Cha dtuigeam "rith an modh coinníollach" (the conditional mood ran? níl cosa air, go bhfios domh :-D ), agus dála an scéil, rinn siad meancóg ann, scríobh siad "coinniolach"...
Tá sin greannmhar :-)

Ba mhaith liom t-léinidh a cheannacht, an cionn ar a bhfuil sé scríofaí "I can speak Irish and I'm not even Irish"... dá mbeadh sé scríofaí i nGaeilg!

I think this is a good cause. English has been a dominant language in the British Isles since the 5th century. Certainly after the 16th century the situation for Irish in Ireland took a new turn. The language became associated with Popish religion, poor and backwards folk, useless for modern commerce, and other self-defeating mentalities. Irish in Ireland is a substratum language. That does not have to be since there is no longer a fierce negative movement against it anymore, except maybe some Unionists in the north. The point is, just like independence for Ireland, the Irish simply need to take it. The survival of Irish as an everyday is using it. It is part of the patrimony passed on to you through blood and sacrifice, just like the dancing, religion, art, etc. Believe me, English can stand to be given a second place. It isn't dying anytime soon, but Irish is threatened most of all by a "efficiency" mentality which will relegate the language to a token presence.

So to bring it back, I like movements like this. Just use the language. Speak it, and people will become more accustomed to it. Listen to it, and your ear will become tuned. Study it in school, and you'll learn to read and write in it. Pretty soon it will become self-supporting and self-propagating. A big part of this is to give it to the children so they are completely fluent by the teens. The whole nation could be Irish speaking again in one generation. It really isn't that hard if it is given some "fuel" to start running. I have a little boy who is 3. He's learning English, but he doesn't know "English" from "Gaeilge" or "house" from "teach". He just knows sound symbols for things and ideas.

this is a good cause

rith an modh coniollach - i presume is supposed to be about the line by des bishop...

english has not been the dominant language in britain from the 5th century - it took longer than the original move of people

Go n-éirí an t-ádh leat, a Sheáin.

Surely you mean the 15th fifteenth century? A thousand years later. Chaucer was the first major prose writer in the "English" language. His contemporary Gower wrote in Latin thinking that was the coming world language. Langland wrote in an older purer Anglo-Saxon.

Poor Chaucer chose to write in an amalgam of various languages: Latin, Norman French, Anglo-Saxon, Norman French, and whatever remained of the languages of the Danelaw and the Jutes etc. Even then Chaucer in the original is hard going for those of us familiar only with modern English.

Irish is a far more ancient language than English and was one of the first vernacular languages of Europe to have a sophisticated literature written in it. The others used their vernacular languages in the cowshed and piggery but switched to Latin when they scrubbed up and sat down to write. :-)

Ireland had Scoileanna na bhFilí known in English as the Bardic Schools from the Norman Invasions to the Battle of Kinsale. From 1200 AD to 1650 approx. (I know what happened in 1601) About 400 years of sophisticated literary effort and a lot of it is still to be found in the great libraries of Europe where Irish monks left their manuscripts. Young Irish scholars are still needed to read it, edit suitable texts, and get them published so that we can all appreciate the literature of our ancestors and the beauty of our language when it was undisputedly the most developed literary language in the world. Up Ireland! Éire go brách!

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undisputedly the most developed literary language in the world

Evidence?

Irish undoubtedly has a proud history, but you seem to be going overboard in praising it. If I recall correctly, the earliest surviving manuscript written entirely in Irish 'only' dates from the 12th century...although Irish poems date back as far as the 6th century, perhaps earlier. Irish is often found written on the margins of early manuscripts (before the 10th century or so), whereas Latin was predominant. Just like in England, presumably.

What I find more interesting is that Irish was once more widely spoken GEOGRAPHICALLY in the medieval period.

Ooops, I meant the most developed literary language from among the vernacular languages of "these islands" and further afield. By vernacular I mean not Greek or Latin. "in the world" was a bit of an exaggeration admittedly. I am not too well up on some, many, or -- shame, shame -- any of the other languages. Who is?

Evidence? I am expressing my own enthusiasm for the language and having encountered "Classical Irish Poetry" by Myles Dillon (or was it "The Irish Bardic Tradition"?) and "Irish Syllabic Poetry" by Eleanor Knott (??) and "Irish Bardic Poetry" (?) by Frank O'Connor and ?? ?? "Gaelic Literature Surveyed" by Aodh de Blácam and "The Sword of Light" by Desmond Ryan, not to mention "The Hidden Ireland"by Daniel Corkery (a later period) An tAthair Donnchadh Ó Floinn's "The Irish Tradition" and a book by Kim McKone the name of which I have forgotten I feel confident to say: evidence to the contrary? Thankfully this is not a university thesis however.

As to Irish being spoken more widely: the Anglo-Norman colonists married among the Irish and gradually over a few generations were being assimilated. The Statutes of Kilkenny tried to stop it. Poyning's law had something to say about it as well.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution and Colonisation etc there wasn't such a great disparity between the population density of any of these islands.

If only Gearóid Mór Mac Gearailt had defied the Tudor king and declared Irish independence. :-) Funny how the same names keep cropping up in Irish history from generation to generation: Garret Fitzgerald and Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh. They're still around you know :-)

Let me clarify my statements at least. By "dominant" I did not necessarily mean that it had the most speakers or that it covered the most geographic territory. I simply meant that it had the strongest power to grow and spread. In the north of Europe the Germanic "tribe" has had a long history of driving out the Celtic "tribe". This delves greatly into Indo-European language history and theory. We can see this in areas where "celt" is a long forgotten presence (France called Gaul, and Paul's letter to the Galatians). But the practical matter is that English set it's foot on the shores on England and never looked back. Celtic languages were continually marginalized. This took on hyper speed in the modern era because English is the dominant world language (lingua franca) under the banner of a dominant empire. Latin did not displace Irish because it had already become a lingua franca by the time Ireland had hearty contact with it. English itself was assailed by other languages (Nordic and Norman French), but we see that it had an amazing ability to take on aspects of other languages and come out the other side as the survivor. Irish had this ability to with the presence of Normans and Vikings who became just as Irish as the Irish.

Irish is no longer assailed through language policies or a hostile ruler. You are free to speak your language and shape it. It is an ancient language. Certainly Irish dates from the time the first Irish split from the Scot and came over to Ireland. The Celtic branch is even more ancient than any one language that has grown out of it.

You are free to speak Irish, and this will be the ultimately cause of its growth. You already ahve the international lingua franca. Be like other Europeans and have your native language in full, but also learn the lingua franca to function in the wider society. Just as English is an asset in international commerce, Irish should be an asset on the island of Ireland since it is bound up with thousands of years of culture and psychology.

You could be right though, Taidhgín. I'm not too familiar with the history of written Arabic or Japanese or Mandarian Chinese etc. It was the claim that Irish was "undisputedly the most developed literary language in the world." that caught my eye.

Irish was the most widely spoken language in Ireland from at least the 6th century until the 1820s or so. Maybe even as late as 1850. The fact it wasn't the language of power and prestige for that entire time doesn't change that fact. But one could argue that Irish was spoken across the isle, throughout most of Scotland, and on the Isle of Man. That's what I mean by more widely spoken. This was when it hadn't diverged into Scottish Gaelic and Manx. English was on the verge of collapse in most of Ireland in the early 1500s.

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If only Gearóid Mór Mac Gearailt had defied the Tudor king and declared Irish independence

Are you familiar with the book 'Ireland in the Age of the Tudors 1447-1603: English Expansion and the End of Gaelic Rule'? By Steven G. Ellis. It's from the Longman History of Ireland collection. The author seemed to have a pro-English bias, but the book is widely regarded as *THE* authoritative account of Ireland under Tudor rule. He argues that the so-called 'Old English/Hiberno-Normans/Anglo-Normans' were for the most part, loyal to the English crown and regarded themselves as 'Englishmen born in the land of Ireland' throughout the centuries after the very first Norman landing in 1167. What I found interesting was that fullscale 'gaelicisation' (especially pronounced amongst the Burkes of Mayo and some of the Anglo-Normans in west Munster) didn't prevent them from professing loyalty to the Crown in Dublin (and therefore, London). Even amongst those who could speak no language other than Irish.

My next read will be Katherim Simms' book 'From Kings to Warlords: The Changing Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle Ages'.

quote:

Be like other Europeans and have your native language in full, but also learn the lingua franca to function in the wider society.

These are interesting times. On the one hand, I see more and more people embracing Irish as their native language. There are many possible explanations for this. The Irish language in Ireland. Period. No explanation necessary. Maybe it's the effect of immigration and ever-increasing globalisation. etc etc On the other hand, there seems to be a growing number of people who do not view Irish as their 'native language' at all. And perhaps they have a point? Maybe you come from a part of Ireland where Irish hasn't been widely spoken in three centuries. Maybe your family has been monoglot English speaking for four or five generations? Maybe your only encounter with the language has been at school, alongside French or Spanish. It seems as if there are more and more people who utterly reject the idea that Irish is an integral part of Irishness. Maybe there are simply less people sitting on the fence when it comes to the language.

Put another way, if Ireland continues as a predominantly English speaking country indefinitely, at what point does Irish lose the significant cultural and national significance that it currently has nationwide, including amongst many people who only have the cúpla focail.

(Message edited by Danny2007 on July 14, 2009)

(Message edited by Danny2007 on July 14, 2009)

Danny,

You seem to have a real interest in the sections of Irish society which are either not of Gaelic cultural origin or have rejected that culture.

What interest you so much about this aspect?

It's hard to put into words Ggn. I suppose it's because Ireland is one of the few nations in Europe where the majority of the population cannot speak the 'national' language. The majority have shown no interest in reclaiming Irish as their own and making it a daily aspect of their lives. Most are content with English alone. Why?

Language shift fascinates me. Whether it's in Ireland or elsewhere.

The Politics of Language in Ireland 1366-1922, A Sourcebook by Dr Tony Crowley is an excellent read.

I must buy the sequel entitled: "Wars of Words: The Politics of Language in Ireland 1537-2004".

Ireland has been home to at least two distinct nations and two distinct language communities since the 12th century. It wasn't that the entire population switched from Irish to English over the course of two or three hundred years. There has been a monoglot English speaking community on the island for seven centuries or more, although its fortunes waxed and waned. What has happened to Irish once happened to English. Many people abandoned it, people became bilingual, code-switching occurred, there were concerns about excessive influence by the dominant language etc.

(Message edited by Danny2007 on July 15, 2009)

Scinn sé go maith uait ar an gceann san.

Tá gnéithe den fheachtas nach bhfuil do mo shásamh. Ní dóigh liom gur oibríodh amach i gceart é sular tugadh faoi. Beidh na gnéithe sin le tabhairt faoi deara gan stró ag an té a bhfuil a shá déanta aige cheana féin 'ar son na cúise', is ní bheidh ag an gcuid eile. (Stadfaidh sé sin roinnt ceisteanna!) Bíonn rath ar ropaire, deirtear, agus níor ghá go mbeadh chuile ghné ar aghaidh boise, tomhasta, meáite is réidh le hoibriú.

Guím gach rath ar an iarracht.