland?” I was told it was. Irish people are very proud of their writers and spread their works all around the world. Now that costs money, but no one questions that cost. You cannot start a war over funding a people’s culture. Only if you are crazy and demanding huge sums of money, but the people of Ireland are not demanding that.

It is clear that Catalan is a strong community language. What steps will be taken to strengthen it more?

Our major weaknesses at the moment are in the areas of film and computer games. They come from the United States and other foreign places. The major Hollywood companies won’t spend their money on dubbing their films into minority languages.
I am not in favour of dubbing films – if a film is in English, watch it in English with subtitles. But almost every film is dubbed into Spanish. We rarely get a film dubbed into Catalan. In Portugal, they have much better English because the films are in English with Portuguese subtitles.
We have to oblige the major companies to provide Catalan versions as they provide Spanish versions.
At the moment, only 5% of the films dubbed are in Catalan; Spanish dubbing is done on the other ones. There is a new law coming in four years time whereby 50% of the films in the cinemas of Catalonia will be in Catalan.
What would you like to see happening for Catalan in the next five years?
The Spanish state doesn’t recognise the country’s minority languages. A lot of visitors come to Spain and they think of bullfights and Flamenco and Spanish. They don’t know about Galicia, The Basque Country or Catalonia. We have the same percentages with regards to languages as the Swiss where 70% of that population speak German, 20% speak French, and the rest speak other minority languages. In Spain, 70% speak Castilian, 20% speak Catalan and the rest speak Galician and Basque. What I would like to see is official recognition for all of Spain’s native languages.

What can the Irish people do to strengthen the Irish language as a community language?

Protect it instead of fighting over it. Do not turn it into a partisan political issue, it is a political issue of course but don’t allow it to be used as political tool by political parties. All parties should come together to protect the language. I commend the organisers of the convention in Dublin this week, Conradh na Gaeilge. It should be discussed in a social way like that more often. It should be used socially more often – in the County Hall, in school – and the Gaeltacht should be expanded.

Maitiú Ó Coimín is a journalist with tuairisc.ie

I know boards.ie don't like full articles being posted but IrishTimes.com is going pay per view Monday so here it is for free.

I don't know why Irish isn't available the way Catalan is. For example, if I were to read the two main newspaper online I should be able to read them as Gaeilge not just English. Translating an article electronically doesn't take much effort. Also spending tax payers money on promoting English is stupid and a waste. Some interesting points made above though !

Gaelgangnuis

aindriu80 wrote: »

I know boards.ie don't like full articles being posted but IrishTimes.com is going pay per view Monday so here it is for free.

I don't know why Irish isn't available the way Catalan is. For example, if I were to read the two main newspaper online I should be able to read them as Gaeilge not just English. Translating an article electronically doesn't take much effort. Also spending tax payers money on promoting English is stupid and a waste. Some interesting points made above though !

Catalan is spoken by a significantly higher proportion of their population, and by a much larger overall number of people, this is largely why Irish and Catalan are not treated in the same way.

Electronic translation, while possible, is not appropriate and given how awful the translation it gives is, it would more likely be taken as an insult to the language community than anything else. If something is to be provided in Irish, it should be done properly.

aindriu80

Gaelgangnuis wrote: »

Catalan is spoken by a significantly higher proportion of their population, and by a much larger overall number of people, this is largely why Irish and Catalan are not treated in the same way.

Electronic translation, while possible, is not appropriate and given how awful the translation it gives is, it would more likely be taken as an insult to the language community than anything else. If something is to be provided in Irish, it should be done properly.

Yes Catalan is first - Irish is last. Both are minority languages - one is official and the other isn't, we have the wind on our back to do anything and Catalan has all the hard work to do. But there is a future for Catalan compared to Irish.

Electronic translation is terrible and hasn't really improved at all over the years but I was talking about translating digital forms - not print media... You would still have to hire a translator but its worth it. At least you could follow major stories/opinion etc pieces as Gaeilge.

Iwasfrozen

aindriu80 wrote: »

I know boards.ie don't like full articles being posted but IrishTimes.com is going pay per view Monday so here it is for free.

I don't know why Irish isn't available the way Catalan is. For example, if I were to read the two main newspaper online I should be able to read them as Gaeilge not just English. Translating an article electronically doesn't take much effort. Also spending tax payers money on promoting English is stupid and a waste. Some interesting points made above though !

Irish and English are both official languages of the state, if public money is to be spent promoting Irish the same amount of money at least should be spent promoting English.

Gaelgangnuis

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Irish and English are both official languages of the state, if public money is to be spent promoting Irish the same amount of money at least should be spent promoting English.

???
Nothing near the amount spent on English is spent on Irish by the state.

Iwasfrozen

Gaelgangnuis wrote: »

???
Nothing near the amount spent on English is spent on Irish by the state.

Spent promoting English purposefully? No, far more money is spent purposefully promoting Irish.

But if information needs to be put out that information will be put out in English, that's not specifically promoting English though.

What I would like to see, since our languages are supposed to be equal after all is an English language week, and road signs only in English in English speaking areas like road signs are only in Irish in Irish speaking areas, bonus points for doing the leaving cert in English and grants for English speaking parts of Ireland to promote the language there. That would be a good start.

Gaelgangnuis

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Spent promoting English purposefully? No, far more money is spent purposefully promoting Irish.

But if information needs to be put out that information will be put out in English, that's not specifically promoting English though.

Ahh, so your defining this as all money spent on is 'Promoting Irish' while the same is not true of money spent on English.

Even with this biased interpretation, it still seems unlikely, but I'm happy to take a look at your sources for this.

I mean the two biggest expenditures on Irish would be Education and Media, in both these areas vastly more is spent on English.

Iwasfrozen

Gaelgangnuis wrote: »

Ahh, so your defining this as all money spent on is 'Promoting Irish' while the same is not true of money spent on English.

Even with this biased interpretation, it still seems unlikely, but I'm happy to take a look at your sources for this.

I mean the two biggest expenditures on Irish would be Education and Media, in both these areas vastly more is spent on English.

There are numerous ways Irish is promoted at the expense of English and by extension English language speakers, I've listed a few in my post but I realize this thread is already getting off topic.

Gaelgangnuis

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

There are numerous ways Irish is promoted at the expense of English and by extension English language speakers, I've listed a few in my post but I realize this thread is already getting off topic.

There are hundreds of ways English is promoted at the expense of Irish, many of which are much more severe in nature than anything on your list. But back to your original claim, where are your sources that more is spent on Irish? You do have something to base this on right?

Iwasfrozen

Gaelgangnuis wrote: »

There are hundreds of ways English is promoted at the expense of Irish, many of which are much more severe in nature than anything on your list. But back to your original claim, where are your sources that more is spent on Irish? You do have something to base this on right?

I could give you numbers but you would only construct a strawman by saying more money is spent on promoting English by shifting the definition of what is promotion of English and what is information provision in the most spoken language of the country irrespective of promotion of English.

Until we can agree on what is promotion of English and what is the government providing information in the most spoken language of the country then this conversation is meaningless.

Gaelgangnuis

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I could give you numbers but you would only construct a strawman by saying more money is spent on promoting English by shifting the definition of what is promotion of English and what is information provision in the most spoken language of the country irrespective of promotion of English.

Until we can agree on what is promotion of English and what is the government providing information in the most spoken language of the country then this conversation is meaningless.

Why then did you start what you consider to be a meaningless conversation?

Quite simply, for me, any material, service, more favorable treatment etc provided in English and not in Irish constitutes promotion of English. And of course vice versa.

To give a simple example, signage that is in English only is promoting English at the expense of Irish, and I would accept that signage in Irish only can be seen in the same light, as promoting Irish over English. Bilingual signage I would see as being neutral, promoting neither language over the other.

Iwasfrozen

Gaelgangnuis wrote: »

Why then did you start what you consider to be a meaningless conversation?

Quite simply, for me, any material, service, more favorable treatment etc provided in English and not in Irish constitutes promotion of English. And of course vice versa.

To give a simple example, signage that is in English only is promoting English at the expense of Irish, and I would accept that signage in Irish only can be seen in the same light, as promoting Irish over English. Bilingual signage I would see as being neutral, promoting neither language over the other.

To draw any sort of meaningful parallel between the two we must recognise the difference between intentionally promoting a language and providing a service with the promotion of the language that service is provided not in mind.

For example, Fair City is not a promotion of the English language, it is not broadcast with the intention of promoting English. It is a television programme that must be broadcast and it makes sense to broadcast the programme in the language the majority of people speak to maximize ratings.

So when I say I want to see more promotion of the English language I mean I want to see government backed initiatives with the intention to encourage the speaking of English. An English language week, road signs only in English in English speaking areas like road signs are only in Irish in Irish speaking areas, bonus points for doing the leaving cert in English and grants for English speaking parts of Ireland to promote the language in English speaking parts of Ireland etc.

Now you may say the English language doesn't need this kind of promotion, that the spoken language of the world's only superpower and the de facto lingua fraca of the world will survive irrespective of the Irish government's promotion and that is true but this isn't about survival, it's about equality.

Insect Overlord

Iwasfrozen, stop trolling this thread. Consider this an informal warning.

Iwasfrozen

An File wrote: »

Iwasfrozen, stop trolling this thread. Consider this an informal warning.

I'm not trolling. I mentioned the conversation was veering off topic but was asked to elaborate subsequently so I did.

If you want Gaelgangnuis and me to get back on topic that's fine, I would agree but I disagree with your accusation that I'm trolling.

Gaelgangnuis

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

To draw any sort of meaningful parallel between the two we must recognise the difference between intentionally promoting a language and providing a service with the promotion of the language that service is provided not in mind.

For example, Fair City is not a promotion of the English language, it is not broadcast with the intention of promoting English. It is a television programme that must be broadcast and it makes sense to broadcast the programme in the language the majority of people speak to maximize ratings.

No need to focus on individual programs, more broadly, the vast majority of public money spent on media goes into English Language content, so much so that provision of Irish language content is quite patchy, intended or not, the net result of this is the promotion of English.

So when I say I want to see more promotion of the English language I mean I want to see government backed initiatives with the intention to encourage the speaking of English. An English language week, road signs only in English in English speaking areas like road signs are only in Irish in Irish speaking areas, bonus points for doing the leaving cert in English and grants for English speaking parts of Ireland to promote the language in English speaking parts of Ireland etc.

Now you may say the English language doesn't need this kind of promotion, that the spoken language of the world's only superpower and the de facto lingua fraca of the world will survive irrespective of the Irish government's promotion and that is true but this isn't about survival, it's about equality.

That's a perverse definition of equality.

davwain

aindriu80 wrote: »

Yes Catalan is first - Irish is last. Both are minority languages - one is official and the other isn't, we have the wind on our back to do anything and Catalan has all the hard work to do. But there is a future for Catalan compared to Irish.

Electronic translation is terrible and hasn't really improved at all over the years but I was talking about translating digital forms - not print media... You would still have to hire a translator but its worth it. At least you could follow major stories/opinion etc pieces as Gaeilge.

I would say the same for Ukrainian, Tajik, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Turkmen, despite the heavy use of Russian and Spanish in those ex-Soviet republics and Spain, respectively. If the governments of Catalonia, Ukraine and the Central Asian ex-Soviet republics have the political will to maintain the use of their locally-named official languages, why can't the government in Dublin follow suit? After all, all of the ex-Soviet republics I mention earlier have lower GDPs per capita than most EU and Schengen countries do.