Why is the Irish language dying out?

Question

I have never learned it; I learned Spanish instead, because it's more practical. But with so many people interested in retaining Irish culture, why is almost nobody interested in saving Irish Gaelic?

I do deeply regret that I didn't begin to learn some Irish when I was young. I'd read that Eugene O'Neill had tried hard to learn Irish Gaelic but had finally given up on it--too difficult. That set my course on learning Spanish instead;easier for an English speaker to learn, and many more speakers.

Answer 1

Languages are dying out all over the world. Languages die when younger people don't learn them as they are growing up. The reason younger people don't learn them is because the language loses social power. For example, the other day, I met a young woman who is a native speaker of Mixtec (an indigenous language of Mexico) who has a baby boy. She doesn't want to speak Mixtec to him, though, only Spanish. I assume she just doesn't see a point in teaching him Mixtec because Spanish has so much more social power in the culture she came from. The situation with English and Irish in Ireland is very similar. It's kind of a shame when you think about it.

Answer 2

First of all, I think many people are not really interested enough in their Irish heritage to learn Gaelic. Many people who are proud Irish never even go to Ireland. Learning a language takes a lot of effort that most people are sadly not willing to do.

Also, I think you listed another good reason. You stated that you chose to learn Spanish because it's "more practical". Well, many people who choose to learn another language do not consider languages like Gaelic, Zulu, Fijian, etc. because they think that French, Spanish, Chinese, etc. are more useful. Of course, no language is useless. It all depends on what you what you are interested in and what you want to do with your language skills, but simply saving a language is not a good enough reason for most people to choose to learn a specific language. Sadly, this is resulting in many languages becoming dead languages.

Answer 3

I think Irish Gaelic is in much better shape than a lot of other languages internationally. Even if English is a strong competitor, but the pride of Irish people in their language, together with the fact that there is a state in which Irish Gaelic is an official language, makes it much more resiolient than other Gaelic languages in competition with English, such as Welsh (hanging on) Cornish (as good as extinct) and Manx (extinct).

Answer 4

I think the main reason no body really cares for the language in Ireland is because they're brought up to hate it. It is forced upon them since they are 3 or 4 years old and have to learn it for about 14 years. By the time you get out of school you forget it all and never want to see it again.

Answer 5

you could as easily have saved latin in the 1800s. its to late to do anything about it. everyone else is like you they want to learn english and spanish the practical languages. after that everybody wants french and italian and then japanese. irish is the last thing people look for as well as the hardest to find.