The Status Of Irish.

RandomName2 wrote: »

Lots of people apart from the fact that there wasn't a majority in any of the 32 counties apart from Galway. In urban areas it was non-existent. Also, it had negligible indigenous political force attached to it: the reason for there still being Irish speakers was because they were in the back-of-beyond! (No offense, the west of Ireland was very much off the beaten track, depopulated by The Famine, emigration, and subsequent food crises, underdeveloped and not a very easy place to live).

If any official letters were demanded as gaeilge it would be by a political figure, doing it on principle or for publicity, who would have been able to speak English perfectly well (a bit like today, really).

The reason that Irish was such a small political force was that the State it Existed in was activly hostile to it.

Letters, Postal not offical.;)

Nope, was taken over by IRB, reason for Hyde leaving.

It wasent taken over by the IRB, It was infiltrated by it certainly, but Hyde left because CnaG was becoming politicised not because the IRB forced him out, His replacement as president was Eoin MacNeill, Not an IRB man.

Famine and Fenians...? Not really. Root causes, perhaps but didn't have much relevance here. Self determination was the cornerstone of the argument for some sort of rule independent of the UK, but other than that the ideas were in flux when the guiding light of the Home Rule League seemed to falter.

They had a massive influence on the leaders of the Movement for Independance, And were certainly relevent to the people. Self Determination was an Issue because it could be shown that Ireland was abused under British rule.

Same couldn't be said of soccer or rugby. Totally different (unless Rugby was established by the Anglican Church... but I doubt it). Correct about IV

That just dosent make sence, Gaelic Games date back hundreds of years, The GAA dident invent them, they did alter and formalize them, but the same is true of all modern Games.

Always was a more extreme party? It didn't exist! Only ever competed in one by-election (poorly). Sure, the Rising was mislabeled, but there were specific reasons for going along with that mis-labeling. Actually you aren't really contradicting me here.

SF was set up in 1905, and became known as an extream party. That is why 1916 was mislabled the SF rising, after the fact it made sence for it to be used by those wanting a compleat separation from the UK, Remind me what this has to do with anything?

The Prime Minister (Taoiseach) was known as President (... of the Dail?) for a while.

The Taoiseach is still the Leader of the Dail, But the president is a separate office.

I don't know of many people... or any that I can think of that want to abolish Irish. That would be an abomination, imo.

Downgrading, yes. It is the only way to remove the current discriminatory system that is in place. Most people that I know would have liked the option about whether or not they wanted to do Irish (most hated it due to the system in place). One or two of them had to repeat Irish due to the fact that they were excluded from certain civil service jobs due to the fact they only took Ordinary Level Irish. Happy days!

So if people want it to be Downgraded then why is there nothing to show that they do?

What exactly makes the current system discriminatory?

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

To summarise, Deise has said:
A) You cannot remove the compulsion because people will refuse to learn the language (see the Irish Language Lobby funded "study" linked at the start which shows that people abandon the language). But making it voluntary is the 'poorer method'.
The majority want Irish to be preserved and promoted, so the 'fairer method/optional' is irrelevant. Plus, fairness is irrelevant because people only abandon it to get more points in the Leaving Cert (no evidence could be supplied to show that the majority want Irish to be preserved and promoted, apart from a few Irish Language Lobby funded biased studies which were dismantled in seconds)

I provided evidence that shows quite clearly the negative effects of making Language learning optional and another set of evidence that shows that a substantial majority want Irish promoted and preserved.
The response to this was ad hominum as to the validity of the Evidence I put forward but no counter evidence was ever provided despite the fact that I asked for it several times.

Aii)
The following quote was offered to show, that actually, wanting the language to be promoted and preserved doesn't keep the language alive anyway!:

And that has uet to be contested by any poster here.

People refusing to learn the language does not actually mean people are 'not open' to learning it, he thinks it's merely the syllabus which is the problem, the fact that it's of extremely limited use is of little consequence to the average pupil and their parents, and education is not and should not be about helping people to acquire employment.

Actually, my argument was that as was shown in the study I linked to in the OP, Making a language optional reduces the Status of that language causing a domino effect and damages the language beyond the area that was originally affected, This was shown by a similar case in Britain where language learning was made optional in one stage of Education and the result was a collapse in the noumbers studying languages across the education system in Britain.

As for the second part, The argument has been put forward that learning Irish is useless, That is not the case, in terms of Employment oppertunities, there are more jobs requiring Irish than any other second language in Ireland,
I also said that I dont believe that the sole or primary focus of the Education system should be Job training but rather should be about developing the Childs mind and ability to learn in a well rounded fasion, a systerm to which Language learning is vital.

The linked Irish Times articles which show over 10% of people doing the Leaving Cert have gotten exemptions from learning it can be explained away by disabilites.
The same article which shows over 50% of those getting exemptions are studying a different language instead is irrelevant because it's only 5% so most people must be open to learning Irish, but it should be compulsory anyway, just in case.

The argument was put forward that the increase in people getting exemptions shows that the majority are not open to learning Irish, 10% was the figure suggested for the section of the Student population that this increase showed were not open to learning Irish. I countered this claim of 10% saying that of that 10% only 5% were doing a second language. It is unclear why the 5% that were not doing a second language had the Exemption but I think thaat it is fair to assume that a proportion of them have learning dificulties that preclude them from learning languages. Of the other 5% who are Exempt from Irish but are studying Irish some are getting Exemptions from Irish because they are 'Not open to it' But I think the majority of this 5% are the children of immigrants who came during the boom at the age of 12 and now 4-5 years later are geting an exemption from Irish for the LC as they did not study it in primary school but can do another language because they either studyd it in their own country or are already fluent in the language.

C) The CSO figures which show the amount of non-Irish speakers is as high as ever and Irish penetration has been minimal for 90 years, is explained by the crap syllabus and the fact that the language is lower status and by the fact that there are virtually no chances to use the language, post-schooling, but this 2.6 million people are open to learning the language and want their kids to learn it also.

Indeed, People like myself who are actively interested in Learning Irish in school by and large fail to pick up the language in School, The only possible explanation for this is a poor curriculum as Compulsion makes no difference to someone who is actively interested in a subject, As this is the case, someone not learning Irish in school dose not mean they are not open to learning it.

That the Curriculum is poor is evidient and the fact that it has failed over 90 years to teach people how to speak Irish is testament only to the fact that something that dosent work will not work no mater how long it is operated over.

It is not a fact that there are virtually no chances to use the language, post-schooling. There are many.

D) There are actually loads of opportunities to use the language post-schooling despite it's lower status and there are loads of jobs available through Irish too. There's even some company somewhere that operates through Irish and sells program to TG4.

There are more jobs and opportunities to use Irish than any other second language in Ireland.

There are however not enough oppertunitied to use Irish to prevent the average person losing the limited amount of Irish that they currently learn in school.

The link to Nematon was just to show an example of companies that successfully operate through Irish, Countering the claim that All jobs that need Irish are 'artifical'

E) Having a language (Irish) force-fed to Hiberno-English speaking Irish, who reject the language and want to speak English or learn other languages, is totally different to having a language (Russian) force-fed to Lithuanian speaking Lithuanian people who reject the language and want to speak English or learn other languages

It has yet to be shown that there has been any rejection of the Irish language by anything more than a small minority of the Irish population.

In light of this it is an entirely different situation, One is a powerful state forcing its language on a neighboring states population against their will, the other is a state promoting the revival of a native language in line with the populations wishes.

E) If the syllabus were reformed, people would suddenly start loving it, but it must still be compulsory, even tho they are 'open to learning it' and 'they will love the reformed syllabus', just in case they're actually not open to learning it and mightn't love it after all

If the Curriculum was reformed, people who are open to learning it would be able to do so, Compulsion is necessary because there is a general perception that language learning is hard and languages would not be chosen because subject choice is much more about the points a student can expect to get from that subject in the LC than it is about what the student actually is interested in learning.

F) If Maths and English are compulsory, then there is no reason Irish shouldn't be too.

No, Any argument that has thus far been made against Irish being compulsory can also be made against Maths and English being compulsory, In light of that I questioned why those arguing against compulsion for Irish believed that Maths and English should remain compulsory.

G) All of the syllabus reforms in the past weren't real syllabus reforms.

There has yet to be a serious reform of the Curriculum, It has improved over the past 20 years, coporal punishment has been done away with, and Oral has been increased in importance slightly, but the critical failings of the Curriculum remain in place. Until they are reformed fully and effectively there will be no change in the results of the System.

Yawn...got bored here and all the contradictions are encouraging me to watch Monthy Python

Next time try to understand my arguments before you try to belittle them to others.

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Wow, that was a long read. I've spent most of the day reading over the 33 pages. Got to admit though, most of the stuff between pages 4 and 30 seemed to just repeat itself ad finitium.

Anyway, there was one thing which struck me outside of the dodging of "why should it be compulsury" question with constant other questions and defelctions.

The pro-compulsion side, particularly Deise, has said countless times that being bi-lingual is of massive importance to the development of a child. I agree with the sentiment but I noticed no actual reasons were given (or did I miss them; apologies if I did. Maybe someone can point them out to me). I'd presume that the benifits come in the fact that by being bi-lingual, you can talk and communicate with more people, broadening your horizons and in future life, being able to conduct business on a larger scale. And while that would mean having English/Irish would be a good thing, surely it also means having English/French or English/Russian or whatever would be better since there's more people?

Or is there another advantage I'm missing?

Indeed there is, Learning a second language makes learning subsequent languages easier, Language learning is very important in an Education system as it develops the mental capabilities of the Child, Being bilingual has a positive effect on intellectual growth.

Benefits

The benefits listed here all apply to Irish, Gaelscoileanna have shown this, They often perform better than the national average.