When did the Irish stop speaking Irish?

josephryan1989

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
So we should only learn things that can be directly used for employment?So no PE if you want a clerical job ? No French unless you will use it in your job?No history??

Thankfully, we have a broad educational curriculum here. It usually helps to broaden minds...in most case

Nice try but none of the subjects you mention are COMPULSORY.

Irish is not spoken by the overwhelming majority in this country but the powers that be insist that every official publication MUST be Irish. Take a train journey and witness the absurdity of hearing announcements in Irish when nobody speaks the language.

I often meet tourists who can't get their heads around the fact that road signs and other information is in both English and Irish when they never hear anyone speak Irish. I can only explain the facts with embarrasment.

The only people pushing this nonsense are delusional nutcases.

The absurdity reached its worst when the people of Dingle were being forced to call their town An Daingean. The people rebelled and told the government where to go.

Eugene Norman

Dughorm wrote: »

I hear ya

Interesting website: http://reallifeglobal.com/is-english-easy-to-learn/

English is certainly easier to learn than Dublin if the Foil, Arms and Hog video is to be believed

There is nothing in that which isn't replicated ten fold in other languages. He's complaining that te plural of box is boxes but the plural of ox is oxen. That's true in German. Sometimes an s, sometimes an en, sometimes an er.

Ther are no female or male nouns in English, the tenses are simple, the irregulars no more prevalent than other languages and only the spelling is a bit difficult.

darkpagandeath

Eugene Norman wrote: »

So a strawman.



Almost everything you say is utter bollocks. There is big all genetic influence on Ireland from the Vikings and the Norwegians were flaxen haired.

This should be good Where do you think Red hair can be traced to ?

Eugene Norman

josephryan1989 wrote: »

Nice try but none of the subjects you mention are COMPULSORY.

Irish is not spoken by the overwhelming majority in this country but the powers that be insist that every official publication MUST be Irish. Take a train journey and witness the absurdity of hearing announcements in Irish when nobody speaks the language.

I often meet tourists who can't get their heads around the fact that road signs and other information is in both English and Irish when they never hear anyone speak Irish. I can only explain the facts with embarrasment.

They only pople pushing this nonsense are delusional nutcases.

I bet you never meet tourists who don't understand bilingualism. Do they come up to you especially?

BoatMad

LordSutch wrote: »

And that statistic is part of the whole problem with Irish and trying to maintain it. There have been many discussions in the media about this mythical 1.77 million Irish speaking people, and it transpires that many of us/them can only speak the cupla focal, yet many people still ticked the (Yes I can speak Irish box) on the census form

So then you have to ask, in who's interest is it in to have a high proportion of Irish speakers ticked on the census form? and why do so many Irish people feel the need to tick it? and finally, what does "speaking Irish" actually mean?

Rhetorical questions.

Simply because the narrative of the new independent Irish state, lead by that American Devalera , was to attempt to tie Irishness to Gaelic culture. Hence the desire for people to effectively " lie " about the language so as not to deny their Irishness.

I can say thanks , and order a beer in five languages. Should I tick five boxes. !!! Lol.

Eugene Norman

darkpagandeath wrote: »

This should be good Where do you think Red hair can be traced to ?

Not Norway.

Dughorm

josephryan1989 wrote: »

Irish is not spoken by the overwhelming majority in this country but the powers that be insist that every official publication MUST be Irish. Take a train journey and witness the absurdity of hearing announcements in Irish when nobody speaks the language.They only pople pushing this nonsense are delusional nutcases.

"The powers that be" is actually the constitution. Simple as. So long as Irish is the official and first language this has to be the case.

I quite like the announcements on the trains in Irish - it reminds me of where the place names of different towns come from

josephryan1989 wrote: »

I often meet tourists who can't get their heads around the fact that road signs and other information is in both English and Irish when they never hear anyone speak Irish. I can only explain the facts with embarrasment.

That's a pity - because I would imagine they are only asking because they are interested and it's quirky and something unique they haven't seen before. Your reaction is probably unique to them as well.

Eugene Norman

What a pity we can't have a discussion on when or why we stopped speaking Irish without the foaming at the mouth anti-Irish brigade popping in. Maybe this would be better in history & heritage.

josephryan1989

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I bet you never meet tourists who don't understand bilingualism. Do they come up to you especially?

Bilingualism only exists where there is bilingualism.

You clearly are unable to admit the overwhelming majority of people can't or won't speak Irish and the numbers who do are dwindling year on year.

Yet this country maintains a surreal fantasy that we will all one day be fluent native speakers.

This is delusional insanity.

I can't believe there are people who insist on this absurdity.

BoatMad

josephryan1989 wrote: »

Nice try but none of the subjects you mention are COMPULSORY.

Irish is not spoken by the overwhelming majority in this country but the powers that be insist that every official publication MUST be Irish. Take a train journey and witness the absurdity of hearing announcements in Irish when nobody speaks the language.

I often meet tourists who can't get their heads around the fact that road signs and other information is in both English and Irish when they never hear anyone speak Irish. I can only explain the facts with embarrasment.

The only people pushing this nonsense are delusional nutcases.

The absurdity reached its worst when the people of Dingle were being forced to call their town An Daingean. The people rebelled and told the government where to go.

Remember , signage and associated nonsense has nothing to do with the Irish language.. This stems from a post independence desire to " reestablish " a supposed Gaelic culture Irrespective of the practicalities on the ground of course

mynameis905

masti123 wrote: »

We never did. The overall amount of speakers in Ireland is continuing to go up due in part to the Gaelscoil movement.

The Irish Free State dumped the language revival on the Dept. of Education with the disastrous results we see today. Instead, they should have put a plan in place to make all public schools Gaelscoils by 1950.

Gaelscoileanna Teo and most other Irish language organisations are due to the enthusiasm and grassroots efforts by the Irish people, not the government. TnaG, now TG4, started out as a pirate station and only received public funding after protest.

The future of the language truly relies on the people, but there are some critical changes the government needs to make, in particular the Dept. of Education:

• Completely overhaul the Irish curriculum based on recommendations by the Irish language organisations
• Focus on orla/aural and have Irish Literature as a higher level option
• Teach at least one subject through Irish (Stair, Tíreolaíocht, P.E., etc)
• Better training, immersion and support for Irish teachers
• Boost funding for new Gaelscoileanna to alleviate the huge waiting lists

It's never too late to make Ireland a bilingual country. The demand is there.

Yes, because we really, really need more forcing Irish down people's throats. Make Irish an optional subject in schools and accept the fact that sometimes languages die out. It would have been gone decades ago but for the wasting of public finances in propping it up.

BoatMad

Eugene Norman wrote: »

What a pity we can't have a discussion on when or why we stopped speaking Irish without the foaming at the mouth anti-Irish brigade popping in. Maybe this would be better in history & heritage.

Or the foaming at the mouth pro gaelgoers.

In general with this issue there more foaming at the mouth then a herd of mad cows

But heres the rub.

If there is a genuine desire to learn Irish. Then remove all compulsion , and stop Irish language tokenism.

Then any revival is truly genuine. But of course Irish language advocates can never except reality but prefer compulsion

Dughorm

josephryan1989 wrote: »

I can't believe there are people who insist on this absurdity.

Why does no political party have it on their manifesto to decrease the amount of Irish or remove Irish as a compulsory subject in schools?

Perhaps you are in a vocal extreme minority....

Eugene Norman

josephryan1989 wrote: »

Bilingualism only exists where there is bilingualism.

You clearly are unable to admit the overwhelming majority of people can't or won't speak Irish and the numbers who do are dwindling year on year.

Yet this country maintains a surreal fantasy that we will all one day be fluent native speakers.

This is delusional insanity.

I can't believe there are people who insist on this absurdity.

No this country has two official languages. Most commonly I see English on signs. English is my language too. Probably for 5 generations at least. Sometimes I see Irish on signs or hear it on trains and it doesn't annoy me because I'm not nuts.

Second languages are often not the majority's first language. The number of English only speakers or English as a first language in India is trace, less than 200,000 people but they all do it on school and you can see it on signs and hear it on trains.

In Canada you get French signs in British Colombia which is thousands of miles from any significant French speaking area.

LordSutch

Eugene Norman wrote: »

What a pity we can't have a discussion on when or why we stopped speaking Irish without the foaming at the mouth anti-Irish brigade popping in. Maybe this would be better in history & heritage.

Several poster say the decline was spread over centuries, others say mid 19th Century-ish...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=98253500&postcount=7
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=98253931&postcount=23
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=98254845&postcount=37

FloatingVoter

Eugene Norman wrote: »

What a pity we can't have a discussion on when or why we stopped speaking Irish without the foaming at the mouth anti-Irish brigade popping in. Maybe this would be better in history & heritage.

Nothing sinister or deliberate. It stopped being useful in day to day life. English was the business of commerce. That doesn't mean Wall Street or the IFSC or whether little Saoirse will get a Google job, it means selling the fish you caught or the cow at the mart.
A slow disintegration as rural native Irish people moved towards the larger towns and cities after the famine / industrial revolution.

masti123

josephryan1989 wrote: »

You clearly are unable to admit the overwhelming majority of people can't or won't speak Irish and the numbers who do are dwindling year on year.

Present your evidence...

josephryan1989

Dughorm wrote: »

Why does no political party have it on their manifesto to decrease the amount of Irish or remove Irish as a compulsory subject in schools?

Perhaps you are in a vocal extreme minority....

Because head the balls and fanatics are more vocal about defending Irish than regular people who are apolitical and apathetic and don't want to rock to boat. Totalitarians are usually attracted to certain careers such as the teaching profession, the clergy and civil service jobs which gives malcontents and psychopaths with chips on their shoulders a captive audience they can micromanage. It's all about self-hatred and self-loathing projected outward.

Eugene Norman

BoatMad wrote: »

Or the foaming at the mouth pro gaelgoers.

In general with this issue there more foaming at the mouth then a herd of mad cows

But heres the rub.

If there is a genuine desire to learn Irish. Then remove all compulsion , and stop Irish language tokenism.

Then any revival is truly genuine. But of course Irish language advocates can never except reality but prefer compulsion

The only foaming at the mouth here is from the anti-Irish brigade. The language leaves me cold. The existence of the language doesn't. Nor it's "compulsion" since presumably that's a constitutional issue which you can muster people outside the Internet to change then go ahead.
( The joys of a constitution that can be changed my popular vote. You can't even blame the politicians for inaction. Go create a petition).


The topic isn't even about your preferred obsession. It's merely a question about when or why the language declined. It was dragged off topic by the perennially angry.

I would like to hear theories about why the language declined, and whether it was as common as thought pre-famine. But no chance in AH.

Eugene Norman

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Nothing sinister or deliberate. It stopped being useful in day to day life. English was the business of commerce. That doesn't mean Wall Street or the IFSC or whether little Saoirse will get a Google job, it means selling the fish you caught or the cow at the mart.
A slow disintegration as rural native Irish people moved towards the larger towns and cities after the famine / industrial revolution.

That would explain bilingualism but not teaching your children to not speak Irish at all. And I don't think we can blame the English. Even if Irish wasn't taught at school it could be taught at home.
You have to go out of your way to not allow your children to speak your language. You can't really speak to them. ( Although it probably happened across 3 generations).


Clearly the peasantry lost all faith in the language. Even hated it.

darkpagandeath

Eugene Norman wrote: »

The only foaming at the mouth here is from the anti-Irish brigade. The language leaves me cold. The existence of the language doesn't. Nor it's "compulsion" since presumably that's a constitutional issue which you can muster people outside the Internet to change then go ahead.
( The joys of a constitution that can be changed my popular vote. You can't even blame the politicians for inaction. Go create a petition).


The topic isn't even about your preferred obsession. It's merely a question about when or why the language declined. It was dragged off topic by the perennially angry.

I would like to hear theories about why the language declined, and whether it was as common as thought pre-famine. But no chance in AH.

:pac::pac::pac::pac:

LordSutch

Dughorm wrote: »

Why does no political party have it on their manifesto to decrease the amount of Irish or remove Irish as a compulsory subject in schools?

Perhaps you are in a vocal extreme minority....

Fine Gael attempted this about ten years ago...

Enda's ideas were attacked and shot down in flames from all sides

Being a fluent Irish speaker himself, he wanted to take some of the stigma out of the teaching of Irish, so he suggested removing the compulsory teaching of Irish (post Inter Cert), therby giving the language a new platform to be looked at favourably by those students who wanted to carry it through to their leaving cert (while leaving those not interested in Irish alone) > but even that suggestion got a very negative and verbally violent reaction.

Nothing has been heard since re the suggestion.

megafan

mackerski wrote: »

Don't forget German.

Languages Of Belgium!...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium

Paramite Pie

BoatMad wrote: »

It's also has the beauty of being one of the easiest languages to learn and is highly tolerant of spoken grammatical errors.

Utter nonsense. English is notoriously difficult to learn. It has no rules ('i' before 'e' is a french rule so most English words disobey it!) and bizarre & inconsistent spellings -- we find it easy only because we grew up with it.

darkpagandeath wrote: »

There was no Celt genocide of existing people in Ireland. There was possibly small settlements. Celtic Irish people is a myth.

It's a myth that everyone in Europe believed in and was proposed by German scholars to begin with. You make it sound like some kind of Irish conspiracy.

Ireland has the highest density of Celtic style Art and spoke a Celtic language despite the lack of a Celtic invasion. Historians today can't explain this. Can you blame people for believing we're Celtic?

josephryan1989 wrote: »

Take a train journey and witness the absurdity of hearing announcements in Irish when nobody speaks the language.

I often meet tourists who can't get their heads around the fact that road signs and other information is in both English and Irish when they never hear anyone speak Irish. I can only explain the facts with embarrassment.

I like those announcements -- they're interesting. If it annoys you then you have a problem. I've often explained our signs (and the lack of irish speakers) to tourists without embarrassment.

You have a disproportionately irrational dislike or shame regarding Irish. I don't understand it. Most Irish are likely indifferent.

Eugene Norman

darkpagandeath wrote: »

:pac::pac::pac::pac:

Usual level of contribution I see. Albeit better than a theory about red headed Norsemen.

masti123

LordSutch wrote: »

Fine Gael attempted this about ten years ago...

Enda's ideas were attacked and shot down in flames from all sides

Being a fluent Irish speaker himself, he wanted to take some of the stigma out of the teaching of Irish, so he suggested removing the compulsory teaching of Irish (post Inter Cert), therby giving the language a new platform to be looked at favourably by those students who wanted to carry it through to their leaving cert (while leaving those not interested in Irish alone) > but even that suggestion got a very negative and verbally violent reaction.

Nothing has been heard since re the suggestion.

Irish as a compulsory subject isn't the problem. The way it's thought in schools just needs to be modernised. Currently it's a disgrace the way it's taught; rote learning and uninteresting poetry. Update it and show off the full beauty and power of one of Ireland's most beautiful assets.

Dughorm

josephryan1989 wrote: »

Totalitarians are usually attracted to certain careers such as the teaching profession, the clergy and civil service jobs which gives malcontents and psychopaths with chips on their shoulders a captive audience they can micromanage. It's all about self-hatred and self-loathing projected outward.

And here comes the crazy....

Ok I enjoyed the discussion up to this point but like that good auld train man says "Seo é an stad deireanach!"

Eugene Norman

masti123 wrote: »

Irish as a compulsory subject isn't the problem. The way it's thought in schools just needs to be modernised. Currently it's a disgrace the way it's taught; rote learning and uninteresting poetry. Update it and show off the full beauty and power of one of Ireland's most beautiful assets.

Hard to do that. The Irish language really went into decline around the 16th C. The old high Gaelic culture was impressive but is old Irish and not taught until university.

Dughorm

masti123 wrote: »

Irish as a compulsory subject isn't the problem. The way it's thought in schools just needs to be modernised. Currently it's a disgrace the way it's taught; rote learning and uninteresting poetry. Update it and show off the full beauty and power of one of Ireland's most beautiful assets.

Is cúirt an mheán-óiche over 18s? :pac:

darkpagandeath

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Usual level of contribution I see. Albeit better than a theory about red headed Norsemen.

Has one a link to these foaming at the mouth posts ?