Irish language's struggle with being cool.

Jess16 · 01-12-2011 11:11AM

foxyboxer wrote: »

Liz: A Uachtaran...agus a chairde.

Mary Mc: Wow....wow..

cringe, facepalm, doublefacepalm etc

Are you kidding or just lacking the education to realise the significance of what those few words symbolised?

Probably the latter if you articulate yourself in quantities of 'facepalm'

foxyboxer · 01-12-2011 11:19AM

Jess16 wrote: »

Are you kidding or just lacking the education to realise the significance of what those few words symbolised?

Probably the latter if you articulate yourself in quantities of 'facepalm'

I think the overall visit itself was more significant to be fair.
The embarrassment lies in McAleese's "articulation". Wow...WOW! Cheesy, kitsch and cringe worthy.
It's as if the Queen learning off a few irish pleasantries was a monumental effort on her behalf.

Are you kidding or just lacking the education to realise the significance of what those few words symbolised?

Arrogant much?

foxyboxer · 01-12-2011 11:28AM

Irish for me has a deep rooted uncool factor.
Having to complete Secondary School through the medium leaves deep scars.

So I have to do an Essay on The causes of World War 1.
Read it in english.
Translate it to irish. Cúiseanna a Chéad Coga Domhanda. Extra effort.
Write it out in irish. Extra effort.
Regurgitate it irish.
Go back to speaking english.

:mad:

foxyboxer · 01-12-2011 11:29AM

Jess16 wrote: »

Are you kidding or just lacking the education to realise the significance of what those few words symbolised?

Probably the latter if you articulate yourself in quantities of 'facepalm'

This is AH. The home of facepalm.

Frank Black · 01-12-2011 11:40AM

Get rid of TG4 - there's no way we can justify subsidising a whole channel for the tiny audience who actually watch it.
Stop translating official documents into Irish - nobody reads them.
Stop teaching religion and Irish in schools - it wastes hours of classroom time that could be better spent offering students some actually useful skills.

There, we've saved millions without having to cut Social Services and increase taxes, and our education system has become stronger.

You're welcome.

foxyboxer · 01-12-2011 11:44AM

black francis wrote: »

Get rid of TG4 - there's no way we can justify subsidising a whole channel for the tiny audience who actually watch it.
Stop translating official documents into Irish - nobody reads them.
Stop teaching religion and Irish in schools - it wastes hours of classroom time that could be better spent offering students some actually useful skills.

There, we've saved millions without having to cut Social Services and increase taxes, and our education system has become stronger.

You're welcome.

+1. Gaeilge is part of our heritage. Not our everyday lives.
Did 5 years of it in school and became fluent. Can honestly say in the intervening 13 years, I've not used it once for an everyday situation.
It's a completely obselete skill. Like being able to lick your elbow.

sensibleken · 01-12-2011 12:04PM

rrring rring

'Hallo'

'Ah hallo Pól, an bhfuil tú ag dul go dtí an chanchuirt a U2?

'Tá, is brea loim 'the edge''

'Mise freisin.....is fuath loim mo saol

'

foxyboxer · 01-12-2011 12:18PM

sensibleken wrote: »

rrring rring

'Hallo'

'Ah hallo Pól, an bhfuil tú ag dul go dtí an chanchuirt a U2?

'Tá, is brea loim 'the edge''

'Mise freisin.....is fuath loim mo saol '

Jim Morrison - "Seo é an deireadh, mo chara álainn, an deireadh"

Not the same is it :pac:

Ruire · 01-12-2011 12:21PM

Duggy747 wrote: »

Chuaigh

As I learnt to my embarrassment abroad, this word sounds quite alike to a general Slavic word for penis. Hilarity ensued.

goose2005 · 01-12-2011 12:48PM

Jess16 wrote: »

Are you kidding or just lacking the education to realise the significance of what those few words symbolised?

Probably the latter if you articulate yourself in quantities of 'facepalm'

It symbolised that she had learned a few phrases phonetically, as she often does on foreign trips.

sensibleken · 01-12-2011 12:52PM

foxyboxer wrote: »

Jim Morrison - "Seo é an deireadh, mo chara álainn, an deireadh"

Not the same is it :pac:

youre right its way cooler.

Every thing sounds cooler in Irish. My name in Irish translates as 'The black one of fire' way way way cooler than english, unless your name is kennedy.

mcmoustache · 01-12-2011 01:49PM

black francis wrote: »

Get rid of TG4 - there's no way we can justify subsidising a whole channel for the tiny audience who actually watch it.

Wrong.

It's not a tiny audience and the money spent on it provides more value than RTE.

black francis wrote: »

Stop translating official documents into Irish - nobody reads them.

I agree. I'm a fluent speaker from Connemara, reasonably well educated and yet it would take a long time with a dictionary to get through these documents. Anybody with the required literary skills to get through them will also be proficient in English.

There is still a question to be addressed, however, about whether an Irish citizen should have the right to an official document in the state's first official language. Personally, I think we should stop kidding ourselves and change the constitution to have English as our first language as it is the only language of the majority.

black francis wrote: »

Stop teaching religion and Irish in schools - it wastes hours of classroom time that could be better spent offering students some actually useful skills.

I agree here too. Irish should be reserved for Irish schools in the Gaeltacht and in the Galltacht (that's you guys). There's no point in teaching the language in the half-arsed way that it is in the all-English schools of the Galltacht. The language is useful to people like myself who use it every day but pointless for most of the country. There's also the effect of my language being progressively diluted by the effects of compromising the three main dialects for the sake of stubbornly reluctant folk in the Galltacht.

Us gaeltacht people and Irish language enthusiasts should do what we can to maintain our language and the rest of ye should stop trying and just go learn french or german or something.

fishy fishy · 01-12-2011 01:56PM

mcmoustache wrote: »

Wrong.

the constitution to have English as our first language as it is the only language of the majority.

so going by your wavelenghth, when the majority of people in Ireland are speaking...let's say....Polish, we should then scrap English and start speaking Polish

Frank Black · 01-12-2011 02:01PM

mcmoustache wrote: »

Wrong.

It's not a tiny audience and the money spent on it provides more value than RTE.

.

Depends how you define 'tiny' and 'value', I guess.

I'm willing to be proved wrong, but I'm sure I read an article outlining how TG4 receives over €30M in funding every year..

With our small population and current circumstances we shouldn't be paying this.

mcmoustache · 01-12-2011 02:04PM

fishy fishy wrote: »

the constitution to have English as our first language as it is the only language of the majority.

so going by your wavelenghth, when the majority of people in Ireland are speaking...let's say....Polish, we should then scrap English and start speaking Polish

No. I'm saying that when 95% of the population speak language A as a first language and 2% speak language B as a first language, then it's time to ask again what our official languages are and their order of precedence.

endabob1 · 01-12-2011 02:17PM

It should not be scrapped, the opposite should happen it should be encouraged and cherished as something which identifies us as a unique and separate entity within Europe.

It does need a serious overhaul though.
For one thing, Irish needs to be taught better in schools. I did it for 14 years and came away not fluent, not even close to being fluent. I know more French learned in 5 years, than I do Irish.
I know people from other countries who learn 2 or 3 languages in school and are least conversational in them.
TG4 might cost 30m but it's a better use of money than the millions wasted on ex-politicians.

Frank Black · 01-12-2011 02:31PM

endabob1 wrote: »

It should not be scrapped, the opposite should happen it should be encouraged and cherished as something which identifies us as a unique and separate entity within Europe.

It does need a serious overhaul though.
For one thing, Irish needs to be taught better in schools. I did it for 14 years and came away not fluent, not even close to being fluent. I know more French learned in 5 years, than I do Irish.
I know people from other countries who learn 2 or 3 languages in school and are least conversational in them.
TG4 might cost 30m but it's a better use of money than the millions wasted on ex-politicians.

Yes, because that's the opposite of spending €30M on TG4:rolleyes:

fishy fishy · 01-12-2011 03:09PM

mcmoustache wrote: »

fishy fishy wrote: »

No. I'm saying that when 95% of the population speak language A as a first language and 2% speak language B as a first language, then it's time to ask again what our official languages are and their order of precedence.

our first language is Irish - because we chose to speak in an adopted language does not mean that we have to scrap our natural authentic Irish language.

Frank Black · 01-12-2011 03:11PM

fishy fishy wrote: »

mcmoustache wrote: »

our first language is Irish - because we chose to speak in an adopted language does not mean that we have to scrap our natural authentic Irish language.

All languages are adopted. Our 'first' language was actually just grunting while pointing at some lion in the distance.

Snakeblood · 01-12-2011 03:12PM

fishy fishy wrote: »

our first language is Irish - because we chose to speak in an adopted language does not mean that we have to scrap our natural authentic Irish language.

I think you are misinterpreting what a first language is. It's what people speak day to day, not what you think it should be.

fishy fishy · 01-12-2011 03:12PM

black francis wrote: »

fishy fishy wrote: »

All languages are adopted. Our 'first' language was actually just grunting while pointing at some lion in the distance.

well maybe yours' was, the rest of us was communicating in gaelic.

fishy fishy · 01-12-2011 03:14PM

Snakeblood wrote: »

I think you are misinterpreting what a first language is. It's what people speak day to day, not what you think it should be.

in which case I refer back to my previous point - when there are more people speaking polish in this country should we call that our first language and drop english.

Irish is and always will be Ireland's first language.

Snakeblood · 01-12-2011 03:15PM

fishy fishy wrote: »

in which case I refer back to my previous point - when there are more people speaking polish in this country should we call that our first language and drop english.

Irish is and always will be Ireland's first language.

No, it's not. You're wrong on this. Saying it again doesn't make it true. It just makes you wrong twice.

fishy fishy · 01-12-2011 03:18PM

Snakeblood wrote: »

No, it's not. You're wrong on this. Saying it again doesn't make it true. It just makes you wrong twice.

disagree totally - I suppose that makes me wrong three times :rolleyes: but Irish is still Irelands first language.

Snakeblood · 01-12-2011 03:20PM

fishy fishy wrote: »

disagree totally - I sup

pose that makes me wrong three times :rolleyes: but Irish is still Irelands first language.

This is what a first language is:

A first language (also native language, mother tongue, arterial language, or L1) is the language(s) a person has learned from birth[1] or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity. In some countries, the terms native language or mother tongue refer to the language of one's ethnic group rather than one's first language.[2] Sometimes, there can be more than one mother tongue, when the child's parents speak different languages. Those children are usually called bilingual.

It's not 'The language we would all be speaking if the brits never came'

fishy fishy · 01-12-2011 03:28PM

Snakeblood wrote: »

This is what a first language is:

It's not 'The language we would all be speaking if the brits never came'

yes, and there are plenty of people in Ireland speaking the mother tongue - IRISH.

as I said, stop trying to emulate GLEE - switch on to TG4 for a while and realise that there are more people and places in ireland than your own front gardens. :rolleyes: Irish is our native language, Irish is the mother tongue.
try telling an indian in the US that english is their native language. :eek:
USE YOUR LOAF!

fishy fishy · 01-12-2011 03:31PM

Irish (Gaeilge), also known as Irish Gaelic,[1] is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of the population. In February 2011, Pat Carey, then Ireland's Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs, stated: "The Irish language is an important part of who we are. It is an important part of where we have come from and where we are going".[2] Irish enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland. It is an official language of the European Union and an officially recognised minority language in Northern Ireland. A speaker of the language may be called a Gaeilgeoir both in Irish and in English.[3]

mcmoustache · 01-12-2011 03:33PM

fishy fishy wrote: »

our first language is Irish - because we chose to speak in an adopted language does not mean that we have to scrap our natural authentic Irish language.

I've said nothing about scrapping my language. I was talking about its status as our first official language. It should be our second official language and English should be our first because that's how it is in practice.

Also, when people say "our" language, it irks me slightly because for most people using that phrase, English is their language and they have a few phrases in pidgin Irish. I have no problem when a gaeilgeor uses the phrase no matter what county or country they're from as they can rightly claim it as their language but when people who can't speak it call it their language, it just sounds like hollow patriotism.

4zn76tysfajdxp · 01-12-2011 03:38PM

fishy fishy wrote: »

yes, and there are plenty of people in Ireland speaking the mother tongue - IRISH.

as I said, stop trying to emulate GLEE - switch on to TG4 for a while and realise that there are more people and places in ireland than your own front gardens. :rolleyes: Irish is our native language, Irish is the mother tongue.
try telling an indian in the US that english is their native language. :eek:
USE YOUR LOAF!

English is the native language of a sizable majority in the country. Try telling an American that the Cherokee language is their native tongue. Do it. Go on. We're all watching.

fishy fishy · 01-12-2011 03:41PM

mcmoustache wrote: »

fishy fishy wrote: »

I've said nothing about scrapping my language. I was talking about its status as our first official language. It should be our second official language and English should be our first because that's how it is in practice.

Also, when people say "our" language, it irks me slightly because for most people using that phrase, English is their language and they have a few phrases in pidgin Irish. I have no problem when a gaeilgeor uses the phrase no matter what county or country they're from as they can rightly claim it as their language but when people who can't speak it call it their language, it just sounds like hollow patriotism.

its our first language and always will be. You seem to want only a select few to converse in Irish while the rest of the country go off and learn some foreign language - don't get you at all at all. Irish is "our" language, whether it irks you or not. this hollow patriotism you talk about? instead of getting irked about people calling Irish their language, surely you should be getting irked about the hollow patriotism of the likes of FG telling us all to buy irish at exhorbitant prices, while he himself hires a firm in florida to do his pr - thats hollow patriotism, - not people calling Irish their first language.

but then again, a lot of people who converse in "oirish" tend to be slightly smug and arrogant and feel they are better than others - thankfully that's only a small select few, usually blow in into regions who use it as their first language and who think nothing of it being their first language. They know their history tho, unlike others.

Irish language's struggle with being cool.

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