Do alot of ppl in Ireland speak Gaeilge?

Delaney

Nope, very few. I think less than 5% of the country speak it on a daily basis … someone else would be able to give you more exact statistics.

it depends on what your definition of 'speak' is...I've found numbers ranging from 40,000 to 360,000 (some even more, but the numbers in the millions are making use of people who had to take it in school and haven't spoken a word in decades).

In other words, the answer you get depends on who you ask

What percentage of the country is attending/working in gaelscoileanna? They surely speak it every day and that is surely more than 5% of the population? Nach bhfuil an ceart agam?

last figures i've heard for this year is enrollment of 31,000 including 6,000 in high schools

I made an extensive analysis of last census data. So if you strip schoolchildren who "speak" the language in Irish classes, some 100-120 ths speak the language every day in the Republic. + some 20-30 ths in the North. So island of Ireland has 120 -150 ths of daily speakers.

The number of people who speak Irish varies depending on which figures you look at.

It's estimated that up to half a million speak the language daily, but that's only if you include all the students, teachers, academics etc that speak the language in a classroom context as part of a programme of study.

In reality, there are about 72,000 people that use the language as their first language of communication on a daily basis, concentrated in small patches in counties Galway, Kerry, Donegal, Meath, Cork and Waterford. Even these families however, are under increasing pressure to preserve the language as their first one, due largely to an anglicisation of the country through media multinationals relocating here.

As a native speaker myself, and an Irish teacher, the numbers are not encouraging, but we are experiencing a huge revival at the minute, and the language is becoming increasingly popular, particularly among adults.

Regards,
Kieran

>>> In reality, there are about 72,000 people that use the language as their first language of communication on a daily basis, concentrated in small patches in counties Galway, Kerry, Donegal, Meath, Cork and Waterford.

Rótheoranta ar fad agus más í an Ghaeltacht atá i gceist, tuairim is leath an méid sin arís, nó níos lú, a bheadh i gceist.

From the "UNESCO RED BOOK ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES":

http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_report.html#IGaelic

I noted similar citations, but seem to be based off data of the mid-70s. The article seems to assume that things only got worse between then an now, with nothing cited to back that up.

It may or may not give an accurate picture of a time gone by (which also is either pre-gaelscoil or during the movement's infancy - at least as far as I've read). The exceedingly low numbers of 20,000 etc based on those figure I don't believe can be relied on for an accurate picture of the current situation.

I'd also imagine that there are those who would take issue with the claim that it is entirely extinct in the six counties...I seem to recall some on this board indicating that they had been raised in one urban pocket-gaeltacht or another...

quote:

I seem to recall some on this board indicating that they had been raised in one urban pocket-gaeltacht or another...

Fuair Aonghus se'againne an Ghaeilge leis an mbainne i mBaile Átha Cliath!

'Sea, a Dhonncha, and what he got was "a dreadful Irish with sloppy grammar" to quote an Irish prof. It is always a question of quality vs quantity too. Many people in Béal Féirste speak fluently deplorable grammar-laden variety of the tongue. Are they native speakers, even if they don't use copula at all?

"Are they native speakers, even if they don't use copula at all?"

I believe I was thinking about the Belfast crowd specifically. Do they use it as the language of the home? If so, then yes and the only reason not using the copula or any other 'deplorable grammar' they use is labelled as an 'error' instead of listed as a 'quirky convention' is that the pocket didn't get to be named a gaeltacht way-back-when.

I've heard tapes of Kerry speakers who's pronunciation of bh and mh with broad vowels would be decried as an 'error' if they weren't a gaeltacht...also, don't sections of the ulster gaeltacht have their own rule exceptions when it comes to when you lenite and when you eclipse (not all the time, but some instances when they eclipse when everyone else lenites)? Because it's a gaeltacht it's labelled a variant instead of an error.

If they're using it in the home and teaching it to their children that's far better than simply passing along english. If they're all secondary speakers who learned the language as adolescents or adults then that still needs to be encouraged to whatever degree it can be.

As the worldwide (and island-wide) community of speakers grows either the serious secondary speakers dropping the copula will start using it, the whole language will have done away with the copula over time (very possible as english speaking advanced students begin to outnumber natives), or, if they truly are a group of native speakers they will possibly continue doing what they're doing and become a footnote in the grammar books (although, with the Irish speaking media doing something else they may begin to conform to that anyway...)

Regardless of the situation, and remembering that language revival is one of our goals, we have to ask ourselves - if they're using it in their community and passing it on to their children, and are understood when they speak and understand others when being spoken to, does it really matter that much? Let generations of grammarians yet unborn try to rein in 'bad grammar' a hundred years from now, when the language has over a million daily speakers, it is the sole language used in Irish schools and is no longer teetering on the brink of collapse where every new speaker - native or student - is critical to the language's survival...

Antaine,

I don't really agree.

quote:

I've heard tapes of Kerry speakers who's pronunciation of bh and mh with broad vowels would be decried as an 'error' if they weren't a gaeltacht..

Error in what respect? There is no "standard" pronunciation in Irish - there never was one and I hope it will never arrive. (Everybody agrees that lárchanúint is as good as dead from the beginning) So it is impossible to say that one MUST utter [v] or [w]. In Irish these are varieties of the same phoneme /v/ and even the same speaker can use both depending on situation. It is an important distinction for the English, but not for the Irish. Comparable thing - there is dark and light 'l' in Britain, only dark one in US, and only light one in Hiberno-English. Why? Because the distinction between dark and light l is irrelevant for the English language. But it is instrumental in Irish - it is its famous slender/broad distinction which is important in distinguishing words and forms.

quote:

don't sections of the ulster gaeltacht have their own rule exceptions when it comes to when you lenite and when you eclipse (not all the time, but some instances when they eclipse when everyone else lenites)?

CO recognises both as valid options. But even if there was no CO - the rule in Irish was to use mutation in this situation. The error is NOT to use any mutation. And some in "Jailtacht" don't. This IS a mistake. There were both lenition and eclipsis used with the same noun and the same preposition, meaning either direction or location, as it is still in German. But now the distinction is lost whence you have all those different choices in dialects. There is NO way you can prove that in modern Irish one or other mutation is "more correct" in this situarion. The only exception is/are preposition de/do which by its logic used to mean only direction and not location, therefore lenition is more natural after it (although Corca Dhuibhne flaunts this rule on analogy with other prepositions).

quote:

Because it's a gaeltacht it's labelled a variant instead of an error.

You seem to misunderstand the hierarchy of language strata in Ireland. Caighdeán IS derived from the dialects, not vice versa. Dialects ARE NOT some debased version of caighdeán, they are ultimate source of it, so you can't possibly label dialectal variation as "error" cause it "doesn't comply" with caighdeán - it mustn't.

quote:

If they're using it in the home and teaching it to their children

If they got it wrong while teaching themselves FROM THE BOOKS, and passed it on to their children... I understand it is not the fault of the children that their parents have been lazy learners, but the whole scheme doesn't make this CORRUPT, one generation ago TEXTBOOK-BASED speech as valid as the language of the people who have got their language passed on them through millennia by the native speakers who learnt not from the books but from their parents who were taught by their parents.

Again, I am all for revival. By in my opinion, all those wanting to raise children through Irish should get some grinding in nearest Gaeltacht to soak up the NATURAL language. There things you will never find in the books - it is whole different mentality.

Other day I was reading PII group member's question. Why it is "Tá ag cur sneachta" and not "Tá ag sneachta" if it is "It's snowing" in English? Exactly such moments illustrate why it is so important to listen to gaeltacht's natives in order not to make 1-2-1 translations from English, because Irish ain't English with wierdly sounding words - it is completely different thing. And if copula was invented several millennia ago - so it is here to stay, even if it looks unnecessary to English eye.


(Message edited by Róman on March 25, 2006)

(Message edited by Róman on March 25, 2006)

"You seem to misunderstand the hierarchy of language strata in Ireland. Caighdeán IS derived from the dialects, not vice versa. Dialects ARE NOT some debased version of caighdeán, they are ultimate source of it, so you can't possibly label dialectal variation as "error" cause it "doesn't comply" with caighdeán - it mustn't."

my point was, that the CO was developed from *some* of the areas...other areas that may potentially exist in the six counties were left out (again I ask, do they use the language as the language of the home?), and those areas are now compared to the cobbled-together 'standard' (which never looked at them in the first place) for correctness.

As I said, if people learn it from the books and teach it to their children and the children teach it to theirs and use it as the language of their homes and possibly elsewhere in the community as well - then what you have is a dialect, and any attempt to invalidate that should raise eyebrows as if they're doing that they will have succeeded in doing what many areas within the offical gaeltachtaí fail to do. Languages evolve over time, such a shift within a dialect can simply be one more such evolution, even if it doesn't affect any other dialects.

In other words, if one person does it it's an error. If a community does it, it's a dialect...

(Message edited by antaine on March 25, 2006)

Re six counties.

With all sadness, the NATURAL Irish pertinent to East Ulster is DEAD. What is now spreading in Béal Féirste is in essence a bad copy of Dún na nGall's Irish. Yes, it is NOT a continuation of East Ulster Irish. So it is outright ridiculuos to claim validity for their grammar mistake.

Re language change.

Of course languages evolve. No one says "táthaoi" anymore, only "tá(nn) sibh". This is an example of language change. Whereas every native speaker uses copula (details are different across dialects), some children raised with parents whose native language is ENGLISH do not. So this is NOT a language change - it is sloppy learning. Non-usage of copula is not universal in Béal Féirste, some people have got it right - so this proves once again, that there was NO language change: there was different quality of learning.

I don't see the point of trying to prove that learner's Irish is on par with Gaeltacht Irish, and can be used to support claim that language is CHANGING. We have recordings of East Ulster Irish before it died - there WAS copula there, so if there is none in some people's speech now - it just shows shoddy learning and nothing more. Btw, some of the same children don't use any mutation in their language - would you also state that the language is changing because of that?

Actually if you applied the same logic to any non-endangered foreign language - your logic would be amuzing. Is it really German or French changing if some learners persist with grammar mistakes, or it is their personal issue? I find this line of argument hillarious. Or if some student got that 2*3=5 does maths be changing, or he simply can't count his fingers? Think about it!

(Message edited by Róman on March 26, 2006)

"some of the same children don't use any mutation in their language - would you also state that the language is changing because of that?"

If it is the language of their home? Their first language even though their parents were learners? Does the community follow the convention? Then, absolutely. Once it becomes a community language and in the homes of the speakers you have witnessed the birth of a new dialect.

By your definition nobody in Israel speaks proper Hebrew. The Hebrew example would be an excellent parallel to the East-Ulster dialect question you mentioned as it died out and a new, altered version was revived in its place geographically. What of the english, French and Spanish-speaking former colonies around the world in the Caribbean, Africa and South America? To hold them to our 'standards' for those languages we'd have to say they speak terribly, and yet these dialects have their own grammars and serve many as a home or community language...are they all invalid?

Now, does that mean everybody needs to start doing it that way? No, nor do I necessarily think it will 'catch on.' Indeed, with greater media and communication in the language over coming generations (hopefully) the minority will likely come to conform to the majority and over the next 100 years or so you're likely to see grammatical conventions *and* pronunciation of all dialects start drifting towards one another. Not that they'll all completely blend, mind you, but media influences in all areas will be the same (the same tv shows, periodicals etc.) If isolation over time could allow the dialects to drift apart, then increased interdialectical communication can have the opposite effect...

The math example does not hold water as its properties exist as a part of the physical laws of the universe. Language is created by humans, fluid, changes over time and in the end is largely a matter of opinion and preference (by either individuals or communities). You'd be much more accurate to try to compare linguistic conventions to musical, rather than mathematical ones.

quote:

I find this line of argument hillarious.

Coming from someone who wrote:

quote:

if copula was invented several millennia ago

As we say in French : "Le ridicule ne tue pas".

Antaine wrote: "over the next 100 years or so you're likely to see grammatical conventions *and* pronunciation of all dialects start drifting towards one another. Not that they'll all completely blend, mind you, but media influences in all areas will be the same (the same tv shows, periodicals etc.)"

Er??? The media influences in all area, the TV shows, the periodicals, are all in English. yes, there is drifting of all Gaeltacht areas towards one another - towards English in fact! That is the real trend that will continue over the next 100 years!

quote:

Coming from someone who wrote:

Yes, I did, what's wrong with that? You don't like word "was invented"- ok put "evolved". The fact is that at some stage there was no copula, only verb of being and after some stage there was copula, you can call the process as you want, it doesn't change the essence. Again, Max, you are after spurious debate when there is no debate.

(Message edited by Róman on March 27, 2006)

quote:

you can call the process as you want, it doesn't change the essence. Again, Max, you are after spurious debate when there is no debate.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, you are missing my point completely.
Your choice of words ("invented") is quintessential of how poorly you understand language evolution. It doesn't matter how deftly you disguise these clichés to look like rationalism, the process doesn't change their essence.

Bravo, Max, for taking any opportunity to show off. It is a really academic debate full of meaningful exchange of thoughts. Or put simply (as we rural folks do): Get off my back! If you have anything to add to the topic like "how many people speak Irish", "what is the quality of the language spoken" - you are welcome. But if you come here to make a point about how "somebody poorly understands the evolution" (I wonder if this is related to the topic at all) - then go and find yourself another victim. I have no interest in discussing my credentials.

-osna-

"Er??? The media influences in all area, the TV shows, the periodicals, are all in English. yes, there is drifting of all Gaeltacht areas towards one another - towards English in fact! That is the real trend that will continue over the next 100 years!"

what I meant was, what Irish media there is is available in all the Irish speaking areas. I don't dispute the detrimental effect that english media is having, or the english vocabulary and convention that is being imported into Irish wholesale due to the many english-speaking students

Labhair í agus mairfidh sí!

Labhair fúithi is gheobhaidh sí bás.

Togha, a Sheosaimh :)

Seosamh: Labhair fúithi is gheobhaidh sí bás.

Róman: Togha, a Sheosaimh :)

Tá áthas an domhain orm go bhfuil tú ar aon intinn le Seosamh! Dáiríre! Tá an ceart ar fad aige, ar ndóigh.

A Dhonncha, Tá gach aon rud ana-shimplí: Is Seosaimh an cara maith dom :))

quote:

aon intinn

Cad é seo?

quote:

aon intinn
Cad é seo?

bheith ar aon intinn le = to agree with

Delaney: I read recently the estimate of about 40,000 Irish speak Gaelic. Had and interesting conversation with a cousin in County Wexford a couple weeks ago. I told him I was starting a Irish Gaelic beginner group course and I ask him if he spoke and Gaelic. He said a little, and that he has a bad taste in his mouth for Gaelic. I ask him why and he said because when he was a youngster (I assume about 30 years ago) it was forced on him and his fellow students. I didn't go into what actually happen, but I got the impression they were made very harshly to learn the language. Too bad this happen, I hope it was just an isolated circumstance. In my opinion it is such a wonderful tradition to advance the Irish Gaelic in Ireland.

quote:

it was forced on him and his fellow students.

I recall my high school days where many students hated Math, English, Biology, Chemistry, foreign languages, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think it's limited to just the study of the Irish language.

People will hate anything forced upon them and of which they see no use for in the future. That sums of my relationship with my Chemistry course at the moment. But it shouldn't be as much of problem with foreign language, because whereas my entire class hates learning Spanish (because they see no use for it), the ability to speak Spanish would cover a large range of practically anything else they want to do, and compliment it. Bilingualism compliments just about every skill, and in the case of Spanish, the opportunities are huge. Sadly for Irish, there are not quite the range of opportunities, which encourages the dislike all the more.

As a teacher I can say that it is seldom that students think that far ahead...and the younger they are the less able they are to process things that way...

>>> He said a little, and that he has a bad taste in his mouth for Gaelic. I ask him why and he said because when he was a youngster (I assume about 30 years ago) it was forced on him and his fellow students. I didn't go into what actually happen, but I got the impression they were made very harshly to learn the language.

- Well, I had a John Brown's school days character beating English into me. He was larger, as I was 14 yrs. and when knocked under the desk under a rain of thumps one day he nearly cut the leg of himself on the seat hinge while trying to kick me on the ground. I remained the frontline for about 30 others in the class. By all other accounts, he was a lunatic.
Note: I can still speak English.


>>> A lot of our students here do one or two other languages as well as Irish. I doubt if those who do Spanish really want to work in Bolivia for more than a year or two - as a niece of mine has done. Ireland has a lot to recommend it for lifestyle and as one working in Irish I never fail to admire how Irish continually brings me to the most beautiful parts of the country and its islands, mostly for recreation, I admit.

There is a dáimh which I hit on in such places, with both the place and its people, while others without Irish remain blind to it. I'm geoculturally orientated there.

The large % of Irish who go abroad and stay there, in some instances, lamenting their lot, don't have any draw home other than a misplaced sentimentality. Misplaced, because in truth they are just a being of internationality if English is their mother tongue.

Dá mbeadh a dteanga féin leo, d'fhillfidís, measaimse ar aon chuma, agus roinnfidís a dtaithí lena bhfód dúchais. Easpa na Gaeilge a fhágfas faoi luí na gréine in eachtrann críche iad ag brú Béarla ar chréatúir nár iarr a leithéid. Ag adhmholadh a linn snámha agus ag cáineadh fearthain na hÉireann a bheas siad go dtí lá a mbáis.
Is cairde liom cuid acu. Feicim thart timpeall iad nuair a bhuailfidh taom maoithnis iad. Ceannód Turas Teanga dóibh. Tosóidh duine dá gclann ar an gcúrsa bliain i ndiaidh a mbáis.

"People will hate anything forced upon them and of which they see no use for in the future."

Very true, and true even if there is a use for it. I remember our attitudes to Finnish and English in my school, both of which were compulsory. We loved German, though, because we had the option to do it.

A Sheosamh, a chara (sorry if I didn't change the spelling right)

It seems to me like you must be a native speaker of Irish, though I could be very wrong, this is just my guess. But if indeed I'm correct and you are, I'd want to ask you when you had to start learning English.

Beir bua agus beannacht

I'm a native speaker of English a Riona, ach is í an Ghaeilg mo chéad teanga le tamall de bhlianta. Is furasta an cheist a fhreagairt mar san: In the womb!

Níor ceileadh an Ghaeilg orm, agus is mór an ní é sin. I was about 4 yrs. when I became fully aware of Irish and became aware during the same incident that my father was a good speaker of the same.

People outside of Ireland, having expressed an interest in Irish, shall meet some Irish people occasionally who happen to be very hostile to the Irish language. Their hostility may seem to support the claim that they have been extremely victimized by learning Irish in school.

It's no harm to understand that such hostility is driven as much, and even more so, by other matters which pertain to Irish than it is driven by any such victimization. It is worth one's while listening intently to these, sometimes vitriolic, attacks on everything pertaining to the Irish language. When the tirade ceases and when one is expected to state the case for a defense, just look at the person gently, and say with a kind smile 'There you are now', followed by nothing else, almost as though you're not interested.

Leave it at that and look away. The person expected you to get involved and over-did it on the dramatics. They learn something quite serious about themselves on such occasions.

It can be somewhat disconcerting for Irish people having gone through the normal old English language system of Irish schooling where they do a few hours of Irish in the week, coming out of school without fluency and finding foreigners who are interested in pushing themselves up that hill and through that gateway to fluency.

The altruist and others among them shall support you, others yet again may try to discourage you, even in some small way. Others may be quite blunt about it.

Mar sin, bí ullamh!

I was wrong.

Bhi me eagoir, or Bhi eagoir orm, I think the second one is right because wrong is an adjective, wrongness was on me. I would like it if someone would tell me.

Beir bua agus beannacht.

From www.englishirishdictionary.com, I found this under "wrong."

tá sin contáilte agat = you were wrong about that.

I was wrong.

Bhí an ceart agam. = I was right.
Ní raibh an ceart agam. = I was wrong.

Bhí dul amú orm. = I was mistaken.

Avoid saying:

Tá mé cearr.
Níl mé ceart.

The sense of these, esp. the latter, is really along the lines of "Something is wrong with me, possibly mental."

Bhi eagoir orm

"Éagóir" means "a wrong, an injustice". Your sentence could mean "I was suffering an injustice."

tá sin contáilte agat

Right. "You've got that wrong." But note that the word has an R in it: contráilte.