You know, promoters of Gaeilge have long sought analogues to the Irish situation for language revival.

Every one, it seems, from Hebrew to Welsh to Swedish-spoken-in-Finland (or was it Finnish-spoken-in-Sweden?) have been discounted for a variety of reasons whose validity is not being called into question here.

But perhaps looking for a successful revival analogue in the realm of real languages is the mistake. After all, every country is unique, and, it seems, revival movements under similar circumstances as Irish have either failed miserably or are still in dubious process.

Perhaps the best analogues are the success stories of artifical languages. I mean, how many speakers of Klingon are there in the US? Well, that wouldn't be good to use, due to the fact that the language was popular via the TV show and movies long before it was fully drafted.

However, Interlingua and Esperanto might be good cases. While I can't find numbers for Interlingua, Ethnologue gives 2,000,000 speakers of Esperanto.

Would that Irish could claim 2,000,000 dedicated, fluent-or-at-least-highly-advanced students! (and I mean really, not like the 40% listed in the census)

So if Esperanto - a language with no practical value whatsoever at the time of its creation can grow to 2,000,000 speakers since about 1885, what can Irish learn from that?

Esperanto also has no home community. There's no town where you can go from shop to shop speaking Esperanto and be understood. Speakers use it in print, online, in clubs and private networks of personal friends.

There has to be something there that Irish can use. Anyone more familiar with how Esperanto is used in 2007 and can comment? Not that I'm saying this situation should be considered the same as Irish either, but what's done in the "promotion and opportunities for use" departments?

...just a thought i wanted to float...

A Antaine a chara,

Now I feel incredibly depressed. To find out that a play language has 2 million speakers as opposed to the low number of Irish speakers is really rather unsettling. I find this fact a tad bit disturbing. I have no problem with people enjoying themselves in the manner of learning Esperanto but these stitistics make me feel like I just got run over by something heavy.

Beir bua agus beannacht

esperanto i could understand to a degree...it had a purpose...a mission to become a universal language. the fact that even then it managed to catch on i find surprising...i mean, learning it now makes more sense, but what would prompt the fifth person to pick up esperanto...

klingon...now that pisses me off...well, at least when one looks at the hard time Irish is having

http://klv.mrklingon.org/ <-I wonder if the hardcopy version of the leading klingon bible is written in a 6pt font like An Bíobla Naofa...

guess this is sorta like daltaí for klingon: http://www.kli.org/

(Message edited by antaine on November 24, 2007)

Riona a chara, I think it's inaccurate and wrong to characterize Esperanto as a play language. If you want to say a desire to unite people is silly, that's fine, but I think the founder of Esperanto wouldn't have taken kindly to it. It may be a romantic and impossible notion, but I don't like it when people belittle the idea of Esperanto because its speaker base today consists entirely of nerds. Let's at least acknowledge that there may be some amount of dignity attached to the principles on which the language was created. I think I've already talked to you about this before in private, but just reiterating my views for everyone else. :-)

For the record, I speak Esperanto, or at least I used to be pretty conversational. However I don't really consider myself an Esperantist and haven't been involved with the movement or other Esperanto speakers in a while ... but I may be able to tell you a bit about its use today.

I got into Esperanto not because I subscribe to the idea that the whole world should learn it, but I was interested in how I could talk to people from all over the world on this linguistic middle-ground, or no-man's-land. I've actually learned a lot about other cultures and people from Esperanto.

Esperanto sells itself on its ease. And it is very easy. I'm probably not the best example because I don't struggle with learning languages, but I think I can say that what would take someone two years to achieve from self study in Irish, they can achieve in about 6 months with Esperanto. Esperanto works because people feel less vulnerable when they're speaking with someone who has also exerted the same amount of effort they had to in order to communicate. Irish could never, and should never, work like this. Esperanto is such a unique case as an invented language, and I don't think much that has worked for Esperanto you can just plug into Irish. Irish needs to be a community language, and language of the government and everything in between. Esperanto wasn't intended for that.

If you have certain questions pertaining to Esperanto that would help you or I address the issue better, please feel free to ask ... sorry I'm not more help.

I respect your points a Aindreas, but I still view it as a play language in a sense that it was artificially created. Perhaps you are attaching negative connotations to the word play. I on the other hand think play is merely a discription of the fact that someone made it up and people speak it only for their enjoyment since noone is obligated to speak it.

Beir bua agus beannacht

I don't think Aindréas is alone in that interpretation of "play".

And I think there is a lot more to the hopeful movement of Esperantists than enjoyment.

I happen to think they are Utopian, since I cannot see a composed lingua franca taking over from a de facto, living language such as (currently) English, Latin (a short time ago) or Chinese (soon?).

And the "only for their enjoyment" applies uncomfortably closely to many Irish speakers and more so to learners....

Well I don't do it for my enjoyment. One of the head aches of moving was a way to find out how to post my Irish books at a reasonable rate, to a place where, as U2 sang 'the streets have no name(s)' (literally).

I feel an awful obligation to do research to ensure minority languages survive. Hell I came out to Asia to see teaching first hand. It's frustrating how long it takes to internalize the language. Maybe one gets too attached. Even today I was told a parent said my Korean pronunciation was better than the girl I replaced, altho it is a very easy language to pronounce for English speakers (same sounds) and it's syllable set is like only 90, in comparison to 1000's for Irish and English. I'm here less than week.

The funny thing is that the 'Local Phonetic Alphabet' works here as the languages are so similar, especially if you have pure vowels

I've just been handed a sweet coffee by the lad in the net cafe. Nice people. None of that in Dublin, if for no other reason than it would cost a tenner...

Ta suil agam go mbeidh Gaeilg mhor agam nuair a thiocfaidh me ar ais arist dul go hEirinn

Don't feel too bad Riona, I didn't see any negativity towards Esperanto from your original post ;)

Constructed languages are like politics and religion...people get very defensive for some reason.

I like to bring up a comment that I heard at an Esperanto summer course I attended in San Francisco a while back...

What's the difference between Tolkien's Quenya and Zamenhof's Esperanto?

One's a fantasy, and the other's a revelation.

But the real question is which is which :P

I was enough of a nerd that I tried to learn Quenya when I was a pre-teen / teenager.

LOL

In truth, so was I ;0)

Most people do not understand what an incredible work of art it is.

It is not commonly known how much original work was put into the design of Quenya by Tolkien and 5 of the most renown linguists of the time period during its creation. All people hear is Elves and suddenly it is no longer a living breathing language but an imaginary work of art. I wish people would stop calling it "the language of the Elves" because the truth is that Tolkien had been working on it for years before he even thought of writing the Hobbit.

I do not mean to cross Aindreás or Aonghus who obviously have strong feelings towards Esperanto because I admire it also. However, like Quenya, and dare I say Klingon, it was a "playful" (for Riona) creation of the mind. ;)

But I agree with Aintine on his original observation...that a language like Esperanto has done something seriously right to go from the scratching of Zamenhof to having an approximate 2 million speakers.

Irish could certainly learn from...if not aspire to it.

For instance, look at the private groups who have been able to gather and support the language. Look at the mass production of learning materials that have been made. Look at the number of universities that would rather teach Esperanto than an minority language like Irish which has a greater historical and now in the EU official/economical role than Esperanto does...

It's crazy!


(Message edited by do_chinniúint on November 26, 2007)

When I asked my second best friend Mary what language she would learn if she could drink a special syrum that would give her its knowledge she said Quinya. I laughed at her because she wouldn't have very many people to use it with but she is a fantasy sort and incidentally one of the best pretends comrades I've ever had, great at plot twists and charactor developement. Being a woman who adores playing freeform pretends I don't associate play with anything negative at all. It is that negative attitude towards play that makes so many grown folk so limited in my opinion.

Beir bua agus beannacht

Sorry my post sounds a big fractured. It was after 4 in morning! Try working in day and doing your banking etc business over net and telephone in middle of night and mornings running about the city, and some evenings at social lunches, and not get incoherent

BRN...what part of Korea?

If you wander up onto Itae Won hill outside of Yong Son, you'll encounter all kinds of languages, not the lest of which would be Russian. Of course....I'd suggest staying clear of "the hill" after the sun goes down!! It gets just a bit too rowdy for us grown ups! If you're closer to Tong Du Chon then stay the heck away from TDC across from Camp Casey...way too many young American GI's looking for trouble!!

Outside of Seoul I would recommend Puk An San park. You can access it from the main rail station in Seoul with several stops along the way that offer convenient access to trailheads (entrances to the myriad trails throughout the park). When I was stationed there, I would try to spend at least one Saturday or Sunday just walking the ridge-line trails. The Bhuddist (spelling??) temples and shrines were simply amazing and the view across the valley (we called it the "Western Corridor" due to its strategic significance) was breath-taking. It's a lovely little country....hope you enjoy it as much as I did!!

Sorry...this has nothing to do with Irish...I was just recalling some wonderful memories from my time there...

When were you in Korea, James? My father was stationed there some time in the late fifties to early sixties.

Way before my time!! I was there from 99 to 2000. The country has changed dramatically since your father was there!!

That's the coldest place I've ever been in the winter!! Can't imagine what it was like to fight on that terrain and in those conditions....

My utmost admiration for your Dad and his generation....

I'm in Cheonchun in the Ganwon-do provence of the north east. One day I went walking for 6 hours and met one foreigner!

James,
are you talking about the Seoul area?

It is not too cold now, but come February, it changes

Itae Won is in the Seoul area. It's just at the top of the hill up from the YongSan military base. The Korean Gov't has a wonderful Military Museum with artifacts all the way back to the Han Dynasty in the same area.

And....to keep it relative to Irish...there's an Irish Pub in Itae Won as well. Although, you'll be more likely to hear Country and Western than Irish Trad.

I never had a chance to visit the northeast. Sounds like you are quite remote and your point about the cold is well taken....I've never been as cold as I was in Korean in January. The wind comes screaming out of Mongolia, rips across lower Siberia and Northern China and then slams into the Korean penninsula....I'm shivering with the memories (and I'm sitting in Florida!!)

Have fun over there. The Korean people are some of the most hospitable I've ever met.

Yep, they are. It is a shock -you are wondering are they up to something, but they seem to be genuinely as hospitable as they seem. People help you in gov buildings and banks to translate between tellers and officials.

Things are a bit less cosmopolitan here -im told it's no Seoul. The locals do not see white people too often -many of them stare, children point.

Also you need your own furniture here -bad karma or something to use it again, so my place is a bit messy (only have mattress).

I had a bunch of four women visit, and I was glad to get them out again. Boy, what an impression! It was like a bomb hit...no bin, no shelves -you get the impression...

Oh....and to bring things full circle...I found this web-site while I was stationed there!!! My gosh....was it that long ago????

I've been at this for 7 years?!?!!?!!

An bhfuil tochas na seacht mbliain ag cur as duit?

Tá mé in amhras, a Aonghus. Duirt sé go bhfuil an aimsir ró-fuar ansin!

nil si ro-fhuar go foill...ach i gcupla mi...

Bhí mé ag caint le James seachas le BRN.

Agus tochas = itch.