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Scrap the Irish Language Commissioner

Larbre34

An Coimisinéir Teanga is at it again, forcing an Irish language awareness programme on the Gardaí, a force so stretched and weary they have barely the time and resources to fulfil their role in English, never mind find the time to learn operational Irish.

All told, An Coimisinéir forces a huge amount of wasted expenditure on state bodies, in terms of signage, reports and publications, made available for a population where 95% of the functional language is English.

So, in this time of belt-tightening, is An Coimisinéir a luxury we can afford? Would the money be better spent encouraging the use and love of the first official language willingly and voluntarily, rather than forcibly?

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anncoates

who the fug wrote: »

Forgotten, all six prose/poetry /BS essays and peig burnt , any gob****e speaking to me in Irish would have been told to **** off down the road.

You need to urgently work on your English before you even consider Irish.

Dionysius2

Considering the rate at which our culture is being diluted these days, it's a racing certainty that the chances of restoring the Irish language is receding fast with no hope of recovery. Lamentation and headshaking aplenty we will have to endure but the message is writ large upon the wall. We should now accept that the Irish language restoration notion is a lost cause and public service budgets with an Irish language component should be trimmed accordingly.

ZeitgeistGlee

topper75 wrote: »

could be used describe how this country was misgoverned and repressed for centuries

There really ought to be a Godwin's law equivalent for "800 years!!" :rolleyes:

It's wonderful how challenging the unabashed primacy and mono-cultural snobbery of the position of the Irish language is apparently the same as revoking and forswearing one's own status as an "Irish" citizen.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

topper75 wrote: »

I think learning German whilst living in Germany makes perfect sense, unless I've misunderstood your point. In relation to the 2nd para, not at all simple. When organising an educ system you need to establish a core curriculum. Running off in our own learning directions willy nilly does not a nation make. Must be a common core. Hebrew would be part of the Israeli core etc.

You have missed the point. You asked why, if I don't speak Irish, would I not want to decamp to England. My point was: why England? It sounded as if you were saying that I should only stay in places where I speak the first official native language. If not, why England? And why would I hot be happier staing in England? And if that is what you meant, why should I NOT go to germany?

Regarding the education system, this is anargument I've had on various threads and no one has ever come back to me with answers as to why it should have cumpolsory subjects and why it could not be flexible enough to serve the student instead of serving the language?

opti0nal

vincit qui se vincit wrote: »

Personally, I'd favour current 'Incitement to Hatred' legislation being extended to include people who produce such degrading, dehumanising bile against Irish speakers who merely assert their rights to equal treatment under Irish and international law as an indigenous linguistic community in Ireland. .

Could we, by return, bring child abuse charges against the members of the Irish lobby who insist on forcing small, defenceless children to speak Irish, denying them basic toilet facilities unless thay request them in Irish?

Wibbs

topper75 wrote: »

The 800 years is not diminished for being referred to so often.

At this stage it kinda is T. It's akin to fully grown adults doing little to improve their lot by their own independent hands who would rather witter on because they came from a broken home. '

They' are gone but the after effects of the policies are real and many.

If that's the case T that's almost entirely down to us at this stage in the game.

The Dublin parliament in place since the 20s was never clear on what it wanted to do with the language. It wanted a heritage item rather than a working vernacular. The whole thing fell between two stools. The biggest thing hurting Irish is the refusal to engage with the concept of bilingualism - both at government level and the level of the individual. In this thread, people have weighed it up against English on an either/or basis. I'm a proud native English speaker. Internationally that gives us quite an advantage. I have also acquired fluency in Irish. I would prefer Irish to be the kitchen language (as they say in Belgium) of this land, but that need never be to the detriment of our English fluency.

I'm with you there, but I just can't see it kicking off to the degree we might hope. Why? Us basically. As you alluded to earlier we need to look in the mirror. Though where we might diverge is the reasoning behind it. We're a practical, which way is the wind blowing kinda people. We tend to work in the gaps more than many if not most. We work the grey, rather than the black and white. Even the cod Irish phrase/answer in English to a seemingly black and white question, "it is and it isn't", which has roots in the Irish language and psyche sums it up. It's why it can be damned hard for others to argue with an Irish man or woman in full flight. The Irish language falls into that grey. Forget the rapidly pro or anti Irish people for a sec. They're both in the minority. The vast majority of Irish people have that duality with the language. That's what the census figures show too IMHO. Ask most "should we preserve the language" and yep the overwhelming majority will indeed say "yes", but will so so as Bearla. It is and it isn't.

Look at the Irish diaspora throughout the world. Look at them in the US. They're still the second largest ethnic group in the place, yet far from perfidious Albion's tentacles they dropped the language like a hot rock. Second largest ethnic group, yet the Irish language is seventy odd down the list of non English languages spoken. Many Italian americans have some Italian, many Jewish Americans have Yiddish, Chinese Americans have made the various dialects of Chinese the third most spoken language in the place. Us? Seventy odd... It is and it isn't.

Actually that's why I know the language will never die, even though both the rabidly antis and strangely the pros seem to love/fear that. That duality will insist it'll survive, long after this convo has been backed up to living molecular memory storage. It is and it isn't.

It is BS. I resented those impositions, but the language is still beautiful. I was able to separate the two. I was driven to distraction with King Lear, the Plough and the Stars and the miserable ramblings of 'poets' like Yeats and Wordsworth. Despite my experiences, I'm still typing to you here in English. Haven't given up

That's OK T, in another thread on the subject another poster compared that whinging wet weekend in Courtown that is Pieg Sayers to Floubert, so you're well ahead.

gobnaitolunacy

Dionysius2 wrote: »

Considering the rate at which our culture is being diluted these days, it's a racing certainty that the chances of restoring the Irish language is receding fast with no hope of recovery. Lamentation and headshaking aplenty we will have to endure but the message is writ large upon the wall. We should now accept that the Irish language restoration notion is a lost cause and public service budgets with an Irish language component should be trimmed accordingly.

They'll do what they've done for the past 80 or so years, throw more money at it in the faint hope more people will speak it. :rolleyes:

clairefontaine

And Wibbs nails it.

As Molly Bloom says "Two thinks at a time."

I would say Irish Americans have more Italian, Yiddish and Spanish than they do Irish, plus whatever foreign language they do in school.

Wibbs

Knowing the governments we tend to elect, more like a "feint hope".

Wibbs

clairefontaine wrote: »

And Wibbs nails it.

I never touched her CF, I swear.

As Molly Bloom says "Two thinks at a time."

The Irish, the schrodinger's cat of world culture.

feargale

I believe there are just four European countries that don't have an indigenous linguistic minority, Iceland, Portugal ( arguably or not depending on your point of view, ) San Marino and Liechtenstein. Has anybody here, on either side of the fence, studied or even glanced at how various European countries deal with their minority languages ?

clairefontaine

Wibbs wrote: »

I never touched her CF, I swear.

The Irish, the schrodinger's cat of world culture.

"And there it was! Gone!" - one of my favourites.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

feargale wrote: »

I believe there are just four European countries that don't have an indigenous linguistic minority, Iceland, Portugal ( arguably or not depending on your point of view, ) San Marino and Liechtenstein. Has anybody here, on either side of the fence, studied or even glanced at how various European countries deal with their minority languages ?

(Open to correction on a lot of this)
Icalenad does not qualify here, as Icelandic is the only official language. Nor does san Marino or Leichtenstein as Italian and German are the only official languagesand there is no mention of anything indigneous that I can see. I don't the know the story with Portgal, but I'm assuming they don't have compulsory Mirandese for the entire country simply because it's an official langugae. it's probbaly handed down via tradition in the relevant areas.

feargale

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

(Open to correction on a lot of this)
83652975 Icalenad does not qualify here, as Icelandic is the only official language. Nor does san Marino or Leichtenstein as Italian and German are the only official languagesand there is no mention of anything indigneous that I can see. I don't the know the story with Portgal, but I'm assuming they don't have compulsory Mirandese for the entire country simply because it's an official langugae. it's probbaly handed down via tradition in the relevant areas.

You've misread my post. See the word "DON'T."

uch

Maith fear a Sheáin

Madam_X

Would those who advocate scrapping it include getting rid of it on the school curriculum and in colleges? I think it should be optional for leaving cert all right, but I don't think it would be right to deny someone the opportunity to study it at school/college if they want to.
I think certain demands by people from the Gaeltacht are unreasonable but they speak the language most of the time, and I think it's great that it's being kept alive.

The all-or-nothing attitude to it is a shame IMO - how about a compromise?

Cee-Jay-Cee

Commissioner Teanga is another wasteful quango that this country can no longer afford. If the person had a complaint about being arrested then make it to GSOC not some half baked civil servant trying to justify their existence with investigations on trivial issues.

Everyone has their right to speak irish if they so wish but when the other person is unable to then manners dictates that they use English which they are both able to speak.

Idiots like the one that was stopped and refused to speak the first language of this country are generally the type that shout IRA as part of the chorus of the song 'Fields of Athenry' ie ****.

kowloon

Madam_X wrote: »

Would those who advocate scrapping it include getting rid of it on the school curriculum and in colleges? I think it should be optional for leaving cert all right...

I think there are so many Irish teachers in employment that anything more than making it optional at leaving cert would be impossible to implement anyway.

I think the language lobby push so hard it only increases the opposition. Newtonian linguistics in action

ZeitgeistGlee

Madam_X wrote: »

Would those who advocate scrapping it include getting rid of it on the school curriculum and in colleges? I think it should be optional for leaving cert all right, but I don't think it would be right to deny someone the opportunity to study it at school/college if they want to.
I think certain demands by people from the Gaeltacht are unreasonable but they speak the language most of the time, and I think it's great that it's being kept alive.

The all-or-nothing attitude to it is a shame IMO - how about a compromise?

I don't think anyone has argued it should be scrapped completely from the education system, merely made optional so those who want to study it at secondary and tertiary level can. I think the uptake and reception of Irish would be markedly improved under such circumstances.

Most of the resentment towards Irish comes as a direct result of forcing children to study it for the entire formal education up to university when past Junior Cert (and arguably even before Junior Cert) it serves little to no purpose for those who won't be pursuing a career which requires it.

Now before any Irish proponent jumps on me for singling out Irish I'm a firm believer that the Irish education curriculum from primary to tertiary level needs a complete overhaul now that college/university level has become an expected part of one's formal education. Children should be able to specialise in their preferred subjects much earlier than Leaving Cert level. They should also have exposure to foreign languages earlier than secondary level.

I do however think Irish should be scrapped from areas where it is neither practical nor pragmatic to have it, such as the Commissioner in this case. The number of Irish people who have no level of English at all with which to communicate is functionally nil I imagine.

LordSutch

There were mumblings prior to the last general election that Enda was thinking of making Irish optional after the Junior Cert . . . . . .

I often wonder what became of those mumblings.

Iwasfrozen

LordSutch wrote: »

There was mumblings prior to the last general election that Enda was thinking of making Irish optional after the Junior Cert . . . . . .

I often wonder what became of those mumblings.

He was shouted down by the powerful vested interest groups. So much for democracy.

Luno

I don't believe there should be such a huge emphasis put on basically shoving the language down people's throats. Most people who have any interest in the language will keep it up themselves and not because it's Seachtain na Gaeilge or whatever. However, I don't think any language should just be scrapped. I'd like to think we could live in harmony with both English and Irish being practiced and neither being forced upon us.

Lelantos

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

He was shouted down by the powerful vested interest groups. So much for democracy.

Link?

Iwasfrozen

Lelantos wrote: »

Link?

http://www.thejournal.ie/irish-language-students-protest-at-being-dumped-by-fine-gael-84116-Feb2011/

ZeitgeistGlee

LordSutch wrote: »

There were mumblings prior to the last general election that Enda was thinking of making Irish optional after the Junior Cert . . . . . .

I often wonder what became of those mumblings.

Much the same as his mumblings about getting rid of the Senate I imagine.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

http://www.thejournal.ie/irish-language-students-protest-at-being-dumped-by-fine-gael-84116-Feb2011/

Grainne Campion, a student at St Patrick’s College of Education, Drumcondra, who attended the protest said that it was “ironic” that Fine Gael was the only party to propose reducing the status of Irish in the senior cycle when Enda Kenny is a fluent Irish speaker himself and also a primary school teacher.

Yes, ironic that as a teacher and a fluent Irish speaker Kenny might have a better insight into how to teach and better instil a love of Irish into children than a bunch of self-serving students. :rolleyes:

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

It's a sad day when 200 college strudents have more sway than the Prime minister.

Iwasfrozen

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

It's a sad day when 200 college strudents have more sway than the Prime minister.

That's what we get for electing spineless leaders.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

That's what we get for electing spineless leaders.

This is what we get for endorsing a culture which is impotent when it comes to breeding leaders.

feargale

Madam_X wrote: »

I think certain demands by people from the Gaeltacht are unreasonable but they speak the language most of the time, and I think it's great that it's being kept alive.
The all-or-nothing attitude to it is a shame IMO - how about a compromise?

Good to see at least one person submitting a fair, balanced and sensible post, recognising that all parties have rights, and that balancing their respective rights is not always a simple exercise. These threads on the Irish language are too often dominated by people who are unwilling to respect the legitimate concerns of people who do not share their view of the Irish language.

Iwasfrozen

feargale wrote: »

Good to see at least one person submitting a fair, balanced and sensible post, recognising that all parties have rights, and that balancing their respective rights is not always a simple exercise. These threads on the Irish language are too often dominated by people who are unwilling to respect the legitimate concerns of people who do not share their view of the Irish language.

So from that I would assume you are in favour of scrapping the commissioner? A man whose sole purpose is to impose his view of the language on other people.