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Imagine if we all spoke Irish

karlog

In my opinion it would be a disaster.

English being the most widely spoken language in the world it's lucky we have it as our first language agree?:D

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4zn76tysfajdxp

Richard wrote: »

English is the most widely spoken language. It's just not the most widely spoken first language.

Proof? This page says different, unless I'm wrong. English is my second language after all...

karlog

DubMedic wrote: »

At least there are some people in certain areas who are still willing to speak it.
Don't forget the Irish Military , The Irish Defence Forces, use it on a very regular basis.

As well as the fact that the majority of government documentation & roadsigns are printed bi-lingually with Gaeilge , not to mention that our registration plates here in the Republic are in our Native tongue.

If you are stopped by a member of An Garda Síochána , you have the right to conduct business with them As Gaeilge.
I could go out my front door today or tomorrow and have a thorough conversation as Gaeilge with many people.

Don't forget the crest on the old Ambulance Service uniforms, the crest had 'Seirbhís Otharcharr Na hEireann' stitched onto it.

Now that would suggest that maybe some places actually do know Gaeilge, but yet nobody speaks it , right?. :rolleyes:

.

Some places do know gaeilge yes but compared to the rest of ireland hardly anyone speaks it on a day to day basis

karlog

Elliot Round Pennant wrote: »

Proof? This page says different, unless I'm wrong. English is my second language after all...

Ok we all have a different opinion on what widely means in regard to languages.

conchubhar1

so disregard all the people who do...?

they are insignificant puny gaeilgóir - they will feel the wrath.... bla blah blah

ignorance is bliss

no you do - english is not the most spoken language in the world

karlog

dsmythy wrote: »

So are the Finnish unlucky that they speak Finnish as their first language?

yeh i guess so:D

jill_valentine

DubMedic wrote: »

At least there are some people in certain areas who are still willing to speak it.
Don't forget the Irish Military , The Irish Defence Forces, use it on a very regular basis.

As well as the fact that the majority of government documentation & roadsigns are printed bi-lingually with Gaeilge , not to mention that our registration plates here in the Republic are in our Native tongue.

If you are stopped by a member of An Garda Síochána , you have the right to conduct business with them As Gaeilge.
I could go out my front door today or tomorrow and have a thorough conversation as Gaeilge with many people.

Don't forget the crest on the old Ambulance Service uniforms, the crest had 'Seirbhís Otharcharr Na hEireann' stitched onto it.

Now that would suggest that maybe some places actually do know Gaeilge, but yet nobody speaks it , right?. :rolleyes:

This is silly.

You have the right to request to conduct your business as Gaeilge with a guard, and they are required to pass basic Irish comprehension standards. However, I don't know a single guard who can - or at least, does - use Irish conversationally on their own time. They meet the requirement for the purposes of recruitment and that's all. It is unlikely to ever be a useful skill for them. Furthermore, I'd consider it churlish to demand an Irish conversation in such circumstances. You know for a fact that you both have a full command of English; you don't know this regarding Irish.

As for the Defense Forces, I can tell you here and now that they know their commands by rote, and that's all. They know that one noise means to turn left, and another to turn right. Keep an ear out for how they say the commands; they bear absolutely no relation to the actual pronunciations of the words. They do not, and most definitely can not, use Irish conversationally or speak it fluently.

karlog

conchubhar1 wrote: »

so disregard all the people who do...?

they are insignificant puny gaeilgóir - they will feel the wrath.... bla blah blah

ignorance is bliss
no you do - english is not the most spoken language in the world

Ok you clearly going off the topic here

and quit saying 'ignorance is bliss' it's starting to make you look ignorant

pjproby

As a matter of interest, does anyone know when the people of Dublin last used Irish as their main language? I don't mean pockets of the population but the entire city.

conchubhar1

you know all gardaí? even in the small area you live? wow!

same with defence forces? wow!

conchubhar1

pjproby wrote: »

As a matter of interest, does anyone know when the people of Dublin last used Irish as their main language? I don't mean pockets of the population but the entire city.

well as a city - i would say never as it was founded by the vikings....

that is not to say it wasnt spoken fairly widely - even in the pale it was spoken!

Wazdakka

dsmythy wrote: »

So are the Finnish unlucky that they speak Finnish as their first language?

Nope..
I always finnish first.. then let her fall asleep in the wet patch.
It's great.

karlog

Dr.Poca wrote: »

But as has been said, what about in other countries that have their own first language and learn English as a second, they get on grand. Why would Irish be any different?

Dont think we would be different just better off if you catch my drift not everyone in a country learns a second language fluently

conchubhar1

karlog wrote: »

Ok you clearly going off the topic here

and quit saying 'ignorance is bliss' it's starting to make you look ignorant

it is not off topic

you are disregarding people because ''virtualy no one'' speaks irish

therefore, vís-a-vís - ignorance is bliss :rolleyes:

dsmythy

karlog wrote: »

yeh i guess so:D

:pac:

Well they have come along quite nicely despite their eh handicap...

Hagar

Go and live on the continent and see how far you get with only a knowledge of English. I live in France BTW.

My son has a Polish friend who cannot speak either English or French so we speak to him in Italian. I speak pidgin German to my friend's children when they visit from Switzerland just for fun. I have an Irish friend to whom I have never spoken English. I freaked out my son's English teacher at a parent teacher meeting by discussing a children's project in Portugese with him. Do I speak Portugese? No, but I can manage Spanish. I put my polyglot abilities down to bi-lingualism that an Irish education offers if you have the gumption to pick up on it. I'm not even going to mention Arabic or Japanese in case it upsets your sensibilities.

Speaking slower and louder in English only works for Basil Fawlty.
Learn Irish and open your mind to the rest of the world.

karlog

dsmythy wrote: »

:pac:

Well they have come along quite nicely despite their eh handicap...

Fairplay to them

jill_valentine

conchubhar1 wrote: »

you know all gardaí? even in the small area you live? wow!

same with defence forces? wow!

I know quite a few of them, having served with the DF and with ambitions of joining AGS.

I am telling you first hand what I know to be true from my own experience of the DF and AGS.

conchubhar1

how many do you know - about 50% of the ones in your area
less than 5% of the the amound in the country?

dlofnep

I'm imagining if we all spoke Irish...

Bheadh sé go hiontach ar fad, i mo thuairim..

karlog

Hagar wrote: »

Go and live on the continent and see how far you get with only a knowledge of English. I live in France BTW.

My son has a Polish friend who cannot speak either English or French so we speak to him in Italian. I speak pidgin German to my friend's children when they visit from Switzerland just for fun. I have an Irish friend to whom I have never spoken English. I freaked out my son's English teacher at a parent teacher meeting by discussing a children's project in Portugese with him. Do I speak Portugese? No, but I can manage Spanish. I put my polyglot abilities down to bi-lingualism that an Irish education offers if you have the gumption to pick up on it. I'm not even going to mention Arabic or Japanese in case it upsets your sensibilities.

Speaking slower and louder in English only works for Basil Fawlty.
Learn Irish and open you mind to the rest of the world.

Cant see how learning irish would open my mind to the rest of the world. I should put my efforts into a more spoken language like chinese or spanish.

Oh and answer this if you could learn any language. Any language at all what would it be. I'd say it would be english or chinese or any language that is widely spoken not irish!!

One more thing lets say i decided to live on the continent of australia lets see how far english gets me if i go there. If it doesn't i can always go to north america.

dlofnep

karlog wrote: »

Oh and answer this if you could learn any language. Any language at all what would it be. I'd say it would be english or chinese or any language that is widely spoken not irish!!

I'd learn Irish, because I'm never going to move to France or Germany.. and if I move to Spain, I'll pick up the language like anybody else does - through immersion.

For now - given that I live in Ireland, and have many friends who speak Irish daily to me - I'll stick with the only languages that are of benefit to me living in Ireland - Irish and English.

thelordofcheese

dlofnep wrote: »

I'm imagining if we all spoke Irish...

I'll get you a towel....

Insect Overlord

I find it hilariously ironic that so many people praising their own fluency in English have such a poor command of some of its most basic rules.

karlog

An File wrote: »

I find it hilariously ironic that so many people praising their own fluency in English have such a poor command of some of its most basic rules.

such as............?

jill_valentine

conchubhar1 wrote: »

how many do you know - about 50% of the ones in your area
less than 5% of the the amound in the country?

Look, it's of no consequence to me whatsoever if you really, really want to dismiss what I'm telling you. That's fine.

But I'll state again - it is my experience of the DF and AGS that Irish is almost entirely out of use beyond a few specific, token instances such as commands or some of the dual-language documentation. It is my - not-uninformed - opinion that this is reasonably representative of both organisations as a whole, and I have no reason to doubt that this is so.

It is, however, my understanding that there are provisions in the Official Languages Act 2003 to try and reintroduce Irish as a widely functional language for the DF.

dsmythy

karlog wrote: »

such as............?

Capitals I suppose.

Latchy

jill_valentine wrote: »

What's the Irish for "Please stop shelling our HQ, we've asked you in two languages now?"

Ya see the problem there is some people dont get the message regardless of what Lingo ya speak .

Thank me away anyway ...

On a side note I always try to learn the basics of spanish when ever I am in holidays in that region even ' OLA ' .A little is better than none and much appriciated by some locals because you took the effort to try .

Hagar

karlog wrote: »

Cant see how learning irish would open my mind to the rest of the world.

Syntactically Irish is more like many of the European languages than is English. It makes the learning process smoother. Do you ever remember thinking as a child that Irish was spoken "backwards"? It's not, it's like other languages, it's English that is spoken "backwards". Do a bit of research.

karlog wrote: »

Oh and answer this if you could learn any language. Any language at all what would it be. I'd say it would be english or chinese or any language that is widely spoken not irish!!

Since I already speak Irish I would have pick Russian as a first choice, Mandarin as a second.

karlog

dsmythy wrote: »

Capitals I suppose.

Ahahahahahaha you suppose eh!!!

Well i might consider it if i was writing a formal f**kin letter but this boards.ie. no one cares about proper grammer on a god dam thread

bazjeeeeeeeeeesus..........

Hagar

Yes, yes we do, in fact. You're letting yourself down rather badly old chap.