Why can nobody speak Irish?

Henlars67 wrote: »

Ha, that line of stupidity renders any other arguments you may have totally invalid.

You cannot cast aspersions on somebody's intelligence based on who they vote for.

That is absurd.

Tongue in cheek mo chara, tongue in cheek.

TireeTerror wrote: »

WOW Irish and Scots is so similar, Id have said "mo charaid".

Naw, you have it completely wrong.

"Scots" is a Germanic language closely related to English.

Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic are closely related Celtic languages.

Anyway it should have been the vocative case: "A chara"

I love being pedantic.

becost wrote: »

Cad a dhéanann tú chiallaíonn labhraíonn aon duine na hÉireann?

Be careful Becost. I don't know which side of the argument you support.

That sentence above is complete gibberish.

Do not use Google Translate for Irish. It only works (occasionally) for the most basic phrases.

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Alternative explanation:
You made a ridiculously stupid statement about "discrimination", were called out on it, and can't manage to backtrack without admitting you were wrong, so you're flouncing and casting aspersions while you do so.

ah slutmonkey - its obvious you had a hard time trying to learn the irish language but plain english seems to be hard for you to - I'll post again for you

having read some of your previous "irish" posts - I have come to the conclusion that its not just the Irish language you have a problem with - its a lot of irish things.

I therefore have decided I won't be "feeding" your issues about ireland.

Slan leat. :rolleyes:

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I speak my native language perfectly well, thank you very much. We wouldn't be having his conversation if I didn't...

I couldn’t be bothered arguing with people whose minds are closed but out of curiosity could you please answer one thing? Are you by any chance descended from those Planter people who were brought in several centuries ago to convert the natives?

Roger_007 wrote: »

Another 'WOW' here. I spend a lot of time in Donegal and have rarely heard a word of Irish spoken even in the so-called Gaeltacht areas. You are much more likely to hear a conversation in Russian or Polish than in Irish.

Funny that because I have lived all of my life in Donegal and my experience is the opposite to yours.

9959 wrote: »

After reading the above I'm pretty sure that some of your fellow Irish language enthusiasts are now staring at their shoes in embarrassment.

Please redeem yourself by saying it was some sort of 'joke'.

Lighten up my friend or you will be having trouble with high blood pressure.

Like I said, I couldn’t be bothered arguing with you people anymore because the arguments on both sides are falling on deaf ears.

It is interesting though that I have to ‘redeem’ myself while it is fine for another poster to wrongly accuse someone of being a Sinn Féin supporter and questioning his intelligence as a result.

For the record, I have friends of all persuasions and do not support any political party.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Lighten up, I was only trying to provoke a reaction from him. Seems to have worked with you though. You wouldn't be a Sinn Fein supporter would you?

Hold on I'll get my note pad.


Why is it ironic? Irish people do not have a genetic affinity to the language...

Ha, ha, ha. Your fishing skills are as bad as your Irish. Try a different bait because I’m not rising to that one. You could also read my post where I stated that I do not support any political party, and to clarify it especially for you, that includes Sinn Féin.

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

English is absolutely a commoner's language, that's why the first dictionaries were invented and why Johnson's comprehensive one was such a success; the need to standardise pronunciations, spellings and structures across thousands of dialects from a mostly illiterate population led to the development of Received Pronunciation ("Queen's English").

French has been defended by the BN for decades, particularly since the war when re-establishing the French national identity and culture following a devastating and fracturing occupier, and the clear advancement of American culture was an obvious threat. I seem to recall that they published an annual or semi-annual guide to the "approved" state of the language which was followed by the civil service and certainly the print media. I believe the most recent vexatious defeat which had them close to throwing in the towel was the adoption by the ignorant public of "le week-end" (an example of language transfer by utility since French had no native phrase for the concept).

The poster is certainly rambling, but isn't talking out of their arse.

I don't claim to have much knowledge of Italian so Google is probably your friend there. (or in Irish "ag googliocht", probably).

English isn't 'a commoner's' language anymore, though. The poster is speaking about English as it is currently. As it stands, it's the lingua franca of economics and politics. The post implies it's so popular because it's a 'simple' commoner language i.e. easy - but English isn't particularly easy to learn and is dominant for completely different reasons.

I know what you mean about French but that's not exactly practical and doesn't encourage language prioritisation - rather it does the opposite. The OP was suggesting we do the same with Irish and I wanted to draw out was meant here. The OP also said speaking French requires 'soft landings rather than any kind of brain work' so I took that comment as inflammatory.

aindriu80 wrote: »

For me Irish is not the problem, its the people and the country. No one took control of it and fitted it in to modern everyday life and made it simple to use. From what I learn't about the Italian language its all made up and relatively new. They have tons of problems with grammar and dialect but it never holds them back from using it.

If you checked out what the French would do to back their language to can see all the practical things we don't do. Its obviously more about pushing it and providing soft landings than any kind of brain work on the speakers behalf.

It doesn't hold them back because their language wasn't forced out. They don't have the option of speaking another language in its place. I don't think altering Irish will help in the slightest. The problem is that we aren't immersed in the language and do not learn it natively.

I am flummoxed entirely as to what you mean by French providing 'soft landings'.

aindriu80 wrote: »

It's no troll. I just saw the thread when I logged into boards.ie yesterday and thought I would give my 2/c worth.

The Irish language could be easier to speak, follow and simplified. Italian is complicated but when you learn two verbs essere (to be) and avere (to have) you can follow whats going on even if you have a bare bones understanding of the language. When I watch the news as Gaeilge I can't even try and guess what the story could be about.

Italian is not made up but you could almost say it was 'invented'. It has so many dialects before unification when the new language was adopted. Still with all that they got one official proper language. It looks like we didn't make Irish more concrete and usable.

The French really back their culture which includes the language. We do the opposite speaking English at any opportunity and don't even think of putting Irish center stage and then accommodating English. Logically we are going in the wrong direction.

Anyway my point is that Irish is not beyond engineering. We use English too much instead of shaping our own language to reflect whats happening around us.

Ok but I don't see why Irish should be simplified? Altering a language artificially and creating a strict standard actually makes it even more difficult to enforce and encourage.

I have very poor Irish and I can sometimes pick up the gist of the news. Are you sure it's not just that you are better at Italian because you learned it in college? Because you did say it was difficult to master and I find it flabbergasting that you would only need to learn two basic verbs and have a very bare knowledge of Italian in general to be able to follow conversations?

OldNotWIse wrote: »

Likewise. I think the majority of supporters simply do so to make a point. Certainly any (rare) time I see people speaking Irish, they seem to be looking for a reaction.

How much money has the government wasted under the official languages Act, translating documents, while sick people lie on hospital trolleys and children have to wait two years for medical treatment?

Arsed up priorities to appease a few bored stick in the muds.:D

To be fair, the health system had a lot of money pumped into it in the boom years. Problem is that the money doesn't go to the frontline services and goes instead to administration. So it's not like the funding of Irish is diverting funds from the health services - administration's doing that.

To all those calling Irish a dead language, in linguistic terms it is not. A language has to lack native speakers to be considered dead. End of.

Tony EH wrote: »

It's dead from the point of view that its communicative value is limited to an extremely small group. It's of minimal use to anybody and its practical application is virtually nil.

You could say that about any hobby.