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Enda Kenny to make irish optional?

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    #332
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    _meehan_ wrote: »
    If you were to look back, you actually said that everybody agreeing with this poster was trolling.

    And sorry to break it to you, but you are indeed a troll.

    Níl aon dul as, a chara.:rolleyes:
    YOU said I was the first to call "troll" ON PAGE 15 (which I didn't, I just used the word first, there was already somebody admitting he was only there to wind up)
    I PROVE someone else was first ON PAGE 10.
    Yet again, the best you can come up with when proven wrong is to completely ignore what happened and shout "troll"!!!
    Magic word that. Absolves you of repeatedly losing an argument apparently!


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    #333
    Salty
    Registered Users Posts: 2,116 ✭✭✭Salty


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    FROM PAGE 10.

    You were saying about "first to cry troll"???:D

    Well she was right. You are a troll. And it was ironic of you to be crying troll on anyone else.

    Have you read any of your previous posts? Seen your utterances of "I'll return when an adult posts" or referring to other posters as "kiddies" or your attack on my comprehending skills?

    You're trying to provoke reactions from people in a very negative way.


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    #334
    Salty
    Registered Users Posts: 2,116 ✭✭✭Salty


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    Shouldn't that be "comprehension problems"? Just, you know, saying...

    Both are correct.


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    #335
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    _meehan_ wrote: »
    Well she was right. You are a troll. And it was ironic of you to be crying troll on anyone else.
    And as I said (and you cocked up trying to refute), usually the first to call troll is the one who's hit the buffers in the argument.
    _meehan_ wrote: »
    Have you read any of your previous posts? Seen your utterances of "I'll return when an adult posts" or referring to other posters as "kiddies" or your attack on my comprehending skills?
    Er, I was right about your comprehension skills. You admitted you didn't read my (quite simple) post properly and invented a personal attack on yourself that wasn't there.
    _meehan_ wrote: »
    You're trying to provoke reactions from people in a very negative way.
    Funny then that you're the guy who claimed a personal insult, admitted it didn't exist, and then didn't have the common decency to apologise.
    Do as I say, not as I do, I suppose?


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    #336
    dubhthach
    Registered Users Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    What has any of this got to do with Fine Gael policy on Irish? :rolleyes:

    As stated before with Labour occupying the Dept. of Education compulsory Irish at Leaving cert is not gonna be removed in the next 5 years.


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    #337
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    dubhthach wrote: »
    What has any of this got to do with Fine Gael policy on Irish? :rolleyes:
    It has everything to do with what their policy should be, as there is no demonstrable overall benefit of second language study over any other subject.
    At least it hasn't been demonstrated here!
    Maybe when it comes to the time to "consult the stakeholders" i.e. those who make their money out of the unnecessary Irish requirement in schools, someone can point this out to them.


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    #338
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    _meehan_ wrote: »
    Irish and English are completely different languages. Where in English do you find an equivalent to tuisil ginideach, beaninsineach & firinsineach. Sentence and verb structures are completely different.
    If you think English and Irish are more different than English and Cantonese then you're in trouble! The data presented shows that the more different language benefits the student more. Are you seriously telling us that Cantonese is more like English than Irish is? Maybe your linguistics friends can help you out here...


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    #339
    Insect Overlord
    Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 30,860 Mod ✭✭✭✭Insect Overlord


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    If you think English and Irish are more different than English and Cantonese then you're in trouble! The data presented shows that the more different language benefits the student more. Are you seriously telling us that Cantonese is more like English than Irish is? Maybe your linguistics friends can help you out here...

    I don't believe _meehan_ mentioned anything at all about Cantonese. His point was more likely to be in relation to differences between Gaeilge English as opposed to the differences between English and the Romance languages on the curriculum. Try harder ;)


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    #340
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Insect Overlord wrote: »
    I don't believe _meehan_ mentioned anything at all about Cantonese. His point was more likely to be in relation to differences between Gaeilge English as opposed to the differences between English and the Romance languages on the curriculum. Try harder ;)
    I don't even need to try to show that you and _meehan_ are talking cobblers again.
    What I said was
    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    The only hard evidence provided so far is that students do better learning a language as different as possible from their mother tongue. So thank you for showing that under no circumstances should Irish be taught in Irish schools to benefit students' other skills as it is far too similar English.
    If I didn't make it clear enough, if the argument is that a second language improves overall grades (which has yet to be proven when a proper control group studying a different subject for the same time period is included), and the greatest benefit is from languages as different as possible from the primary, then yes, under no circumstances should Irish be taught. Chinese, Japanese or Arabic would be far superior options.


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    #341
    dubhthach
    Registered Users Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    I don't even need to try to show that you and _meehan_ are talking cobblers again.
    What I said was

    If I didn't make it clear enough, if the argument is that a second language improves overall grades (which has yet to be proven when a proper control group studying a different subject for the same time period is included), and the greatest benefit is from languages as different as possible from the primary, then yes, under no circumstances should Irish be taught. Chinese, Japanese or Arabic would be far superior options.

    So your laboured point is that because both English and Irish are Indo-European languages (specifically Centum branch) then it shouldn't be thought as it's too close to English? thus not been hard enough to improve overall grades based on a theory of learning a 2nd language that is as different as possible from 1st language?

    Given that Irish and English last shared a common ancestor about 3,500 years ago it's sort of a flawed point. I would assume the people who came up with the theory were talking about learning languages that weren't part of same group eg. Spanish speaker learning Italian, Dutch speaker learning German, Irish speaker learning Scottish Gàdhlig etc.


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    #342
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    dubhthach wrote: »
    Given that Irish and English last shared a common ancestor about 3,500 years ago it's sort of a flawed point.
    Actually, just for anybody interested, they shared a common ancestor about 6,000 years ago.


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    #343
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    dubhthach wrote: »
    So your laboured point
    The labouring is all at the understanding end, not at the explaining end.
    dubhthach wrote: »
    is that because both English and Irish are Indo-European languages (specifically Centum branch) then it shouldn't be thought as it's too close to English? thus not been hard enough to improve overall grades based on a theory of learning a 2nd language that is as different as possible from 1st language?
    No, it's that if you're teaching a second language to aid academic progress, then Irish is not the language you want. The only data provided with proper controls was when a similar language was taught versus when a dissimilar language was taught, with the dissimilar appearing to be superior in improving metrics.
    dubhthach wrote: »
    Given that Irish and English last shared a common ancestor about 3,500 years ago it's sort of a flawed point. I would assume the people who came up with the theory were talking about learning languages that weren't part of same group eg. Spanish speaker learning Italian, Dutch speaker learning German, Irish speaker learning Scottish Gàdhlig etc.
    Er, that's exactly what I'm agreeing with. If you want to use a second language as a general purpose academic achievement aid, then use a langauge from a different group. However long ago Irish and English separated, they're still Indo-European languages, very very different from Semitic or Sino-Tibetan.


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    #344
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Enkidu wrote: »
    Actually, just for anybody interested, they shared a common ancestor about 6,000 years ago.
    No problem with that, but they are still more similar than English is to Chinese or Arabic, and therefore of less value as an aid to overall academic success.


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    #345
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    No problem with that, but they are still more similar than English is to Chinese or Arabic, and therefore of less value as an aid to overall academic success.
    True, maybe, but I'm not sure of the degree. Irish and Welsh are both very strange as far as Indo-European languages go. VSO word order (like classical Arabic and Biblical Hebrew), grammatical lenition (unique to them) and grammatical eclipsis/nasalisation (unique), fully inflected prepositions (Arabic and Hebrew). So they are very strange Indo-European languages. Probably as weird as you can get.


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    #346
    An gal gréine
    Registered Users Posts: 941 ✭✭✭An gal gréine


    In a report by Professor Vani Borooah of The University of Ulster and other leading academics, "Irish speakers have developed an advantage in the job market". Their cross-border analysis found Irish speakers to be better educated in the Republic's labour market.
    "In the North, the ratios of people who have Irish and are in permanent jobs or have degrees are broadly similar to the Republic".


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    #347
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Enkidu wrote: »
    True, maybe, but I'm not sure of the degree. Irish and Welsh are both very strange as far as Indo-European languages go.
    But they are still most definitely Indo-European. I don't see how they can be anything like the Sino-Tibetan family.


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    #348
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    An gal gréine wrote: »
    In a report by Professor Vani Borooah of The University of Ulster and other leading academics, "Irish speakers have developed an advantage in the job market". Their cross-border analysis found Irish speakers to be better educated in the Republic's labour market.
    "In the North, the ratios of people who have Irish and are in permanent jobs or have degrees are broadly similar to the Republic".
    So in a country that has a large public sector employment dependence on the Irish language, having Irish helps to get a job? In a country where there are no requirements for Irish there is no advantage to Irish? Colour me utterly unsurprised.
    This data says everything about the Irish state propping up the Irish language and nothing about the actual academic benefits of it. If anything it says there is no benefit at all.


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    #349
    Insect Overlord
    Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 30,860 Mod ✭✭✭✭Insect Overlord


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    If anything it says there is no benefit at all.

    You are wrong, and, what's more, you've been wrong ever since your first posts in this thread. You have called for one thing, received it, and then pretended you were actually calling for something else. You have repeatedly shifted the goalposts. You have been patronising, condescending and straight-up insulting in your entire manner for over 3 weeks in this thread. The fact that you managed to infer the above quote from An Gal Gréine's post would suggest that you either a) posses prodigious imagination or b) are still just trying to wind people up. I'm more inclined to believe the latter is the case.


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    #350
    An gal gréine
    Registered Users Posts: 941 ✭✭✭An gal gréine


    Not everybody is looking for an "advantage". When admiring something that is beautiful, there is no dependency on it to be "useful".


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    #351
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Insect Overlord wrote: »
    You are wrong, and, what's more, you've been wrong ever since your first posts in this thread. You have called for one thing, received it, and then pretended you were actually calling for something else. You have repeatedly shifted the goalposts. You have been patronising, condescending and straight-up insulting in your entire manner for over 3 weeks in this thread. The fact that you managed to infer the above quote from An Gal Gréine's post would suggest that you either a) posses prodigious imagination or b) are still just trying to wind people up. I'm more inclined to believe the latter is the case.

    Wow, nice rambling, specifics free waffle. I couldn't give a monkeys what you believe TBH, if you don't like something I say then try addressing it. You do know that saying something is wrong isn't the same as saying why? And if you've been hammered on ten different specific points I'm afraid you can't just pretend that adding them all together means you win.

    This data says:
    Where there is no government backing for Irish, Irish is no advantage.
    Where there is government backing for Irish, Irish is an advantage.
    So the advantage is dependent on the backing of the government, not the ability of the person to speak Irish.


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    #352
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    An gal gréine wrote: »
    Not everybody is looking for an advantage. When admiring something that is beautiful, there is no dependency on it to be "useful".
    True, Irish is a beautiful language and long may it prosper.
    This has nothing to do with whether it should be forced upon pupils for no discernible benefit to anybody though.


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    #353
    An gal gréine
    Registered Users Posts: 941 ✭✭✭An gal gréine


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    True, Irish is a beautiful language and long may it prosper.
    This has nothing to do with whether it should be forced upon pupils for no discernible benefit to anybody though.

    It has something to do with what you have been saying about it not being useful.


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    #354
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Insect Overlord wrote: »
    You are wrong, and, what's more, you've been wrong ever since your first posts in this thread. You have called for one thing, received it
    Where did I receive this data? A study where academically similar pupils were randomly distributed to second language or some other subject classes and overall academic performance subsequently assessed?
    Should be a simple copy/paste for you this job, shouldn't it? You're insistent the data is already in this thread.
    Why am sure I'll be in for a long wait...


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    #355
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    An gal gréine wrote: »
    It has something to do with what you have been saying about it not being useful.
    I don't know if you've read all of this thread, but the claim I have refuted is that Irish language study is better overall for a student then study of another subject. Various people have claimed that extra second language study or benefits to verbal scores prove this. They have as yet failed to provide evidence that a second language is overall of more benefit than the same time spent studying something else.
    Unfortunately their inability to find this data has lead to some frustration. Now they're convinced I hate Irish of course as I have shown their case is false.
    Cue the next attack that doesn't specify anything...

    As to whether it is useful? It is "useful" for speaking to other Irish speakers. For overall personal academic or social development it is not "useful", it is and should be "optional".


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    #356
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    But they are still most definitely Indo-European. I don't see how they can be anything like the Sino-Tibetan family.
    They are not like the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, I did not make that claim.
    What I am saying is the following:
    1. That the test results indicate that the further the target language is from your original language, the better the educational benefits.
    2. Irish, Welsh, Breton and Scots is probably the most divergent Indo-European languages in existence.
    3. This will make Irish very "far" from English.
    4. It is difficult to measure the degree of the separation from English of Irish and Arabic respectively. Of course Arabic is unrelated to English, but since Irish is so odd, I'm not sure what the degrees of improvement would be. How do grades improve when comparing a very weird language in your own extended language family and one in another family. Hence: "True, maybe, but I'm not sure of the degree".

    Of course it is obvious that Irish is not like Sino-Tibetan, however the case is a little less clear for Semitic languages when most of the "very different" parts of Arabic are possessed by Irish anyway.


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    #357
    An gal gréine
    Registered Users Posts: 941 ✭✭✭An gal gréine


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    No, I am 100% certain I was required to do it in school if I wanted to get my leaving cert. That is called forced. Not so many people mind if there is a point, as there is with English and maths.

    Good for you.

    The effort I made is irrelevant. The grade I got is irrelevant. Whether I was exempt or not is irrelevant.
    The point of Irish being a requirement for the leaving cert and university admission when it is entirely useless except as a perpetuation of itself IS relevant.

    Your opinion that it is "entirely useless" colours a lot of your comments here. More people would speak it if they had the outlets to do so and as polls consistently show, people are not going to give up on their hope that better ways will be found in the future.
    All the political parties that I know of have supportive policies of the language and none regard it as useless.


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    #358
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    @Enkidu
    From wikipedia
    For native English speakers
    Diplomats and defense language training provides some interesting data, although it covers only a limited selection of major national languages:
    The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State has compiled approximate learning expectations for a number of languages. Of the 63 languages analyzed, the five most difficult languages to reach proficiency in speaking and proficiency in reading (for native English speakers who already know other languages), requiring 88 weeks, are "Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean". The Foreign Service Institute considers Japanese to be the most difficult of this group.[3]
    Of course, Irish is unlikely to have been assessed for difficulty of learning in this situation, but as I expected, Semitic and Sino-Tibetan, i.e. languages of distinct classes were deemed more difficult than other Indo-European languages to learn.
    I will assume from this that other languages classes are more different from English than English is from other Indo-European languages.


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    #359
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    An gal gréine wrote: »
    Your opinion that it is "entirely useless" colours a lot of your comments here. More people would speak it if they had the outlets to do so and as polls consistently show, people are not going to give up on their hope that better ways will be found in the future.
    All the political parties that I know of have supportive policies of the language and none regard it as useless.
    I will stick by my definition of Irish as "useless" at anything other than an aesthetic level. I really am not too concerned if you think this "colours my comments", whatever that means. If there is a specific point of logic you think I have made in error (and no Insect Overlord and _meehan_, saying "all of them" isn't the same thing) then you are quite welcome to do so.
    The only outlet required for Irish usage is the mouth, and most people have one of those yet choose to speak English.
    If Irish were to disappear tonight some lecturers would have to get new jobs tomorrow. If English disappeared there would be armageddon.
    This isn't an aesthetics discussion in any case. If you want to force people to learn a subject then it "being kinda pretty" is not a good reason to do so.


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    #360
    subedei
    Registered Users Posts: 208 ✭✭subedei


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    I will stick by my definition of Irish as "useless" at anything other than an aesthetic level. I really am not too concerned if you think this "colours my comments", whatever that means. If there is a specific point of logic you think I have made in error (and no Insect Overlord and _meehan_, saying "all of them" isn't the same thing) then you are quite welcome to do so.
    The only outlet required for Irish usage is the mouth, and most people have one of those yet choose to speak English.
    If Irish were to disappear tonight some lecturers would have to get new jobs tomorrow. If English disappeared there would be armageddon.
    This isn't an aesthetics discussion in any case. If you want to force people to learn a subject then it "being kinda pretty" is not a good reason to do so.

    Well there is another reason other than aesthetic and this is perspective or world view. Every language has its own world view, ways of describing things, ways of seeing this world. This difference of view is not just in the spoken language but with its literature, and development. This different view could also be applied to everything, like business, culture, society etc. And since Irish is only spoken in this country it provides a view that can only be found here and nowhere else. This could be especially benefitial in business where individuality and difference are important for progress and change. If we just speak English then our view will be one informed by English civilisation, we will with a slight difference approach the world in very much the same way. Hence why Ireland does reflect in business and politics very much a similar view as to england and the USA.


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    #361
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    subedei wrote: »
    Well there is another reason other than aesthetic and this is perspective or world view. Every language has its own world view, ways of describing things, ways of seeing this world. This difference of view is not just in the spoken language but with its literature, and development. This different view could also be applied to everything, like business, culture, society etc. And since Irish is only spoken in this country it provides a view that can only be found here and nowhere else. This could be especially benefitial in business where individuality and difference are important for progress and change. If we just speak English then our view will be one informed by English civilisation, we will with a slight difference approach the world in very much the same way. Hence why Ireland does reflect in business and politics very much a similar view as to england and the USA.
    More cultural imperialism disguised as heritage protection. I don't care what language I speak as long as I can converse with others. English does this job for all Irish people and works very well at an international level too. Even if I could engineer a different formula for interpretation of outside stimuli, what makes you think this would be "better" than what I already have or that I would necessarily want this to happen? All learning changes your "world view" of course, not just language learning.


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