Is irish respected in Ireland?

richardh330 · 23-02-2014 12:38am #1

There was an interesting debate on the Saturday Night Show with Brendan O'Connor tonight featuring Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh. The debate was of course about the Irish language in Ireland. They mentioned the future and respect of the language. Brendan also mentioned how all road signs and official documents are translated into Irish. But one man in the back was heard disputing this, what official document doesn't have a Gaeilge counterpart? Anyways just wanted to carry on this discussion here and wanted to hear the reactions of other people.

ahahah · 23-02-2014 12:58am

I agree it was very interesting. Personally I think it should die out look at all the immigration into the country. Our focus should certainly not be an ancient language that has no real purpose. As a linguist myself I have great respect for languages. In the case of Irish sorry Im just sick of it being forced on us. Employers look for strong linguistic skills in modern foreign languages not Irish. Would love to see this go to a vote here in Ireland

BTW- I was a bit shocked by 2 of her comments

1. that she's annoyed it takes so long to get an irish speaker on the phone
2. she would make all primary schools irish speaking

MOVE ON GUYS LANGUAGE IS D-E-A-D

Grudaire · 23-02-2014 3:00am

Tá an teanga B-E-O go fóill..

But of course if you actually think the language is dead (and have come on to the Irish Language forum to say so) you're either misguided or a troll.

@richardh you'll generally find pro-Gaeilge people on this forum. But then again no online forum is representative really. All official docs should be translated, but for example many gov websites are only available in English.

Insect Overlord · 23-02-2014 3:37am

ahahah wrote: »

As a linguist myself I have great respect for languages.

...

MOVE ON GUYS LANGUAGE IS D-E-A-D

Pull the other one! :rolleyes:

hullaballoo · 23-02-2014 1:12pm

ahahah wrote: »

As a linguist myself I have great respect for languages

...except Irish and, apparently, English.

An Riabhach · 24-02-2014 2:11pm

ahahah wrote: »

I agree it was very interesting. Personally I think it should die out look at all the immigration into the country. Our focus should certainly not be an ancient language that has no real purpose. As a linguist myself I have great respect for languages. In the case of Irish sorry Im just sick of it being forced on us. Employers look for strong linguistic skills in modern foreign languages not Irish. Would love to see this go to a vote here in Ireland

BTW- I was a bit shocked by 2 of her comments

1. that she's annoyed it takes so long to get an irish speaker on the phone
2. she would make all primary schools irish speaking

MOVE ON GUYS LANGUAGE IS D-E-A-D

So you think that because of the mass immigration into this country that everybody should embrace foreign languages and abandon our own??

NEVER.
Not me anyway.

Mar a deirimíd,agus deich míle duine eile breis agus seachtain ó shin-ROGHNAIMíD TODHCHAí D'ÁR dTEANGA.
Agus beidh sé sin le rá agam i mBéal Feirste freisin.

If you want to embrace foreign languages or foreign culture that is up to you-but know this-the Irish language is alive and well,and will be for a long long time yet.

Gaeilge Go Brách.

Micilin Muc · 24-02-2014 2:20pm

ahahah wrote: »

Employers look for strong linguistic skills in modern foreign languages not Irish.

Really? In what industry does that apply?

I've been working in the localisation industry for eight years, and it was my background in the Irish language that gave me an in-road to the industry. Not one employer in this industry would dismiss a candidate because they have strong linguistic skills in Irish.

So, again, to what industry does your comment apply?

hfallada · 24-02-2014 2:32pm

I sat beside people in a repeat that went to gaelscoils and had to relearn everything that they learnt for 14 years in school as they didn't know what certain words they learnt in Irish in english. If you learn business, economics etc through Irish. What use is it when you what the terms are in English when you go to college?

It isn't acceptable to push French on the Flemish people( Dutch speaking people in Belgium). Why should it be acceptable to push Irish on English speaker? Although it seems contradictory that Irish people have to use English in everyday life. I have friends from the Gaeltacht that haven't used Irish once since they left the gaelteacht. If you choose to use Irish, why should the tax payer pick up the tab.

We scrapped English language support to non-nationals in the recession. Why should spend money on a language that his little risk of dying out when we aren't supporting non-nationals that need to learn English otherwise we will have major issues in the future

Micilin Muc · 24-02-2014 2:48pm

hfallada wrote: »

I sat beside people in a repeat that went to gaelscoils and had to relearn everything that they learnt for 14 years in school as they didn't know what certain words they learnt in Irish in english. If you learn business, economics etc through Irish. What use is it when you what the terms are in English when you go to college?

Slight exaggeration there.

Bilingual education is not solely about learning a second language for the purposes of communicating through the second language. There are other cognitive benefits of bilingual education, such as increasing the efficiency of learning third and subsequent languages.

I did all my education through Irish, and studied economics and business through English books in college. I don't know why the people you're talking about couldn't just pick up a dictionary and work it out. The concepts are the same, just different words

I certainly didn't 'relearn' anything when I turned to studying the material in English.

hfallada wrote: »

We scrapped English language support to non-nationals in the recession. Why should spend money on a language that his little risk of dying out when we aren't supporting non-nationals that need to learn English otherwise we will have major issues in the future

So Ireland is going to have major issues because we're not spending money on teaching non-nationals English, the world's most spoken language?

GaelMise · 25-02-2014 12:08am

ahahah wrote: »

I agree it was very interesting. Personally I think it should die out look at all the immigration into the country. Our focus should certainly not be an ancient language that has no real purpose. As a linguist myself I have great respect for languages. In the case of Irish sorry Im just sick of it being forced on us. Employers look for strong linguistic skills in modern foreign languages not Irish. Would love to see this go to a vote here in Ireland

BTW- I was a bit shocked by 2 of her comments

1. that she's annoyed it takes so long to get an irish speaker on the phone
2. she would make all primary schools irish speaking

MOVE ON GUYS LANGUAGE IS D-E-A-D

You're no linguist and you certainly do not demonstrate any respect for the language.

GaelMise · 25-02-2014 12:10am

Grudaire wrote: »

All official docs should be translated.

I would agree that they 'should be'. However currently the vast majoity of official documents are not translated. The list of documents that are actually required to be translated under the OLA is quite limited.

GaelMise · 25-02-2014 12:14am

Micilin Muc wrote: »

English, the world's most spoken language?

Just goes to show how far the propaganda has penetrated when people are repeating it even when arguing against it.
English is not the worlds most spoken language.

dubhthach · 02-03-2014 8:58pm

richardh330 wrote: »

There was an interesting debate on the Saturday Night Show with Brendan O'Connor tonight featuring Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh. The debate was of course about the Irish language in Ireland. They mentioned the future and respect of the language. Brendan also mentioned how all road signs and official documents are translated into Irish. But one man in the back was heard disputing this, what official document doesn't have a Gaeilge counterpart? Anyways just wanted to carry on this discussion here and wanted to hear the reactions of other people.

If the level of bile that is used against the Irish language was used against any other minority linguistic community in this state there would be blue-murder. Just as well "it's only Irish" (move along there, nothing to see).

An Riabhach · 02-03-2014 9:18pm

^^^^^^^^^^^^
All of the above.

ormeau 1 · 03-03-2014 2:22pm

richardh330 wrote: »

There was an interesting debate on the Saturday Night Show with Brendan O'Connor tonight featuring Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh. The debate was of course about the Irish language in Ireland. They mentioned the future and respect of the language. Brendan also mentioned how all road signs and official documents are translated into Irish. But one man in the back was heard disputing this, what official document doesn't have a Gaeilge counterpart? Anyways just wanted to carry on this discussion here and wanted to hear the reactions of other people.

Hi OP,

There are a fair few people in Ireland who are completely ignorant of the Irish language and it's status and use outside 'the Pale'. I went to Irish speaking primary and secondary schools and my English suffered as a result. However it wasn't something I was too conscious of until I went to Uni. Some lecturers remarked negatively at the quality of my written English and assumed because I was Irish, that a certain standard of written English was expected of me? I mean the cheek! Can you imagine if you made the same argument against half the student population of Ireland that their Irish wasn't up to scratch? They would laugh at you!

Some don't realize that Irish is also an official language in Ireland practiced on a daily basis and yet you never get the opportunity to attend lectures conducted in Irish, that is unless, you are studying something Irish language related.

I bet you would be hard pressed to find a lecturer who would give you exam papers in Irish and let alone, correct them for you!.

GaelMise · 03-03-2014 10:40pm

ormeau 1 wrote: »

I bet you would be hard pressed to find a lecturer who would give you exam papers in Irish and let alone, correct them for you!.

Interesting question, I was talking about this with a few people before, it seems to be a bit of a grey area, if you submitted an essay in Irish, it would be very hard for them to justify rejecting it, however it would also be quite difficult to deal with if the lecture did not have Irish themselves, they would need to get it translated, and then correct it.

Missyelliot2 · 06-03-2014 1:18am

Hi OP,

I wish there was more respect for the Irish Language. I'm a parent and my heart sinks when either 'Bun go Barr' or 'Tús maith' (which are two godawful primary school books) arrive home. My kids don't attend a gaelscoil, but I would have always spoke my cúpla focail to them when they were little. There was absolutely no animosity towards the irish language in our home.
I attended a university here, which, because I wasn't a 'gaeilgóir' and wasn't studying irish as part of my degree, had to take a course in 'Gaeilge Ghairmiuil' - this is known as professional irish. My Dad, (who's a native irish speaker) struggled through the rules with me!

Two of my teenagers attended the Irish Colleges for the summer came home with a respect for the living language. They lived in houses where peoples daily lives were conducted through Irish and it became the norm. They were so full of enthusiasm, but by November, once again the education system had knocked it out of them - learning essays about poems like 'Faoilean', almost brought me back to 'Peig'!

There is no desire by the Government to promote the Irish Language. I think we had our chance when we were 'proud to be irish' in the 90s - (football, the Snapper, Hothouse Flowers, Riverdance, U2), unfortunately, it wasn't built upon - except for Gaelscoilenna - which do happen to be exclusive as, (due to their irish exclusivity), they can't really cater for non-nationals/special needs etc.)
So, we are back at square one!

kingchess · 06-03-2014 7:56pm

I d do not think the gaelscoils are exclusive,my youngest daughter goes to the local one and of the 14 kids in her class I would say that about 5 have at least one parent who is not Irish,and 2 children whose parents are both non-Irish,ie-russian and Polish.my partner came to Ireland when she was 17 from Germany with no English whatsoever ,just in time to go to school for the final year and sit her leaving cert,she does not understand the Irish attitude to learning "your Native Language". I left school knowing more French than Irish,years later I met my partner and picked up conversational German in less than a year with her. it is only in the past few years that I became more interested in learning Irish(with a big push from my partner),

deirdremf · 07-03-2014 12:05am

Missyelliot2 wrote: »

Hi OP,

I wish there was more respect for the Irish Language. I'm a parent and my heart sinks when either 'Bun go Barr' or 'Tús maith' (which are two godawful primary school books) arrive home. My kids don't attend a gaelscoil, but I would have always spoke my cúpla focail to them when they were little. There was absolutely no animosity towards the irish language in our home.
I attended a university here, which, because I wasn't a 'gaeilgóir' and wasn't studying irish as part of my degree, had to take a course in 'Gaeilge Ghairmiuil' - this is known as professional irish. My Dad, (who's a native irish speaker) struggled through the rules with me!

Hi Missy, I am interested in this. I wonder why your father didn't speak to you in Irish? Have you ever discussed it with him? Just imagine you would have both languages if he had, what a pity it didn't happen.

Two of my teenagers attended the Irish Colleges for the summer came home with a respect for the living language. They lived in houses where peoples daily lives were conducted through Irish and it became the norm. They were so full of enthusiasm, but by November, once again the education system had knocked it out of them - learning essays about poems like 'Faoilean', almost brought me back to 'Peig'!

There is no desire by the Government to promote the Irish Language. I think we had our chance when we were 'proud to be irish' in the 90s - (football, the Snapper, Hothouse Flowers, Riverdance, U2), unfortunately, it wasn't built upon - except for Gaelscoilenna - which do happen to be exclusive as, (due to their irish exclusivity), they can't really cater for non-nationals/special needs etc.)
So, we are back at square one!

Like some other people here, I don't think this is actually true, my kids' schools have all had foreign families attending them, and lots of half-and-halfs. And despite what you will hear in other places, very socially mixed, too.

Missyelliot2 · 07-03-2014 11:43am

deirdremf wrote: »

Hi Missy, I am interested in this. I wonder why your father didn't speak to you in Irish? Have you ever discussed it with him? Just imagine you would have both languages if he had, what a pity it didn't happen.
Like some other people here, I don't think this is actually true, my kids' schools have all had foreign families attending them, and lots of half-and-halfs. And despite what you will hear in other places, very socially mixed, too.

Hi there,
I did not intend to give the impression that I'm not bi-lingual - I am, thanks to my dad. However, for the Gaeilge Ghairimiuil course, there were so many rules that a native Irish speaker struggled with them too. My dad knows what's right by the sound, rather than the grammatical rules.

Re the Gaelscoileanna, I just wonder if a child with special needs ie asperger/autism may find it a bit more of a struggle than in a school that operates in english?

Micilin Muc · 07-03-2014 11:52am

Missyelliot2 wrote: »

Re the Gaelscoileanna, I just wonder if a child with special needs ie asperger/autism may find it a bit more of a struggle than in a school that operates in english?

There are two children in my local all-Irish secondary who have Down's Syndrome and I know of a good few more who have attended other all-Irish secondary schools without bilingualism negatively affecting their development.

I don't know enough about Aspergers or autism to say what kind of difficulties they may encounter.

The whole 'elitism' argument is a load of rubbish. There are zero Gaelscoileanna in Dublin 4, but two in Dublin 9 and two in Dublin 11 ...

Missyelliot2 · 07-03-2014 11:56am

Micilin Muc wrote: »

There are two children in my local all-Irish secondary who have Down's Syndrome and I know of a good few more who have attended other all-Irish secondary schools without bilingualism negatively affecting their development.

I don't know enough about Aspergers or autism to say what kind of difficulties they may encounter.

The whole 'elitism' argument is a load of rubbish. There are zero Gaelscoileanna in Dublin 4, but two in Dublin 9 and two in Dublin 11 ...

That's good to hear re the children with Downs Syndrome.
Re Aspergers, the children often do 'social stories' which they take home to read to the parents/guardians. If the parents don't have a grip on the language, it must be hard.

Micilin Muc · 07-03-2014 12:04pm

Missyelliot2 wrote: »

Re Aspergers, the children often do 'social stories' which they take home to read to the parents/guardians. If the parents don't have a grip on the language, it must be hard.

Good point.

I would imagine it would not be in the best interest of a child with these kinds of special needs to attend a school teaching through the child's second language if their parents don't speak the second language too. I have no evidence of this, but I suspect it may be the case. The effects of second-language education on children with special needs is something I have a personal interest in but haven't done much research on it.

deirdremf · 08-03-2014 12:26am

Missyelliot2 wrote: »

Hi there,
I did not intend to give the impression that I'm not bi-lingual - I am, thanks to my dad. However, for the Gaeilge Ghairimiuil course, there were so many rules that a native Irish speaker struggled with them too. My dad knows what's right by the sound, rather than the grammatical rules.

Glad to hear it!

Re the Gaelscoileanna, I just wonder if a child with special needs ie asperger/autism may find it a bit more of a struggle than in a school that operates in english?

Depends very much on the school.
The whole Gaelscoil thing is run in a very hit-and-miss way in Ireland.
There are lots of reasons for this.
One important reason is the lack of proper resourcing in the Irish-language sector, which means that training for teachers is lacking in a great many aspects that are available in English.
Also the English-language sector receives "free" resources and research from US, UK, Oz etc. with the result that the Dept. of Education forgets that someone had to pay to carry out the research and to produce the materials in English - and doesn't seem to know or care that the Irish language sector doesn't have this back up available to it.
Another factor is that when the Educational establishment produces materials for Irish it is usually on the basis of translating stuff from English. This generally means that the materials are not properly adapted for use in a different linguistic environment, and on top of that the language used is very often not natural Irish (have you ever read a translated novel? if so, you will have noticed that while the story is fine, the language is off in places). And even worse, a lot of the materials are translated by people that Irish is a second language for - they don't always capture the finer nuances of meaning as a result.
On top of that, most teachers in Gaelscoileanna have Irish as a second language, and so what I have said about translators goes for the teachers too.
And of course, there is no teacher-training college that works through Irish. With the exception of a few teachers in Belfast each year, all primary teachers are trained entirely through English.

It's a miracle that any children come out of Gaelscoileanna with even half-decent Irish, and it is a credit to the teachers that their pupils do as well as they do under the circumstances.

briany · 05-04-2014 5:23pm

Very much in favour of the Irish language as an idea but, like for so many others, the dreary rote learning of it in school was the bane of my academic career. It made the Irish language something to be endured rather than appreciated. Maths, English, History and Geography etc. while they could be similarly boring at times, even basic aspects of what was learned would at least have some practical benefits to all people who studied them. I would very much like to see Irish pulled from the mandatory curriculum and made an elective to be studied in secondary schools, and taught as a foreign language with the scrapping of all poetry etc. simply give the students the tools to express their own thoughts in the language. Why would that be so hard?

GaelMise · 05-04-2014 5:27pm

briany wrote: »

Very much in favour of the Irish language as an idea but, like for so many others, the dreary rote learning of it in school was the bane of my academic career. It made the Irish language something to be endured rather than appreciated. Maths, English, History and Geography etc. while they could be similarly boring at times, even basic aspects of what was learned would at least have some practical benefits to all people who studied them. I would very much like to see Irish pulled from the mandatory curriculum and made an elective to be studied in secondary schools, and taught as a foreign language with the scrapping of all poetry etc. simply give the students the tools to express their own thoughts in the language. Why would that be so hard?

Wouldent work, they tried making languages optional in England 10 years ago. It was a disaster, I can't see any reason to assume that Irish would fare better here than French and German did there as optional subjects.

briany · 05-04-2014 5:57pm

GaelMise wrote: »

Wouldent work, they tried making languages optional in England 10 years ago. It was a disaster, I can't see any reason to assume that Irish would fare better here than French and German did there as optional subjects.

So what if it's a disaster? It can't be any more disastrous than what's already been done but at least in this disaster, the kids would get a choice, the state might save some money and the reform might also allow us to re-examine the way that the language is taught. If the language would sink without a trace because it's not being artificially supported by compulsory education, why should it even be taught in schools in the first place?

BelleOfTheBall · 05-04-2014 6:22pm

I wasnt huge fan going to school.however I watched in the name of fada years ago when i was expecting 1st child.it really really hit me.its our heritages our history etc.ive my kids going now to gaelscoil the language lovely to hear I suppose im doing my bit.the irish I learnt completely difference.if anything gone v modern.i hope this is a positive spin for anyone reading this.

deirdremf · 06-04-2014 3:01pm

briany wrote: »

Very much in favour of the Irish language as an idea

Now where did I hear that before? Oh yeah, FG before the last election, wasn't it? the people who have taken measure after measure against the Irish languague in the last 3 years, IIRC

but, like for so many others, the dreary rote learning of it in school was the bane of my academic career.

I suppose they beat it into you too?

It made the Irish language something to be endured rather than appreciated. Maths, English, History and Geography etc. while they could be similarly boring at times, even basic aspects of what was learned would at least have some practical benefits to all people who studied them. I would very much like to see Irish pulled from the mandatory curriculum and made an elective to be studied in secondary schools, and taught as a foreign language with the scrapping of all poetry etc. simply give the students the tools to express their own thoughts in the language. Why would that be so hard?

Yeah, that's the FG mantra OK. "Let's get rid of Irish so that it will do better in future". Sure thing, kid, you're not transparent or anything.
Aren't you needed somewhere else to defend the Justice minister?

briany · 06-04-2014 3:51pm

deirdremf wrote: »

Now where did I hear that before? Oh yeah, FG before the last election, wasn't it? the people who have taken measure after measure against the Irish languague in the last 3 years, IIRC

I suppose they beat it into you too?

Yeah, that's the FG mantra OK. "Let's get rid of Irish so that it will do better in future". Sure thing, kid, you're not transparent or anything.
Aren't you needed somewhere else to defend the Justice minister?

If you want to respond to my points with sarcasm and be all chippy about it, that's fine. You could be taking the mental effort used to actually come up with counter arguments, though, and we might actually have something approximating an enlightening and/or useful debate.

Talking about a reform in the way that the language is taught and related to people does not necessarily constitute an attack on it or measures against it, by the way. I think you read too much into what I'm trying to say. There is a genuine need to do something in that regard, but if you don't agree, that's fine, just don't go wondering why more people aren't embracing the language or why some regard it as an anathema.

An gal gréine · 07-04-2014 2:21pm

briany wrote: »

...taught as a foreign language with the scrapping of all poetry etc. simply give the students the tools to express their own thoughts in the language. Why would that be so hard?

I think this would be far better than what we have at the moment.

Is irish respected in Ireland?

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