The death knell of the Irish Language

JupiterKid · 23-08-2019 11:39PM #1

I was on the Aran Islands for a couple of days this week and was speaking to several locals and island residents during my stay. There were a good number of native Gaelgoirs which was good to see, but most people on the island under the age of 50 spoke English to me and would only use Irish if I used a cupla focal myself. Many people who have moved to the islands over the past 25 years cannot speak Irish fluently.

Now I’m no ardent Irish language promoter, indeed Irish was my absolute worst subject in school, I have better French and German than Irish - but the demise of the use of daily Irish in the supposed “Gaeltacht” areas is very sad to see and the rage of decline is alarming.

If current trends continue, the use of daily Irish in all the designated Gaeltacht areas will be completely gone by the middle of this century.

Link to a thought provoking critique of government policy on the Irish language:
https://ansionnachfionn.com/2015/06/24/irish-is-not-dying-irish-is-being-killed/

What can be done? Should we just allow the use of Irish to die out? Can the decline be arrested and indeed reversed?

whisky_galore · 23-08-2019 11:43PM

Not again.

23-08-2019 11:43PM

Of course it should be preserved. An invaluable part of our cultural heritage.

Filmer Paradise · 23-08-2019 11:49PM

I couldn't give a shiney sh1te about it really.:)

Atlantic Dawn · 23-08-2019 11:49PM

Grants have been cut, various outlandish state compliance targetting of the population on the islands has been done as if these people live on the mainland. There should be zero VAT on these islands, they should operate like Canary Islands.

Additionally having the places operate like a kind of Dublin Zoo environment where the people living there have to live like backward people within so many regulations they are living like animals in a zoo to entertain tourists doesn't help either.

Upforthematch · 23-08-2019 11:50PM

JupiterKid wrote: »

What can be done? Should we just allow the use of Irish to die out? Can the decline be arrested and indeed reversed?

People will speak what they want to speak. Those who are interested will speak the language.

What can you do? Be encouraging and supportive if someone you know wants to speak Irish.

Should 'we' allow it to die out? Coercion doesn't work. So 'we' should let be.

Can be decline be reversed? Why not? But the traditional 'gaeltachts' won't exist in their current form - digital gaeltachts are the way to go!

L1011 · 23-08-2019 11:51PM

Making it compulsory in schools with no idea how to teach it other than by threat and boredom was the death knell.

paleoperson · 23-08-2019 11:51PM

It's all a bit of a scam I think, a sort of ponzi scheme.

Think about all the official government documents that need translation. Think about all the school books people have to write. Think of the extraordinary waste of TG4 and Radio na Gaeltachta. Look at a show like Ros na Run alone - all those jobs created and a small number of people qualified or competing for them. It's all their little privileged world. Think about how they need solicitors and gardai and judges and legislators with fluent Irish in case someone demands it. Any piece of government information or release has to be available in Irish. Any attempts to go against this are met with fierce, emotionally-laden resistance by the very people it's benefiting.

Could there be any more cozy a life to lead than an Irish teacher? You learn a language once and that's it, you're set for life. What a racquet.

Upforthematch · 23-08-2019 11:56PM

paleoperson wrote: »

It's all a bit of a scam I think, a sort of ponzi scheme.

Think about all the official government documents that need translation. Think about all the school books people have to write. Think of the extraordinary waste of TG4 and Radio na Gaeltachta. Look at a show like Ros na Run alone - all those jobs created and a small number of people qualified or competing for them. It's all their little privileged world. Think about how they need solicitors and gardai and judges and legislators with fluent Irish in case someone demands it. Any piece of government information or release has to be available in Irish. Any attempts to go against this are met with fierce, emotionally-laden resistance by the very people it's benefiting.

Could there be any more cozy a life to lead than an Irish teacher? You learn a language once and that's it, you're set for life. What a racquet.

TG4/RnaG are excellent and not an 'extraordinary waste'.

I don't benefit from the 'racquet' you describe and I support the services you list. We claim to be a bi-lingual state - there are costs associated with this.

paleoperson · 24-08-2019 12:01AM

Upforthematch wrote: »

TG4/RnaG are excellent and not an 'extraordinary waste'.

I don't benefit from the 'racquet' you describe and I support the services you list. We claim to be a bi-lingual state - there are costs associated with this.

I don't want to be in a bilingual state, I'd rather be in a monolingual state.

ILoveYourVibes · 24-08-2019 12:03AM

Its a language with fine values.

Such a shame if its lost.

People are counted differently to things. I think that says it all.

suicide_circus · 24-08-2019 12:04AM

Upforthematch wrote: »

We claim to be a bi-lingual state

who are we kidding?

Upforthematch · 24-08-2019 12:05AM

paleoperson wrote: »

I don't want to be in a bilingual state, I'd rather be in a monolingual state.

Well let your local Teachta Dála know that you want their job title changed!

24-08-2019 12:05AM

dont worry about it. people will continue to fib to get the grants and the wording of the census willl continue to encourage the pretence that this language exists beyond a few hundred diehard hobbyists

Upforthematch · 24-08-2019 12:18AM

Deleted User wrote: »

dont worry about it. people will continue to fib to get the grants and the wording of the census willl continue to encourage the pretence that this language exists beyond a few hundred diehard hobbyists

Replace 'few hundred diehard hobbyists' with 'few thousand native speakers' and a few tens of thousands of diehard hobbyists' and you're more accurate.

suicide_circus wrote: »

who are we kidding?

You might say 'ourselves'

But then there is that cohort who do use the language. Why shouldn't they be respected?

And then there is a much larger cohort who like the flavour the Irish Language brings to their English speaking lives.

Just start calling the Taoiseach, the 'Prime Minister' in a general conversation and look at the reaction you will get!

This much larger group is the group that ensures that Irish will be supported - and isn't that a good thing!

Filmer Paradise · 24-08-2019 12:25AM

Upforthematch wrote: »

Replace 'few hundred diehard hobbyists' with 'few thousand native speakers' and a few tens of thousands of diehard hobbyists' and you're more accurate.

You might say 'ourselves'

But then there is that cohort who do use the language. Why shouldn't they be respected?

And then there is a much larger cohort who like the flavour the Irish Language brings to their English speaking lives.

Just start calling the Taoiseach, the 'Prime Minister' in a general conversation and look at the reaction you will get!

This much larger group is the group that ensures that Irish will be supported - and isn't that a good thing!

It is estimated that we the taxpayers pay 1 billion euros per year to teach it to a largely uninterested audiance.

Other programs add to this massive cost.

Does that make you feel good inside?

the_syco · 24-08-2019 12:30AM

JupiterKid wrote: »

If current trends continue, the use of daily Irish in all the designated Gaeltacht areas will be completely gone by the middle of this century.

It died a 100 years ago in the workhouses.

What is taught now is a bastardised version of it, and it's so badly taught, no-one wants to learn to speak it.

Compare how it's taught to teaching French or German.

BurnUp78 · 24-08-2019 12:36AM

Not making it an exam subject would be a start. Christ I hated Irish in secondary. I can't remember disliking Irish in primary school though in fact I think I liked it.

Atlantic Dawn · 24-08-2019 12:36AM

the_syco wrote: »

What is taught now is a bastardised version of it, and it's so badly taught, no-one wants to learn to speak it.

Compare how it's taught to teaching French or German.

Exactly, there needs to be a complete dumping of all Irish curriculam and a fresh start, the language has been put in to schools by fooking idiots about 30 years behind modern times. Mahogany Gaspipe my arse. It's crazy, the country we live in and the language is given to people in complete sheite, you couldn't make it up. TG4 brought the language ahead 20 years the day it launched.

janfebmar · 24-08-2019 12:44AM

Filmer Paradise wrote: »

It is estimated that we the taxpayers pay 1 billion euros per year to teach it to a largely uninterested audiance.

Other programs add to this massive cost.

Does that make you feel good inside?

No.

L1011 · 24-08-2019 12:49AM

the_syco wrote: »

It died a 100 years ago in the workhouses.

You may be suffering from the problem of thinking 100 years ago is still (early to mid) Victorian, rather than War of Independence era there.

Tammy! · 24-08-2019 12:53AM

Perhaps we should turn this thread as gaelige!!

My German teacher told me I was a natural at languages but I never put in the time in school for German or Irish...

One of my favorite Irish sayings that I do recall is ...

ar nós na gaoithe - like the wind...

24-08-2019 12:54AM

It won't die out but it'll lose prominence. Anyone that speaks Irish speaks another language.

nkl12xtw5goz70 · 24-08-2019 08:21AM

After English, the second most commonly used language in Ireland is Polish.

There's nothing revelatory in the OP's post. English replaced Irish as the majority language of Ireland in the late 18th century, and Irish has been inexorably declining ever since. It will eventually die out, just like thousands of other little-used minority languages.

There will always be a few hardcore fanatical Gaelgoirs who insist on their "right" to use the "national language" at every available opportunity -- but the number identifying themselves as daily speakers of Irish is only around 1 percent of the population. And I'd bet that even they speak English most of the time.

Woke Hogan · 24-08-2019 08:54AM

Bronson Low Tremor wrote: »

After English, the second most commonly used language in Ireland is Polish.

There's nothing revelatory in the OP's post. English replaced Irish as the majority language of Ireland in the late 18th century, and Irish has been inexorably declining ever since. It will eventually die out, just like thousands of other little-used minority languages.

There will always be a few hardcore fanatical Gaelgoirs who insist on their "right" to use the "national language" at every available opportunity -- but the number identifying themselves as daily speakers of Irish is only around 1 percent of the population. And I'd bet that even they speak English most of the time.

I heard most of them actually speak English amongst themselves when there's no one around.

nkl12xtw5goz70 · 24-08-2019 09:03AM

Woke Hogan wrote: »

I heard most of them actually speak English amongst themselves when there's no one around.

Probably.

The Census way overstates the number of actual Irish speakers. First, the question doesn't assume any kind of facility or fluency with the language. You could classify yourself as a "daily Irish speaker" on the form if you spoke three words of Irish a day.

Second, people living in Gaeltacht areas know to classify themselves as daily Irish speakers to keep the grants coming into their districts. This is perfectly understandable, but it also creates an impression that Irish is far more widely used than it actually is.

Plenty of people living in the Gaeltacht don't have a word of Irish and don't need it. The language is useful to them only for bringing in tourists and money.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 24-08-2019 12:10PM

The Irish language is dying out beacuse those charged with marketing and promoting it are for more interested in enforcing its status than actually promoting it or encouraging its usage.

That, plus they're completely inept and badly suited for the job.

whisky_galore · 24-08-2019 12:24PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Of course it should be preserved. An invaluable part of our cultural heritage.

For you and everyone else of this mind.

What are you doing to preserve it?

EmmetSpiceland · 24-08-2019 01:02PM

Bronson Low Tremor wrote: »

Probably.

The Census way overstates the number of actual Irish speakers. First, the question doesn't assume any kind of facility or fluency with the language. You could classify yourself as a "daily Irish speaker" on the form if you spoke three words of Irish a day.

Second, people living in Gaeltacht areas know to classify themselves as daily Irish speakers to keep the grants coming into their districts. This is perfectly understandable, but it also creates an impression that Irish is far more widely used than it actually is.

Plenty of people living in the Gaeltacht don't have a word of Irish and don't need it. The language is useful to them only for bringing in tourists and money.

A risible suggestion. Do you really believe “native” Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht regions are sitting around their kitchen tables gabbing away “as béarla” but then they suddenly switch to Irish as someone passes the house? Living in fear that the mean old state “Cigire” is going to pounce and cut off their big juicy grant money. Come on.

They speak Irish at home and when around family/friends. The only time they won’t is when they’re with someone who doesn’t even have the “cúpla focal”. To do otherwise would just be plain rude.

Sure the ones “out West” are a strange, dark, people but what you’re saying comes across as at best naive and at worst disingenuous.

Del2005 · 24-08-2019 01:15PM

Bronson Low Tremor wrote: »

Probably.

The Census way overstates the number of actual Irish speakers. First, the question doesn't assume any kind of facility or fluency with the language. You could classify yourself as a "daily Irish speaker" on the form if you spoke three words of Irish a day.

Second, people living in Gaeltacht areas know to classify themselves as daily Irish speakers to keep the grants coming into their districts. This is perfectly understandable, but it also creates an impression that Irish is far more widely used than it actually is.

Plenty of people living in the Gaeltacht don't have a word of Irish and don't need it. The language is useful to them only for bringing in tourists and money.

Bit like so many people tick Catholic on the census. They don't go to mass and skip the communion as they booked the party early.

The Welsh language was revived by the Welsh people with little support. The Irish language is badly taught, Peig!, and after 12 years of being badly taught the vast majority of people leaving school struggle with it. Maybe if we banned it from school people might start to learn it.

Insect Overlord · 24-08-2019 01:29PM

Inaccurate thread title is inaccurate.

The traditional Gaeltacht areas along the west coast may be in decline, but that's not the death-knell for the language itself.

The death knell of the Irish Language

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