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When did the Irish stop speaking Irish?

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24567…11

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    #32
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    masti123 wrote: »
    Actually, in the 2011 census, 1.77 million people declared they could speak Irish.

    Census doesn't clarity proficiency. The more interesting statistic would be how many people filled out the census as Gaeilge


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    #33
    masti123
    Registered Users Posts: 661 ✭✭✭masti123


    Dots1982 wrote: »
    I'm guessing it was sometime in the 19th century. Anyone know?

    We never did. The overall amount of speakers in Ireland is continuing to go up due in part to the Gaelscoil movement.

    The Irish Free State dumped the language revival on the Dept. of Education with the disastrous results we see today. Instead, they should have put a plan in place to make all public schools Gaelscoils by 1950.

    Gaelscoileanna Teo and most other Irish language organisations are due to the enthusiasm and grassroots efforts by the Irish people, not the government. TnaG, now TG4, started out as a pirate station and only received public funding after protest.

    The future of the language truly relies on the people, but there are some critical changes the government needs to make, in particular the Dept. of Education:
    • Completely overhaul the Irish curriculum based on recommendations by the Irish language organisations
    • Focus on orla/aural and have Irish Literature as a higher level option
    • Teach at least one subject through Irish (Stair, Tíreolaíocht, P.E., etc)
    • Better training, immersion and support for Irish teachers
    • Boost funding for new Gaelscoileanna to alleviate the huge waiting lists

    It's never too late to make Ireland a bilingual country. The demand is there.


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    #34
    Earthhorse
    Registered Users Posts: 14,714 ✭✭✭✭Earthhorse


    TallGlass wrote: »
    My question is. How come the majority of Irish people cannot grasp a second language. I would love to speak Irish, German or French but I just can't do it. Is it because its just too easy most of the time other people speak English. I don't know but would love to speak another.

    It's because they're taught really badly. Sure, there are other factors; like having English means there's less need and being on an island leaves us less exposure to foreign languages but the one thing we can control is how it's taught and we have it totally arseways.

    You really need to learn to speak a language first but their is too much of a focus on writing and reading early on in our curricula. I did five years of French in school but my Spanish is better after 12 weeks of listening to Michel Thomas on top of a night class. We also start a little late, except with Irish. It's generally believed that children absorb new language better than adults but we don't start on foreign languages till secondary school.
    MRnotlob606 wrote: »
    nuair a chonaic mé do mháthair

    Love that sitcom!


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    #35
    murphyebass
    Registered Users Posts: 5,553 ✭✭✭murphyebass


    When it became completely irrelevant and worthless.

    So a looooooong time ago thankfully.


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    #36
    darkpagandeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 24,465 ✭✭✭✭darkpagandeath


    The Raptor wrote: »
    What if you live in the country the language is spoken? In our case, Ireland.

    They don't do anything for promoting speaking Irish except seachtain na gaeilge. Just a week of Irish speaking. It should be made fun to speak it every day.

    Why would you learn a language with zero benefit. Those 50k people you can communicate with better be extremely interesting. And in before Language is culture … It's not.


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    #37
    Eugene Norman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,191 ✭✭✭Eugene Norman


    The real answer is that parts of Ireland – the cities and Norman towns have been speaking Engiish for centuries, even if the hinterland was Irish speaking. It was also not common in the east coast post the 17th C. However most people were Irish speaking. Post the famine the peasantry lost interest in the language, and encouraged their children to speak English. The Gaelic revival in the late 19th C was urban based, and largely middle class.


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    #38
    custard gannet
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 426 ✭✭custard gannet


    masti123 wrote: »
    Actually, in the 2011 census, 1.77 million people declared they could speak Irish.

    The vast majority of that number is likely from people putting their children down as daily speakers. Which they technically sort of are, except they will forget he stumbling amount they posses within a year of leaving school. I even know primary school etchers who would admit they wouldn't be capable of holding an adult level conversation in it.


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    #39
    biko
    Registered Users Posts: 81,223 ✭✭✭✭biko


    Yesterday


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    #40
    masti123
    Registered Users Posts: 661 ✭✭✭masti123


    darkpagandeath wrote: »
    Why would you learn a language with zero benefit. Those 50k people you can communicate with better be extremely interesting. And in before Language is culture … It's not.

    You need to realise that not all things we do are important because they're 'beneficial': all cultural activities basically: music, literature, sport, etc. I myself have sunk countless hours into practicing the piano and doing various sports I have no talent whatsoever for, which, objectively, was for "zero benefit".

    Sure, it pays for some. Actors, artists, athletes, they make a living from it (or more). But that's not really why they do it in the first place. Nor does it explain why the rest of us bother with it. I'd say the closest you can come to economically justifying all that time and money spent on teaching kids how to hit a ball with a stick or to use hair from a horse's tail to make strings on a wooden frame vibrate in aurally pleasing ways, is that it keeps us sane enough to properly function as a workforce.

    But that's not why we play hurling or the violin, is it. The real reason is that we find it personally meaningful in some kind of way.

    The question why we force Irish down everyone's throat for 12 years to no apparent effect is still a good question. I'd say we're just doing it wrong. In Luxembourg 90% of children come from school fluent in Luxembourgish AND German AND French AND English.
    Luxembourgish, the national language, is about as 'beneficial' as Irish, and yet it shouldn't surprise anyone that they're very attached to it. I think the real mystery is why Irish people hate Irish so much.


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    #41
    The_Valeyard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,452 ✭✭✭✭The_Valeyard


    Cromwell probably didnt help things. Or the famine.


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    #42
    Paz-CCFC
    Registered Users Posts: 1,527 ✭✭✭Paz-CCFC


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    Census doesn't clarity proficiency. The more interesting statistic would be how many people filled out the census as Gaeilge

    It does for Irish. It's split up into various categories - daily, weekly, less often, never, not stated. And then daily only within the education system and also daily within and outside the education. It's about 100,000 that speak it daily and another half a million that speak it daily only within the education system.
    custard gannet wrote: »
    The vast majority of that number is likely from people putting their children down as daily speakers. Which they technically sort of are, except they will forget he stumbling amount they posses within a year of leaving school. I even know primary school etchers who would admit they wouldn't be capable of holding an adult level conversation in it.

    That actually accounts for less than a third. As well as the 100,000 that speak it outside of the education system, another 100,000 speak it weekly, which suggests they'd be fairly proficient at the language. The biggest group of the 1.77M speakers - 600,000 -speak it "less often". Which could be anything from a conversation once every other week, every month, year etc. 400,000 claim to have it but never speak it. Figures from here, page 6

    The 100,000 daily speakers are a good starting point for calculating fluent Irish speakers. But some of the half a million that only speak it within the education system will still be quite fluent, so who knows how many more that that could be? Also, I think a lot of the irregular speakers are better at Irish than they give themselves credit for. I find that with people in general, regardless of what second/third etc. language they're learning. I always get foreign English speakers who have, what to me is a very high level, apologising for making a few mistakes, not realising that they're very able to communicate clearly that they want to say. A lot of people get shy and don't speak as much as they could for fear of making a mistake.


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    #43
    An Ciarraioch
    Registered Users Posts: 5,803 ✭✭✭An Ciarraioch


    Midway through the 19th century in terms of being a majority language - mixture of the Famine, emigration and the new National Schools, but self-driven, rather than being forced to abandon the language by the English.


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    #44
    m5ex9oqjawdg2i
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,221 ✭✭✭✭m5ex9oqjawdg2i


    Invited, what we thought was a friendly neighbour, over for tea and a chat, went downhill from there :(


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    #45
    dd972
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,563 ✭✭✭dd972


    TallGlass wrote: »
    My question is. How come the majority of Irish people cannot grasp a second language. I would love to speak Irish, German or French but I just can't do it. Is it because its just too easy most of the time other people speak English. I don't know but would love to speak another.

    It's not as hard as you think, Belgians and Swiss people have the advantage of being in a multilingual state with constant exposure to the assorted media, signage etc, English as a lingua franca doesn't help anglophones either, but in short you just need to stick at it and it'll come.


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    #46
    MadsL
    Registered Users Posts: 20,299 ✭✭✭✭MadsL


    murphyebass wrote: »
    When it became completely irrelevant and worthless.

    So a looooooong time ago thankfully.

    Just one example.

    Since Irish is an office EU language, and two EU languages are required for positions in EU administration it is far from useless.


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    #47
    darkpagandeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 24,465 ✭✭✭✭darkpagandeath


    MadsL wrote: »
    Just one example.

    Since Irish is an office EU language, and two EU languages are required for positions in EU administration it is far from useless.

    It's a ridiculous waste of money and I have no idea what the EU was thinking Recognising a language that is not used primarily by Ireland's own population. Gives rise to stupid thinks like a Romanian man getting off penalty points due to not being offered the information In Irish.


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    #48
    BoatMad
    Registered Users Posts: 13,702 ✭✭✭✭BoatMad


    No need to learn another language , other then English, Esperanto has arrived , it's just called English

    The whole world is teaching it's kids to learn English. Tech is virtually dominated by English
    In another 100 years it will be the dominant language

    It's also has the beauty of being one of the easiest languages to learn and is highly tolerant of spoken grammatical errors.

    The problem is resolving itself


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    #49
    FURET
    Closed Accounts Posts: 685 ✭✭✭FURET


    I'm from south Tipp and my fifth great grandfather (1725-1792) - who was a tenant farmer - had an anglicized name (minus the "O", which his grandson had reinstated by 1850). I've seen headstones from the late 1600s with anglicized Catholic Irish names as well.

    The townland names and the names that are mentioned in the 1641 Depositions for my area in south Tipp are all anglicized as well and have not changed between then and now.


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    #50
    BoatMad
    Registered Users Posts: 13,702 ✭✭✭✭BoatMad


    darkpagandeath wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous waste of money and I have no idea what the EU was thinking Recognising a language that is not used primarily by Ireland's own population. Gives rise to stupid thinks like a Romanian man getting off penalty points due to not being offered the information In Irish.

    It was a EU power play, nothing to do with Irish per se


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    #51
    Paramite Pie
    Registered Users Posts: 1,312 ✭✭✭Paramite Pie


    The Raptor wrote: »
    Je ne sais pas.

    I had more French than Irish.

    That's due to the Intermediate Plateau Effect or whatever it's called. It's the point at which most language learners bottom out and fail to progress in their skills (ESL teachers may be familiar with this), usually due to rote learning & not enough time being spent reinforcing the language. You learned French in a comparatively short space of time compared to Irish.

    I used to speak French far more confidently than Irish but since leaving school almost 10years ago -- I've forgotten more French than Irish. (despite using it in France and Belgium on multiple trips!) I always had a larger Irish vocabulary but couldn't actually speak it. Weird.
    TallGlass wrote: »
    My question is. How come the majority of Irish people cannot grasp a second language. I would love to speak Irish, German or French but I just can't do it. Is it because its just too easy most of the time other people speak English. I don't know but would love to speak another.

    In my primary school, Irish was taught in the morning and never brought up again until someone needed to pee. Perhaps Irish lessons should be spread throughout the day (maybe even reinforcing other lessons in maths or geography) and students should not be berated or shamed for not knowing the teanga.


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    #52
    byhookorbycrook
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 12,482 Mod ✭✭✭✭byhookorbycrook


    The Raptor wrote: »
    What if you live in the country the language is spoken? In our case, Ireland.

    They don't do anything for promoting speaking Irish except seachtain na gaeilge. Just a week of Irish speaking. It should be made fun to speak it every day.
    Massive increase in the number of Gaelscoileanna in the last 30 years. Irish colleges, Tg4, loads of classes and social groups.


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    #53
    Caoimhgh1n
    Closed Accounts Posts: 34,499 ✭✭✭✭Caoimhgh1n


    I recently started speaking Irish in shops ect, and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of people who I could have a little conversation with. People should speak Irish when they can, and not worry about grammar mistakes, as that comes with time.


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    #54
    digger58
    Registered Users Posts: 291 ✭✭digger58


    The Raptor wrote: »
    What if you live in the country the language is spoken? In our case, Ireland.

    They don't do anything for promoting speaking Irish except seachtain na gaeilge. Just a week of Irish speaking. It should be made fun to speak it every day.

    As far as I recall "Seachtain na Gaelige" lasts about a fortnight!!! No wonder we're confused. 12 years learning it in school and not a word by the time we leave. what a waste, we need to teach a language that our kids can use to compete in Europe.


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    #55
    con___manx1
    Registered Users Posts: 1,474 ✭✭✭con___manx1


    Eugene Norman wrote: »
    The real answer is that parts of Ireland – the cities and Norman towns have been speaking Engiish for centuries, even if the hinterland was Irish speaking. It was also not common in the east coast post the 17th C. However most people were Irish speaking. Post the famine the peasantry lost interest in the language, and encouraged their children to speak English. The Gaelic revival in the late 19th C was urban based, and largely middle class.
    I thought the Normans first language would have been French since they came from france.


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    #56
    Dughorm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 895 ✭✭✭Dughorm


    BoatMad wrote: »
    No need to learn another language , other then English, Esperanto has arrived , it's just called English ....
    It's also has the beauty of being one of the easiest languages to learn and is highly tolerant of spoken grammatical errors.

    ?

    In no way is English one of the easiest languages to learn - it is a hodge-podge of several language families with countless exceptions to any grammatical "rules" in it!

    I think you'll also find its only in Ireland and certain places in the UK that people are highly tolerant of spoken grammatical errors also! Grammar nazis on boards are like that in real life I bet too ;)


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    #57
    Dughorm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 895 ✭✭✭Dughorm


    masti123 wrote: »
    I think the real mystery is why Irish people hate Irish so much.

    It's not a complete mystery. Ireland really is a country of two cultures - the Gaelic one and the Settled one - it's gradually becoming less distinct in the last 100 years thankfully but it remains to some extent.

    The settled culture never had a cultural connection to Irish and because the Gaelic folk needed to learn English to make a decent living in Ireland or emigrate Irish has declined and has become "practically" useless in broad economic terms.

    Some people have a very pragmatic view of education and a mandatory "useless" subject will generate that "hatred" perhaps.

    Of course, not everyone who goes through 14 years in school and can barely string a sentence in Irish together hates the language - the teaching of Irish is really quite poor in general!


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    #58
    megafan
    Registered Users Posts: 410 ✭✭megafan


    con___manx1 wrote: »
    I thought the Normans first language would have been French since they came from france.

    After 1066 French was the language of state & Latin the language of the church in England & the English language should have declined but somehow survived & expanded... Melvin Bragg had a good interesting TV series on a while ago....

    http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/adventure-of-english/


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    #59
    marmurr1916
    Registered Users Posts: 2,091 ✭✭✭marmurr1916


    ancapailldorcha wrote: »
    I've read that it was on the decline before the English invasion. It was being supplanted by English which was associated with progress and modernisation at the time.

    Before the English invasion? I presume you mean before the Normans?

    Irish wasn't on the decline before the Normans arrived - it was spoken by everyone in Ireland, even the descendents of the Vikings spoke Irish.

    Where did you get that idea from?

    The Irish language remained the first language of the majority of the population right up to before the Famine.

    It would probably have declined even without the Famine but its near demise was definitely hastened by the Famine.


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    #60
    The Raptor
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,433 ✭✭✭The Raptor


    byhookorbycrook wrote: »
    Massive increase in the number of Gaelscoileanna in the last 30 years. Irish colleges, Tg4, loads of classes and social groups.

    What has all that done? Kids are still coming out of school unable to speak Irish fluently despite the increase of Irish speaking schools and colleges.

    Yet, the best they can come up with is a fortnight of Irish on a yearly basis. It should be every day, its our language. Or was our language.


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    #61
    marmurr1916
    Registered Users Posts: 2,091 ✭✭✭marmurr1916


    darkpagandeath wrote: »
    Why would you learn a language with zero benefit. Those 50k people you can communicate with better be extremely interesting. And in before Language is culture … It's not.

    Apart from the Irish language and its literature, what is unique to Irish culture?

    In other words, what elements of Irish culture are not found anywhere else in the world except the Irish language?

    Maybe you don't give a shít if the only element of Irish culture that keeps it unique disappears but I would consider it a great tragedy.


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