The creeping prominence of the Irish language

Not true again, That is just your bias. I do give a sh!te about the kids AND the language. It has a dual benefit.

There have been various studies showing the benefits of having multilingual children.

You have a leaning against the Irish language in general which is fair enough. Ok, you may view my idea as radical. Because it is a 'foreign' mindset to you. If anything I would counter argue that the OP's mindset is 'radical'. If you look at the OP's comments regarding Irish language warnings on cigarettes packets 'causing deaths'. You can really see an irrational 'radical' mindset. Unless someone can correct me if I took up the OP incorrectly. It certainly seems odd and the mindset seemed odd - to me anyway.

I would argue using Irish as the medium of education in primary and preschool would be easy. As there is an overabundance of primary school teachers - scratching a living and subbing here and there. Secondary level it would be more difficult.

But it is NOT the complete changing of the syllabus in Irish education it is merely using the Irish language as a medium to teach the very same general syllabus that is already there. It is only a question of translating English into Irish.

Or using simply Irish books, how do you think Gaelscoil's manage currently do you think they have their own completely different syllabus??? They would be taught the same subjects as their English medium counterparts

They have the very same general direction of syllabus as laid down by the department of education. They have to sit the same state structured exams at the end of the day. The issue you have about the syllabus is mostly a bit of a misnomer IMO.

I don't understand your point about causing 'unnecessary stress' and 4/5 year olds with colonial bias?? That point is a bit baffling.

Toddlers and kids of that age quite happily absorb a new language, if immersed in it. I have heard of toddlers at naíonradescribing Irish as 'new English'. And others who just naturally know there are two words for everything Irish/English.

I did see a discussion online yesterday with Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh and B'OC.

It was like a concentrated discussion of this thread.

O'Connor brought up the point about the perception of exclusivity in Gaelscoileanna, TG4, translations and so on. B Ni C corrected him on those points. Ultimately said The Irish language is for everyone etc it is just the fluency that differs.

And again she pointed out the practical difficulties she has to suffer, when she tries to use the Irish language in day to day life etc.There was tension as well as a member of the audience, seemed disgruntled with BO'C. I got the impression it was a bubbling frustration.

The bit that really made me laugh was when Blaithnaid said if she was Minister for Education she would make all Primary Schools Gaelscoils @11:00. And Blaithnaid said to Brendan 'oh your eyes'.

--

On Gaelscoils

There seems to be a demand for the supply for more Gaelscoil's not less

Also outside fee paying schools Gaelscoil's are said to be the top performers getting academic results.

In 2016 - 'Of the top 10 non fee-paying schools whose students progress to third-level education, four are Gaelcholáistí or Irish language schools'

Yet in 2016 - 'Of the 735 secondary schools registered with the Department of Education in 2016, just 48 are fully Irish-medium.'

This sounds very pejorative one you say 'someone off a farm in Kerry'. A tongue in cheek comment, I understand. But an untrue generalisation. As far as I am aware the likes of Conor McGregor and Ola Majekodunmi. Are neither experts in the agricultural matters or from Kerry. Or even from rural Ireland

Secondly you pretend that the Irish language is dead. It is the usual throwaway comment that is used by some in these type of debates.

It clearly is not considering that 1.7m people in Ireland have some form of Irish.There wide diveranges of level of fluency in between, obviously. The Irish language is not dead but seriously in trouble in the next 20/30 years. It could be on life support by then.

If the majority of the Irish people care about the Irish Language and do not want it lost. As many seem to agree on. Irish medium based education is the way forwards IMO.

PS - Gaelic v Gaeilge/Irish

I'm not arguing that kids won't pick up - I'm arguing that not all of them will. And that you're dismissing serious issues just to get what you want. Furthermore, those that do do so in specific environments you just assume will materialise out of thin air.

Page 8 of the document YOU linked to - "however, learning issues may arise both for students and teachers at the transition from Gaeilge-medium education to English-medium education" - one can only imagine what it's like going in the opposite direction!

Page 11 of it - "Gaeilgeoirí in the transition from Gaeilge-medium primary level education to English-medium second level mathematics education experience a disadvantage of 8.7 percent in performance when assessed through English." - 8.7% drop when they swtiched language??!

If kids naturally picked up second languages easily at the rate you assume we'd have a bilingual society already!

And finally - you ignroed four of the five questions I put to you in the post you replied to. Please address these or concede the points.

I like Irish as - It has quite a broad spectrum through which one can interpret life. I like the sounds and how they relate to the natural world.

I also appreciate Irish in a living context that echos back well over a 1000 years. I find it fascinating that mythological knowledge relating to our ancestry was passed unaltered through generations through a sophisticated spoken tradition.

The viewpoint of Irish as useless is limiting. It has vast potential. The historical notion as language of the poor relates to the worst eras of our history -of emigration, occupation and the famine. It was thriving and spoken by Gaelic Kings and Queens.

Ireland was a cultural mecca of music, poetry, song, story and spirituality.

The culture was highly sophisticated. Our Celtic ancestors were certainly more attuned to their etheric nature and the world behind the veil which no doubt could be more tangibly felt back then. A magical land & a magical people. But the cycles of time change our consciousness-and here we are (in an iron age of consciousness) - a rational world arguing in a rational way ...but that will change again as we are enter into the Aquarian age.

Irish Language and landscape blend so very well together. It mirrors the natural world better than English - in an untranslatable way.  Irish is a means through which reality can be sensed with a deeper sense of meaning.  

When Irish is judged- solely on its economic/utilitarian benefit - one misses out on the bigger picture.

Irish is a uniquely brilliant lens through which to view the world. The sounds are rich and when sung well can stir the soul.

It is the oldest spoken language in Europe - that's pretty amazing -if we only realised we are so so lucky! Especially when you consider how our culture was almost wiped out. What remains of our culture is but a fragment of a greater time – yet it is still impressive. There is currently more life in the language than you'll find in the impressive artifacts of ancient Egypt.

I find it sad at the beating it has taken -even in this forum! It is sad that Anglisised Surnames were imposed in the past, that Irish was pushed as a backward savage tongue by an external force -and that notion is still believed. It is sad that our sense of place (with deep roots in lore) was altered by the anglicising of names which related to the land.

-Vinegar Hill -bears no resemblance to Cnoc Fiodh na gCaor Hill of the wood of the berries (other than phoneme). That someone would find offense to Irish place-names on signs says much about their mindset … and yet,were a 180 degree change of mindset to happen then that same person would be far the richer in wisdom and self.

Some posters have pointed the finger at Irish speakers for leading to the demise of the language for example -an unwillingness to speak it following Emigration or even here at home. This is only partially true and many have played their part in keeping the language alive - it is thanks to those we still have Irish. Same goes for musicians! Good bad or indifferent we all carry some responsibility.

I spent much time far away from anglo culture– enough time to feel infused into different cultures (I find it it takes at least three weeks to months) – a Brazilian Amazonian tribe, Buddhist monks in the high Himalayas, Small islands off the coast of India, I threw myself into a Spanish speaking culture without having a word of it and picked it up. I found there was a common thread amongst old cultures (myth, spirituality, story)- and began to gain a deep appreciation of our own which had lain dormant within me – I was blind to it. Irish language, I realised was a gateway to deeper insight.

If culture is not important to people – if it is seen as a waste of money then … it is easier to remain immersed in the slow current of a creeping homogenized world of a perceived majority – cultural decay can set in like an untended garden.

We can imagine where that leads to!

Signage, announcements – giving recognition to Irish -this is important – the stage is set – and up to the people grassroots up to act also.

It is the small increments that lead to great advances. Change can come slowly. Little things make a big differences. Playing Irish music in a shop. Just saying slán -that’s easy, it’s the embarrassment that’s not -but why be embarassed -that's a meditation in itself! Read a myth, a saga, a poem but speaking as you read (even in English). Sending a child to the Gaeltacht – it may be years down the line that the impact of the seed being sown makes a difference. As the saying goes “Ní neart go cur le chéile’ Little strength without unity. Waking up the sense of culture.

We can choose to bring a little culture into our day and not place reliance solely on political power or whats streamed on tv/radio.

It is heartening that there are spaces of cultural unity in society – all Irish preschools, secondary students singing together in a school assembly, trad sessions, ciorcail comhrá -small examples of Irish being spoken in a community. More can be done to revive Irish in the wider community, like cities - the only barrier being -perception, imagination, collective effort and will.

I'm not an enthusiast nor a zealot. I'm a glass half-full kind of person. I can get by in English, Irish, French, German, Spanish.

As Wibbs so well puts it  “For the vast majority of Irish people… They don't notice it. It's just background stuff.”

Irish people who don’t notice the background stuff are asleep - not only to their culture but to the very essence that has shaped their identity -the perceived and the hidden.

Yet for those, there remains the potential delight of waking up.

I think a lot of people would like to see it - the question is at what cost? Disruption to their childrens' education? Increased taxes? It's also based on the assumption that other people are going to be doing the hard work, not them.

That's when you're going to find a much more accurate figure.

Just on your last point - there are whole societies where almost everyone is functionally bilingual. The only people who aren't are the few who have difficulty with their own mother tongue.

I'd point you towards Belgium, for instance - in Flanders most if not all normal adults speak Dutch, English and French; and a lot speak German too. Move south to the Walloons, and you'll find most people are monolingual in French. This should point towards where the difficulty lies: not in innate ability, but in the culture an individual lives in. The French-speakers live in a culture that prizes monolingualism, just like most English-speaking countries - while the Flemish live in a culture that values and promotes an ability to speak several languages.

A large proportion of Irish people fully subscribe to the Anglosphere's prized monolingualism, and feign astonishment at people who can speak another (non-Irish) language well. Another significant section of our society would rather go the Flemish route, and speak both Irish and English along with one or more other languages.

Not all languages have changed as rapidly as English: medieval Icelandic can apparently be read by modern Icelanders.

Also, an educated native Irish speaker - by which I mean someone who has studied Irish literature to the same extent as a Leaving Cert honours English student would have studied English literature - would make a very good fist of understanding the Irish written around the time of Chaucer. Indeed, I have a book here that was translated into Irish - apparently from Latin - around that period, and I can understand most of it fairly easily - in fact the biggest difficulty is pre-caighdeán spelling. In fact, if the speling was standardised, anyone who reads Irish on a regular basis could understand it. Writing in 1914, the editor comments on the text:

... no evidence has been found of linguistic peculiarities not in the spoken language of, say, the last five hundred years .... The forms are practically those in use amongst good speakers of Irish at the present day.

True, but the difference there is praticality.

The extra languages are learnt as a necessity. When English is your first language and you live in a majority native-English speaking country, that goes out of the window.

Also speaking the worlds most common second language as your first really disincentivises learning another.

Obviously I will let the poster answer but "Gaelic" is the form that has made it into the English language and, when speaking English, would be the natural word therefore to use.