We must rid ourselves of our ludicrous language laws

Calina

golfball37 wrote: »

Our language should be preserved at all costs otherwise whats the point of having borders or nationalities.

Languages define neither borders nor nationalities and anyone who thinks they do really doesn't know enough to comment on the matter. To some extent, some of them define cultures and the continuing of loss of languages is a tragedy in that respect.

But it has nothing to do with with the whole idea of borders or nationalities. Several countries have multiple languages in use - India is a good example of that, for example, and one language may be used by several countries (French is a good example of this).

I see a benefit in preserving Irish for cultural reasons and not necessarily nationalistic reasons. However, I'm not sure that preservation of the language is the core driving force when loopholes related to it are used to avoid the ramifications of drunk driving.

Shep_Dog

Calina wrote: »

However, I'm not sure that preservation of the language is the core driving force when loopholes related to it are used to avoid the ramifications of drunk driving.

True, but it demonstrates the dangers of introducing laws enforcing cultural activities.

rain_soaked

unfortunatley i cant speak irish fluently , im pretty weak when it comes to languages full stop , im in my thirties and have taken irish and spanish language classes this past number of years but learning a language is incredibly difficult for me , im pretty dumb in this sense

i dont buy the arguement that the irish language is a major drain on resources or that it is oppressive in a cultural sense and i would hate to see it die , language is a key aspect of a nations heritage and culture , the way i see it , we make far too many excuses as to why most of us fail to speak it properly , the dutch , germans and scandanavians nearly all speak a few languages fluently , it doesnt mean the dutch decide to abandon their own language even though its only spoken in the netherlands and everyone there speaks english

even the welsh ( who are part of the uk ) speak their own language to a greater degree than we do

to conclude , there is absolutely no reason why we cannot master irish and other european languages to a competant degree

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

rain_soaked wrote: »

unfortunatley i cant speak irish fluently , im pretty weak when it comes to languages full stop , im in my thirties and have taken irish and spanish language classes this past number of years but learning a language is incredibly difficult for me , im pretty dumb in this sense

Same here to be honest - just don't have the ears for it.

i dont buy the arguement that the irish language is a major drain on resources or that it is oppressive in a cultural sense and i would hate to see it die , language is a key aspect of a nations heritage and culture , the way i see it , we make far too many excuses as to why most of us fail to speak it properly , the dutch , germans and scandanavians nearly all speak a few languages fluently , it doesnt mean the dutch decide to abandon their own language even though its only spoken in the netherlands and everyone there speaks english

That's not the argument: the argument is that the way the resources are spent is a drain. And massively inefficient. One billion euroe was a number I heard - and what are we getting back for it?

Crux of said argument: as long as Irish is maintained as a cumpolsory school subject and every resource is made available in both languages even though they will never be used, we don't give a **** abotu other people now just sign the checque.

even the welsh ( who are part of the uk ) speak their own language to a greater degree than we do

to conclude , there is absolutely no reason why we cannot master irish and other european languages to a competant degree

Desire.

Grudaire

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote:

That's not the argument: the argument is that the way the resources are spent is a drain. And massively inefficient. One billion euroe was a number I heard - and what are we getting back for it?

The figure of 1bn is misleading though. We would not save 1bn if we stopped teaching Irish.


On a side note arguably virtually all money spent on Irish is going into the Irish economy. Money spent on Irish goes to people who have fluency in the language, often in the less wealthy regions of the country. Punt for punt my guess would be that spending on the Irish language gives the best boosts to the economy.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Grudaire wrote: »

The figure of 1bn is misleading though. We would not save 1bn if we stopped teaching Irish.


On a side note arguably virtually all money spent on Irish is going into the Irish economy. Money spent on Irish goes to people who have fluency in the language, often in the less wealthy regions of the country. Punt for punt my guess would be that spending on the Irish language gives the best boosts to the economy.

If I was a taxpayer (I'm not - I llive abroad), I'd have no problem with my taxes being spent on the langauge. I would have a problem with it "going to people who [already] have fluency in the langauge" and "boostrng the economy". I'd also object to it being spent turning a generation of teenagers into what amounts to little more than economic pawns and restricting them from studying somethign the find beneficial or interessting, based on accuracy of your post.

Grudaire

Teachers tend to be best when fluent in what they are teaching...?

PeadarCo

Grudaire wrote: »

On a side note arguably virtually all money spent on Irish is going into the Irish economy. Money spent on Irish goes to people who have fluency in the language, often in the less wealthy regions of the country. Punt for punt my guess would be that spending on the Irish language gives the best boosts to the economy.

The thing is the money spent on Irish could be spent on the homeless/health service, etc. Its not as if we a short on thing to spend money on.

What I don't get is why there is so much support of policies have have failed over the last 80/90 years within the Irish language community. The best that could be said about their effectiveness is that the language isn't dead yet. But if that's a measure of success its is a fairly disastrous sign for the language going forward.

Would it not be better to focus on people who are still speaking the language than trying to get people unfamiliar with the language trying to speak it which is done predominately through the education system.

We face a situation where Gaeltachts could be dead within 30 years potentially. Would it not be better to focus on keeping these area's alive than worrying about forcing some children in school to speak the language who will cease to have any interest once they sit the leaving cert.

I'm fairly agnostic with regard to the language but given the Irish Language community's support for failed government policies it seems they care about making money rather than actually trying maintain Irish as a living language. Why is the community afraid to try something new when the current polices will result in death of the language anyway.

Shep_Dog

PeadarCo wrote: »

Why is the community afraid to try something new when the current polices will result in death of the language anyway.

Because the failed policies such as the Official Languages Act and compulsory Iriish for English speaking schoolchildren are quite profitable for the Irish lobby.

Note Grudaire's post about all that money going into Gaeltacht communities with no productive industries. Ironically those same communities probably spend some of that money on their 'Sky' subscriptions.

The reason why An Conradh has a policy of making everyone speak Irish is because they know this will never really happen. This means that Conradh will always have a reason to demand more powers and money from the state.

Grudaire

PeadarCo wrote:

I'm fairly agnostic with regard to the language but given the Irish Language community's support for failed government policies it seems they care about making money rather than actually trying maintain Irish as a living language. Why is the community afraid to try something new when the current polices will result in death of the language anyway.

There is a diverse range included in "the community" - you'll find that there is a full range of opinions on what the best approach is.

Most of the posts here are calling for current policies to be removed but not replaced with alternative ones. You will find Irish speakers more open to change if the debate was framed in a different way, and less dominated with loud voices who don't have time for the language..

Shep_Dog

Grudaire wrote: »

There is a diverse range included in "the community" - you'll find that there is a full range of opinions on what the best approach is.

....to the replacement of English with Irish as our common language?

Grudaire wrote: »

Most of the posts here are calling for current policies to be removed but not replaced with alternative ones.

Not true: replace the policy of coercion with one of voluntary learning, replace the policy of having Irish as an official language to one where it is recognised as an important component of our heritage, worthy of support, like Irish singing and dancing, but no longer compulsory. These are alternatives.

Grudaire

Shep_Dog wrote:

....to the replacement of English with Irish as our common language?

To support the language.

Shep_Dog wrote:

Not true: replace the policy of coercion with one of voluntary learning, replace the policy of having Irish as an official language to one where it is recognised as an important component of our heritage, worthy of support, like Irish singing and dancing, but no longer compulsory. These are alternatives.

There tends to be agreement between Irish speakers that services should be available through Irish.

A language is not the same as an activity, and I'm not sure the same approach works for both. That said I wouldn't personally be opposed to making Irish optional for the leaving cert (along with English)

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Grudaire wrote: »

Teachers tend to be best when fluent in what they are teaching...?

Oh Good Lord, no. I've had to suffer plenty of teachers who knew their stuff (one of whom was a mother-tongue Iris hspeaker) but were still crap when it came to connecting with their students and sharing their passions.

Permabear

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Shep_Dog

Grudaire wrote: »

To support the language.

That's not accurate. It's very misleading. Presently, Conradh na Gaeilge, which claims to represent all Irish speakers and enthusiasts is seeking the reinstatement of Irish as our common language. They are looking for support of that objective.

Grudaire wrote: »

There tends to be agreement between Irish speakers that services should be available through Irish.

I have no doubt they do.

Grudaire wrote: »

A language is not the same as an activity, and I'm not sure the same approach works for both.

Most Irish speakers are simply enthusiasts engaging in an enjoyable bit of cultural egotism. For them it is an activity. We need to distinguish between hobbyist speakers and true native speakers who rely on Irish as their primary means of communication in their daily lives. They need support.

Grudaire wrote: »

That said I wouldn't personally be opposed to making Irish optional for the leaving cert (along with English)

Most Irish people just need to know how to say "Hello", "Goodbye","Please" and "Thank you" in Irish, there is no need for 10 years or more of compulsory lessons to learn these courtesy phrases.

Grudaire

Shep_Dog wrote:

That's not accurate. It's very misleading. Presently, Conradh na Gaeilge, which claims to represent all Irish speakers and enthusiasts is seeking the reinstatement of Irish as our common language. They are looking for support of that objective.

The Conradh has members just like all organisations. Claiming all Irish speakers age exactly with the Conradh is clearly no truer than saying a voter agrees with every policy that a political party has..

Shep_Dog wrote:

Most Irish speakers are simply enthusiasts engaging in an enjoyable bit of cultural egotism. For them it is an activity. We need to distinguish between hobbyist speakers and true native speakers who rely on Irish as their primary means of communication in their daily lives. They need support.

enjoyable bit of cultural egotism

It's comments like this that mean that conversations on potentially better approaches fall apart quickly.

dubhthach

Grudaire wrote: »

The figure of 1bn is misleading though. We would not save 1bn if we stopped teaching Irish.


On a side note arguably virtually all money spent on Irish is going into the Irish economy. Money spent on Irish goes to people who have fluency in the language, often in the less wealthy regions of the country. Punt for punt my guess would be that spending on the Irish language gives the best boosts to the economy.

The bulk of 1billion sum comes from taking the average hourly salary of teachers and multiplying it by the number of hours of Irish taught per year.

If you banned teaching of Irish in morning there would be minimum savings on this, due to the fact the the teachers Unions would go on strike if their members were to loose on the order of 800-900million+ in payroll.

I thought it was funny though that former president of UL (Walsh) who came up with bulk of that figure also included third level lectures salaries given that Irish in University is a purely voluntary subject choice.

Now the bulk of figure comes from Primary school, after all every teacher in Primary school also has to teach Irish (3 and half hours per week), whereas there's considerably less hours thought at secondary school per year. Walsh argument was that the number of hours should be halved and replaced with European language or Chinese. Of course problem I see with that is there are next to no primary school teachers in this country who are fluent in Chinese, you'd probably have to hire at least one native speaking Chinese teacher per school and have them in as dedicated teacher for x number of hours per class.

Again the likes of INTO would demand that their members don't loose hour and half of pay per week. Result no savings, if anything additional costs as you've have to pay for the new dedicated language teachers.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

dubhthach wrote: »

The bulk of 1billion sum comes from taking the average hourly salary of teachers and multiplying it by the number of hours of Irish taught per year.

If you banned teaching of Irish in morning there would be minimum savings on this, due to the fact the the teachers Unions would go on strike if their members were to loose on the order of 800-900million+ in payroll.

I thought it was funny though that former president of UL (Walsh) who came up with bulk of that figure also included third level lectures salaries given that Irish in University is a purely voluntary subject choice.

Now the bulk of figure comes from Primary school, after all every teacher in Primary school also has to teach Irish (3 and half hours per week), whereas there's considerably less hours thought at secondary school per year. Walsh argument was that the number of hours should be halved and replaced with European language or Chinese. Of course problem I see with that is there are next to no primary school teachers in this country who are fluent in Chinese, you'd probably have to hire at least one native speaking Chinese teacher per school and have them in as dedicated teacher for x number of hours per class.

Again the likes of INTO would demand that their members don't loose hour and half of pay per week. Result no savings, if anything additional costs as you've have to pay for the new dedicated language teachers.

That's just education, and no one is saying scrap Irish. I'm looking at the amount attributed to the language as a whole and how it is used.

The Corinthian

dubhthach wrote: »

If you banned teaching of Irish in morning there would be minimum savings on this, due to the fact the the teachers Unions would go on strike if their members were to loose on the order of 800-900million+ in payroll.

So basically we are to keep teaching Irish because the unions tell us to do so?

Glad we're at least starting to admit that it's really all down to jobs for the boys.

dubhthach

The Corinthian wrote: »

So basically we are to keep teaching Irish because the unions tell us to do so?

Glad we're at least starting to admit that it's really all down to jobs for the boys.

No we could ban teaching of Irish tomorrow, it just mean there would be no actual saving. It's fairly evident that bulk of primary school teachers anyway have to poor to middling levels of Irish.

As a result claiming that we can somehow save money by either reducing hours thought or by outright ban are a red herring. The money will still go into the Department of Education's payroll budget for the year and will still get paid to teachers. That is unless you are proposing teachers should get a paycut as well as children getting 3.5 hours lopped off their school week?

The Corinthian

dubhthach wrote: »

No we could ban teaching of Irish tomorrow, it just mean there would be no actual saving.

To begin with no one has suggested banning the teaching of Irish. A little less melodrama please.

Secondly, the presumption of no saving is be based on the idea that teachers' unions run the country and that no educational reform could ever be introduced that might endanger their livelihood, even if it was in the interests of the children being thought.

Beyond this presumption being highly dubious, I find it disturbing that some here seem to feel that it is natural to accept it as immutable.

So it's not a red herring, unless you want to phase into that alternative reality where unions are and always will be running everything, for their own benefit.

That is unless you are proposing teachers should get a paycut as well as children getting 3.5 hours lopped off their school week?

Yes, because they could not teach the other subjects during this time? Or we could not introduce foreign languages to take the place of Irish?

I'm afraid, the real red herring it that for some reason we would have to shorten school hours without Irish. Are school hours significantly shorter in the rest of Europe? They seem to manage full days without Irish.

dubhthach

Well to be honest the teaching of Irish should be banned in non Gaeltacht and non Gaelscoil schools as part of core curriculum than we wouldn't have to put up with constant moaning of Bearloirí bigots. If the Bearloirí really want their children to learn Irish, than they can either opt for out of core school hours or Gaelscoil option.

If you want to make a saving on the Education payroll than yes you would need to shorten hours, or cut the per hour rate that teachers earn. I don't see any TD in this state looking forward to a teachers strike. Of course if you banned Irish and say spilt the 3.5hours between other subjects there would course be no budget saving but you could at least argue the time had been allocated to other subjects, this however negates any purported cost savings that we hear from Bearloirí all the time.

The Corinthian

dubhthach wrote: »

Well to be honest the teaching of Irish should be banned in non Gaeltacht and non Gaelscoil schools as part of core curriculum than we wouldn't have to put up with constant moaning of Bearloirí bigots.

Pay for it yourself if it bothers you so much. Until then, the 'Bearloirí bigots' have paid for the right to 'moan'.

If you want to make a saving on the Education payroll than yes you would need to shorten hours, or cut the per hour rate that teachers earn.

Why? What's your logic? Because they would be doing 3.5 hours a day less in one subject, they can't replace this with any other? Do you know how daft that sounds?

Your case for shorter teaching hours and loss of salaries is complete fantasy.

Permabear

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dubhthach

The Corinthian wrote: »

Pay for it yourself if it bothers you so much. Until then, the 'Bearloirí bigots' have paid for the right to 'moan'.

Why? What's your logic? Because they would be doing 3.5 hours a day less in one subject, they can't replace this with any other? Do you know how daft that sounds?

Your case for shorter teaching hours and loss of salaries is complete fantasy.

I do, I've paid north of €120,000+ in PAYE and PRSI, let alone VAT, fuel duty, stamp duty etc since I've graduated, how much have you paid?

Anyways didn't I state above that the 3.5 hours per week could be replaced with other subjects? However the idea that the state could save €1 billion/year from banning teaching of Irish is a mirage, the state would still spend the same amount of money on payroll.

Now the question is how much should the state actually spend on Irish language per year when you strip out teachers salaries? From what I can see the state has voted expenditure of about €50billion per year. The section of Arts,Culture & Gaeltacht budget that covers Irish language, Gaeltacht and the Islands (including Bearloirí islands such as Clare) gets about 49million per year in way of both capital and current budget. That's just about 0.1% of total government expenditure.

I'd be surpruised if when you throw in funding of TG4, and what ever number of quango's that you reach a figure north of 100million. But lets say the total cost to state excluding education payroll is €500 million a year (lets go large or go home!), that works out at about 1% of State allocated expenditure for 2015.

1% of population would be 45k, let if we believe the figures from census the Irish language community (eg. those who speak it daily or weekly outside education system) is north of 100k (eg. 77k daily speakers -- 110k weekly, it wouldn't be surprised if that's variable so I went with pessimistic figure of 100k for language community) than that's 2% of population.

How much tax do those 100k+ pay per year? How about people like me who marked themselves down as "Less often" when it comes to speaking the language in the census let who've no problem with my tax money been spent on it (or my tax money been spent on providing sevices to Bearloirí bigots for that matter) eh?

Lets have a referendum, in it we can do one of either two things.
1. Delete Irish as 1st language of state -- sure why not we are a core part of the Anglosphere
2. Delete Article 8 in it's entirety, that way there's no official language (hey just like in US) ergo no need for things such as Language act etc.

dubhthach

Permabear wrote: »

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Are there any optional subjects as primary level? With regards to foreign languages in primary schools there's nothing stopping goverenment introducing them other than fact that they would need to hire dedicated language teachers. If you look at private schools in Dublin that do introduce European languages in primary they use dedicated teachers who are native speakers.

Our current batch of 35k+ teachers don't have competence to teach foreign languages by and large, cause in general most people in this country can't speak any language other than english.

You have a point at secondary level, than again I've repeatly stated over the years I don't believe in any compulsory subjects at secondary school -- Though I'd love Macbeth and Paradise Lost I fail to see relevance of course to my chosen degree in IT, that and I wasted hours of my time studying for subject (Leaving Cert Higher English) that I had no interest in and which cost my family as they insisted I need grinds in it. Or the fact I had to study Pass French just to tick a box about having a European language for University matriculation? (after 5 years of French in school I can only follow French media if there are subtitles, great investment there!)

Shep_Dog

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Value for money is certainly a great idea, but let's not lose sight that the current system of coercion is destroying the Irish language and tramples on the language rights of English speakers.

Permabear

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dubhthach

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Value for money is certainly a great idea, but let's not lose sight that the current system of coercion is destroying the Irish language and tramples on the language rights of English speakers.

Solution ban Irish than from english speaking schools. if Bearloirí parents want their kids to learn language than they can enroll them in extra-curricular classes or send them to a Gaelscoil. As a native Bearloirí myself I'd fully support that, but than again I don't see how my language rights as an English speaker are been trampled on.

ancapailldorcha

dubhthach wrote: »

Solution ban Irish than from english speaking schools. if Bearloirí parents want their kids to learn language than they can enroll them in extra-curricular classes or send them to a Gaelscoil. As a native Bearloirí myself I'd fully support that, but than again I don't see how my language rights as an English speaker are been trampled on.

A ban bit be somewhat harsh though I'd be in favour of making the Irish language lobby fund itself as opposed to financing its strangulation of the language.