nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

Why can nobody speak Irish?

The_Gatsby

Why is it that people in Ireland start learning Irish at the age of 5 and most never learn to speak it fluently? In Europe they do pretty much the same with English and most Europeans can hold a decent conversation in English.

Is it the way Irish is taught? I didn't grow up in Ireland so I'm curious to know why so many people seem to have difficulty with it, given that it's taught at such a young age.

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

JosephDoyleIre

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Pidgin Irish is worse then fluent English. Pidgin is fine for greetings and farewell but if a speaker wished to delve into the higher echelons on human thought they would be forced to revert to English. What effect do you think that would have on people's attitudes to the language?

Yeh, I see your point. The idea would be that when people are hearing the language and it's becoming more normal. The attitude to it would change because people would start to think of it as something which they use every day. Would that not encourage people to learn more of it?

Iwasfrozen

JosephDoyleIre wrote: »

Yeh, I see your point. The idea would be that when people are hearing the language and it's becoming more normal. The attitude to it would change because people would start to think of it as something which they use every day. Would that not encourage people to learn more of it?

Well yes, because basically what you're saying is if people wanted to speak Irish they would and that's true. But look around you, the evidence points to the contrary, people don't want to speak Irish and their list of excuses for not learning it is endless. In the end despite the excuses it's clear people don't want to speak it. The people have voted with their tongues and they voted English.

BognarRegis

JosephDoyleIre wrote: »

So, if we can convince young people and everyone else that the language is cool

Why should speaking Irish be considered 'cool' and speaking English 'not cool'?

Are you trying to make English speakers feel ashamed for not speaking Irish?

Rubeter

BognarRegis wrote: »

Why should speaking Irish be considered 'cool' and speaking English 'not cool'?

Are you trying to make English speakers feel ashamed for not speaking Irish?

Just for the laugh show where he says speaking English should be considered uncool.

Surely you don't have that attitude prevalent among 12 year olds where they think that if one thing is cool then anything else isn't, because that would be quite funny.

AlexderFranke

As an outlander who is fond of the Irish tongue and inborn Irish music, I have to say that it is not at all true that nobody can speak and understand Irish. From my own wayfaring in Ireland and trying to get by through Irish, I can say that. However, as we all know, the 1,7 millions of Irish speakers as shown in the Census, is rubbish either. From other surveys, it is likely that there are around 500.000 with working knowledge of Irish and another 500.000 who understand it more or less and can say some fewfolded sentences as well as maybe around 100.000 with skills like mothertongue speakers. The footing of Irish is not the same all over the Republic as well outside the Gaeltacht. While Irish is quite often understood around Galway, the footing of the tongue is weak in southeastern counties of Ireland. Irish is much stronger among well-learnt folks, too.

These numbers are well low while looking at around 80 years of teaching Irish to nearly every schoolgoing child. One is likely to think that nearly everybody born and raised in Ireland has a fair to good grasp in Irish. Therefore, much of the money spent on teaching Irish is wasted. The outcomes could likely be better while spending less money. If I had to say, I would take out no schoolgoing child from learning Irish and doing the Junior Certificate in it, but would acknowledge special needs for all schoolgoing children coming to Ireland after their first schoolyear as to Irish at school.

Every tongue is in my eyes a worthful share of the world´s manifoldness and ought not to get lost. And to keep the inborn tongue of a land is weighty for the selfdom of this land, too. A world without the many tongues would be very boring! Furthermore, many folks do not want to live in an onefolded mass. I would have loved to have the tongue of my forefathers at school!

On the other side, the Irish could have build up Anglo-Irish as the other national tongue beneath Irish (Gaelic) for the sake of the Irish selfdom as did the Scottish some hundreds of years ago. The anglo-irish bytongues of Leinster brought to this share of Ireland long ago would have been the fitting ground to build Anglo-Irish up as a tongue in its own right.

Cheers, le deá-mhéin,

Alex

Birroc

Can we close this thread now?

Iwasfrozen

AlexderFranke wrote: »

As an outlander

Alex

Let me guess, German?

AlexderFranke

Bingo!I am Rhinelander.

Muff Richardson

Birroc wrote: »

Can we close this thread now?

with something no more fitting than this...

BognarRegis

Muff Richardson wrote: »

with something no more fitting than this...

What a pity Seamus Heaney is no longer with us to explain his claims and defend his views.

Carlos Orange

BognarRegis wrote: »

What a pity Seamus Heaney is no longer with us to explain his claims and defend his views.

Seems pretty obvious. You can not be tolerant or have imagination unless you speak Irish.

Iwasfrozen

I like Heaney but that quote is way of.

dd972

Did the OP omit that he was in Turkey and wondering this?

irishfeen

Muff Richardson wrote: »

with something no more fitting than this...

Fantastic quote from the great man... RIP Seamus Heaney

BognarRegis

irishfeen wrote: »

Fantastic quote from the great man... RIP Seamus Heaney

It's certainlly a fantasy.

Muff Richardson

BognarRegis wrote: »

It's certainlly a fantasy.

I disagree...mainly because I think you could replace "Irish Language" with any language and their respective country and it would be just as relevant and accurate.

It's your obvious resentment towards the Irish language that has you calling it a fantasy.

This is coming from someone with a poor command of the language and had a very bad experience of learning it in school.

I can't speak it but I can see its values and the importance of the language which Heaney is pointing out.

BognarRegis

Muff Richardson wrote: »

I disagree...mainly because I think you could replace "Irish Language" with any language and their respective country and it would be just as relevant and accurate.

Certainly that would be easy if one was referring to France or Germany.

But, this is Ireland, our history is different and unlike those countries we have changed our common language. Now, in that statement, let's replace the term 'Irish Language' with 'English Language', but keep the respective country as Ireland.

Would the statement still be true?

If you think it would be untrue, that is, we must learn Irish, can you explain your logic?

BognarRegis

I came across this ironic quote fom our most famous Irish enthusiast patriot:

‘I would urge that the Irish school system of the future should give freedom – freedom to the individual school, freedom to the individual teacher, freedom as far as may be to the individual pupil. Without freedom there can be no right growth, and education is properly the fostering of the right growth of personality” – Pádraig Pearse, The Murder Machine.

if he had survived to see our new state, would Pearse have favoured the imposition of Irish on schoolchildren?

Muff Richardson

BognarRegis wrote: »

I came across this ironic quote fom our most famous Irish enthusiast patriot:

if he had survived to see our new state, would Pearse have favoured the imposition of Irish on schoolchildren?

i think you need to read up a bit more on the objectives that pearse had within an irish education system, one of his primary goals was that it would be bilingual, it goes without saying that he favoured "the imposition of Irish on school children" as you put it... but your view on it being an imposition is just that, your view. a lot of school children in ireland are happy to be learning and speaking irish and don't see it as such.

that much said i've a feeling that telling you this is nothing more than p*ssing against the wind and you are just looking for a bit of attention and looking to stir a bit of muck up. you are flogging a dead horse, beating a dead dog blah blah blah

BognarRegis

Muff Richardson wrote: »

i think you need to read up a bit more on the objectives that pearse had within an irish education system, ... it goes without saying that he favoured "the imposition of Irish on school children"

So, the great man contradicted himself. That's ironic.

Muff Richardson wrote: »

but your view on it being an imposition is just that, your view. a lot of school children in ireland are happy to be learning and speaking irish and don't see it as such.

Most don't.

Muff Richardson wrote: »

that much said i've a feeling that telling you this is nothing more than p*ssing against the wind

Usually when the opposition runs out of rational arguments and turns to abuse, I know when I'm getting near the truth.

Sierra 117

Muff Richardson wrote: »

a lot of school children in ireland are happy to be learning and speaking irish and don't see it as such.

Great. So we can make Irish optional, and those kids who are happy to be learning Irish can learn it and those who aren't happy learning it can study something else.

Everyone wins.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Muff Richardson wrote: »

it goes without saying that he favoured "the imposition of Irish on school children" as you put it...blah

Whatever way you put it, Pearse, like most freedom fighters, had absolutely **** all interest in real freedom - he just wanted to force his will onto other people not unlike empire he helped to overthrew.

(and to recap: no, forcing primary school children to read and write is not forcing your will onto them, it's teaching them everyday skills. In the same way that toilet rraining a toddler is not forcing your will on the. Forcing Irish on ALL students is, as it's not an everyday skill.)

ABajaninCork

I'd like to learn to speak Irish...

An Coilean

BognarRegis wrote: »

if he had survived to see our new state, would Pearse have favoured the imposition of Irish on schoolchildren?

I find it somewhat odd that you have been reading Pearse, I thaught that was like kryptonite to you people.

If you read on a little firther (painful as that might be for you) you will find that he says that he would favour the use of Irish as the medium of instruction in Irish speaking areas, with English taught as a second language, and the imposition of a compulsory second language in English speaking areas, with a view to Irish being that second language in 5/6ths of cases, with Irish also being used partially as the medium or instruction at early stages.

''Where English is the home language it must of necessity be the 'first language' in the schools, but I would have a compulsory 'second language', satisfied that this 'second language' in five-sixths of the schools would be Irish. And I would see that the 'second language' be utalised as a medium of instruction from the earliest stages. In this way, and in no other way that I can imagine, can Irish be restored as a vernacular to English-speaking Ireland. But in all the details of their programs the schools should have autonomy''.

Iwasfrozen

Muff Richardson wrote: »

i think you need to read up a bit more on the objectives that pearse had within an irish education system, one of his primary goals was that it would be bilingual, it goes without saying that he favoured "the imposition of Irish on school children" as you put it... but your view on it being an imposition is just that, your view. a lot of school children in ireland are happy to be learning and speaking irish and don't see it as such.

that much said i've a feeling that telling you this is nothing more than p*ssing against the wind and you are just looking for a bit of attention and looking to stir a bit of muck up. you are flogging a dead horse, beating a dead dog blah blah blah

You do realise that whether you enjoy an imposition or not does not take away from that fact that it is still an imposition? Yes? Good. Now we can move on from that agreement.

ABajaninCork wrote: »

I'd like to learn to speak Irish...

Quiet you.

Iwasfrozen

An Coilean wrote: »

I find it somewhat odd that you have been reading Pearse, I thaught that was like kryptonite to you people.

If you read on a little firther (painful as that might be for you) you will find that he says that he would favour the use of Irish as the medium of instruction in Irish speaking areas, with English taught as a second language, and the imposition of a compulsory second language in English speaking areas, with a view to Irish being that second language in 5/6ths of cases, with Irish also being used partially as the medium or instruction at early stages.

''Where English is the home language it must of necessity be the 'first language' in the schools, but I would have a compulsory 'second language', satisfied that this 'second language' in five-sixths of the schools would be Irish. And I would see that the 'second language' be utalised as a medium of instruction from the earliest stages. In this way, and in no other way that I can imagine, can Irish be restored as a vernacular to English-speaking Ireland. But in all the details of their programs the schools should have autonomy''.

He doesn't force Irish on anyone in that passage. He calls for a "second language" to be introduced in school on the basis that he believes (yes believes) that in 5/6 cases the second language chosen would be English. But this still gives the schools (read PTA board) the ability to choose to teach a useful language instead should they so wish!

This policy should be implemented immediately. It has my support.

BognarRegis

An Coilean wrote: »

I find it somewhat odd that you have been reading Pearse, I thaught that was like kryptonite to you people.

I detect some stereotyping and prejudice here?

An Coilean wrote: »

the imposition of a compulsory second language in English speaking areas, with .

...which contradicts his aspiration to freedom, in education, for all Irish people. That is the point.

It's this flawed, contradictory and unrealistic idealism that is compromising the health of the Irish language.

Muff Richardson

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

You do realise that whether you enjoy an imposition or not does not take away from that fact that it is still an imposition? Yes? Good. Now we can move on from that agreement

um no. grab that big fat heavy book thing that's holding the door open, it's a dictionary. Try to get a decent grasp of the English language before you give Irish a stab by the way.

Grayson

Muff Richardson wrote: »

i think you need to read up a bit more on the objectives that pearse had within an irish education system, one of his primary goals was that it would be bilingual, it goes without saying that he favoured "the imposition of Irish on school children" as you put it... but your view on it being an imposition is just that, your view. a lot of school children in ireland are happy to be learning and speaking irish and don't see it as such.

that much said i've a feeling that telling you this is nothing more than p*ssing against the wind and you are just looking for a bit of attention and looking to stir a bit of muck up. you are flogging a dead horse, beating a dead dog blah blah blah

So you're saying Pearse was a bit of a bigot then. favoring freedom whilst imposing his own will. Actually that makes sense.

And yes, Irish is imposed. It has no actual value and serves no purpose except for a political agenda. I know someone who hated it so much they burned Peigs book on her grave.

Muff Richardson

Grayson wrote: »

So you're saying Pearse was a bit of a bigot then. favoring freedom whilst imposing his own will. Actually that makes sense.

That is EXACTLY what I am saying, I was saying that Pearse was a bigot because he favoured freedom and at the same time wanted the Irish education system to be bilingual. Of course if he wanted it to be only English or only Irish it would be ok, but he wanted both, what a dirty, nasty bigoted man. Thanks for paraphrasing for me.