Scrap the Irish Language Commissioner

keith16 wrote: »

I hate the way Mandarin Chinese is always rolled out as a somehow more useful / ultimate language in these arguments. Anyone care to elaborate beyond spouting a tired cliché?

Because China is one of the world's largest, fastest growing economies and the Chinese government/Chinese business groups regularly invest in other nations (including Ireland). It also allows foreign entrepreneurs/investors to conduct business in China more easily.

None of the above can be said with regard to Irish.

Coles wrote: »

See this. I come across this a lot. 'Selective Ancestry'. Did you know that if you go back 200 years you had approximately 256 lines of ancestry? And none of them spoke Irish!? There's a far higher likelihood that the vast majority of them did! But you select the ones that suit the your current cultural bias. Interesting, eh?

So rather than his own example, which pertains to his own family being accurate to what he wants to put forth it's far more likely it supports the sentiment that you want to put forth. I'd definitely describe that as interesting. :rolleyes:

I've just checked with three generations in my direct family (siblings, parents, grandparents). None of them use or used Irish as their primary tongue at any stage stretching back to 85 years ago. I'm sure of course you'll tell me that some of them did and I'm merely exercising a cultural bias.

And before I'm accused of being from the Pale, my father's family are from Tipperary and my mother's from Clare, neither of which would be particularly inclined towards Perfidious Albion.

Coles wrote: »

I was right. It's an attitiude problem. And you pass it on to the younger generation too. Like all the kids here. You're making excuses for them to be lazy. No doubt you would do it for your own kids too.

Ah, so we're back to attitude and laziness again while ignoring the state of the Irish curriculum which even Irish proponents have acknowledged aren't working. But hey generalisations are fun and easy so why deprive you of them. :rolleyes:

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

Because China is one of the world's largest, fastest growing economies and the Chinese government/Chinese business groups regularly invest in other nations (including Ireland). It also allows foreign entrepreneurs/investors to conduct business in China more easily.

None of the above can be said with regard to Irish.

Context is everything, English is the language of business, the sale of a product is done in the buyers language, and the Chinese are sellers, not buyers. I don't believe the hype, sorry.

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

According to Wiki, Mandarin has 955 million native speakers. Irish has 133,000.

Even debating the figures (and I'm sure someone will), Mandarin is spoken by several hundred million more people globally than Irish.

That doesn't make it more useful as such. China is a country I would like to visit, and would learn a few words if I do visit. But I don't see it ever becoming a dominant language in a European context.

I'm not saying Irish is better etc. but all this talk of how great Chinese is smacks of armchair analysis tbh.

keith16 wrote: »

the Chinese are sellers, not buyers. I don't believe the hype, sorry.

The company I've interned with for the last four years sells tens of millions of dollars worth of product into China on an annual basis and intends it to be one of their largest expansion targets.

"The hype" as you call it is documented economic and financial fact.

opti0nal

Coles wrote: »

Eh? Everywhere I go the language is used on a daily basis. It might be basic greetings or farewells, it might be on radio and

That's in your world. In the real world, it's not our common language.

People are paid to speak it on radio and TV. 'Cupla Focal' greetings don't count as actually speaking Irish, nor do the words forced from the mouths of powerless children.

Did you see the video of the Irish enthusiast who went around trying to speak Irish to people in Dublin? The best conversation he had was with a ticket vending machine which under the OLA had to have an Irish script.

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

The company I've interned with for the last four years sells tens of millions of dollars worth of product into China on an annual basis and intends it to be one of their largest expansion targets.

"The hype" as you call it is documented economic and financial fact.

OK, numbers are one thing, but my point relates to the language. Had your company had to start speaking Chinese on a large scale basis?

keith16 wrote: »

OK, numbers are one thing, but my point relates to the language. Had your company had to start speaking Chinese on a large scale basis?

You asked for why Mandarin Chinese was more useful than Irish and I explained it to you. The company doesn't have a large number of Mandarin speakers relative to the overall workforce no, but there are those who speak it who have direct interaction with the Chinese buyers both pre and post-purchase.

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

No offence but this is nonsense. He likely was speaking Irish to try and get out of the ticket and to be awkward with the Guards. Once it became apparent they couldn't speak it, he could have dropped it and spoke English in order to carry on his way and not waste his and their time.

But it's typical; rather than do what was easy and most effective, he decided to carry on this charade at best to prove a point, at worst to rip the **** out of the Gardai. If the latter and he was mocking them, then he can't complain when the cops get snarky back.

I think it is deeply sad that someone should have to put up with this kind of crap for simply choosing to speak Irish in their own country. I find it incredible that you would insist on casting an Irish person speaking Irish as either engaging in a charade or mockery rather than just accept their right to speak their language.

The expectation that Irish Citizens should 'drop it' and speak English rather than be facilitated in using the first language of the state when dealing with the state is quite frankly a nonsense.

Attitudes like that are an anachronism more suited to the 18 century than the 21st, fortunately they seem to be dying out.

Stained Class

Stained Class wrote: »

As the poll stands, it's 183 to 70

The poll still stands at 183 to 70.

Have the Language Hawks been up their old tricks again?

Trying to avoid a complete whitewash? Trying not to see the facts?

The usual story with this crowd.:rolleyes:

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

You asked for why Mandarin Chinese was more useful than Irish and I explained it to you. The company doesn't have a large number of Mandarin speakers relative to the overall workforce no, but there are those who speak it who have direct interaction with the Chinese buyers both pre and post-purchase.

Nope, I asked why Chinese was touted as the go to language full stop. No doubt that China's economic data has a lot of impressive numbers surrounding it, but that has been the case for some time but it simply won't manifest itself in terms of large numbers of Europeans taking up the language for business reasons.

People also mention German in this argument and I'd say that language has a lot more going for it than Chinese.

An Coilean wrote: »

http://www.gaelport.com/default.aspx?treeid=37&NewsItemID=9465

Sorry Ikky Poo, I'm not making this up.

Never said you were - but if you quote something it does help to link to whatever it is you're quoting from.

I would still disagree he was arreste for speaking Irish. Speaking Irish is not an arrestable offense. It would be a bit pointless having it on the education system if it was. Iwasfrozen comes up with the most likely solution below:

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The man was not arrested for speaking Irish. Claiming he was is sensationalist in the extreme. The man was arrested because the gardai could not identify him.

As I said, he could have chosen to deal with it on the spot or go back and deal with it at the station. He chose the later. The report does not say why he was handcuffed. It merely puts forward a hypothesis that is unlikley for the reason mentioned above.

feargale

kowloon wrote: »

Good point, we really need to correct this and accept that the language of the majority is the first language and that Irish should be a protected minority language.

In the Free State Constitution Irish and English were accorded equal status, same as the Constitution of Finland a propos Finnish and Swedish. That's more sensible than giving a higher status to the language of a small minority.

Lord TSC

An Coilean wrote: »

I think it is deeply sad that someone should have to put up with this kind of crap for simply choosing to speak Irish in their own country.

And I think it is sad that someone could argue in favour of being deliberatly obtrusive with the cops in order to prove a point, regardless of how much time and money will be wasted as a result.

And that is the key here. No one was arrested for speaking Irish. He was arrested for being awkward and being obtrusive. He could have easily avoided the arrest, but chose not to.

opti0nal

An Coilean wrote: »

I think it is deeply sad that someone should have to put up with this kind of crap for simply choosing to speak Irish in their own country.

Irish speakers must accept the reality that Irish is not our common language and no law or constitutional right will change this fact.

The person's difficulties stem from failing to use our common language. I wonder how he overcomes his distress at speaking English when he has to to deal with the many Irish people fortunate enough not to be compelled to speak Irish to him?

Wibbs

keith16 wrote: »

I hate the way Mandarin Chinese is always rolled out as a somehow more useful / ultimate language in these arguments. Anyone care to elaborate beyond spouting a tired cliché?

+1000. Mandarin is not going to be a "world language" IMHO. Why? A couple of reasons. For a start, while it may be spoken by a large amount of people, the vast majority are Chinese. French, English and Spanish are spoken by many more people than are French English and Spanish by birth. Secondly it's an tonal language. Pronunciation is everything, get it slightly wrong and the meaning can change hugely. In French, English and Spanish you can have a dodgy accent but the speakers of the language can still understand each other. A German speaking heavily accent english can be understood by a Mexican speaking heavily accent english. With a tonal language like Mandarin and others that ain't gonna happen. It's too complex and rigid over time. Many boast that Chinese folks can read and understand 500 year old texts. TO me that's a major tick against the language.

Coles wrote: »

See this. I come across this a lot. 'Selective Ancestry'. Did you know that if you go back 200 years you had approximately 256 lines of ancestry? And none of them spoke Irish!? There's a far higher likelihood that the vast majority of them did! But you select the ones that suit the your current cultural bias. Interesting, eh?

Hardly interesting as that was my experience growing up and that of my parents, grandparents and great grandparents and beyond. Oh and going back as I have, some of my ancestors spoke French, Spanish and even Basque. So? As for "Selective Ancestry", the male part of my gene map shows me to be of a line that goes right back to the first mesolithic modern humans known on this land near 11,000 years ago. Given the stats on that, I can say with some confidence that I'm likely more "Irish" than you are, yet I have little more than the cupla focal? And as for being thick for not learning it? Oh I'm more than happy to admit to being thick. Hell I demonstrate it on a near daily basis, but I suspect I've lost more knowledge of Irish history after a bad hangover than you have learned in a decade. I could well be wrong, I often am, but so far going on the evidence in black and white pixels in this thread I might just have the edge.

Me too! Me too! I'm getting pretty old too! I remember all that stuff.
I was right. It's an attitiude problem. And you pass it on to the younger generation too. Like all the kids here. You're making excuses for them to be lazy. No doubt you would do it for your own kids too.
You're just making excuses now...

You really don't plug into the objective debate thang, do you? It's not an "attitiude(sic) problem". It was my reality and funny enough it seems it still seems a similar enough reality for those who are younger than us. We didnt lick it from a stone. It came from somewhere. And no the "the Brits made us insecure" really doesn't explain a damn thing. That's an excuse, if you're looking for the definition of same, which you seem to be.

keith16 wrote: »

Context is everything, English is the language of business, the sale of a product is done in the buyers language, and the Chinese are sellers, not buyers. I don't believe the hype, sorry.

Agreed. Oh soooo agreed K.

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

And that is the key here. No one was arrested for speaking Irish. He was arrested for being awkward and being obtrusive. He could have easily avoided the arrest, but chose not to.

He was arrested for being awkward and obtrusive?
I can only assume you are referring to his choice to speak Irish as being awkward and obtrusive as there is no mention of any other action on his part that sticks out as warranting such a label.

If that is what you are saying, that he was arrested for being awkward and obtrusive by speaking Irish, then he was still arrested for speaking Irish.

You say he could easily have avoided being arrested by speaking English, the problem with that however is that the onus is not on him to have to speak English. The onus is on the Gardaí to facilitate the people in using Irish should they choose to. It was the Garda in question that was in the wrong, no ifs or buts about it.

An Coilean wrote: »

He was arrested for being awkward and obtrusive?

Will you stop dodging the issue? You know perfectly well the arrest report did not say "speaking Irish".

Krusader

Céard atá ag tarlú anseo

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Will you stop dodging the issue? You know perfectly well the arrest report did not say "speaking Irish".

And your point is? I am not claiming that the report said the person was arrested for 'Speaking Irish' I am saying that someone choose to speak Irish when stopped by a member of the Gardaí and was arrested as a direct result of that choice. That is exactly what the issue here is.

Crosáidí wrote: »

Céard atá ag tarlú anseo

Bí cúramach a mhic ó

Wibbs

Crosáidí wrote: »

Céard atá ag tarlú anseo

Debate?

An Coilean wrote: »

Bí cúramach a mhic ó

Very Father Ted.

An Coilean wrote: »

And your point is? I am not claiming that the report said the person was arrested for 'Speaking Irish' I am saying that someone choose to speak Irish when stopped by a member of the Gardaí and was arrested as a direct result of that choice. That is exactly what the issue here is.

Here's the post that started it off.

Coles wrote: »

Eh? Getting arrested by a Garda for speaking Irish, perhaps? When you're feeling lost in a thread always refer back to the opening post.

Coles was quite clear and quite wrong.

Based on the evidence, he was probably arrrested for failing to communicate with a member of the Civil Guards. Had he not been able to speak a common language with said guards, you'd have had a point. Choices have consequences. Not communicating with the guards is one of them.

Wibbs wrote: »

Debate?

Very Father Ted.

Is tusa atá á rá 'Down with that sort of thing'

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Here's the post that started it off.

Coles was quite clear and quite wrong.

Actually no, it was the OP that started it off.

An Coimisinéir Teanga is at it again, forcing an Irish language awareness programme on the Gardaí

This came about on foot of the investigation he carried out into the incident where someone was arrested as a result of choosing to speak Irish.

Iwasfrozen

An Coilean wrote: »

Actually no, it was the OP that started it off.

This came about on foot of the investigation he carried out into the incident where someone was arrested as a result of choosing to speak Irish.

So basically this.

Forced to speak English = bad
Forced to speak Irish = good

Good to know language rights go one way with you. No doubt you will tell me the guard had to speak Irish because of their job but since when did ones profession alter ones human rights? Unless language rights are not a human right in which case we can save ourselves a lot of time here.

Wibbs

An Coilean wrote: »

Is tusa atá á rá 'Down with that sort of thing'

Yea and how would you put the latter as Gaelige AC? May with your leave nick it for my sig. Just to confuse folks