Is the Irish Language going out of fashion? Please Vote!

Slutmonkey57b · 24-11-2004 07:55AM

Magpie is absolutely correct. What you know today is not "Irish" at all, it is a political construct. It is not "Gaelic", the original language of the native speakers. No modern European language is the same as it was 500 years ago, but the difference is that other languages have evolved through natural use, whereas Irish has been invented along the way. My favourite example of this is that when I was sitting in Irish class ignoring the teacher, the "correct" word for car was - "carr". Wow. Then they realised it was a joke and turned it into "glustean" (no I can't spell it and even if I could I wouldn't on general principle so don't bother) - meaning, literally, "go - thing".

The language is permanantly stuck at the equivalent of a 6-year old child's level of English vocabulary. Even assuming you wanted to hold a conversation in the language, you couldn't hold an eloquant one because the words and flexibility simply don't exist. Total waste of time, and like others here, I refuse to have anything to do with the language because the filthy powers that be force it down our throats from birth as "part of your heritage". It's not part of my heritage, background, or everyday life, and it never will be.

Also note that English is no longer taught "as a language" in primary school - primary school children do not learn grammar anymore. This has not stopped English being the most widely spoken langaueg in the country.
People do not speak Irish because there is no reason for them to do so, and many of them activly do not want to. Stop pretending otherwise. It has not been "beaten down by the man" - it has been forced down our throats, and it still fails.

Slutmonkey57b · 24-11-2004 08:16AM

luckat wrote:

Are you joking? Gaelscoileanna are the fastest-growing school type in the country, and are neck-and-neck with the Jesuit schools as the most successful in terms of sending kids to university.

We have an Irish-language TV station and at least two Irish-language radio stations!

The great thing about this modern generation (**creeak**) is that their attitude to Irish is so different. Rather than it being a punitive thing, a duty and a way of being in competition, they're speaking and fostering Irish for love and fun. I love the slang, the relaxed attitude about speaking Irish, the lack of musty dutifulness.

1: There is no pressure on University places in this country, except in very specific disciplines. Teaching methods have no bearing on the awarding of university places (at least not in terms of the political structure of the school). The non-takeup of 3rd level places has far more to do with socioeconomic factors than anything else. Also bear in mind Irish schools and Jesuit schools are heavily subsidised/private colleges respectively (or in some cases both).

2: The existance of Irish language stations is a very overt Poilitcal statement, and not a reflection of Irish's popularity. It is precicely because the langauge is a) dead and b) unpopular that they exist.

Djpj is absolutley correct. Irish is a political checkbox, not a living language. It is not our National language. If you ask someone "is Irish important, should we keep it?" They'll say yes. Then monitor that person for 2 weeks and see how much Irish they speak. The answer will be none in 99% of cases.

stagolee · 24-11-2004 09:22AM

personaly i reckon kids in junior school should be tought in irish for half the day and english half the day then when they get to senior school let them choose between irish and a couple of other languages.

even though the irish language radio stations and tv stations do exist largley because of govenment funding they still kick the arse off rte and i am genuinley motivated to learn the language by them. praticularly the radio stations which play decent music while im on the nightshift as opposed to the piss poor 80's/chart/dance cack that seems to run on a 20 song loop on all the other stations

ixoy · 24-11-2004 10:57AM

While we're at it, the Government are lobbying the EU today to get Irish recognised as a working EU language, enabling meetings, etc. to be held as Gaeilge. Currently, it's a Treaty language only, meaning (I think) that all EU treaties, etc. are available in Irish if you want them. Estimates put the cost of this as €28m, with the apparent creation of 280 jobs.

Interestingly though, it appears 7m can speak Catalan and that 40% of the populace of the new ex-Soviet states speak Russian, yet neither of them have been afforded the status of a Treaty language and they may object to Irish being awarded such a status. Which beggars the question are we pursuing it for national identity solely or for any real practical reasons?

And wasn't there some new paper on improving Irish road safety that's been delayed for over a year because, by law, it needs an Irish copy but noone is available to perform the translation? And meanwhile bodies pile up on the roads - anyone confirm this one?

Haruspex · 24-11-2004 10:58AM

Flukey wrote:

Though we may not speak it, it surrounds us in all sorts of ways. We use a lot of words daily that have an Irish origin or are Irish, Taoiseach being the best example. Most placenames in Ireland are either translations from Irish or mispronounciations of the Irish form. "Bally" that starts a lot of placenames comes from Baile, meaning town, being mispronounced. Dún is an old Irish world for fort. Cill is an old Irish word for church and as a result we have a lot of placenames beginning with Kil or Kill. There are many other examples.

I agree with Flukey in this respect. Irish placenames are so much more descriptive and intricately bound up with location and a sense of place than their anglicisations would have you believe. I admit we are historically stuck with the English now but they should not be forgotten.

As for Irish being a "dying" language well take at look at the flourishing work of poets writing "as Gaeilge" such as Cathal Ó Searcaigh and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. These are two of the most acclaimed contemporary Irish language poets in the country. Their work is often not celebrated enough but they contribute enormously to the notion of a language in use.

Sleepy · 24-11-2004 11:03AM

Yeah, TG4 beats the arse off RTE by showing the occasional watchable movie that RTE showed years before it, some sub-Fair City Soap operas and, well, that's about it really isn't it?

The only decent things they've done have been their children's TV, Hector and the Underdogs.

stagolee · 24-11-2004 11:21AM

Sleepy wrote:

The only decent things they've done have been their children's TV, Hector and the Underdogs.

(in best soccer score announcer voice...)

TG4:3
RTE:......nil

blondie83 · 24-11-2004 11:46AM

magpie wrote:

Well, I've been banned from the Gaeilge forum (for expressing the views below), so that's one less fear who will be ag leabhart an tainge as it were.

My 2 pence worth: Irish was effectively a dead language by the 19th Century, it was reinvented by a coterie of Cultural Nationalist Intellectuals who used it as part of the evidence of our cultural 'otherness' from Britain and therefore right to independence in the late 19th Century, it was inserted into the school curriculum by Fianna Fail in the 1930s along with a very dubious history curriculum as a bulwark against 'counter-revolution'.

Nil aon tintean mar do thinteain fein, as they used to make you learn by rote in school.

Thats probably actually a pretty good description of why we all have to do Irish, but it's no reason to stop people from learning it. Someone mentioned earlier that having our own language doesn't set us apart from other nations, it just makes us equal to them. But why not be equal? I fully agree that the sylubus (sp) for the junior and leaving cert needs to be brought more into line with the sylubuses for more modern European languages - Irish as it is taught now is completely ineffective. But if you ever spend even one month in Irish college in the Gaeltacht, you learn what it is to speak Irish in a relaxed everyday envirnoment - and out of necessity you learn how to speak it quite quickly! This is the sort of atmosphere that we need to encourage in the Irish classes in this country - that or send anyone off to the Gaeltacht! Just out of interest, My Irish teacher for the leaving cert didn't really "teach" as such - she used to just sit there and give us "advice for life" and chat to us and all - then occasionaly she'd do a poem or something. Thing is I still managed to get an A in honours Irish and am still a fluent speaker of it. This is in no way because of my teachers, it's becuase I went to Irish college 4 years in a row, for 3 weeks at a time. I learnt more in those 12 weeks than I did in my 12 years in school

Saruman · 24-11-2004 12:03PM

saw an excellent short movie at the cinema last year... a Chinese guy was bored (maybe Japanese) so he turns a globe puts his finger down and it lands on Ireland.. so he spends 6 months learning everything about Ireland.. seeing that Irish is our first language he learns it...

He arrives here and tries speaking but no one understands him.. he thinks its because his pronounciation is all wrong etc. He asks for directions or a job at a chipper i think.. he speaks irish, they cant understand him and when he leaves one guy says "What language was that?" And the other guy says "Chinese or something!"

finally he is in a bar and is all depressed and when he starts asking the bartender something.. again maybe for a job... he is not understood.. BUT an old guy at the bar notices and and they have a chat As Gaeilge

... anyway he ends up working for Board Failte i think.. I thought it was excellent and made me ashamed that our language was unknown to most of us.

Haruspex · 24-11-2004 12:26PM

Saruman wrote:

saw an excellent short movie at the cinema last year... a Chinese guy was bored (maybe Japanese) so he turns a globe puts his finger down and it lands on Ireland.. so he spends 6 months learning everything about Ireland.. seeing that Irish is our first language he learns it...

He arrives here and tries speaking but no one understands him.. he thinks its because his pronounciation is all wrong etc. He asks for directions or a job at a chipper i think.. he speaks irish, they cant understand him and when he leaves one guy says "What language was that?" And the other guy says "Chinese or something!"

finally he is in a bar and is all depressed and when he starts asking the bartender something.. again maybe for a job... he is not understood.. BUT an old guy at the bar notices and and they have a chat As Gaeilge ... anyway he ends up working for Board Failte i think.. I thought it was excellent and made me ashamed that our language was unknown to most of us.

That'd be Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom.

Flukey · 24-11-2004 01:13PM

I saw that too. It is very good.

monkeyfudge · 24-11-2004 01:16PM

I saw that film on TG4 recently. It was very well made.... even if it did make Dubliners out to be eejits who don't know the difference between Chinese and Irish...

simu · 24-11-2004 09:20PM

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Magpie is absolutely correct. What you know today is not "Irish" at all, it is a political construct. It is not "Gaelic", the original language of the native speakers. No modern European language is the same as it was 500 years ago, but the difference is that other languages have evolved through natural use, whereas Irish has been invented along the way. My favourite example of this is that when I was sitting in Irish class ignoring the teacher, the "correct" word for car was - "carr". Wow. Then they realised it was a joke and turned it into "glustean" (no I can't spell it and even if I could I wouldn't on general principle so don't bother) - meaning, literally, "go - thing".

The language has changed over the centuries as all languages do, no one is denying this. As for your political construct theory, would you like to provide us with some links to back this up? In all my years of studying Irish and linguistics, I've not heard of it - maybe it's some sort of grand conspiracy? Please help me lift the veil of ignorance that blocks my sight.

The government did set up a group to standardise spellings and grammar but the same has been done with other languages - take the Académie Française in the case of French, for instance.

It has also been necessary to find words in Irish there were no wors for 100 years ago for the simple reason that the things these words refer to did not exist yet. No language had a word for a car or a computer before these things were invented. The word "gluaisteán" is not intrisically funny - you'll find similar words created by recombining elements of other words in many languages. It happens in English as well but is less visible unless you have knowledge of Latin and Greek.

In fact, there are quite a few words for "car" in Irish, depending on which dialect is involved.

The language is permanantly stuck at the equivalent of a 6-year old child's level of English vocabulary. Even assuming you wanted to hold a conversation in the language, you couldn't hold an eloquant one because the words and flexibility simply don't exist.

Maybe your knowledge of the language rests at such a low level but that's not to say there aren't people out there who can have discussions about whatever they feel like in Irish. Do you think Radio na Gaeltachta is just random sounds generated by some government machine? Do you think all Irish books and newspapers are random letters created by the same machine?

Seriously, if you're going to try and argue that Irish shouldn't be taught in schools, try finding more coherent ways of arguing your point.

Undergod · 24-11-2004 10:22PM

First of all, I think its important to preserve it even if you think its a dead language. Irish is in so many ways a really nice and poetic. For example, it has different verbs 'to be' for definition and description. In english, our emotions define us. "I am sad", but in Irish, "tá brón orm" (there is sadness on me).
I can't see any reason why learning it is a bad idea... how many peple who do French in school will actually use it? Learning it can't do any harm.

Saruman · 25-11-2004 01:04AM

Thats the one yes.. it was excellent

passive · 25-11-2004 02:25AM

Learning it can't do any harm.

yes...but NOT learning it can't do any harm either...

people are constantly saying, and it's been repeated here, "it's important for our heritage" or "our language is our culture" and other such statements like that. someone please explain this for me? one of the "gaeilge=great!" crowd... what exactly is that supposed to mean? when people say things like "it's important because it's our history" do they actually have any intelligent thoughts behind it or is it just a sentence.

it's not necessary and it should not be compulsary. it's completely unfair on leaving cert students, especially because of the nature of the course <tangent> as has been stated repeatedly... it's not about learning and understanding the language, it's about learning off meaningless words about certain plays poems and stories, the vast majority of which have very poor plots and little substance, particularly when compared to the standard of literature on the english course. they seem to pretend the irish is a first language course and the students already know the language and are just required to give their opinions on the greatest of irish political works or spout some inane (but grammatically correct) views about drugs & alcohol, the problems of racism, the celtic tiger etc.

the reality is that students on average (well..in my school anyway, maybe we're the worst in the country or something) have very poor grasp of the language...most of the books are entirely in irish and huge amounts of time are wasted in Irish class translating each line of the poems & stories so we have a vague idea whats going on. we have extra classes after school for grammar... if not for them i'd be even more lost in class, but we don't have time to cover actually knowing the language in class because of the course work :mad: </tangent>

all that said: i kinda like it. I accept that if it was taught differently i probably wouldn't have all this pent up hatred. I do think it's "nice" that people still speak it as a first language in (a handful of) places. I randomly use irish words in conversation, enjoy speaking it in the oral (ahem) &, for no reason i can think of other than a random realisation that i preferred it, i've replaced "between" with "idir" in writing texts and emails and stuff... it's a novelty for me. It isn't a necessary novelty though...or a novelty on a par with Maths & English in terms of their educational merit.

umm... slán...

Saruman · 25-11-2004 10:26AM

Irish should not be compulsory.... If it were an optional class though then it might work out better.

Pinkchick03 · 25-11-2004 11:51AM

luckat wrote:

DJPJ, why not learn lots of languages - good fun. I'm learning Japanese from mp3s at the moment as I cycle in and out of work.

Where did you get the mp3's from - I am really interested in learning Japanese! Thanks

simu · 25-11-2004 09:11PM

The thing is that you have to make a distinction between the language itself and the way its taught in some schools (there are good Irish teachers out there too!).

SprostonGreen · 25-11-2004 10:06PM

It definitely needs to be taught differently in schools. I wish I knew more of the language, I can get the gist of An Nuacht but cant speak it very well. Our identity is being eroded too much as it is, with every main street looking exactly the same. It should be "let die" or "buried in Innisboffin", that is a soul-less mentality.

Pinkchick03 · 26-11-2004 09:23AM

I was training in my last job and this norweigen guy asked me did I know any Irish - the cheek! I try and speak a few words of Irish a day! One of my friends speaks Irish at home - I think every family should try to speak a little bit of Irish a day in their home. Even just saying Go raibh maith agat nó le do thoil would be nice! When my sister and I are talking and don't want my niece (her daughter) if you follow, to know what we are saying we speak Irish - very bad Irish - but we understand each other!! Slán go foill!

Fallen Angel · 10-01-2005 07:14PM

Check out this website / Féach ar seo

http://www.teanganua.pro.ie

This group wants to bring about radical changes in the teaching of grammar in schools and change some of the difficult Irish grammar.

The government says that 41% (1.5 million) Irish people have knowledge of Gaeilge but we all know that can differ immensely. About 200,000 people in Northern Ireland have some knowledge of Gaeilge too. A total population of 1.7 million people both North and South have some knowledge of Irish.

Two key areas:

1. The teaching of Gaeilge in primary and secondary schools has contributed directly to the decline in interest in speaking/ reading/ writing Irish.
The government must make radical changes to the way Irish is taught, concentrating more on reading and speaking Irish, less emphasis on grammar. Maybe even having conversation classes in Primary and secondary school where the students talk in Irish instead of always listening to the teacher speak "as Gaeilge".

2. Irish people need to get rid of their hangups about speaking Irish, even if they can hardly string a sentence together. If someone speaks to you in Irish, don't look at them sideways as if they're speaking Swahili. People should use a couple of words here and there when they are speaking English.
Mix English and Irish words together. You know words like; "Conas atá tú ?" - "Táim go maith", "Slán tamaill", "Slán abhaile", "Fan go bhfeicfimid", "Slán go fóill" etc...

Labhair Gaeilge linn !
Speak Irish with us, not to us !

captainplanet · 10-01-2005 07:20PM

i heart irish. heart it very much

evad_lhorg · 11-01-2005 01:52AM

ok i started irish in first class and did it all the way up to leaving cert. I started spanish in first year and studied it for five years up to the leaving cert. in second year of secondary school i was better at spanish than irish. that's appauling!

edit: on the irish teaching. i was lucky enough to get a good teacher from first to third year and he taught us the verbs and proper endings and i can still whack out the 11 irregular verbs in less than 4 seconds. if not for him i would have done foundation irish cause there is no way in hell id be able to write a story without the proper verb endings and have it make any sense.

Jujenjitsu · 11-01-2005 10:40AM

Its a part of our heritage, but stuffing it down the publics throat is beginning to become a piss-off. Its as useful as a bucket of nut sacks.

Slutmonkey57b · 12-01-2005 07:18AM

Fallen Angel wrote:

Check out this website / Féach ar seo

No. See above.

The government says that 41% (1.5 million) Irish people have knowledge of Gaeilge but we all know that can differ immensely. About 200,000 people in Northern Ireland have some knowledge of Gaeilge too. A total population of 1.7 million people both North and South have some knowledge of Irish.

Since we are forced to learn Irish, shouldn't 100% of the population know Irish? But they don't. I wonder why?

Mix English and Irish words together. You know words like; "Conas atá tú ?" - "Táim go maith", "Slán tamaill", "Slán abhaile", "Fan go bhfeicfimid", "Slán go fóill" etc...

Labhair Gaeilge linn !
Speak Irish with us, not to us !

Why on earth would you mix English and Irish? And changing the way Irish is taught is not going to solve the problem - as already advised, English, the language that the population chooses to use, is taught apallingly, if at all, in this country. Yet still people choose to use it. Why won't the Irish lobby admit that we know our own minds and know what language is actually the "first" language of the country?

Speak Irish to each other, and leave me the Fck alone thank you very much.

trotter_inc · 12-01-2005 08:27AM

Used to hate doing Irish in secondary school - didnt see the point really, doing it in primary school is fine. I think it should be an optional subject in secondary school.

Blub2k4 · 12-01-2005 09:50AM

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Magpie is absolutely correct. What you know today is not "Irish" at all, it is a political construct. It is not "Gaelic", the original language of the native speakers. No modern European language is the same as it was 500 years ago, but the difference is that other languages have evolved through natural use, whereas Irish has been invented along the way. My favourite example of this is that when I was sitting in Irish class ignoring the teacher, the "correct" word for car was - "carr". Wow. Then they realised it was a joke and turned it into "glustean" (no I can't spell it and even if I could I wouldn't on general principle so don't bother) - meaning, literally, "go - thing".

The language is permanantly stuck at the equivalent of a 6-year old child's level of English vocabulary. Even assuming you wanted to hold a conversation in the language, you couldn't hold an eloquant one because the words and flexibility simply don't exist. Total waste of time, and like others here, I refuse to have anything to do with the language because the filthy powers that be force it down our throats from birth as "part of your heritage". It's not part of my heritage, background, or everyday life, and it never will be.

Also note that English is no longer taught "as a language" in primary school - primary school children do not learn grammar anymore. This has not stopped English being the most widely spoken langaueg in the country.
People do not speak Irish because there is no reason for them to do so, and many of them activly do not want to. Stop pretending otherwise. It has not been "beaten down by the man" - it has been forced down our throats, and it still fails.

Phew you have a chip on your shoulder about Irish.
As a point of interest do you speak any other languages apart from English?
I've spent a lot of my life in other countries and speak English, Irish, German and a bit of French, I have quite an aptitude for languages and I put it down to being brought up bilingual from an early age.
In my experience abroad the Irish are very good ( when compared to the British or the French for example ) at learning foreign languages, again I put this down to our early exposure to a second language.

As regards your construct theory as opposed to evolution of a language, well you are talking rubbish, that is evolution.
Take car as your example, the Irish word gluastain meaning thing that moves, the English "automobile" is merely a construct meaning thing that moves itself, being a very similar "construct" as you call it, think about it and dont let your hate get in the way of fact.

Gothic Warrior · 12-01-2005 10:31AM

passive wrote:

yes...but NOT learning it can't do any harm either...

people are constantly saying, and it's been repeated here, "it's important for our heritage" or "our language is our culture" and other such statements like that. someone please explain this for me? one of the "gaeilge=great!" crowd... what exactly is that supposed to mean? when people say things like "it's important because it's our history" do they actually have any intelligent thoughts behind it or is it just a sentence.

it's not necessary and it should not be compulsary. it's completely unfair on leaving cert students, especially because of the nature of the course <tangent> as has been stated repeatedly... it's not about learning and understanding the language, it's about learning off meaningless words about certain plays poems and stories, the vast majority of which have very poor plots and little substance, particularly when compared to the standard of literature on the english course. they seem to pretend the irish is a first language course and the students already know the language and are just required to give their opinions on the greatest of irish political works or spout some inane (but grammatically correct) views about drugs & alcohol, the problems of racism, the celtic tiger etc.

the reality is that students on average (well..in my school anyway, maybe we're the worst in the country or something) have very poor grasp of the language...most of the books are entirely in irish and huge amounts of time are wasted in Irish class translating each line of the poems & stories so we have a vague idea whats going on. we have extra classes after school for grammar... if not for them i'd be even more lost in class, but we don't have time to cover actually knowing the language in class because of the course work :mad: </tangent>

all that said: i kinda like it. I accept that if it was taught differently i probably wouldn't have all this pent up hatred. I do think it's "nice" that people still speak it as a first language in (a handful of) places. I randomly use irish words in conversation, enjoy speaking it in the oral (ahem) &, for no reason i can think of other than a random realisation that i preferred it, i've replaced "between" with "idir" in writing texts and emails and stuff... it's a novelty for me. It isn't a necessary novelty though...or a novelty on a par with Maths & English in terms of their educational merit.

umm... slán...

Nicely put. Couldn't agree more.

Slutmonkey57b · 13-01-2005 07:50AM

I don't hate the language.

I do hate the bullsh!t, lies and hypocricy that follows from it and that gets people to shove it down our throats whether we want it or not. People are forced to learn the language, but still choose not to use it. Why won't the Irish fanatacists admit that there is a reason for this? Why won't they admit that the language is a political tool and not a living language at all?

Being brought up bilingual will indeed increase your language skills - but again, this is not due to the use of Irish itself. If you're going to teach a dead language, why not teach Latin, and show people how most european languages have evolved? Better yet, why not teach a modern LIVING European language instead? Why not make Irish optional from the start of secondary school?

Not for any other reason than that the Irish lobbyists won't admit the truth, that's all.

Is the Irish Language going out of fashion? Please Vote!

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