Hello, I have read that here are many users with no ore little ability in Irish. In order to get as many answers as possible I will write in English. I have read that the majority of the pupils leaving a Gaelscoil are fluent in Irish. But few pupils leaving other schools are fluent in Irish. Do you think that it might be possible, too, that a few pupils from Gaelscoileanna are not fluent in English? i have heard that there is a Gaelic subculture especially in Irish cities. Might it be possible to come along with little English by mostly socializing within the Gaelic subculture similar to subcultures of foreigners in European cities? I would like to get to know how many Irish people there are left with little knowledge of English. I have heard that there are many of them on the Aran Islands, even ynunger people. On the Aran Islands it is certainly possible to forget English after leaving school. Therefore new laws must still be translated into Irish in order that also these people understand them. Furthermore I have read an interesting article about maintaining the Gaeltacht. There it is proposed to create a new town in the Gaeltacht where only Irish is the permitted language and only fluent Irish speakers are allowed to become inhabitants. But I think it would be more useful when the left Irish-speaking people take measures themselves because THEY want to maintain their language. Gaeltacht communities could at first abolish English as official language. Then all public services are available through Irish only. It cnuld be useful to introduce English as sublect not until secondary school so that monoglottal children are brought up. Then people are forced to use Irish in some cases. In stead of founding a new town Gaeltacht communities could develope places with high numbers of Irish speakers to become greater. By creating jobs with Irish as working language Irish-speaking people are encouraged to move there. So existing places could become small towns. I think if this will be consequently realized and the Irish speakers will show that they do not want "uncorrigible English speakers" many of these English speakers will leave the Gaeltacht. The most important thing is, in my opinion that there are Irish speech communities who show themselves the will that they do not want to suit to English speakers. In the Galltacht associations are useful where people in no case switch to English because a person with no Irish is present. That the will of people alone can already effect things shows Northern Ireland where Irish has become stronger again although the state has done nothing to promote Irish until the 90s. Or in Cornwall people have even revived an almost dead language because some people WANTED it. Meas, Alexander Dietz

It seems not to be the case. The subculture, as you put it, is mostly composed of advanced or fluent learners, rather than native gaeilgeoirí "banding together". Even the Aran Islands yearly see something like twenty times more english-speaking tourists than the native population of the islands.

As for Cornwall, it is a dead language, the last native speaker having died in the 1770s. The new reconstruction (and there are two or three, if I recall correctly) is called 'Cornic' and represents the best guesses of academics to fill in the gaps left by an absence of audio recordings etc.

To make that last point better, you might, however, use Manx. The last native speaker having died in the 1970s, there have been audio recordings and secondary speakers in the meantime. Currently they have Manx gaeilscoils and a collection of parents committed to raising their children through Manx. Last I checked, total numbers were fewer than 2500 although that may have changed.

Ireland need only look at Scotland to see awareness-of-the-language-come-too-late, after numbers have dipped dangerously, and possibly irrevocably, low; at Man to see a people trying to scrape together what's left after the language is let go; and at Wales to see how to do it right.

But alas, sometimes one gets a better response talking to the wall...

Thank you very much for your response. The best example that a language can be revived if a community has the will is Hebrew. 100 years ago nobody had spoken Hebrew in everyday life. But within few decades Hebrew was the language of everybody. Some people say this was only possible because the Jews are the elected folk, but I think that it is possible elsewhere if the people have the will.

Continue: The Irish should have looked to Israel. Ireland could be an Irish-speaking country, if all people with fearly good ability in Irish had brought up their children with Irish in the past. Irish would have had to become the solely language of ed. and adm. But I think there was a lack of will. Statistics concerning 3-4 year old children state that there are well native speakers in the Gallt.

Israel is a good example of language revival, but a fairly poor parallel to Ireland.

Firstly, those coming to the country in the late 40s and early 50s did so without a common tongue...they came speaking english, german, italian etc. The dominant language in that area was arabic, which for obvious reasons would have been completely unacceptable as the national lanugage of a resurrected nation of Israel.

The Irish already have a language spoken almost universally in the country, and one that is a strong global language to boot: English.

A far better parallel to the Irish situation for revival would be the Basques, and for preventing decline: the Welsh.

But you are right, in any event revival requires commitment and sacrifice (time, money, effort etc). When it comes to Gaeilge revival, the spirit in Ireland is willing, but the flesh is weak.

The sense I got when I was there was that most people want to see the language used and healthy and in a safe position - just so long as they don't have to learn it, conduct business in it, or suffer inconvenience for lack of english services themselves...

...and nothing gets done that way...

I think it would be a mistake to try to completely wipe English from Ireland. There are many countries in which the natives all speak two or even three languages. Why forsake a perfectly useful language?

Hello, I believe you have a bit misunderstood me. Of course it would not have been useful to wipe English completely from Ireland. But Ireland has had the chance to restore Irish as community language. Therefore it would have been useful to abolish English as language of education and administration in Ireland. English should have been only a subject from secondary education on. So all adults would have enough ability in English. But on the other hand there would be children who are Irish monoglots so that there are opportunities in which one is forced to speak Irish. But this is exactly the thing I said. Much confessions to Irish are apparently lip confessions as we would say in Germany. Many say:"Irish is part of the Irish identity, but I myself prefere to use English...Other people than myself should learn it properly and use it." But if the Irish had said:"Indeed we WANT to revive Irish and everyone of us will relearn it and bring up our children with Irish...", then Ireland would have become an Irish-speaking country step by step. By doing so step by step people with English as native language would have been disappeared. It is right that the Jews in Israel had not a common language at first. However they were encouraged enough to act upon the revival of Hebrew. They had done so as described above. These weren't lip confessions. And in Ireland the people would have been able to consequently reintroduce Irish if they really had wanted. But luckily there has been at least a minority of people who really themselves have relearnt Irish, have brought up their children with Irish and founded Gaelscoileanna as reaction to the decline in the schools. There are at least around 4 % of small children who are Irish speakers outside the Gaeltacht. And these children are surely native speakers. I think without these encouraged people Irish possibily would be extinct, yet. For there are probably people who are decided enemies of that and would like to close the Gaelscoilleanna because they say this goes past the reality. Have you perhaps heard of pupils from Gaelscoilenna who are much more fluent in Irish than in English?Are there perhaps fanatic parents who pay attention that the children do not speak much English? Beannacht, Alex

By the side German is (unfortunately) an example that also languages with large amounts of speakers can be endangered. Although German is spoken by around 100 Mio. of people, many speakers have very low language confidence. German does not give way to another language but is destroyed within itself. German is flooded with unneeded foreign words, especially from Latin/Greek and (American) English. German is in danger of becoming more and more a pidgin. The situation of the original language (Mid-Frankish) in my region, I think, is even worse than of Irish. Most people still think that it is not worth maintaining the language except some people in Cologne. But in Cologne Mid-Frankish is heavily influenced by (Standard-)German. Outside of Cologne I think over 99% of younger people do not have any knowledge in it. It is even hard to be able speak Mid-Frankish once a week! Furthermore there are no proper language course books, yet and the few speakers are not aware of belonging to a set of dialects of one language. In Bavaria however, for example, the situation is much better. The regional languages are closely related to each other. But by comparing Bavarian and Low Saxonian, you see that they are true languages. Mid-Frankish is especially close to Standard German because Standard German is mostly based on Mid-Frankish and Thuringian-Upper Saxonian. I hope I am not wearing on your nerves with comparing a bit with my region. Sometimes I wish to be born in Ireland because I think it is much easier there to be patriot and keep up the original language. In Ireland there are Irish activists who are concerned about Irish which you can join. And there are many learning aids. In Germany patriots are oppressed. It is a sad thing or how one would say in Irish: Is bocht an rud é! Beannacht, Jroß, Gruß, Alex

Dude!!!! It would be grand to have more Irish speaking monoglots! Of course the government would have to actually provide services in Irish to them beyond what there is today. You've come to one of my very most favorite topics pertaining to the Irish language. So if you're really into finding about the last Irish monoglots, who are all old and most have by now died, then read on and I'll do my best for you.

Movies: Rent the DVD of "Man OF Aran" and on the special feature entitled "How the myth was made" there is a tiny bitty segment showing an old man who is Irish monoglot in the 70s. Rent "In Search Of The Trojan War" DVD and on the section entitled "teller of tales" there is about a 5 minute section showing an older man in Mayo who hasn't any English and is a sinchai and tells all sorts of old stories in Irish. And I'm waiting for "The Story OF English" part 8 to come in at the library because I've been told that it has a small section showing the same sinchai from "Trojan War" show. Both Trojan War and Story Of English were made in the 80s.

As to modern acounts of such people, much research and talking to people round this site has uncovered anicdotal stories and personal experiences in which people have run across those with little or no English, for the most part the closest you'll find now is limited English. If I were you I'd check in the archives, because I've started a few threads pertaining to this subject and in there you'll find stories and what not. Also there was one in about 2004 that might be worth your while. To make it easier to find my threads, 2 of them have my name in the title at the beginning and one is called "perculiar wondering".

An avenue I've been investigating lately is that of older people losing the English they had and thus only having Irish left. This seems quite possible and I know that it happens. There probably aren't any children who have finished primery school and havn't got much English, sorry to bring the news to yourself. All I can say is to just research online using key terms that describe what you're looking for. I'm sure you know that such people are very rare so don't expect to find out much, the information on this topic is scant at best, believe me I know. The lack of information irritates me to know end. Sure and that's all I have for you, a chara

Beir bua agus beannacht.