The death knell of the Irish Language

Hotblack Desiato · 02-09-2019 01:46PM

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

They have two languages there, which is exactly what you oppose here.

Whooooosh.
Both languages are native to their neighbouring countries. There is no "Belgian" langauge. Do you think that that makes it not a proper country, as that idiotic slogan implies?

BTW I don't "oppose having two languages here". There are a lot more than two languages here, you might have noticed... people can and do speak whatever language they like.
I oppose compulsion, the vast amount of money wasted on it and the OLA, and the smug notion held by some that Irish-language enthusiasts are "more Irish" or better in some other way than everyone else.

The leaving cert has more than one compulsory subject and since Irish is an official language either English would be non compulsory as well, or both have to be compulsory.

I'd be happy to have no compulsory subjects at LC.

For all the rest - like not having government documents produced in Irish - this needs a change to the constitution. There’s no appitite for that outside the internet as far as I can see

Wrong. See article 8 of the Constitution:

3 Provision may, however, be made by law for the exclusive use of either of the said languages for any one or more official purposes, either throughout the State or in any part thereof.

Reati wrote: »

In fact, polls continue to show the support for the Irish language is still very high throughout Ireland especially with younger people, who we are told are chomping at the bit to have Irish removed from schools.

It's very easy for people to say in a survey that they "support" (what this very vague word is supposed to actually mean is anyone's guess) Irish, same as they tick boxes on the census. Look at what people actually bother their holes doing, rather than empty phrases. "Supporting" Irish is our version of "mom's apple pie" - everyone says they're in favour of it, but most can't be arsed baking one.

Look at the growing clamour for exemptions from Irish. Many pupils are only going through the motions in Irish classes anyway, increasing numbers every year don't even bother to sit the paper so they have more time to study for their other subjects.

Also it's very disingenuous of you to equate ending compulsion with "removing it from schools".

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 02-09-2019 02:13PM

Yeah, in school everyone I knew who could be exempted from Irish availed of the exemption bar one person. She had moved back from the UK, her mother was Irish. I think she thought learning Irish would help her fit in more or something. I’m not surprised she felt that way given how Irish is talked up beyond its actual usage on the ground.

dodderangler · 02-09-2019 02:20PM

There’s classes being held in tallaght every Saturday between 12-2 I’m thinking of getting back into it again. My daughter is nine and speaks a good bit of Irish and made me remember how beautiful it is. Do we really want our famous beautiful language to just be discarded?

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 02-09-2019 02:25PM

dodderangler wrote: »

There’s classes being held in tallaght every Saturday between 12-2 I’m thinking of getting back into it again. My daughter is nine and speaks a good bit of Irish and made me remember how beautiful it is. Do we really want our famous beautiful language to just be discarded?

I actually don’t like it much as a language. I enjoyed French. I was good at it and thought it was beautiful. I didn’t feel the same about Irish and still don’t.

Anyway, why the dramatics? Discarded? Why is ‘optional’ being equated to ‘discarded’?

dodderangler · 02-09-2019 02:31PM

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

I actually don’t like it much as a language. I enjoyed French. I was good at it and thought it was beautiful. I didn’t feel the same about Irish and still don’t.

Anyway, why the dramatics? Discarded? Why is ‘optional’ being equated to ‘discarded’?

I despised French. Stopped it after 3rd year. Boring and dull and no taste in it at all.
Much preferred Irish. I just never used it after school. So I lost track of the art of conversation. Remember more now that my daughter is decent at it so just want to get back into speaking it fluently.
And yes the more people forget about it the more likely it will be discarded.
Perfect word to show little respect to our language.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 02-09-2019 02:37PM

dodderangler wrote: »

I despised French. Stopped it after 3rd year. Boring and dull and no taste in it at all.
Much preferred Irish. I just never used it after school. So I lost track of the art of conversation. Remember more now that my daughter is decent at it so just want to get back into speaking it fluently.
And yes the more people forget about it the more likely it will be discarded.
Perfect word to show little respect to our language.

This is such sanctimonious guff. If someone doesn’t like a subject, they don’t like it. It’s not a lack of respect. By saying you despised French, are you disrespecting it as a language?

Berserker · 02-09-2019 03:00PM

dodderangler wrote: »

Do we really want our famous beautiful language to just be discarded?

What makes the Irish language famous and beautiful? Making Irish optional is not the same as discarding it.

dodderangler wrote: »

I despised French. Stopped it after 3rd year. Boring and dull and no taste in it at all. Much preferred Irish. I just never used it after school.

What use is a language that you don't use in everyday life?

dodderangler · 02-09-2019 03:16PM

Berserker wrote: »

What makes the Irish language famous and beautiful? Making Irish optional is not the same as discarding it.

What use is a language that you don't use in everyday life?

Yeah because I’m going to use French everyday?
Walked into that one didn’t you?

dodderangler · 02-09-2019 03:17PM

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

This is such sanctimonious guff. If someone doesn’t like a subject, they don’t like it. It’s not a lack of respect. By saying you despised French, are you disrespecting it as a language?

I’ve no problem disrespecting French. Language is complete Codswallop.

Be nice to see some people speak their native tongue. But no just carry on disrespecting your own countries mother tongue.

dodderangler · 02-09-2019 03:18PM

Berserker wrote: »

What makes the Irish language famous and beautiful? Making Irish optional is not the same as discarding it.

What use is a language that you don't use in everyday life?

If everyone started going back to their roots of speaking then we would be using it everyday!!!
Ever think about it. I must be a terrible person to want to speak my native tongue huh!!!

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 02-09-2019 03:27PM

dodderangler wrote: »

I’ve no problem disrespecting French. Language is complete Codswallop.

Be nice to see some people speak their native tongue. But no just carry on disrespecting your own countries mother tongue.

Not speaking one* of Ireland’s official languages doesn’t denote a lack of respect for it. Just indifference.

*Ireland has two first languages. I speak one of them.

Bit cynical · 02-09-2019 03:34PM

dodderangler wrote: »

Be nice to see some people speak their native tongue.

Everyone that can speak, speaks their native tongue. All Irish people speak their native tongue.

nkl12xtw5goz70 · 02-09-2019 09:46PM

dodderangler wrote: »

If everyone started going back to their roots of speaking then we would be using it everyday!!!

What are these "roots of speaking" exactly? You think Irish is somehow lying dormant in our brains, just waiting to be activated?

Stop moaning ffs · 02-09-2019 10:04PM

% of people aged 15 - 30 who say they can read & write in at least one foreign language:

ðŸ‡¬ðŸ‡§32%-Britain
ðŸ‡ðŸ‡º71%
ðŸ‡®ðŸ‡ª75%-Ireland
ðŸ‡§ðŸ‡ª77%
ðŸ‡«ðŸ‡·79%
ðŸ‡µðŸ‡¹81%
ðŸ‡·ðŸ‡´83%
ðŸ‡ªðŸ‡¸85%
ðŸ‡§ðŸ‡¬87%
ðŸ‡¨ðŸ‡¿88%
ðŸ‡¬ðŸ‡·89%
ðŸ‡®ðŸ‡¹90%
ðŸ‡±ðŸ‡¹90%
ðŸ‡µðŸ‡±90%
ðŸ‡©ðŸ‡ª91%
ðŸ‡¸ðŸ‡°91%
ðŸ‡¨ðŸ‡¾92%
ðŸ‡«ðŸ‡®92%
ðŸ‡¦ðŸ‡¹93%
ðŸ‡¸ðŸ‡®94%
ðŸ‡ªðŸ‡ª95%
ðŸ‡ðŸ‡·95%
ðŸ‡±ðŸ‡»96%
ðŸ‡±ðŸ‡º95%
ðŸ‡¸ðŸ‡ª97%
ðŸ‡³ðŸ‡±97%
ðŸ‡²ðŸ‡¹98%
ðŸ‡©ðŸ‡°99%

ðŸ”ŽEurobarometer 2018

So if you compare the Irish to British results you see something. There’s no perceived benefit or need to learn another language if you assume everyone is going to learn yours. That’s a quick slippery road into that the arrogance and exceptionalism our English friends have. But it also speaks to the fact that if we let our own culture and language go and don’t support it, we’d go the same way. Especially as we’re about to the officially the only English speaking country in the EU.

*edit -the flags didn’t work sorry. Posting off my phone.

Bit cynical · 02-09-2019 10:04PM

Bronson Low Tremor wrote: »

What are these "roots of speaking" exactly? You think Irish is somehow lying dormant in our brains, just waiting to be activated?

I think that was probably the philosophy when the teaching policy was thought up originally: The Irish language is in the blood of every Irish person, temporarily suppressed by the English but waiting to spring back now they have gone. Hence Irish classes were not classes in learning a language but rather classes in literacy and literature (as in English). We could not admit to ourselves that we were no longer an Irish speaking country and based our Irish language policy upon this delusion.

I can kind of empathise with this lack of understanding. There have always been some native speakers of Irish and no doubt they were involved in the formulation of language policy. The problem is that to them, Irish seems the most natural thing in the world. That the majority don't speak it, therefore, is down to attitude. A combination of mild beating by the Christian Brothers, haranguing, and making it a compulsory school subject, a requirement for higher education and the civil service would, to them, have seemed like the sensible approach.

Over time, some of this has changed but I don't think we've ever approached the situation in a rational manner, drawing on surveys of actual Irish use in the country and educational research.

Stop moaning ffs · 03-09-2019 07:27AM

Definitely no death knell sounding here

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1168761419405451265?s=21

nkl12xtw5goz70 · 03-09-2019 09:50AM

Bit cynical wrote: »

I think that was probably the philosophy when the teaching policy was thought up originally: The Irish language is in the blood of every Irish person, temporarily suppressed by the English but waiting to spring back now they have gone. Hence Irish classes were not classes in learning a language but rather classes in literacy and literature (as in English). We could not admit to ourselves that we were no longer an Irish speaking country and based our Irish language policy upon this delusion.

Very good post. You are completely right: This policy was shaped by the linguistic nationalists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who never acknowledged the true state of the Irish language. They defined the obstacle as a reluctance to speak Irish, rather than an inability, assuming that if we gave people the opportunity to speak Irish (such as by mandating its use in the public service, the courts, the media, etc.), they would. But this "build it and they will come" philosophy has been a dismal failure.

The denial of reality continues—such as in the post above, where the opening of a few more Gaelscoileanna is heralded as proof that there is "no death knell" for the Irish language. And yet the number of genuine native speakers continues inexorably to decline.

Fourier · 03-09-2019 10:00AM

Bronson Low Tremor wrote: »

Very good post. You are completely right: This policy was shaped by the linguistic nationalists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who never acknowledged the true state of the Irish language.

My reading of the period was that they thought Irish should be taught like Latin and thus should involve grammar drilling and readings from "classics" rather than thinking it was innate to people.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 03-09-2019 10:02AM

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

I actually don’t like it much as a language. I enjoyed French. I was good at it and thought it was beautiful. I didn’t feel the same about Irish and still don’t.

Anyway, why the dramatics? Discarded? Why is ‘optional’ being equated to ‘discarded’?

I always liked Elvish. Pity I wasn't born an elf.

Debating favourites in language is like debating favourties in music. Eash to their own.

Berserker wrote: »

What use is a language that you don't use in everyday life?

Self-expression

dodderangler wrote: »

Yeah because I’m going to use French everyday?
Walked into that one didn’t you?

And will you be using Irish every day once you learn it?

Again, power to you for making the effort to learn Irish, but it 's out of a desire to express yourself, not out of necessity (and again - there's nothing wrong with that - but it does mean you can't use the "using it every day" defense)

Hotblack Desiato · 03-09-2019 10:10AM

The Gaelscoileanna are pointless tbh. Their parents generally don't learn the language so can't help with homework. It will not become a spoken language in their home. When these kids grow up, it's unlikely to be a spoken language in the home they raise their kids in, either.

All this means is that some parents who were hoping to get an Educate Together school will now be stuck with a choice of either a catholic English-language school, or a "multi-denominational" Irish-language school which is in reality catholic.

I'd love to know how much of this demand is driven by a love of the Irish language (unlikely, if most parents can't be arsed to brush up on their Irish) and how much is because they're seen as more middle class schools, fewer foreigners, chance of getting into Irish-language secondary and bonus LC points, etc.

nkl12xtw5goz70 · 03-09-2019 10:13AM

Fourier wrote: »

My reading of the period was that they thought Irish should be taught like Latin and thus should involve grammar drilling and readings from "classics" rather than thinking it was innate to people.

Well, that is just how language instruction was carried out back then -- people learned a language through rote memorization of vocabulary words and grammatical structures. We now have a more communicative approach to language teaching, but that's of fairly recent origin.

No language is "innate." All have to be learned from scratch. Even the cultural nationalists of the late 19th century went off to regions like the Aran Islands where they could immerse themselves in an Irish-speaking environment and master the language there. The problem today is that there is no immersive environment left in which to learn it — even the Gaeltacht is majority English-speaking these days — which means that most people try and fail to learn it through the school system.

Fourier · 03-09-2019 10:24AM

Bronson Low Tremor wrote: »

Well, that is just how language instruction was carried out back then -- people learned a language through rote memorization of vocabulary words and grammatical structures. We now have a more communicative approach to language teaching, but that's of fairly recent origin.

No language is "innate."

Of course no language was innate and I'm aware languages were taught like that, that's the point. The course was designed around standard language instruction at the time, not a belief that the language was innate in Irish people or waiting to be "woken" in them.

olestoepoke · 03-09-2019 10:25AM

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The Gaelscoileanna are pointless tbh. Their parents generally don't learn the language so can't help with homework. It will not become a spoken language in their home. When these kids grow up, it's unlikely to be a spoken language in the home they raise their kids in, either.

All this means is that some parents who were hoping to get an Educate Together school will now be stuck with a choice of either a catholic English-language school, or a "multi-denominational" Irish-language school which is in reality catholic.

I'd love to know how much of this demand is driven by a love of the Irish language (unlikely, if most parents can't be arsed to brush up on their Irish) and how much is because they're seen as more middle class schools, fewer foreigners, chance of getting into Irish-language secondary and bonus LC points, etc.

My 2 children attend an Irish speaking school. I hadn't used the language since secondary school almost 20 years ago. I made an effort to "brush up" at first then progressed to weekly lessons at the school and am now able to hold a conversation in Irish. And your point about a parent not being able to help their child with their homework is clueless. The homework starts off basic and anybody can help and learn with their child as the years go on.
The generalisations in your post regarding peoples motives for enrolling their kids in an all Irish speaking school are ridiculous and founded on what exactly?

Berserker · 03-09-2019 10:41AM

dodderangler wrote: »

Yeah because I’m going to use French everyday? Walked into that one didn’t you?

French is spoken in Ireland on a daily basis. Plenty of companies have employees speaking French for business reasons. I've heard people conversing in French in public in Dublin.

dodderangler wrote: »

Be nice to see some people speak their native tongue. But no just carry on disrespecting your own countries mother tongue.

English is your native tongue if you were born outside one of the few Irish language speaking areas in Ireland.

dodderangler · 03-09-2019 10:58AM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I always liked Elvish. Pity I wasn't born an elf.

Debating favourites in language is like debating favourties in music. Eash to their own.

Self-expression

And will you be using Irish every day once you learn it?

Again, power to you for making the effort to learn Irish, but it 's out of a desire to express yourself, not out of necessity (and again - there's nothing wrong with that - but it does mean you can't use the "using it every day" defense)

As I said if more “actual Irish “ people learned to speak their own language then we would have a reason to speak it.
Kinda sickens me the amount of people here that are dismissing the Irish language.
Should all be ashamed.
Now let’s here the criticism. I’m sure the liberal agenda here will be on me now like white on rice.

daveorourke77 · 03-09-2019 10:59AM

The Irish language is on life support (i.e being kept alive artificially).

It's time we pulled the plug and let it die of natural causes.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 03-09-2019 11:08AM

dodderangler wrote: »

As I said if more “actual Irish “ people learned to speak their own language then we would have a reason to speak it.
Kinda sickens me the amount of people here that are dismissing the Irish language.
Should all be ashamed.
Now let’s here the criticism. I’m sure the liberal agenda here will be on me now like white on rice.

Depends on what you mean by "actual Irish" and "their own language".

While you're at it, can you also explain wtf you mean by "liberal agenda" and where the hell being liberal/conservative comes into it? I think we'd all like to know what you're on about there.

EDIT - also (just out of personal curiousity) - "white on rice" - or is that a typo?

dodderangler · 03-09-2019 11:13AM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Depends on what you mean by "actual Irish" and "their own language".

While you're at it, can you also explain wtf you mean by "liberal agenda" and where the hell being liberal/conservative comes into it? I think we'd all like to know what you're on about there.

EDIT - also (just out of personal curiousity) - "white on rice" - or is that a typo?

I told you before. I don’t dishonor myself by getting into discussions with you. Your liberal logic is pure poison.

dodderangler · 03-09-2019 11:15AM

daveorourke77 wrote: »

The Irish language is on life support (i.e being kept alive artificially).

It's time we pulled the plug and let it die of natural causes.

You should probably change your last name then. Seeing as how it’s as Irish as our language is. I’m sure your great grandparents would love to hear you say that about the Irish language.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 03-09-2019 11:16AM

dodderangler wrote: »

I told you before. I don’t dishonor myself by getting into discussions with you. Your liberal logic is pure poison.

Genius! That's going in the signature!

Anyway, I don't believe we've ever had the pleasure, but you've answered my questions by ignoring them. Cheers

The death knell of the Irish Language

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