Congratulations Ireland!!!!!

joejoem

Have a read! Proud to be Irish!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050613/ap_on_re_eu/ireland_eu_gaelic

MooShop

ya, go on the irish

seamus

What a waste of money.

Still, $140,000 per year just to translate Irish?

Where the nearest Gaelscoil?

Kingsize

hoorah ! it a real psychological boost for the irish language but thats about all
& while i kind of agree with what the "official language" campaigners were getting at i still think the language is not used enough to warrant "official language" status
this money could be better spent even if it was spent on promoting irish.

RuggieBear

****ing pointless.....

skywalker

seamus wrote:

What a waste of money.

Still, $140,000 per year just to translate Irish?

Where the nearest Gaelscoil?

Agree with you there Seamus. Whats the point of the EU wasting money on a language the vast majority of the population cant speak. They really need to look at how its taught in schools first. I studied it for what, 12 years. But thanks to brutal teachers, and it being forced down my throat, I can barely speak a word of it. Doubt I could hold a conversation in it. And dont have much interest in ever changing that!


I dont see the cause for congratulations.

dudara

The language is called Irish, not bl**dy Gaelic.

mukki

skywalker wrote:

But thanks to brutal teachers, and it being forced down my throat, I can barely speak a word of it. Doubt I could hold a conversation in it. And dont have much interest in ever changing that!

very well said skywalker, i think i hate it for the exact same reason, but could never explain why!

Wibbs

Yea it makes me real proud to be a country that loves wasting money and time like this. Jaysus, sure aren't we only deadly. :rolleyes:

RuggieBear

gaeilge

zAbbo

A moral victory for the celtic jersey inbreds

kasintahan

RuggieBear wrote:

****ing pointless.....

Agreed.

I've nothing against the language, but there is something fundamentally wrong with our insistance on it being recognised as an offical language when it is not the vernacular tongue of the people of Ireland.

If we want it recognised then we should teach and use it. Ban English in the Dail, teach Irish properly at school (15 years of tutoring and I still don't speak it), convert all state sponcered organisations to Irish (RTE etc).

Do it properly or let it die.

ixoy

Utter waste - one more reason to throw glances of contempt in the direction of the squandering EU bureaucracy.

Apparently, this move will create pride amongst us and interest in the language. I'd imagine there'd be more moaning about wasteful funds than anything else and why it costs $4m to employ 30 people (what - are their salaries 100k each?). May as well translate the documents into Klingon - they'd both be read in those languages equally.

I agree that the money would be better invested in actually reforming the teaching of Irish. Even the Yahoo reports recognises that we lie on the census forms (because we do) and that it's spoken by few. This weekend's Sunday Times had an article about how it's vanishing even from Gaeltacht schools, despite their increased subsidies. Somehow, in some fashion, it needs to be made more relevant and interesting - TG4 is a good enough attempt at that, 'Mise le Meas' is less so.

egan007

It's a Euro language - nobody is saying the French are wasting money

irish is beautiful and anything to preserver it gets my thumbs up

Before anyone *else* on this thread says Irish is a waste of time - go to the national museums, kilmainham gaol, actually look at the GPO - and realise that it's very very far form a waste of time.

You are the very ones that would be singing RA songs at a session

Velcrow

Love the language but its just not efficient for the EU to be translating documents into 20 different languages... The waste of cash is depressing!

Anybody got a copy of Babel Fish to lend them???

Drapper

BTW Luxembourguish with 40k people speaking it is funded and recognised by the EU for a long time !!

I think its great for Ireland !

go neirí an bothair linn !

GOAT_BOY

irish is beautiful and anything to preserver it gets my thumbs up

Before anyone *else* on this thread says Irish is a waste of time - go to the national museums, kilmainham gaol, actually look at the GPO - and realise that it's very very far form a waste of time.

You are the very ones that would be singing RA songs at a session

Only scumbags sing 'ra' songs, infact, only scumbags say 'ra'.

RuggieBear

Drapper wrote:

BTW Luxembourguish with 40k people speaking it is funded and recognised by the EU for a long time !!

that's most of the population....

RE*AC*TOR

Why is it great for Ireland? How will it benefit us?

The only benefit to anyone is the 30 translators who get hired. They'll benefit.

Pure nonsense.

seamus

Right, there's a better board for this, one where it won't come down to "Irish is shoite, right!"

egan007

GOAT_BOY wrote:

Only scumbags sing 'ra' songs, infact, only scumbags say 'ra'.

Can i deduce that you are in fact a SCUMBAG?

Drapper

RuggieBear wrote:

that's most of the population....

True, but they speak German and French instead of it, a bit like Irish all say they have a bit but never use it !

We need to hold onto what is Irish in this right winged global society!

toiletduck

IMO it's a total waste of money. How many people here celebrating are fluent speakers? Not being nasty, just interested

GOAT_BOY

egan007 wrote:

Can i deduce that you are in fact a SCUMBAG?

no, hence the 'ra'

kasintahan

toiletduck wrote:

IMO it's a total waste of money. How many people here celebrating are fluent speakers? Not being nasty, just interested

Even that question is irrelevant.

Try asking how many people here conduct a single conversations daily in Irish?

I'd wager less than 1%.

egan007

GOAT_BOY wrote:

no, hence the 'ra'

Oh ok - that makes sence - A scumbag that uses lower case then?

RE*AC*TOR

ok, lets put aside the old arguements for and against irish.

will this in any meanigful way benefit the language.

I think not. translating a load of EU documents is more or less an arbitrary excercise. For the most part they will only be read by the translators. There will be 30 people with translating jobs now - but I hardly think this will create a new surge in people learning irish to fight for 30 jobs.

It'd be like Brennans announcing 30 new jobs in their bakery and everyone taking cooking lessons (sort of).

toiletduck

i could understand such a move if there was a sizeable proportion of people who could only speak Irish and couldn't speak English, but thats just not the case

Drapper

toiletduck wrote:

IMO it's a total waste of money. How many people here celebrating are fluent speakers? Not being nasty, just interested

Not fluent but if it was thought in a different way when I was a kid I'd be speaking it now!

its part of our heritage!

I dont think its victory for the langauge but a preservation of what it means to be Irish in the EU of to-day!

toiletduck

Drapper wrote:

its part of our heritage!

so is druidism, worshipping celtic gods, the brehan laws... should we follow these aswell, so we can assert our "Irishness"

RE*AC*TOR

Drapper wrote:

I dont think its victory for the langauge but a preservation of what it means to be Irish in the EU of to-day!

true - it does reflect what it means to be irish..... squandering money.

Drapper

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

true - it does reflect what it means to be irish..... squandering money.

thats the spirit m8 ! ;-)

Drapper

toiletduck wrote:

so is druidism, worshipping celtic gods, the brehan laws... should we follow these aswell, so we can assert our "Irishness"

Yes, is there anyone pushing it for recognition?

toiletduck

i sincerly hope not!

Drapper

toiletduck wrote:

i sincerly hope not!

care to say why? seen as you raised it?

toiletduck

i dont think "Irishness" (whatever the hell that is) is defined by our clinging to what our ancestors spoke, believed or did. I dont believe ploughing money into a dying language is a good idea

Drapper

toiletduck wrote:

i dont think "Irishness" (whatever the hell that is) is defined by our clinging to what our ancestors spoke, believed or did. I dont believe ploughing money into a dying language is a good idea

we plough money in Latin and other old classic languages why not Irish?

toiletduck

Drapper wrote:

we plough money in Latin and other old classic languages why not Irish?

really? i didnt know that all government documents, road signs and EU documents were translated into latin. Im not aware of any state funded latin tv stations (although i do enjoy tg4!).

simu

Eh, okay - this thread is a bit strange as it started out in AH. This is a warning to people to discuss the topic of the thread from here on rather than going off on tangents about "scumbags" and what not.

simu

Kingsize

A mate of mine had an interesting conspiracy theory about IRISH which basically was that the decline of the use of the language was propogated by
the government (post civil war) as a means of social control .
It became the secret language of the elite & soon declined throughout the 30's & 40's.
Census figures do show that the decline in the use of irish happened After British rule, i.e.when ireland was the governer of its own destiny. although in school we were always led to think that if it wasn't for "the brits" we'd all be ag caint gailge.
ignoring the fact that if it wasnt for the same "brits" we might all be speaking German it still seems to me that succesive Irish governments from the inception of the state onward have done their best to wipe this language out
(inadvertantly or otherwise)
Lets also not forget that the "official eu language" campaign was started by a small non government group who managed to drum up a lot of support through emails & online petitions & by lobbying TDS.

Drapper

Kingsize wrote:

A mate of mine had an interesting conspiracy theory about IRISH which basically was that the decline of the use of the language was propogated by
the government (post civil war) as a means of social control .
It became the secret language of the elite & soon declined throughout the 30's & 40's.
Census figures do show that the decline in the use of irish happened After British rule, i.e.when ireland was the governer of its own destiny. although in school we were always led to think that if it wasn't for "the brits" we'd all be ag caint gailge.
ignoring the fact that if it wasnt for the same "brits" we might all be speaking German it still seems to me that succesive Irish governments from the inception of the state onward have done their best to wipe this language out
(inadvertantly or otherwise)
Lets also not forget that the "official eu language" campaign was started by a small non government group who managed to drum up a lot of support through emails & online petitions & by lobbying TDS.

Disagree with this, read the history books! the demise of Irish came from the British and the use of English as the "langauge of prosperity" ! A clever way to control the Irish. Legal, education and social system was changed to facilitate this. Hence, no english no education no job and hence no life!!

Its true there has been considerable demise since 1947 but the catalyst was started long ago!

Kingsize

Agreed about the catalyst but surely at some stage we (the irish ) had it in our own hands to change things & blew it (which was my point)
one only has to look at the Welsh language revival of the 60's & 70's to see how effective the proper promotion of a second language can work.
however pehaps a certain level of genuine national pride is required to acheive this

(as opposed to singing "the fields of athenry" every now & again when your pissed..i.e.There are plenty of people who are "proud to be Irish" but not to the extent of actually throwing their litter in a bin or anything like that )

Drapper

Kingsize wrote:

Agreed about the catalyst but surely at some stage we (the irish ) had it in our own hands to change things & blew it (which was my point)
one only has to look at the Welsh language revival of the 60's & 70's to see how effective the proper promotion of a second language can work.
however pehaps a certain level of genuine national pride is required to acheive this

(as opposed to singing "the fields of athenry" every now & again when your pissed..i.e.There are plenty of people who are "proud to be Irish" but not to the extent of actually throwing their litter in a bin or anything like that )

I would love to see a revival ! but its too late............ yes your right about Wales! but the Irish Gov as you've said seems to have taken the same route as the former rullers!

blah

I think that if we want Gaelige to be an official language, we should all start speaking it as our first language. Documents and conversation in meetings being translated by the EU should have a purpose, it should be because it's a requirement of the participants eg the MEPs etc. If those people are native english speakers then they should (and they are still going to) make use of the english versions.
The money would be a lot better spent on improving the image of Irish and encouraging people to use it here in everyone's daily lives.

Recognising Irish as an official language is pointless if it's not spoken by nearly all of the population here. The cost is too high simply to boost its profile internationally.

Why not translate documents into esperanto and klingon as well, since the translation is purely an academic exercise anyway.

Someone has mentioned previously that Luxemburgish is in the same situation, an official EU language, but not really used in Luxemburg. If this is so, then that's another waste of money.

electrode

It's a pure waste of money. Can't understand why anyone could bother to apply for the thing in the first place.

electrode

It's a pure waste of money. Can't understand why anyone would bother to apply for it in the first place.

joe.

What if in a few generations time there was very few Irish speakers left as people gradually stopped speaking it. Imagine if you were born then. Would you be curious as to what it was like? How it sounded? How it was written? Would you like to be able to read,write and understand it? I know I would. At least this way it will be kept alive and I'm all for it.

Drapper

joe. wrote:

What if in a few generations time there was very few Irish speakers left as people gradually stopped speaking it. Imagine if you were born then. Would you be curious as to what it was like? How it sounded? How it was written? Would you like to be able to read,write and understand it? I know I would. At least this way it will be kept alive and I'm all for it.

Very well put! Totaly agree