The Irish language is failing.

Shep_Dog · 31-05-2015 07:54AM

Eramen wrote: »

You're in 6th year yet appear more educated and reasonable than 90% of people on this forum.

What a pity this educated, reasonable person cannot see the racism, bigotry and clever deceits that permeate Hyde's essay.

A truly educated and reasonable person should question the toxic legacy of Hyde. Irish certainly has a cultural value, but not to the extent of justifying replacing English as our common language.

ThinkProgress · 31-05-2015 09:42AM

Let it die!

It serves no useful purpose, and I don't see the point in kids wasting time learning irish when they could use that time to learn something beneficial.

Replace irish with something like diet & nutrition studies for example. Make THAT compulsory and at least kids will leave school with an understanding of how to eat healthy.

That would be more benefit than teaching irish. At least they'd have a life skill that would help them in the adult world.

Maybe we'd stop the obesity crisis in this country and save ourselves millions on govt healthcare costs etc.

Dirty Dingus McGee · 31-05-2015 09:58AM

ThinkProgress wrote: »

Let it die!

It serves no useful purpose, and I don't see the point in kids wasting time learning irish when they could use that time to learn something beneficial.

Replace irish with something like diet & nutrition studies for example. Make THAT compulsory and at least kids will leave school with an understanding of how to eat healthy.

That would be more benefit than teaching irish. At least they'd have a life skill that would help them in the adult world.

Maybe we'd stop the obesity crisis in this country and save ourselves millions on govt healthcare costs etc.

I would suggest that the childrens parents should be looking after educating them on diet and nutrition.If parents are going to feed their children sh1te then no amount of education will make any difference.

philstar · 31-05-2015 10:00AM

Deranged96 wrote: »

A beautiful language, venerated by linguistic scholars,

i beg to differ, french and italian are beautiful languages...irish sounds like someone choking on tinfoil

Grayson · 31-05-2015 10:02AM

Deranged96 wrote: »

The philistinism shown by some posters is harrowing. Douglas Hyde, our first president, wrote an essay on the "necessity of deanglicising Ireland" I suggest some of ye read it on the web.

A beautiful language, venerated by linguistic scholars, treated as a paltry relic of no use in our modern Americanised/anglicised/modernised age.

NO! It is so frustrating to hear the language's death knell chime in the media, when there is so much that could be done. How much does it cost to change a ****ing syllabus? To subsidise linguistic excersions to the Gaeltacht? The plight of Irish could so easily be helped. No more stultifying and constraining poetry and prose, spoken work the whole way up along. If someone wishes to explore the wealth of Irish literature- let them do it at third level.

I'm currently in 6th year, and although my oral Irish is of a high standard my written Irish is poor due to my incompetence in spelling (as in any language for me) so I am not going to get a very high grade in my exam next week. But by God am I going to work at my spoken Irish for the rest of my life and use it at every opportunity.

The whole affair would put you in mind of Yeats' "September 1913". Without a doubt I am going to give my first general election vote next year or late this year to whomever has the strongest policy pertaining to arts and heritage (do any candidates even care about the like?).

Pragmatism is an ugly thing

Pragmatism saves lives. You might not realise it since you're just a kid, but we have been in recession for the last 7 years. Public services have been cut back across the board. There simply isn't enough money for any serious change. Where would the money come from? Your taxes?

Or would you remove some other front line services? Sack some paramedics?

Plus the main reason we've been flogging the dead horse that is the Irish language is because of culture nazis. It could have been changed years ago but that would have meant dropping all the ****ty poetry and prose from the course and focussing entirely on speaking the language. That didn't happen because the crap was considered far too necessary. It wasn't just about teaching Irish it was about imposing a particular culture on us. That's the reason stuff like Peig was forced on us.

Want to hear something ironic? Despite going through primary and secondary education in Ireland I can't speak Irish. I can however as a 40 year old atheist still say the Hail Mary and Our Father in Irish. That's what our education system was designed to do. And it was imposed on us by the people who claimed to be saving the language. It wasn't about the language, it was about their romantic ideals of what Ireland should be.

It's reached a point now where there simply aren't enough trained staff who can actually speak the language. In my final year of college one of the girls in my maths class was also studying Irish. Coming up to her orals she was studying like mad with her class. She was learning questions and responses by rote. She was laughing at the stupidity of it. Most of her class were doing the same. They simply couldn't converse in the language. These were university graduates in Irish who wanted to teach primary school and they were far from fluent.

The reason they were so bad was because they were a product of our primary and secondary education.

So, if we change the curriculum, who teaches it? Most teachers can't speak it fluently. It's a case of the blind leading the blind.

BTW, in the next election I'll be looking at how the government intends to spend it's money. Although arts is important (I'm very proud that most of our museums and galleries are free) Irish is not something I'll be focussing on. I'll look to see what economic policies are being pursued. I'll look at what the government is going to do for front line services. I'll see how the government will tackle poverty.

Because at the end of the day, Irish isn't that important. And it isn't for 99% of people. Health, policing, poverty etc are what people care about and for very good reason. Given the choice most people would rather pump money into that.

So honestly I don't think there's a will or even the means to save Irish. We don't have the staff or money and no-one is willing to invest the money into changing that.

Grayson · 31-05-2015 10:09AM

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

I would suggest that the childrens parents should be looking after educating them on diet and nutrition.If parents are going to feed their children sh1te then no amount of education will make any difference.

I would suggest that the parents teach the kids Irish. If it's that important surely they should.

Nutrition is very important and it's very hard to pick up. I grew up in a meat and two veg household. I had no idea of nutrition and it too ages to learn about it.

On a separate note, do they teach first aid in school yet? I always thought that would be a fantastic skill for everyone to have when they leave school. It could be taught in transition year and it would actually save lives. Everyone should know the basics of CPR etc...

ThinkProgress · 31-05-2015 10:13AM

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

I would suggest that the childrens parents should be looking after educating them on diet and nutrition.If parents are going to feed their children sh1te then no amount of education will make any difference.

Currently learning irish produces little or no benefits to kids or the country as a whole.

Kids leave school and join the adult world. Even if they ate crap until they were 18 - they could still change that if they were educated properly on nutrition when in school.

We are educating kids to prepare them for adulthood where THEY are in control of their life!

So, yes it would make a difference. (What difference does learning a dead language make?)

Wibbs · 31-05-2015 10:24AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Hopefully, this state's entire relationship with the Irish language will be brought to a head as soon as possible. The hypocrisy can only be tolerated for so long by people who care. It's time to be very clear about what sort of state we want, and aspire to have: a culturally English state with an Irish veneer as currently exists, or a culturally English state with an English veneer as the Irish haters want - i.e. remove all Irish language signs, stop funding the language in any way, shape or form, and throw all state resources into funding everything which supports the real English cultural identity of the state. That would be more honest, as things currently stand. The current state's lip service to Irish, a policy of undermine-through-containment (at best) of the language and promoting an Irish identity that's based on English culture over an actual Irish culture is embarrassing.
The haters of Irish would do the lovers of Irish a favour if they pushed for the mother of all public debates on this. It would be liberating.

Of course, having an "Irish" state which is culturally as English as Kent (or Finchley) would lead immediately to an existential crisis for the state and the very idea of a sovereign Irish state which is simply an English state would lack legitimacy among a substantial number of educated, cultured and historically aware people in Irish society. What's the purpose of a separate Irish state if it's no different culturally to England/Britain except in being a poor man's England? What would the new state use to make itself distinctive from England/Britain? That's the key question. It's only a small step, or generation, before people say everything would be cheaper if we were part of a state with 60 million people. A breakdown in the EU project and there will be little to no obstacle for the assimilation of the Irish state back into an English state of some sort. That, too, would be more preferable to many than the provincial cultural assertions of "Irishness" such as "we pronounce the letter h differently" which amount to cultural distinction for a large swathe of people in Ireland.

For the above practical political reasons of the state's raison d'être, I won't hold my breath on an Irish government having the integrity or moral courage to abandon its duplicitous Tadhg an dá thaobh death by a thousand cuts approach to the Irish language, an approach which has always favoured the Irish haters even if they lack the wit to understand it.

And attitudes and daft notions like the above are one of the biggest reasons I always viewed the language with suspicion. It has long been the (Gaelic) football of the political and cultural crawthumpers on both sides. I think people, the vast majority of people are just tired of it and the associations that come with it. It's not the languages fault.

As for cultural differences? Much of what is called "Celtic culture" is a late 19th century reinvention, popular across Europe at the time. A dewy eyed look to the past in the face of the rapid changes brought by the industrial revolution. The English were at it too with their interests in makey uppy druids and the middle classes filling their homes with repro Tudor furniture.

To be fair the Irish language has real cultural depth to it, but it seems we just don't have the gra for it, or enough of a gra anyway. And this isn't a new thing either. Look to the Irish diaspora in places like the US. They dropped the language like a hot brick within a generation and most of those emigres were likely coming from Irish speaking areas. "Oh well they had to learn english to move up in the world", sure, but almost uniquely among the various diasporas they were exposed to english back home and they didn't have to drop the Irish language. Look at other groups. Many Italians kept their native tongue, as did the Chinese, the Germans did so to such a degree that in the first world war the US government had a propaganda campaign to ask people to "speak American" as in many states German was heard almost daily(with books, newspapers and the like in German). The Irish diaspora in the US is the second largest(after the German) numbering tens of millions and yet there are more Dutch speakers in the US than Irish.

Dirty Dingus McGee · 31-05-2015 10:39AM

Grayson wrote: »

I would suggest that the parents teach the kids Irish. If it's that important surely they should.

Nutrition is very important and it's very hard to pick up. I grew up in a meat and two veg household. I had no idea of nutrition and it too ages to learn about it.

On a separate note, do they teach first aid in school yet? I always thought that would be a fantastic skill for everyone to have when they leave school. It could be taught in transition year and it would actually save lives. Everyone should know the basics of CPR etc...

Most parents don't have the time or the skills to teach a language and I would say the only realistic way to revive it is through the education system.

Good nutrition and health is fairly easy thing for parents to pass on to their children.No fast food ,lots of fruit and veg and a bit of exercise and there wouldn't be as much obesity in this country.Thats pretty much the way things were 30 or 40 years ago and obesity wasn't an issue.

ThinkProgress · 31-05-2015 11:08AM

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Most parents don't have the time or the skills to teach a language and I would say the only realistic way to revive it is through the education system.

Good nutrition and health is fairly easy thing for parents to pass on to their children.No fast food ,lots of fruit and veg and a bit of exercise and there wouldn't be as much obesity in this country.Thats pretty much the way things were 30 or 40 years ago and obesity wasn't an issue.

A lot more to nutrition than that. If there wasn't then why do we have college degrees in nutrition that take many years to complete?

What you eat is far more important than what language you speak! (Or in the case of irish - don't speak)

Grayson · 31-05-2015 11:14AM

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Most parents don't have the time or the skills to teach a language and I would say the only realistic way to revive it is through the education system.

Good nutrition and health is fairly easy thing for parents to pass on to their children.No fast food ,lots of fruit and veg and a bit of exercise and there wouldn't be as much obesity in this country.Thats pretty much the way things were 30 or 40 years ago and obesity wasn't an issue.

There's more to nutrition than don't eat junk food. There's how to actually prepare a healthy meal. How to eat a balanced diet.

Obesity wasn't an issue but that's not the only diet related ailment that people have (Hell, being obese might not even be that unhealthy).

Dirty Dingus McGee · 31-05-2015 11:17AM

ThinkProgress wrote: »

A lot more to nutrition than that. If there wasn't then why do we have college degrees in nutrition that take many years to complete?

What you eat is far more important than what language you speak! (Or in the case of irish - don't speak)

I'm sure there is but I'd imagine seeing as most children are not going on to be pro athletes that sticking to a fairly sensible diet would be fairly good way to start, and if you just eliminated all the sh1te people eat they'd more than likely be a lot healthier.

Grayson · 31-05-2015 11:23AM

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

I'm sure there is but I'd imagine seeing as most children are not going on to be pro athletes that sticking to a fairly sensible diet would be fairly good way to start, and if you just eliminated all the sh1te people eat they'd more than likely be a lot healthier.

I'm just back from the far east. They sell M150 (An energy drink that's illegal in the EU) to kids in the playground.

At least we're not that bad

Deranged96 · 31-05-2015 11:59AM

Shep_Dog wrote: »

What a pity this educated, reasonable person cannot see the racism, bigotry and clever deceits that permeate Hyde's essay.

A truly educated and reasonable person should question the toxic legacy of Hyde. Irish certainly has a cultural value, but not to the extent of justifying replacing English as our common language.

Please, show example of such bigotry in the essay.

Being culturally nationalistic can, believe it or not, exist independent of prejudice. Furthermore, when someone reads a historical document, you read it context, in the case of Hyde's essay: 1892, after Parnell had fallen and constitutional nationalism was in it's weakest position in 30 years.

What toxic legacy has Hyde imparted on us? he seemed reasonable, set up
Conradh na Gaeilge to unite people through Irish, irrespective of religion or political alliance. he was vehement that the organisation would not become political and alienate unionists, and he resigned as president of the organisation when it did so.

To your man who construed my comment that pragmatism is ugly to mean I'm ignorant of practicality, don't be redundant.

Ugly does not equal useless.

ThinkProgress · 31-05-2015 11:59AM

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

I'm sure there is but I'd imagine seeing as most children are not going on to be pro athletes that sticking to a fairly sensible diet would be fairly good way to start, and if you just eliminated all the sh1te people eat they'd more than likely be a lot healthier.

Right, but we currently have spiralling govt health spending, much of which can be traced to our bad health choices. So if it was so simple to eat healthy, why do so many people get it wrong?

Using the wasted time and resources currently spent on teaching a dead language, to make an attempt at solving that problem might be worth a shot!

Maybe a kid who is well educated on nutrition could teach their parents a few useful things too.

I used nutrition as one example. But in reality there are lots of things you could pick to replace the irish language in schools. It really would not be difficult to replace it with something more worthwhile, because currently there are almost zero practical benefits to learning irish!

Bored_lad · 31-05-2015 12:03PM

Grayson wrote: »

I'm just back from the far east. They sell M150 (An energy drink that's illegal in the EU) to kids in the playground.

At least we're not that bad

I'm sorry but I can't see anything that suggests that M-150 is any way illegal in the EU. So I don't see where you are getting that fact from.

tipparetops · 31-05-2015 12:13PM

Irish is not that difficult to get to intermediate standard. After that it gets more difficult, especially to get to fluent.
But the solution to increasing the standard of Irish, is to encourage adults to learn it and wait for the knock on effect.
also all primary school teachers should be fluent Irish speakers, no exceptions.

the reality is no government has ever cared about Irish and I would love to see an all out long term plan to make Irish as the main language.
Ireland is one of the cleverest nations, we could easily speak both Irish and English. all we need is a government to drive it.

ThinkProgress · 31-05-2015 12:48PM

tipparetops wrote: »

the reality is no government has ever cared about Irish and I would love to see an all out long term plan to make Irish as the main language.
Ireland is one of the cleverest nations, we could easily speak both Irish and English. all we need is a government to drive it.

In order to have the will to drive such a movement, you need a strong desire among the majority of the populace.

That desire simply does not exist in enough people.

This is because there are almost zero practical reasons to learn it. English meets our needs perfectly.

Allocating money and time to teach a dead language just to engender more national/cultural pride? There are much easier ways to achieve that goal.

We don't need to be fluent in the dead language of our ancestors in order to feel pride in who we are. That's an antiquated philosophy.

It sucks that the Brits killed our language, but they didn't kill our culture. That's still alive and thriving!

We are now an English speaking nation, which gives us tremendous advantages.

And we speak English in our own unique way too, so it's now very much part of the modern ireland we live in.

Reiver · 31-05-2015 12:55PM

ThinkProgress wrote: »

Allocating money and time to teach a dead language just to engender more national/cultural pride? There are much easier ways to achieve that goal.

We don't need to be fluent in the dead language of our ancestors in order to feel pride in who we are. That's an antiquated philosophy.

But it's not dead.

This post makes the native speakers of Irish in the country sound like some primitives on a reservation.

Deranged96 · 31-05-2015 12:55PM

ThinkProgress wrote: »

In order to have the will to drive such a movement, you need a strong desire among the majority of the populace.

That desire simply does not exist in enough people.

This is because there are almost zero practical reasons to learn it. English meets our needs perfectly.

Allocating money and time to teach a dead language just to engender more national/cultural pride? There are much easier ways to achieve that goal.

We don't need to be fluent in the dead language of our ancestors in order to feel pride in who we are. That's an antiquated philosophy.

It sucks that the Brits killed our language, but they didn't kill our culture. That's still alive and thriving!

We are now an English speaking nation, which gives us tremendous advantages.

And we speak English in our own unique way too, so it's now very much part of the modern ireland we live in.

The Brits didn't kill our language, we did.

ThinkProgress · 31-05-2015 01:06PM

Reiver wrote: »

But it's not dead.

This post makes the native speakers of Irish in the country sound like some primitives on a reservation.

They might as well be in the context of the wider community on this island or worldwide, as the language has no relevance as tool for mass communication in 2015!

And allocating resources in an attempt to change this, when our resources are already very stretched, is foolishness!

If someone wants to learn irish for their own reasons, fine no problem.

But as a national agenda? Sorry but it should be very low on the list of priorities for the advancement of our nation.

We'd be better served by having a national plan to learn Chinese. That would be a better use of resources than learning irish. lol

Reiver · 31-05-2015 01:10PM

ThinkProgress wrote: »

They might as well be in the context of the wider community on this island or worldwide, as the language has no relevance as tool for mass communication in 2015!

I forgot language is merely a tool for mass communication. Can I ask how many you speak?

Also what is "Chinese"? Are you referring to Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Min or one of a dozen other variants?

Wibbs · 31-05-2015 01:12PM

Deranged96 wrote: »

The Brits didn't kill our language, we did.

Certainly that's the case since independence, but the slow death of the language occurred long before that and slowly spread from east to west with english influence. When Irish stopped being the language of the middle classes and higher education and business it was on life support from then on. When Elizabeth the first was on the thrown Irish was the majority language, even in English strongholds. It's reported she learned some herself and paid for the gospels to be translated into it. Fast forward a century and that shift was well on the way. The Famine and mass emigration from such areas of majority Irish speaking areas really twisted the knife. In the end practicalities of life, education and economics were its killers and that continued with independence and continues somewhat today. In short an Irish person requires English fluency to survive and thrive in Ireland and need never utter a cupla focal in their lives and not miss out on much in practical terms, the same cannot be said for Irish. Not even close.

Wibbs · 31-05-2015 01:18PM

ThinkProgress wrote: »

We'd be better served by having a national plan to learn Chinese. That would be a better use of resources than learning irish. lol

They said the same back in the 80's regarding Japanese. Chinese fluency would be OK as an aim in of itself, but although it's spoken by billions the various Chinese languages are almost exclusively spoken by Chinese people themselves. English, Spanish, French are very different in that more people speak those languages either as a first or second language than are English, Spanish, or French people. There are alone 200 plus millions speaking English in the US compared to 60 plus millions of English people. They're more universal languages, Chinese of whatever flavour isn't. Indeed learning English is a growing thing in China.

Plus Chinese and similar languages are tonal, so will likely never become universal. A person from say Mexico speaking very locally inflected English can be generally understood by a person from say India speaking English. With Chinese that would be much harder. Plus their written language while lovely an all, is massively impractical.

Deranged96 · 31-05-2015 01:20PM

Wibbs wrote: »

When Elizabeth the first was on the thrown Irish was the majority language, even in English strongholds. It's reported she learned some herself and paid for the gospels to be translated into it.

Never heard this tidbit before, interesting.

ThinkProgress · 31-05-2015 01:21PM

Reiver wrote: »

I forgot language is merely a tool for mass communication. Can I ask how many you speak?

Also what is "Chinese"? Are you referring to Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Min or one of a dozen other variants?

As I already referred to in an earlier post, the other reasons for learning irish and keeping it alive (beyond the purely practical), are not strong enough reasons to justify allocating much needed national resources.

IMO we already spend too much of our resources flogging that dead horse.

I've nothing against individuals or groups speaking it or choosing to keep it alive. But there is no need to make it a national agenda.

And certainly irish school kids should not be forced to learn the language. I've always felt this was not just impractical, but also akin to something you'd find in a non democratic country!

Reiver · 31-05-2015 01:23PM

ThinkProgress wrote: »

As I already referred to in an earlier post, the other reasons for learning irish and keeping it alive (beyond the purely practical), are not strong enough reasons to justify allocating much needed national resources.

IMO we already spend too much of our resources flogging that dead horse.

I've nothing against individuals or groups speaking it or choosing to keep it alive. But there is no need to make it a national agenda.

And certainly irish school kids should not be forced to learn the language. I've always felt this was not just impractical, but also akin to something you'd find in a non democratic country!

You didn't answer my questions.

ThinkProgress · 31-05-2015 01:35PM

Maybe we could merge this topic with one for assisted suicide?

The Irish language has been dying a slow agonising death now for several hundred years. :P

Maybe we could just let it die in peace and remember it fondly? lol

Deranged96 · 31-05-2015 01:38PM

ThinkProgress wrote: »

Maybe we could merge this topic with one for assisted suicide?

The Irish language has been dying a slow agonising death now for several hundred years. :P

Maybe we could just let it die in peace and remember it fondly? lol

That's called death through negligence.

BOOM

therabbittest · 31-05-2015 01:42PM

I was born and raised here, to an Irish father and a Polish/British mother.

My father has school level Irish (if even that), and never speaks it. My mother comes from a very Polish community in England, and spoke Polish in her daily life. I spent my early years speaking English and Polish, but school and day to day life with friends outside of my household led to a decline in my Polish (which I am now trying to rescue).

Around this time, I started learning Irish in school. Despite starting off with two languages, I always found trying to learn languages in the school environment a terrible experience. I seriously struggled with both Irish and French for Leaving Cert. I even hated doing English (which I love) in school, abandoning the texts we did in class, and pretty much doing the course (which I enjoyed, just not the classroom approach) myself, and getting an A1.

Doing Irish outside of the class wasn't really an option, as I had no real cultural affinity or hugely Irish identity to cling to, or any sort of grounding in the language to work with. I grew to resent the absolutely pointless hours and hours wasted in ordinary level Irish classes. There was never any focus on the beauty or expression of the language, simply a tired attempt at trying to get CAO points.

The Irish language represents a period of resentment for me, and I hate the system of trying to force it into me in classes, and then just scrounging for points when that failed.
Most of all, I hate the snobbery and elitism of some Irish speakers. I hate that I was consistently shamed by students (and teachers) for "not being really Irish", as if that were to somehow galvanise me into learning it. In my school (at least) there were vouchers and awards given to those who did well in Irish that were not given for any other language or subject. There were special badges for Irish speakers that almost went as far as creating an overclass of Irish speakers. I left school with somewhat of a hatred for the language, a hatred cultivated over a decade+ of bad teaching, but mostly from the "ultimate" Irish citizens whose glory I had to bask in.

I have an Irish passport, have lived here all my life, and by any reasonable standard, am Irish. About the language, I couldn't give a **** if it dies.

The Irish language is failing.

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