So ever since I rented "Man Of Aran" and saw a mini documentary on the special features which had a very short scene with an old man who seemed to be monoglot in the 70s, I've been captivated and transfixed with the notion. I hadn't thought that such people could exist so late in time. I asked about this on here a bit ago and Robert told me about "In Search Of The Trojan War" which he said had a scene about John Henry who was a monoglot sinchai from Mayo, and it was filmed in 85. I obtained it from the library and it was so intriguing though it was like 5 minutes long. Further research of mine has indicated that, while most people dismiss this concept as romantic foolery, others say it does exist. Eamon O Cuiv himself said in a Dail debate in 97 that there were older people in his area with little or no English and that even though everyone turned away and ignored it that these people exist and are marginalized. I ask that any of you who knows anything, or has heard anything, or has met anyone on Inis Meain, or anything like that to please let me know. Go raibh maith agat a Robert for the video suggestion. Agus go raibh maith agat to the all of you in advance.

Beir bua agus beannacht

Jonas, a chara,

I think I remember you saying something about meeting some people with very little English on Inis Meain when you went. Now this was on a thread a long time ago that I found in the archives but still. I very much like it if you could elaberate on this. I apologize to all of you for being so persistant and such a pain in the arse about it but I just have to find out anything that I can. I'm running out of places to look.

Beir bua agus beannacht.

This is a really interesting excavation … I've done searching myself, but haven't found a whole lot, and I'd love for you to keep posting your findings. This was posted in someone's blog in early 2004 (I was searching through Google): http://www.dervala.net/archives/000565.html

Here is the mention of two men in a law suit who didn't have great English. I would love to hear an elaboration, also, and read the original story. http://www.daltai.com/discus/messages/12465/12307.html?1088022194

I need to make a note to rent both Man of Aran and In Search of the Trojan War. Perhaps we are romantic fools. =P

I know of a man and his wife who live in connemara who dont speak any english. they came out here to Seattle to see their son 2 years ago, and in meeting them, was fascinated to actually have to use irish to communicate, instead of using it for talking when ta na ballai ag eisteacht.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some old people with few or no English in northwestern Donegal. Once I was lost with friends near Tráigh Mhachaire Rabhartaigh, in Co. Gweedore, and we went to a house to ask to the family if it was possible to call friends of ours. And the young woman who was living there with her mother, husband and daughter had to explain to her mother what was going on, and she explained all in Irish to her 'cause the mother didn't seem to understand what we had said... :-)

A Lughaidh,

Cad 'na thaobh gur chuireabhair i mBeurla sa Ghaoth Dobhair? :)

Le meas

Much depends on the definition of monoglot. Finding any Irish speaker without any English at all would be difficult. Finding persons who are more home in Irish than in English is still easy, baochas le Día. The places already mentioned here - Conamara, Inis Meáin, parts of Donegal - are the places you would be most likely to find those with the least English. In Corca Dhuibhne, I guess most people know English pretty well, although they use Irish in their everyday life.

I might not be the right person to tell. I always speak Irish when visiting a Gaeltacht, so I wouldn't be able to tell how well someone speaks English unless I hear them speaking in English to someone else. In the case of Inis Meáin, there were some Dutch tourists on the island at the same time, so I could hear how difficult it was for this old man to speak any English.

In Wales, I have met persons who literally don't speak any English at all, but I doubt there are many such persons in Ireland.

Go raibh maith agat to everyone for your stories, I really appreciate that you're willing to tell me these things because it seems that more people meet people of this sort than anyone would guess. What I'm looking for are stories like these and information about people with limited English, I know that complete monoglots are unrealistic at best, but people like you all described are just who I seek. A Andreas, thanks for the links. I've already seen that archived one which mentions the court case and I've searched for that story without any success. If someone can find it I'd be ever so glad to have the link so I could read it. And you should definitely rent those two DVDs and watch those scenes if you're interested in this, thanks to Robert for telling me about the Trojan War one. I have e-mailed a couple of important people recently about this matter and I eagerly await their replies, though they are undoubtably very busy and havn't time for a foolish American woman. I look forward to more if the all of you have it.

Beir bua agus beannacht.

Is English a compulsory subject in schools in the Gaeltacht? I mean is it studied like a foreign language? Or are there schools there that don't touch English at all?

According to these news reports there are some schools in Gaeltacht areas that don't even use Irish as a teaching medium.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0610/irish.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2765-1650749,00.html

But the parents certainly want English for their kids, so I'd think it's used as a medium to some extent, but I have no idea exactly how. I'd be curious to know too.

(Message edited by Aindréas on March 09, 2006)

Three three basic compulsory subjects are:

English
Maths
Irish

For the Leaving Certificate (the last test one has at school), once can achieve a total of 600 marks. The marks are taken from your best six subjects, so each subject is worth 100 marks.

Some people take seven subjects for the leaving, but this is useless as you only get marked on your best six -- I believe that studying time is far more efficiently spent divided six ways than seven.

Anyway, at the end you get a certain amount of points in your leaving, and this figure determines what college courses you can get into.

Anyway to answer the question:

Regardless of where you go to school in the Republic of Ireland, you'll always study English, Maths and Irish. I knew a dyslexic fella though, and he didn't have to do Irish, but other than that, everyone else did.

Well, compulsory English in the GAeltacht - that;s one way of making sure the Gaeltacht fades out. Why do you elect these guys?

quote:

Well, compulsory English in the GAeltacht - that;s one way of making sure the Gaeltacht fades out. Why do you elect these guys?

If I had to choose between living in an Ireland that only speaks either Irish or English, I'd choose English. The ability to speak English is, in my opinion, very valuable. I don't want an Ireland that just speaks Irish -- not in today's "international" world.

If we only spoke Irish, and learned English as a subject in school, then the standard of English wouldn't be particularly high. I value my high standard of English very greatly, and would like my children to speak very proficient English aswell.

There's a vast difference in Irish proficiency between a native speaker and a person who simply went to a Gaelscoil.

So what ideas so people have for the Irish people, as a community, to be extremely proficient in both Irish and English? Well I'll throw one idea out there:

The entire community as a whole speaks Irish to each other. But when a child is born, one parent speaks Irish to the child, while the other speaks English. It would be better than speaking both languages with both parents, as this would probably lead to people mixing the languages and coming out with things like: "Tá sorry orm". You could keep this up until the child is maybe eight or nine, at which point they'll have very good English. I'm not sure if my idea is very practical, or if it would fail misserably, but I like the thought of it. Of course there's complications like single-parent families, and child-minders...

Any other ideas?

- Truely bilingual communities (using two vernacular languages) always end up mixing both languages. (code switching)
- There are communities which have a vernacular language and which have English as an (international) vehicular language (Gaeltachts, Scandinavia).
- What's the problem with "tá sorry orm"?

"If I had to choose between living in an Ireland that only speaks either Irish or English, I'd choose English. The ability to speak English is, in my opinion, very valuable. I don't want an Ireland that just speaks Irish -- not in today's "international" world.

If we only spoke Irish, and learned English as a subject in school, then the standard of English wouldn't be particularly high. I value my high standard of English very greatly, and would like my children to speak very proficient English aswell."

I do understand your point of view - and as a non-Irish national I think that this is for the Irish to decide in the case of Ireland.

Taking a more general and international perspective, I might see it differently. Taking the Scandinavian countries as an example, there are virtually no native speakers of English here. Despite the fact that we are nations without native competence in English, we usually speak the language fairly well. Our accents might sound strange or even funny - but that is the case for many native speakers of English as well. I don't want to indulge in self-admiration, but I can think of very few things indeed that an Englishman or Irishman with a university background can do in the English language that a Swede or a Finn with a university background couldn't do. Reading books or communicating certainly isn't a problem, nor is writing normal text. I do admit that a native speaker of English would be much more likely to write good prose or poetry in English, though I fear that good authors make up a negligible percentage of the population in most countries.

On the other hand, the Scandinavian can do exactly the same things in his or her own language. Read or write books, communicate, take part in academic discussions or shout at the referee in football. Besides, the average Scandinavian with a university background would be likely to be able to do those things in German, Spanish or French as well. In other words, I don't quite see how the advantage of speaking English would compensate not speaking any other language. In case Ireland would become Irish-speaking, I'm convinced that the same factors that have made English an important language to know in Scandinavia would be even more pronounced in Ireland. So what would the loss be?

Fear Na Mbrog: What high standard of English? You have posted repeatedly on this forum spelling "no" as "know". I don't think you can lay claim to good English.

Jonas: Most Scandinavians are certainly very proficient in English, but I think sometimes they overestimate the "perfection" of their English. I think Finnish written English still needs a native speaker to check it over for grammar and other points. I have personally seen a lot of dodgy English in Finland. Maybe because the standard of English is so high in Finland, it makes the Finns think they are actually speaking/writing near-native-level English. This may on occasion be the case, but is not normally the case.

Jonas, Jukka Korpela, who you must have heard of, has said that he needs to look up one word every sentence when reading an English novel - and his English is actually good. See http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/my-english.html. He does not claim near-native ability in English.

"Jonas: Most Scandinavians are certainly very proficient in English, but I think sometimes they overestimate the "perfection" of their English. I think Finnish written English still needs a native speaker to check it over for grammar and other points. I have personally seen a lot of dodgy English in Finland. Maybe because the standard of English is so high in Finland, it makes the Finns think they are actually speaking/writing near-native-level English. This may on occasion be the case, but is not normally the case."

I'm the first person to agree with you. I have often commented to fellow Scandinavians that we overestimate both the importance of English and our own competence in it. If a Scandinavian writes a book or an academic text in English, it would have to be checked by a native speaker, just as you say. I'm writing my doctoral thesis in English, but I wouldn't even dream of publishing it without having had it checked. So the purpose of my last post was not to claim native competence for myself or my compatriots, but to say that there are very few things we can't do in English.

"Jonas, Jukka Korpela, who you must have heard of, has said that he needs to look up one word every sentence when reading an English novel - and his English is actually good. See http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/my-english.html. He does not claim near-native ability in English."

To begin with, I don't think I've heard of Jukka Korpela before. Then, I'm afraid you fail to understand the use of irony. Saying something like that is a typical understatement that would be well received. Of course it could be true in his case. I know that most people I know in my age read more books in English than in any other language, and nobody uses a dictionary.

quote:

Fear Na Mbrog: What high standard of English? You have posted repeatedly on this forum spelling "no" as "know". I don't think you can lay claim to good English.

Two reasons:
1) I regularly write SMS messages and spell "know" as "no" in them. Unfortunately this habit has crept into my normal typing. Fortunately though my handwriting is unaffected.
2) I don't check over my posts. If I did, I'd catch such errors.

I've impeccable written English when I want to have impeccable written English.

--

Anyway, even some native speakers of English have deplorable spelling (regardless of how proficient their speech is). I once received a letter about a meeting; it listed the people who would attend as follows:

In attendants:

John
Philip
Mary

The person should've written "attendance".

quote:

Anyway, even some native speakers of English have deplorable spelling

If that ain't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't "no" what is!

Reducing a language to its written form is a very common mistake, but nonetheless a (huge) mistake...

Hi Max,

Nach é duine de do chuid chomhthíreach a dúirt l'orthographe est une politesse? Is maith liom an smaoineamh sin, má thuigim i gceart é.

I didn't know the expression, but it wouldn't suprise me at all if its author were French, the French have an extreme relation to their language, especially its written form.

However,
l'orthographe est une politesse dans la mesure où la société considère que l'orthographe est fixe. Avant que l'orthographe ne soit standardisée en France, cette expression n'aurait rien voulu dire...

Jonas wrote:

"To begin with, I don't think I've heard of Jukka Korpela before. Then, I'm afraid you fail to understand the use of irony. Saying something like that is a typical understatement that would be well received. Of course it could be true in his case. I know that most people I know in my age read more books in English than in any other language, and nobody uses a dictionary."

Well, I think this may expose my lack of understanding of Finnish culture. I read somewhere that self-deprecation was valued, and gushing Americans who produce 10-page CVs trumpeting their achievements were unlikely to find jobs in Finland! Apparently you like 1-page CVs that understate your achievements. But, anyway, to be able to read anything at all in English, you would need a passive vocabulary of 50,000 words. It all depends what type of books you are reading. If as Korpela says you are reading computing books, then the vocabulary must be fairly limited. If you are reading Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy etc, then a much wider vocabulary is required.

Yes, I was surprised when I walked into a bookstore in Helsinki. Most of the books were in English...

Jonas, I should have said 50,000 words were needed to be able to read whatever you wanted with a reasonable guarantee of not coming across any more new words than an educated native speaker.

A Lughaidh,

Cad 'na thaobh gur chuireabhair i mBeurla sa Ghaoth Dobhair? :)

Tá mé faitíoch agus aige’n am sin cha rabh Gaeilg ar mo thoil agam (bhí eagla orm labhairt mar sin le cainteoirí dúchais nach rabh aithne ar bith agam orthu). B’fhearr liom gurbh iad mo chairde a labharfadh leis na daoiní sin, agus cha rabh mórán Gaeilge acu sin... Dá dtarlóchadh ’n rud céarna domh anois, cinnte labharfainn i nGaeilg leofa !

A Aindreas, a chara,

This is the last really noticable thing I found on the Aran Islands. I don't know how to make a link so I'll tell you what you ought to type in a search engine. You should type something like "Inis Meain" "older islanders speak no English". Note that was only part of the sentence but its enough to find it. It was this travel site so it has some stuff pertaining to traveling there but you should end up on the important part, its really short mentioning of it but ... I can't afford to be picky here with what little I have. And that Trojan War video has about five minutes worth of John Henry on it so you can watch that.

Since I'm on the subject of John Henry the sinchai from Mayo I might as well ask. When I was listening to him tell a story and reading the subtitles I noticed that he was, acording to the subtitles, saying a couple words that I know. But I listened very hard and couldn't hear a bit that I recognized at all. So I'm wondering if that sort of old story is told with an archaic way of saying things, kind of like Shakespear, which a learner of English who wasn't very good at it might not be able to figure out or recognize words from. Just wondering.

Beir bua agus beannacht.

"Shakespear, which a learner of English who wasn't very good at it might not be able to figure out "

there is another teacher at my school who uses shakespeare with her ESL students to great effect...

I just found that neat when I found out and this reminded me of it...so it's not hopeless even for us learners...

A Antaine, a chara,

OK so I was wrong about anybody learning English having trouble with Shakespear, but the original point of it sounding kind of different than modern English was what I meant. I guess only silly Americans have trouble with it, hahaha. And not all of them, I know that.

Beir bua agus beannacht

A Chairde,

It find this perennial argument about dubious merits of abandoning native language in favor of English senseless. Those who believe that not being native speakers of English would make them immediately less-off would never listen to those who beg to differ. One thing is known for sure: if English were to supplant all other world's languages, this planet would become a much poorer place. Every language is a thousand years' worth of wisdom, knowledge and experiences, it is like a window through which to look upon the world around us. The spiritual and cultural value of languages lies within and allows us to reconstruct the life and house-keeping of our ancestors.
Last week I had a chance to meet a prof active in Gaeilge movement in Ireland. One friend of mine has also taken interest and took part in the meeting. Guys, you should seen him afterwards: he was simply shocked. The only thing he asked me afterwards - WHAT'S WRONG with those people? He couldn't believe that an entire nation can be so ignorant of their roots. The story about pirate radio station in Ros Muc and raiding police and also the fact that still there is no daily i nGaeilge in Ireland were simply incomprehensible to him. His reaction was - "Can't they find a couple of millions to make the newspaper? - Ridiculous".

And of course - Fine Gael taking money and guns from British to shoot their compatriots during Civil war. That was the best of all. And those guys are still sitting in the Dáil. My friend said - "traitors like this would have been shot long time ago over here! It is simply unbelievable!"

So to conclude: Ireland is a land of wonders that can not be explained in any logical way. What's wrong with its people?

Le meas

Things are not as simple as you think. Don't forget it was Fine Gael who took Ireland out of the Commonwealth and that Fianna Fáil Minister for the Gaeltacht Éamon Ó Cúiv wants us to rejoin.

Perhaps you have been listening to too much Sinn Féin propaganda.

Tic, toc...tic, toc....Tic, toc....

That's the sound preceeding the explosion that's about to take place on this thread....

Haven't we learned anything on this site?

I have to say, in case any one thinks so, that the comment by An Dub was not by me. But: can I just state: that comments like "traitors like this would havbe been shot a long time ago over here" are just absurd. Fine Gael WAS using the guns against the traitors...

Further political comments in this thread will be deleted and the thread closed.

Caoimhín

want an even better example? A Conemara idea in the 70s 'Cine-gael' (Irish cinema) to make their own films (involving Séan Ban Breatnach, I believe) was pretty much stopped via police raids, FOR SHOWING THEIR OWN FILMS WITHOUT A LICENCE.

So, technically, are widescreen TVs breaking the law too (if they use projection technology?)

B'fhéidir nár rugadh na cainteoirí aonteangacha dheireannacha go fóill!

Bíodh geall go bhfuil cainteoirí aonteangacha in Éirinn go fóill, iad uilig faoi bhun sé bliana d'aois! Agus is dócha go bhfuil duine fásta nó dhó ann atá in aontíos lena thuismitheoirí toisc go bhfuil sé mallintinneach, duine nár fhág an teach go minic agus nach bhfuil ach Gaeilge aige.

Róman,

There is an anachronism in your friend saying "Fine Gael taking money and guns from British to shoot their compatriots during Civil war". The Civil War, a very sad and nasty business on both sides, happened in 1922-1923. Fine Gael was founded only in 1932. As it happens, the government of the Irish Free State saw itself as a legal government and found itself challenged by others. Of course it will be argued forever as the what constitutes legality in situations like this. So I give fair warning, I do not intend to get drawn into an argument on this. My stance is that it was a tragedy that it should ever have happened, and it hurt and set back the nascent State quite badly. The atrocities on both sides were quite savage and there are still many open wounds which time is slow to heal.

As to publishing a daily newspaper in Irish, I don't see it as a runner. The circulation would be far too small.

It is perhaps unwise to become embroiled in the sensitive affairs of another country. What one hears from its natives is bound to be slanted one way or the other, so in regurgitating it there is always the risk of giving offence to all sides - a lesson I learnt the hard way in a previous existence! :-)

I can see, however, how your friend could be perplexed. Wiser by far to do some reading up first from reputable authors and get a balanced view before wading in where even angels might fear to tread.

Regarding a daily newspaper in Irish, I wonder how difficult it would be to translate an existing paper (Irish Times/Independent/Examiner/Star?) into Irish? (Assuming ads, supplements etc. remained in English)

If 10,000 people in Dublin were prepared to buy it, perhaps by subscribing to it, would it be an economic proposition?

Ceannaím Lá uaireanta ach níl sé ró-mhór ...

Ok, I will clarify my point. It is not a big secret that National Library, National Opera and Theatre aren't exactly profit-making enterprises. And they shouldn't be. Their value is in creating culture which is an externality not captured by profit and loss statement. If theatres would charge their cost of performances - only privileged few could enjoy their shows. But the policy of the state is to promote culture, that's why such institutions are subsidised all over the world to make culture accessible and affordable (relatively) to the masses.

As I see - Irish language is this kind of "culture" thing in Ireland. So as you never question the need to renovate castles - although renovating them as well keeping museums is also WASTE of money as investments are never recouped, you shouldn't question the need for the state to subsidise the newspaper. It is just a part of heritage, it is part of Irish psyche.

I can imagine vitriolic hatred aroused by these words in the hearts of gaelophobes - but it is just their hypocrisy. What would even 50mln euro mean for country with a budget of tens of billions? Nothing really - but it would make Irish revival so much more feasible. There are many ways in which money is wasted - like agricultural subsidies, so additional modest sum won't make big difference. What I see is a deliberate policy of ignorance on the part of successive Irish governments. Strange things happen in Éire. Several hundreds years ago overlords of Ulster used to chop the heads of those who spoke "bloody Béarla", and now... Tá brón ana-mhór orm.


(Message edited by Róman on March 29, 2006)

"Bíodh geall go bhfuil cainteoirí aonteangacha in Éirinn go fóill, iad uilig faoi bhun sé bliana d'aois! Agus is dócha go bhfuil duine fásta nó dhó ann atá in aontíos lena thuismitheoirí toisc go bhfuil sé mallintinneach, duine nár fhág an teach go minic agus nach bhfuil ach Gaeilge aige."

Cuireann sé sin cleas polaitíochta i gcuimhne dom. Fadó, fadó agus an Bhreatain Bheag ina réim, bhí cinseal na tíre seo ag gearán rí Shasana nach raibh Breatnais ag a bPrionsa .i. gur Sasanach a bhí ann. Gheall an rí duine gan Béarla a bheith ar an chéad Prionsa eile. Bhí cinseal na tíre sásta. Sea! Rinne an rí prionsa na Breataine Bige den a mhac nuabhreithe, bunóc gan Béarla dar ndóigh. Go dtí an lá inniu, bíonn an teideal sin ag rídhamhna Shasana

quote:

bunóc gan Béarla dar ndóigh

An-scéal! GRMA. :-)

I've still been looking with no new leads or info. Confounded Eamon O Cuiv didn't e/mail me back, then again, I guess I shouldn't have expected him to because its not like he has time for foolish American women with perculiar questions. I don't expect anyone to look, but if you stumble on something that would be of use to me in my research pertaining to the origin of this thread just tell me please.

Beir bua agus beannacht.