Why does Ireland speak English?

It's unpopular because it's useless.

Outside of a few people on this island that can genuinely speak it well, it has no real function in the world. Most people who try to speak the language mangle it and will barely have enough to cover only basic conversation. They wouldn't have the vocabulary or enough knowledge of the language to go beyond that to anything more complex.

The fact is it's almost pointless learning it today, other than to say you have it as some sort of badge of honour.

Thank christ English is our de facto first language. Otherwise we'd be a basket case.

I think vocabulary jis the key,there was very little of it taught. Similarly with French that I did in secondary school it was all about learning grammar.

Do the vocabulary first in the form of the spoken word. Grammar will come.

Having Irish as a vehicle for entry to the civil service is a dreadful idea in language promotions terms. Why don't the Welsh think their language is useless?. The one good thing about the Irish language is that it's coded both left and right in Irish society and never got totally subsumed by an Irish rightwing cultural identity.

We could but we won't.

It always gets me how Irish people don't feel some kind of shame when they see so many immigrants coming in with perfect English along with at least one other language. Feels like that would spur change anywhere else. The Dutch are famously multilingual for instance.

If you look at my older posts on the subject, I clearly resented the language to some degree because of my experience having it shoved down my throat. I've since softened my stance quite a bit but ultimately nothing will change thanks to the vested interests and their determination to keep things exactly as they are. The result is that the language will remain useless so @Tony EH is spot on.

Plenty of countries have a lot of people who speak the native language in their day to day while speaking English for work or other reasons. Look at India with its 24 languages for one example. It's not going to happen.

This video sums it up quite nicely, IMO:

Two languages wouldn’t make you a basket case

I didn't say that.

However if English wasn't our first tongue, despite the fact that we that claim Irish is, we would be a basket case. The fact that we speak English as our actual first language has been an absolute boon for us.

As a nation we are terrible at learning languages. We always have been. Perhaps it's because we speak English it can contribute to a certain laziness, but we've just never been great at picking up other tongues.

But as such, learning to speak Irish is really of little to no benefit at all. All it actually achieves is to allow a language that is all but dead remain on life support and gives the speaker the opportunity to boast that they can. But even at that, it is exceptionally rare to hear Irish spoken in anything above pidgin level.

If people wish to learn the language, then they should absolutely do so and the same goes for any language whether it's Irish or Klingon. But the reality is that one is about as much use as they other from a practical stand point.

Reminds me of doing Irish in secondary school, we used write the equivalent of 'the hat was on the cat' 'the dog crossed the road'

a fluent speaker of Irish had to read this and say very good and give it a tick off 🤣 teenagers writing like 3 yr olds

70,000 speak in in the home.

I think part of it is linguistic-decolonisation. I would support bilingualism.

But by 1975 Irish as a vehicle for advancement was fermily embedded in Irish culture, way too late in the day for that requirement to be dropped.

Well there are very fluent Irish language conversations on the radio.

"It is unfair to put the standard so high." Its not unfair because of the following reason.

That 70,000 number is then used by people to say something along the lines of Irish is going well, its undergoing a revival etc.

Regardless of if the census gives more options regarding details of Irish spoken - the total figure is picked up by the media and used as fact.

In reality its a bunch of people who can't hold a conversation and only did it on school years ago ticking a box saying yes. Young people aren't reviving the language - they are saying they speak it on the census because they did an oral exam in the LC a few years back.

About 1% of people who use ATMs use the Irish Language option, which suggests tens of thousands use it.

SF often criticises over over-dependence on the US economy. Well thats partly because we are an English speaking country. Learning more languages would help to reduce this dependence. A dependence that causing us to face dilemmas on issues like Gaza. Learning more languages, reducing dependence on the English speaking world, will also help us be more independent on foreign policy.

Also there is evidence that people who can speak more than one language are better at computer-coding.

• A 2020 study in Scientific Reports (Prat et al.) found that language aptitude — not math ability — was the strongest predictor of success in learning to program.

• This suggests that multilinguals, who often have more developed language control and metalinguistic awareness, may have an advantage.

• Prat and colleagues ran a study with 36 adult participants, teaching them Python via Codecademy sessions and assessing how quickly and accurately they learned cogbites+3UW Homepage+3Futurity+3.
• They measured:
  • Language aptitude using the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT)
  • Numeracy, fluid reasoning, working memory, and resting-state EEG activity Google Scholar+10Nature+10Futurity+10.
• Across outcomes (learning rate, programming accuracy, declarative knowledge), their models explained 50–72% of performance variance. Language aptitude uniquely contributed ~17–43%, while numeracy contributed only ~2%. Fluid reasoning and working memory also accounted for significant variance, and EEG measures ~10% UW Homepage+11Nature+11Phys.org+11.

Its no longer associated with poverty in the way it was before the 1990s.

Its similarity to Italian and French as Romance-languages might help or hurt it.