Dont let the irish launguage die please (everyone read)?

Question

In Ireland we speak mainly english becuase when they tried and failed to take us over we were made speak english and our irish language speakers declined.

Now in gonna get the rebelilious irish saying "Ohh we dont need it what is the point" I respect what you say but WHY are you lettin Irish people be walked all over having to speak a launguage that isint even ours. Are you afraid. How proud would you feel to speak your own launguage alongside english

Obviously without the english language we would not have the economic prosper we now live in. Each time you say that Irish is not needed or pointless your giving it a bad view for the young irish people who are goin to make it our main language in the next 20-30 years. Don't let it die out and let us be laughed at please im only 16 it shouldn't be up to me to save our language

comments from other nationalities would be helpful

I dont mean just irish I also mean all languages of our immigrants partners

Answer 1

I'm a native speaker of Irish and at one level I sympathise with your sentiments - I would like it a lot if there were more people around who could speak Irish, simply because I like to speak the language much better than any of the other languages I know.

There are however some aspects that should be born in mind.

(1) The best way you can support the Irish language is learn it properly yourself as nearly as possible like a native speaker.

(2) People have a right to speak any language they like, so if Irish people choose to speak English, or for that matter Japanese or Chinese when these become the hegemonic world cultures, it's no bother to me as long as I can speak Irish to othe Irish speakers.

(3) This part may be the most difficult. In spite of some reactionaries' whines about Irish being a compulsory language of the State, Englsih has always been the compulsory language in Ireland. To this day, an Irish speaker can not do their business with the state through Irish, petty humiliations are put in theior way if they insist on their right, the Churches (especially the Catholic Church) enforce English-medium services in Gaeltacht areas, and there is a pretence to teach Irish in schools as a dry grammar-ridden rural language which only results in pupils hating it.

Only last week the Irish government announced that Irish-medium schools would have compulsory English as part of their curriculum from age 6, while there is no similar compulsion on English-medium schools.

It isn't that people should be persuaded to speak Irish - there's lots of goodwill there. It's that people like yourself need to campaign for Irish speakers' rights to lead a full life through the medium of Irish. It's our country too.

Once people are give the free choice in this matter, they vote with their feet. Look at the explosive growth in Irish-medium schools in the last 20 years, once they were allowed to.

Actually the prognosis is quite good at the moment. Although the old rural gaeltachts are under severe presssure, there are Gaeltachts starting in the cities, there is a daily newspaper, the Language Act and as well as Official Status as a working language of the EC have given great employment opportunies and development of the language itself, there are four or five monthly magazines, a healthy teenage novel publishing business, not to mention the TG4 Irish medium TV station, which has won awards for its productions on a tiny budget. You have to appreciate the desperate situation of 50 years ago to appreciate the progress that has been made, mostly fighting the government's policies and strictures the whole way.

Answer 2

In theory, I agree with you.

Irish and Scottish Gaelic both need to be revived. Much of a people's heritage and identity is locked up in their languages.

Case in point: Most Latinos and French Canadians I've known think that Irish is the same thing as English, Anglo-Saxon or WASP because few Irish people speak their native language. This despite the fact that the Irish are not English and have closer links to the Celts and even some Eastern European peoples like the Poles, Russians and Finns etc.

The problem is that English is a powerful competitor in the world today. It is even beginning to threaten languages outside the British Isles as well as Welsh and Gaelic. For example, Icelandic, .Dutch, French and Spanish in Puerto Rico.

So, while a revival of Gaelic isn't completely impossible, it's going to take a lot of patience and persistance for decades to make it happen.

Answer 3

Donncha Rua has expressed the main difficulties with Irish, all the lip service that's being paid by most of our politicians won't help the language a bit, unless the practical use of Irish is as normal as that of English.

I live in a Gaeltacht area, and now they've brought in new gardaí that can hardly count in Irish, let alone speak it fluently. A friend of mine took 2 full years to get a court case heard because he insisted on his right to have the proceedings in Irish. My own Irish is not great, but (having grown up in Germany) I had to learn it in my forties, and I do get along speaking Irish with my neighbours.

As long as there are young people who speak it and teach it to their children as their first language, Irish will not die out, but it is made ever harder for them to do so, among other things by the concentration of job opportunities in the East, which still draws a lot of young ones away from the gaeltacht.

And sorry, it is up to you and your generation to save the language.
We old ones will be dead soon.;-)

Answer 4

I did not realize the Irish language was dying out. You seem to be very passionate about this--if you write to your government or representatives (not sure how that works in Ireland), you may get a response. You can even start with your local community leaders.

Answer 5

I didn't even know that there was an Irish language. That would be a shame if it died out.

Answer 6

Speak whatever you like, but I think you've missed the boat on this one. Most kids your age couldn't care less. As an American of Scots-Irish Heritage, I'd like to see both Gaelic languages learned, at least, to keep it alive, but no one is going to be willing to speak it on a daily basis. Perhaps some pubs can do there what at least one that I know of does in Wales. They have a "Welsh Night" when they have their trivia questions in Welsh. That's about as far as it will go.

Answer 7

thats really bad i am so sad for such language like irish , hindu , kurdish their speaker diminushed and its really hard when one feel his language will disappear but thanks god my language is not
why u don't try to establish newspapper or magzin or make commettee or any activity to encourage using the irish

Answer 8

I thought it was "Gaelic", not "Irish"....

And not everything that existed at one time deserves to be kept around in perpetuity. Nature teaches us this, through the process of evolution.

Answer 9

You would do well to be more concerned with how you yourself write English. It's appallingly bad.