Could the Irish language be revived?

JohnKyle39 · 08-05-2018 11:36PM

The Free State government should've made Irish the national language like Israel did with Hebrew.

AllForIt · 09-05-2018 12:30AM

I was chatting to a random stranger in the pub the other day and I told her I was studying Spanish. She congratulated me for going back to college at my age and learning a first second language as a mature student. Then she went on a rant as to why I should learn Irish. "It's your language" she protested. What nonsense , it's not 'my' language. English is 'my' language, if I have a 'my' language at all. If I spoke 3 languages, English, Spanish and Irish - then which one is 'my' language. I find it most odd that some ppl place such importance on a connection between a nationality and a language? Why...just why? I suspect some ppl are just so territorial they like to play it up at every opportunity.

feargale · 09-05-2018 01:15AM

JohnKyle39 wrote: »

The Free State government should've made Irish the national language like Israel did with Hebrew.

Here is the relevant provision of the Irish Free State Constitution.

Article 4.

The National language of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) is the Irish language, but the English language shall be equally recognised as an official language. Nothing in this Article shall prevent special provisions being made by the Parliament of the Irish Free State (otherwise called and herein generally referred to as the “Oireachtas”) for districts or areas in which only one language is in general use.

IMO it was sensible in naming both languages as equally official, but should also have recognised both as national languages. It would have been a recognition of reality as well as a step back from imposing Irish where it wasn't wanted, something that was implemented and caused huge antagonism and resentment towards Irish. Pushing it on people who were not interested has been massively counterproductive.

P.S. Switzerland has four national languages according to its constitution. How can anybody in their right mind say that the language of Jonathan Swift, Henry Grattan, O'Connell (for the most part), Parnell, Yeats and Joyce is not a national language of Ireland?
How did the Wexford rebels of 1798 know that the North Cork Militia were in the locality? They heard them speaking Irish.

whisky_galore · 09-05-2018 08:20AM

AllForIt wrote: »

I was chatting to a random stranger in the pub the other day and I told her I was studying Spanish. She congratulated me for going back to college at my age and learning a first second language as a mature student. Then she went on a rant as to why I should learn Irish. "It's your language" she protested. What nonsense , it's not 'my' language. English is 'my' language, if I have a 'my' language at all. If I spoke 3 languages, English, Spanish and Irish - then which one is 'my' language. I find it most odd that some ppl place such importance on a connection between a nationality and a language? Why...just why? I suspect some ppl are just so territorial they like to play it up at every opportunity.

These are the sort of people who tell you that you're somehow 'less Irish' by an inability to speak the language.

I wonder why it's always the language that is the sacred cultural cow? No-one is ever shamed by their disinterest in GAA, Irish dancing or trad music.

JohnKyle39 · 09-05-2018 04:54PM

whisky_galore wrote: »

These are the sort of people who tell you that you're somehow 'less Irish' by an inability to speak the language.

I wonder why it's always the language that is the sacred cultural cow? No-one is ever shamed by their disinterest in GAA, Irish dancing or trad music.

Because the language is unique to us and only spoken by Irish people in Ireland?

VinLieger · 09-05-2018 05:36PM

On the point about the Welsh revival, the people responsible came over here a few years back to advise on what we could do.

One of the key suggestions was an overhaul of the way it is taught, ie removing it as mandatory and teaching it as spoken language instead of learn by rote.

All suggestions were of course ignored by the gaeilgor mafia in charge as they are massively afraid of real change that might actually see results

Ipso · 09-05-2018 05:41PM

VinLieger wrote: »

On the point about the Welsh revival, the people responsible came over here a few years back to advise on what we could do.

One of the key suggestions was an overhaul of the way it is taught, ie removing it as mandatory and teaching it as spoken language instead of learn by rote.

All suggestions were of course ignored by the gaeilgor mafia in charge as they are massively afraid of real change that might actually see results

Also having it taught more in English would be a help, maybe comparing how different sentences/paragraphs appear in both languages and things like how sentence structure differs between the two languages.

Shenshen · 09-05-2018 05:45PM

JohnKyle39 wrote: »

Because the language is unique to us and only spoken by Irish people in Ireland?

Close, but not quite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language_in_Newfoundland

For what it's worth, it seems to have gone the same way it did in Ireland there, too.

Pugzilla · 09-05-2018 05:57PM

I'm a fluent Irish speaker who did my all of my primary and secondary education including leaving cert through Irish.

This language is functionally dead, no point keeping it on artificial life support. No one uses it in the real world. Even the majority of so called Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht areas speak a strange Irish/English hybrid language, bearlachas.

I wish I had learnt an actually useful language like Spanish or Chinese.

doolox · 09-05-2018 06:04PM

We are sending a lot of our young people abroad to work because they can make more money abroad than they can in this island. It would make a lot more sense to reduce the effort and time spent on Irish and increase the time and effort spent on maths and science in schools.

I would suggest that as a compromise to keep the Gaelgoirs happy Irish should be made optional at Leaving cert level and only three hours be spent on it at Junior cert level. It should be possible to phase it out over time at secondary level but the existing cohort of Irish teachers would have to be accommodated in the medium term as they could not be made redundant suddenly due to political sentimentality.

It should be left up to parents and childrens choice. I bet that in the long term the situation would work out that those interested in the language would opt for Gael Scoileanna at Primary and Secondary level and probably go for honours Irish all the way to Leaving Cert. The non- interested could devote their time to other languages ( German should be first, then Spanish ) and a mix of English and Maths subjects in the time freed up from studying Irish, especially at Ordinary Level. Irish in most schools is a sop to the compulsory nature of Irish in the National Curriculum. It serves no practical purpose to most Irish pupils and students and serves as a drain on the scarce and limited resources available to the contemporary Irish student most of whom are Anglophone and will work in a predominantly Anglophone environment. These people will never make any contact with Irish as a working language except in tiny pockets of the West coast where there should be plenty of alumni from the Gael Scoileanna available to meet the needs of the dwindling number of people who can only speak Irish.

The compulsory nature of Irish should be removed from the LC program now and eventually from the JC program.

Gbear · 10-05-2018 11:19AM

doolox wrote: »

We are sending a lot of our young people abroad to work because they can make more money abroad than they can in this island. It would make a lot more sense to reduce the effort and time spent on Irish and increase the time and effort spent on maths and science in schools.

I would suggest that as a compromise to keep the Gaelgoirs happy Irish should be made optional at Leaving cert level and only three hours be spent on it at Junior cert level. It should be possible to phase it out over time at secondary level but the existing cohort of Irish teachers would have to be accommodated in the medium term as they could not be made redundant suddenly due to political sentimentality.

It should be left up to parents and childrens choice. I bet that in the long term the situation would work out that those interested in the language would opt for Gael Scoileanna at Primary and Secondary level and probably go for honours Irish all the way to Leaving Cert. The non- interested could devote their time to other languages ( German should be first, then Spanish ) and a mix of English and Maths subjects in the time freed up from studying Irish, especially at Ordinary Level. Irish in most schools is a sop to the compulsory nature of Irish in the National Curriculum. It serves no practical purpose to most Irish pupils and students and serves as a drain on the scarce and limited resources available to the contemporary Irish student most of whom are Anglophone and will work in a predominantly Anglophone environment. These people will never make any contact with Irish as a working language except in tiny pockets of the West coast where there should be plenty of alumni from the Gael Scoileanna available to meet the needs of the dwindling number of people who can only speak Irish.

The compulsory nature of Irish should be removed from the LC program now and eventually from the JC program.

This sounds well and good until you see that Scandinavians or the Dutch can manage just fine being passable in 5 or 6 languages, and knowing Danish or Swedish doesn't impede their capacity to learn English.

Language learning isn't a linear thing where if you spend 5 hours on Irish a week that's five hours you never get back, and that you can't spend on French.
Every language you learn makes it easier to learn others.

If we're looking to cut useless hours in the education system, no language learning should be on the chopping block. It's perhaps the most important skill we learn at school.

Cutting the number of elective subjects, cutting non-technical elements out of language curricula (like pre-learned poetry), religion, or other less useful disciplines would be far more fruitful.

I'm not particularly arsed about Irish itself - I moved to France when I was a kid and missed a chunk of Irish education in primary and secondary school, and ended up doing pass-level in the Junior and Leaving cert - however, I think there's a massive benefit to being a truly bi-lingual or multi-lingual society, and Irish probably represents the best chance at us becoming that. If we managed to integrate a proper fluent French or Spanish, total immersion programme, that'd be great, but that'd be a lot tougher to accomplish than Irish.

whisky_galore · 10-05-2018 11:45AM

JohnKyle39 wrote: »

Because the language is unique to us and only spoken by Irish people in Ireland?

Not really a reason why it should stand or fall as a language. Languages have become extinct and no-one died as a result.

It's like saying mud-walled thatched cottages are a native form of Irish architecture, and because they are traditional it follows we should all live in them.

whisky_galore · 10-05-2018 11:47AM

Shenshen wrote: »

Close, but not quite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language_in_Newfoundland

For what it's worth, it seems to have gone the same way it did in Ireland there, too.

'Middle Irish' was spoken in Scotland and the Isle of Man once, so no, it's not unique.

Hotblack Desiato · 11-05-2018 01:50PM

Gbear wrote: »

This sounds well and good until you see that Scandinavians or the Dutch can manage just fine being passable in 5 or 6 languages, and knowing Danish or Swedish doesn't impede their capacity to learn English.

5 or 6 useful languages (and that'd be a few very motivated people)

In Finland a lot of people are p!ssed off that they have to learn Swedish just because there's a small Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, they don't see a value in learning it.

Most Scandinavian languages are similar to each other, just as English, Dutch and German share quite a bit, Italian/Spanish/French, etc. but Finnish is like Irish - not related to the languages around it, and not useful at all outside of its small home country. The difference between Finnish and Irish is that Irish isn't even useful within Ireland.

If the "learning Irish makes it easier to learn other languages" argument had any merit, then why are we so bad at learning other languages?

Permabear · 11-05-2018 02:01PM

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Hotblack Desiato · 11-05-2018 03:54PM

Even that's optimistic, as people can lie through their teeth on the census form and nobody will be any the wiser - and they can quite rightly claim to speak Irish daily if it's literally two words.

They should drop that question and just record the number of Irish-language census forms requested

feargale · 11-05-2018 04:03PM

VinLieger wrote: »

On the point about the Welsh revival, the people responsible came over here a few years back to advise on what we could do.

One of the key suggestions was an overhaul of the way it is taught, ie removing it as mandatory and teaching it as spoken language instead of learn by rote.

All suggestions were of course ignored by the gaeilgor mafia in charge as they are massively afraid of real change that might actually see results

That's interesting. I wasn't aware of Welsh people coming over. Can you give us a link, please?

d'Oracle · 11-05-2018 04:07PM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Before you ask the question of whether or not it can be revived:

1 - do we want it revived?
2 - who's going to be doing all the work of learning it?

Why?

d'Oracle · 11-05-2018 04:12PM

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

If the "learning Irish makes it easier to learn other languages" argument had any merit, then why are we so bad at learning other languages?

Because we don't try.

d'Oracle · 11-05-2018 04:23PM

SusieBlue wrote: »

The way its taught is absolutely woeful, in fairness.
Gaelscoils teach through immersion, which has proven to be far more effective than sticking their heads in books.

In Gaelscoils, when they start Junior Infants, the kids will speak mostly English and the teacher speaks only Irish.
The children won't have the capacity to reply to the teacher in Irish, and they may not even understand everything the teacher is saying.
A big thing I saw is that if the child doesn't understand, rather than just say it in English, the teacher will gesture or show a picture of what they're trying to say until the kid understands.

My goddaughter goes to one, and knew only the odd word when she starterd - cota, mála, etc.
Before long she was speaking in English with the odd Irish word thrown in, eg "Where's my bosca lón?". Within another few months, the kids were able to mostly able to understand what the teacher was saying, and able to reply using a mixture of English and Irish.

There was no sitting down with textbooks learning verbs or anything like that. The more they learned, the less they used English, and the more they used Irish.

I went to one so am biased - but I actually wasn't great at French, I didn't understand the language rules and found the verbs boring.
I did very average in it in exams so am clearly not predisposed to be good at languages.
Being taught organically makes all the difference.

Kids in primary school don't really sit down with textbooks learning verbs.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 11-05-2018 04:24PM

d'Oracle wrote: »

Why?

Why what?

Duffy the Vampire Slayer · 11-05-2018 04:25PM

Welsh was in healthier shape than Irish because Welsh-speaking areas industralised. Irish speaking areas were the poorest parts of a poor country.

whisky_galore · 11-05-2018 04:28PM

d'Oracle wrote: »

Because we don't try.

Why should we?

'Because it's your language?'
Er, no. I didn't grow up in a Gaeltacht so it's not my language. It hasn't been used as an everyday language hereabouts with maybe 150 years or more. Let the hobby language enthusiasts speak it. Let them off at it. Or those that actually live in Gaeltachts.

I couldn't be arsed.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 11-05-2018 04:50PM

whisky_galore wrote: »

Why should we?

'Because it's your language?'
Er, no. I didn't grow up in a Gaeltacht so it's not my language. It hasn't been used as an everyday language hereabouts with maybe 150 years or more. Let the hobby language enthusiasts speak it. Let them off at it. Or those that actually live in Gaeltachts.

I couldn't be arsed.

That was kind of my point: if people want it revived let them go about reviving. As long as they do the work and not force it on other people who couldn't give a monkey's. Including kids.

Permabear · 11-05-2018 05:12PM

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Hotblack Desiato · 11-05-2018 05:32PM

d'Oracle wrote: »

Because we don't try.

OK so if I want to learn French or German from scratch, which is going to be more useful to me?

(a) I actually try to learn French or German and make an effort

(b) I don't really try to learn French or German, but I know Irish already and that's going to help me with my French or German in some hand-waving fashion that's never been explained.

?

Hotblack Desiato · 11-05-2018 05:37PM

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

It's all an Irish form of pork-barrel politics.

The teachers want to keep it because some of them would be out of jobs if it was replaced with a useful subject (same as with religion)

The translators and all the other make-work types obviously

The politicians either want to be seen to use it to benefit their gaeltacht area (but never deliver any real benefits) or in non-gaeltacht areas are afraid to speak out against the craziness of the whole thing because they will be viciously attacked by a very small but determined lobby.

We blow a billion euro a year on this and what do we get for it?

Sure even Leo had to get his fainne before putting himself forward for the big job, can't have a fordinger Taoiseach wha??

facehugger99 · 11-05-2018 05:46PM

The amount of hours spent at Primary level teaching kids Irish and Religion is frightening.

Kids are sponges at that age and could be learning really useful stuff like a foreign language or more stem subjects.

Instead we're wasting time teaching them how to conjugate the verbs of a dead language and about a sky-fairy.

Complete waste.

11-05-2018 05:58PM

Driving around Wales its striking how many people speak Welsh and slip from Welsh to English and vice versa no problem, crucially its seen as a shared cultural heritage. Also, working-class people and scobies speak it so it does not have the elitist connotations Irish can have.

Permabear · 11-05-2018 06:51PM

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Could the Irish language be revived?

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