The Frontline on compulsory Irish

Sleepy wrote: »

Given that so much of the English vocabulary (or that of any other modern language) doesn't exist in Irish I'd imagine that mastering another language would be difficult for a population of native Irish speakers.

We don't have the natural resources of any of the other countries you mentioned. So there goes that revenue stream. Without which we couldn't have developed the world-beating technology sector they now have (through not being able to afford the education systems based on export of livestock, crops etc.). Even during our 'Tiger economy' years we didn't manage to improve education in the sciences and numbers of students studying honours Maths declined!

We only have a modern economy thanks to FDI. This wouldn't have happened were we native Irish speakers instead of native English speakers.

how on earth did we ever manage to become an english speaking population then? seriously wtf? picking up the language would not be difficult - we have done it already!!

the mismanagement of government will always exist no matter the language spoken.

are you honestly saying there is no FDI in countrys where english is not the native language?

i dont have an argument for mandatory irish in second level, i want what is best for the irish language to thrive and if that means making it optional well then i would be all for it. i dont know where you are getting this notion (and you had this a few pages back too) where im all for compulsory irish

So you're in favour of Irish as an optional subject in Secondary school. We've no disagreement then.

In primary school, I personally think students would benefit more from learning French / German or Spanish than Irish. That doesn't mean I don't see benefits from primary school children learning Irish, just that the benefits are sub-optimal imho. I realise, however, that I seem to be very much in a minority in that opinion and, once children aren't forced to keep the language up beyond 6th class I can live with it being part of the primary curriculum.

If English were our second language, we'd have lost the edge that helped us gain so much of the FDI in Europe. We'd never have had the boom and our economy would, most likely, still be where it was in the 80's.

aDeener wrote: »

how on earth did we ever manage to become an english speaking population then? seriously wtf? picking up the language would not be difficult - we have done it already!!

the mismanagement of government will always exist no matter the language spoken.

are you honestly saying there is no FDI in countrys where english is not the native language?

No, I'm saying that for much of the 90's we attracted more FDI than anywhere else in the EU and that English being our native language was one of the reasons for this. Without any of others (low corp. tax, "high" education levels, flexible work practices, low red tape etc.) we'd have lost much of this FDI too.

Sleepy wrote: »

So you're in favour of Irish as an optional subject in Secondary school. We've no disagreement then.

In primary school, I personally think students would benefit more from learning French / German or Spanish than Irish. That doesn't mean I don't see benefits from primary school children learning Irish, just that the benefits are sub-optimal imho. I realise, however, that I seem to be very much in a minority in that opinion and, once children aren't forced to keep the language up beyond 6th class I can live with it being part of the primary curriculum.

If English were our second language, we'd have lost the edge that helped us gain so much of the FDI in Europe. We'd never have had the boom and our economy would, most likely, still be where it was in the 80's.

well neither you or i know that for sure but even if it was: ireland in the 1980's ≠ 3rd world country

Sleepy wrote: »

No, I'm saying that for much of the 90's we attracted more FDI than anywhere else in the EU and that English being our native language was one of the reasons for this. Without any of others (low corp. tax, "high" education levels, flexible work practices, low red tape etc.) we'd have lost much of this FDI too.

you don't seem to be taking in the point im making that it would be possible for us to be able to speak english efficiently as well - like how other EU country's operate business. the danes speak danish amongst themselves but if they have to deal with american clients they speak english

P. Breathnach

Sleepy wrote: »

Given that so much of the English vocabulary (or that of any other modern language) doesn't exist in Irish I'd imagine that mastering another language would be difficult for a population of native Irish speakers...

That's a non-argument. Language communities extend their vocabulary according to need, usually by adopting or adapting vocabulary from another language. If you spent some time in the company of native Irish speakers, you would find that they are not precluded from discussing anything by the absence of vocabulary.

aDeener wrote: »

you don't seem to be taking in the point im making that it would be possible for us to be able to speak english efficiently as well - like how other EU country's operate business. the danes speak danish amongst themselves but if they have to deal with american clients they speak english

It might be possible for us to speak both to a reasonable level (like the Dutch do). However, having a population of native English speakers was one of the reasons cited time and time again by American MNC's in choosing to base here. Were we a nation that had English as a second language we'd have lost one of our 'edges' on the FDI market.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

That's a non-argument. Language communities extend their vocabulary according to need, usually by adopting or adapting vocabulary from another language. If you spent some time in the company of native Irish speakers, you would find that they are not precluded from discussing anything by the absence of vocabulary.

Judging by my experience with friends who are native speakers from Tory Island, they're rarely stuck for words

However, as already posted in this thread, from experience of being forced to waste money getting a system I helped develop into Irish, the language simply doesn't not have words for many financial terms. As such, much of what we got back as the translation were poor approximations of the words based on translating two smaller words which could be concatenated to create the larger word regardless of the meanings of those smaller words in Irish!

So, were Irish to adopt those words from English which it has no vocabulary for and we all switched to this bastardised Irish (a language many already argue has been completely bastardised by English) over the next generation or three what would be gained? We'd be speaking a language that was largely English anyway but with very different syntax. I can only imagine that by the 4th or 5th generation of this exercise our populations (already declining) mastery of the English language would have severely deteriorated and we'd have given up what was once a competitive advantage in the name of a misguided attempt at forging a cultural identity that many scholars argue was largely invented in the imaginations of the Gaelic revivalists at the start of the last century.

aDeener wrote: »

well neither you or i know that for sure but even if it was: ireland in the 1980's ≠ 3rd world country

The world has moved on since the 80's. We'd have been left quite far behind if we maintained that standard.

I notice you've yet to post a reason for maintaining the compulsory nature of Irish in secondary school.

Is it that because you know you have none and it's easier to try and pick holes in my arguments than to profer your own?

sceptre wrote: »

Ignoring whether being anti-compulsory-in-secondary-schools Irish language is anti-Irish language or not for a moment (as more than once person has stated why they believe it would benefit the language, which as it happens has gone unaddressed), what the deuce is "un Irish"? I'm assuming it's something more than "not Irish".

It's redolent of certain flag-waving conservative camps in the USA, who will decry any ideal that doesn't fit within their limited worldview as "un-American."

Sleepy wrote: »

It might be possible for us to speak both to a reasonable level (like the Dutch do). However, having a population of native English speakers was one of the reasons cited time and time again by American MNC's in choosing to base here. Were we a nation that had English as a second language we'd have lost one of our 'edges' on the FDI market.

There is no "might" :rolleyes: about it, we would be able to. other countries can, so could we.

did they cite that if we conversed in irish amongst ourselves that they wouldnt base here? i doubt it. american mutinationals locate in more places than just english speaking ones.

Sleepy wrote: »

The world has moved on since the 80's. We'd have been left quite far behind if we maintained that standard.

I notice you've yet to post a reason for maintaining the compulsory nature of Irish in secondary school.

Is it that because you know you have none and it's easier to try and pick holes in my arguments than to profer your own?

ohh for fuck sake, are you blind? i have said already that i am not necessarily in favour of keeping it compulsory. bloody hell. i said i want whats best for the language and if that is making it optional then im all for it. what the hell is up with you? twice ive pointed this out to you. :rolleyes:

you said we would be 3rd world then you backtracked to saying we would be stuck in the 1980s which was far removed from the 3rd world......

SkepticOne

The problem in discussing Irish language policy is that the original goal, that of reviving Irish as the main spoken language, has been quietly dropped over the years. Deep down we all know it has failed and that it probably will never succeed.

But since we can't admit to ourselves that it has failed we continue with the activities that it was originally believed would achieve that end:

1. Make Irish compulsory from the start of primary school to the end of secondary.

2. Make a certain level of Irish proficiency a condition for certain government jobs.

3. Make it a requirement to gain entry to certain universities.

4. Artificially support small rural communities that speak a bit of Irish.

5. Have every official document translated into Irish regardless of of demand.

The thing to note here is that these policies have been pretty much the same for decades. You would think there would be some experimentation with different policies to find some that work?

The reason things have been frozen in this way is because, as suggested earlier, we have not yet admitted to ourselves that the original policy goal has failed. Thus, deprived of a yardstick against which to measure progress, we have have made Irish language policy sacrosanct. It cannot be changed fundamentally even if, ironically, such a change might even lead to more use of the Irish language in real life.

aDeener wrote: »

There is no "might" :rolleyes: about it, we would be able to. other countries can, so could we.

did they cite that if we conversed in irish amongst ourselves that they wouldnt base here? i doubt it. american mutinationals locate in more places than just english speaking ones.

If it was our primary language, our secondary (English) one would decrease in standard. They stated that native English speakers were one of the factors that brought them here. If you can't extrapolate from that statement that if Irish was our primary languages we'd have failed to provide that factor, I can't make it any clearer for you.

Yes, FDI exists in countries with different languages but we wouldn't have as much of it as we do if English wasn't our first language.

ohh for fuck sake, are you blind? i have said already that i am not necessarily in favour of keeping it compulsory. bloody hell. i said i want whats best for the language and if that is making it optional then im all for it. what the hell is up with you? twice ive pointed this out to you. :rolleyes:

I've had my posts nitpicked to death in this thread and been dragged off-topic with nobody actually providing a decent argument in favour or maintaining the status quo, I've been a bit careless in reading who's posting what at me. I apologise.

you said we would be 3rd world then you backtracked to saying we would be stuck in the 1980s which was far removed from the 3rd world......

Let's be fair here, 3rd World country line may be a bit of hyperbole but if we'd never recovered from the recession of the 80's and had endured another 20 years of >20% unemployment, I don't think it's unreasonable to say we'd be in pretty bloody awful shape as a country now.

If, in this alternative universe where, we'd adopted Irish as our primary language when we attained independence in the 20's do you honestly believe this wouldn't have adversely affected our progress from a backwards, church fearing, predominantly subsistence farming nation that had missed out on the industrial revolution into a (mostly) secular, (relatively) advanced country that's been considerable player in both the European (and, at one point over the past two decades, Worldwide) software and financial services markets?

I don't attribute all our successes to the English language, nor do I blame Irish being part of the curriculum for all of our problems. However, having English as our native tongue has had a positive impact on our society. Without it, emmigration wouldn't have been such an "easy" pressure valve on unemployment numbers in times of trouble, we wouldn't have had such success in attracting FDI, we would have had a harder time attracting American tourists etc. etc. etc.

Japer

Far too much money and time has been wasted on Irish. It would be better to be able to have a reasonable conversation with a german or french person in their language, which over 99 % of Irish people cannot do. Let those who want to speak Irish speak it, but why let such a small minority try to shove it down our throats , from an early age, at our expense ? Very few people ever use Irish after leaving school. As the bord snip report / McCarthy report said, the dept of the Gaeltacht should be abolished, thus saving a fortune.

caseyann

Japer wrote: »

Far too much money and time has been wasted on Irish. It would be better to be able to have a reasonable conversation with a german or french person in their language, which over 99 % of Irish people cannot do. Let those who want to speak Irish speak it, but why let such a small minority try to shove it down our throats , from an early age, at our expense ? Very few people ever use Irish after leaving school. As the bord snip report / McCarthy report said, the dept of the Gaeltacht should be abolished, thus saving a fortune.

So what? Alot of them cant converse with us in English and you would be snubbed for not attempting to speak their native language in alot of cases when in their countries.Is that just because you like using it and can converse in them languages.I don't find any cause to speaking to someone in German or french on a daily basis.
But if i was over there i would make the time to try.I dont have to be fluent as i dont live there.
But if i head down the country in some areas its like a breath of fresh air to speak Irish to them and feels great i can and my kids feel great they can also.
No child should have a say in what to learn in primary school and there is not enough focus on Irish in primary school to be a problem or to be hard.
When you are going into secondary school it should not be apart of entrance exam or a big part of it if it is in it.But then when you are in secondary have the option to opt out if you want.
At least then the child has the option whether they like it or feel it is an ability to do it.
Same thing as non nationals coming here they cant speak English to well and they make an effort as i would do if i was in their country.If we were speaking Irish they i am sure would do the same.
They should not be abolished kids who go to them love them and go because they want to.Who are you or anyone to take that away from them.And let me think dont parents pay for majority of that like a trip away and learning their native language on top of meeting other kids from different parts of country.
I took french with my Irish in school my kids do french with Irish also doesnt impede their learning skills at all,infact heightens them.
Not our fault your parents didnt stop you from learning it.

caseyann wrote: »

So what? Alot of them cant converse with us in English and you would be snubbed for not attempting to speak their native language in alot of cases when in their countries.Is that just because you like using it and can converse in them languages.I don't find any cause to speaking to someone in German or french on a daily basis.

There are millions of potentially interesting people with whom you could not engage in discourse if you didn't speak French or German.

I doubt the number of Irish-only speakers is in triple digits at this stage.

P. Breathnach

Pace2008 wrote: »

... I doubt the number of Irish-only speakers is in triple digits at this stage.

If you exclude some very young children, it probably doesn't make it into double digits. From this we can infer that speaking Irish is not an impediment to the acquisition of other languages.

Noreen1 wrote: »

That sounds as if you are longing for the destruction of the language - yet people who like the Irish language are accused of being fanatical!

I'm not out for the destruction of that language. To be honest I don't care what language people speak as long as they don't try and force me or anyone I know into learning it.

I am however longing for the removal of as a national language from the constitution and to stop wasting tax money on semi-state bodies such as Foras na Gaeilge and TG4. Why I must pay to have a language forced on me is beyond me. I also want to see it made optional in schools to give children the right to make up their own minds.

Finally I want to see an end to nationalistic nonsense and the idea of "It's our native language". NEWSFLASH: It may be your naive language but it is not "ours".

Noreen1 wrote: »

Seriously, posts like this make me seriously question the motives of those who seek to make Irish "optional".

Perhaps before questioning our motives you could spell out your own?

Noreen1 wrote: »

I have yet to meet anyone who can ensure that Students who wish to study Irish, will be permitted to do so, without having to sacrifice learning a European language as well?

Making it optional will solve that.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

If you exclude some very young children, it probably doesn't make it into double digits. From this we can infer that speaking Irish is not an impediment to the acquisition of other languages.

Or more accurately, we can infer that it's not an impediment to the acquisition a particular language that is spoken by 99.999% of the nation and used by every mainstream media outlet in the country.

caseyann wrote: »

I took french with my Irish in school my kids do french with Irish also doesnt impede their learning skills at all,infact heightens them.

This is what I want to nip in the bud. Learning Irish does not make it any easier to learn other language. I heard this on The Frontline as well and it simply is not true.

Learning Latin makes it easier for one to learn related romance languages such as French, Spanish, Italien etc.

Learning German makes it easier for one to learn related germanic languages such as English, Dutch, Afrikaans etc.

But Irish is a goidelic language and thus makes it usefull to know only when learning other dead languages such as Scottish Gaelic or Manx.

Thus learning Irish will not help children learn other more usefull european languages. So please don't throw out this lie in a pathetic attempt to give Irish some meaning.

ChristinaA

bleg wrote: »

OH NO!!!! Students learning something relevant rather than a dead language.

Anyone saying that it is DEAD LANGUAGE doesn't have any respect for their country or native language! i don't see you saying anything about HIGHER maths!!when are you going to use algebra again.. point made.

Macha

Learning any language makes it easier to learn other languages.

I learned Latin and therefore found Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese all very easy. But I also picked up Norwegian quite easily, even though I'd never done a Germanic language.

It teaches you very good logic skills.

ChristinaA wrote: »

Anyone saying that it is DEAD LANGUAGE doesn't have any respect for their country or native language! i don't see you saying anything about HIGHER maths!!when are you going to use algebra again.. point made.

No, that isn't a point made. The poster said Irish was a dead language. It is a dead language. More people speak Awngi, a spoken by some tribe in Ethiopia, then Irish.

What does that tell you about the language you are argueing in favour of keeping mandatory?

loldog

ChristinaA wrote: »

Anyone saying that it is DEAD LANGUAGE doesn't have any respect for their country or native language! i don't see you saying anything about HIGHER maths!!when are you going to use algebra again.. point made.

It's not a matter of respect, don't go playing the green card. We're a bit more mature in Ireland, these days.

If it was a living, viable language, half the discussions on the forums would be in Irish. Face it, Irish people prefer to speak English.

The policy of enforced Irish on generations of schoolkids has achieved completely negative results. People go on about the naíscoileanna but the fact is unless Irish is spoken in the home there's not going to be billingualism.

Joe Lee put his finger on the issue when he said that the older generation passed the buck to the younger generation and gave them the burden of reviving the Irish language. Pure hypocrisy.

.

taconnol wrote: »

Learning any language makes it easier to learn other languages.

Only if the language is related. Learning Irish did not help you pick up Norwegian. As for your logic argument again that doesn't apply to Irish because the word order is different.

ChristinaA wrote: »

Anyone saying that it is DEAD LANGUAGE doesn't have any respect for their country or native language! i don't see you saying anything about HIGHER maths!!when are you going to use algebra again.. point made.

As has been pointed out already, maths forms the backbone of all sciences and affects everything in the world around you. I do think the curriculum needs a rework, but I'd go so far as to claim that increased focus on areas like probability and statistics in conjunction with a higher emphasis on economics could raise the practical intelligence of the nation.

Pace2008 wrote: »

As has been pointed out already, maths forms the backbone of all sciences and affects everything in the world around you. I do think the curriculum needs a rework, but I'd go so far as to claim that increased focus on areas like probability and statistics in conjunction with a higher emphasis on economics could raise the practical intelligence of the nation.

I wouldn't waste my fingers arguing pragmatically with a nationalist if I were you. They tend to live in a dream world.

MonkeyMan.

Pace2008 wrote: »

As has been pointed out already, maths forms the backbone of all sciences and affects everything in the world around you. I do think the curriculum needs a rework, but I'd go so far as to claim that increased focus on areas like probability and statistics in conjunction with a higher emphasis on economics could raise the practical intelligence of the nation.

Tá an ceart ag ChristinaA, má tá an mhatamaitic chomh tábhachtach sin duitse cén fáth nach mbeadh gaeilge? tá sé dochreidte go bhfuil daoine as an tír ag cur síos ár dteanga. baineann gaeilge le stair na tíre seo agus an méid anró a chuaigh daoine thríd ag iarraidh a bheith ag coinneál beo!Tá daoine níos bródúil as an mbéarla sa tír! tá sé dochreidte agus tá trua agam dhóibh mar níl a fhios acu céard atá siad ag caint faoi agus táim cinnte nacgh bhfuil a fhios agatsa céard átaimse raibh ach an oiread!

MonkeyMan.

And fair play to all parents that send their children to an Ghaeltacht every summer!!!