mainoff.gif
lastdyoff.gif
lastwkoff.gif
treeoff.gif
searchoff.gif
helpoff.gif
contactoff.gif
creditsoff.gif
homeoff.gif


The Daltaí Boards » Archive: 2005- » 2011 (January-February) » Archive through January 22, 2011 » This is more like what one expects from the Indo « Previous Next »

Author Message
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 11181
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 05:14 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

http://www.gaelport.com/sonrai-nuachta?NewsItemID=5461

The Government’s 20-Year Strategy for the Irish language cited research showing that Irish was taught to a good or very good standard in only half of primary schools inspected. true

In one third of classrooms, Irish was taught through the medium of English. Pupils in just over half of lessons inspected were able to express themselves satisfactorily in Irish. true A recent report from researchers at the University of Ulster and the University of Limerick suggests that Irish is now the language of the elite. The report found that non-speakers of Irish are twice as likely to be unemployed as Irish speakers. The report found that 42pc of Irish speakers work in senior professional, managerial or technical jobs. This report was based on the census figures and the conclusions drawn are disputed. And the connection to the foregoing is not clear.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1043
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 05:32 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

And your opionion would be that it is not true to say that the Irish language outside of the Gaeltacht is that of an élite? Am I right?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 11182
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 05:46 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Outside of the Gaeltacht it is certainly a middle class pursuit - mostly.

But that is the problem with articles like this - they are completely oblivious of the existence of the Gaeltacht.

And it suggests a connection between Irish being "elite" and the reason it is poorly taught.

Wonderful how you can (mis)read my mind, though.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 11183
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 05:51 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Maidir leis an "taighde" sin, seo an méid a bhí le rá ag Brendán Delap faoi

http://beo.ie/alt-mar-na-beidh-ar-elite-aris-ann.aspx

quote:

“Irish Speakers a Social and Educational Elite - Report,” a mhaígh The Irish Times amhail is go raibh cruthúntas acadúil ar fáil faoi dheireadh chun fírinniú a dhéanamh ar an tuairim a nocht a gcuid colúnaithe Kate Holmquist agus Sarah Carey corradh le bliain roimhe sin faoin “language of educational apartheid.”


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1044
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 07:27 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

The Government’s 20-Year Strategy for the Irish language cited research showing that Irish was taught to a good or very good standard in only half of primary schools inspected. true



Mmm. I doubt if that is actually true although it doesn't define what "good" or "very good" actually means here. I would have imagined that in reality on the ground Irish is taught to a good or very good standard in only a miniscule percentage of the State's schools.

quote:

In one third of classrooms, Irish was taught through the medium of English. Pupils in just over half of lessons inspected were able to express themselves satisfactorily in Irish. true



True, you say. How can that be? Think about it. If Irish was taught through the medium of English in one third of classrooms that means that Irish was taught through the medium of Irish in two thirds of classrooms. Now if that is referring to Gaeltacht schools or urban Gaelscoileanna, fair enough, but if it's a general overall view of all state schools, then it clearly cannot be true unless things have changed radically since I was in primary school in the 1980s. As for half of pupils being able to express themselves satisfactorily in Irish in over half of lessons inspected, again we are not told what constitutes "satisfactorily".

quote:

A recent report from researchers at the University of Ulster and the University of Limerick suggests that Irish is now the language of the elite. The report found that non-speakers of Irish are twice as likely to be unemployed as Irish speakers. The report found that 42pc of Irish speakers work in senior professional, managerial or technical jobs. This report was based on the census figures and the conclusions drawn are disputed. And the connection to the foregoing is not clear.



Fair enough. The connection between the two is not made clear. And fair enough, their figures may be way off the mark; their claim that non-Irish speakers are twice as likely to be unemployed may not quite be accurate but Irish speakers are probably less likely to be unemployed than non-Irish speakers. But I don't see anything particularly controversial in saying that native Anglophone Irish learners in Dublin and other urban centres earn, on average, more than most non-Irish speaking Anglophones. That Irish speakers in the Galltacht are generally - but not all - in a slightly higher socio-economic group than the average. I take your point that they ignore the Gaeltacht completely but Gaeltacht speakers only make up a small proportion of Irish speakers. The vast majority of the Irish language movement are middle class native Anglophone learners, myself included.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 11184
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 07:32 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

My point was that that study, which was problematic in itself given the methodology and the conclusions drawn from very little data, is entirely irrelevant to the teaching of Irish.

I suspect (given the paper it is in) that it was introduced only to add to the pressure to introduce "choice" (i.e. ensure that Irish, if taught all, is only taught to elites).

It will be extremely difficult to maintain even the weak existing support for the Gaeltacht if Irish is seen only as a pastime for the elite.

And the economic consequences of there being no more Gaeltacht courses for students, because they confer no benefit in schooling, would be very severe.

(Message edited by aonghus on January 13, 2011)

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1047
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 04:32 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

My point was that that study, which was problematic in itself given the methodology and the conclusions drawn from very little data, is entirely irrelevant to the teaching of Irish.



As a matter of interest, where can we get more information on that study?

quote:

I suspect (given the paper it is in) that it was introduced only to add to the pressure to introduce "choice" (i.e. ensure that Irish, if taught all, is only taught to elites).



Well, allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment. Let's suppose Irish were made an optional subject for the Leaving Cert. What exactly would we be losing? The fact is that the vast vast majority of school students will never use Irish ever again having left school and only a tiny minority will pursue it in either their private or professional lives once they leave school. Now, if we were to make Irish optional, surely we would have the same sorts of people choosing to study it as would then go on to use it in their private or professional lives after they leave school? The very same sorts of people - they are a small minority under the situation as it stands at present with compulsory Irish, would they not also be an equally small minority if Irish were to be made an optional subject? It could be argued that the group which are at present in the driving seat of the Irish language movement in the Galltacht are already an "élite" of sorts. How would making Irish optional make them any less of an "élite"? Also how would making Irish optional stop those who want to study it from doing so? Optional means having the choice, does it not?

Playing devil's advocate once again: the fact remains that the vast majority of native Anglophone learners of Irish in Ireland speak Irish poorly. The great majority of the Irish population are monoglot Anglophones with no Irish and no interest in it or contact with it in their day to day lives. The vast majority of learners speak their Irish with other learners whose Irish is equally weak and in some cases learn their Irish from individuals whose Irish is only slightly better than their own. Many if not most school teachers also speak poor Irish, with very few indeed being able to converse as fully and competently as they do in their mother English. Few learners indeed get the opportunity to converse with and learn from native Gaeltacht speakers as the number of learners of Irish is many times greater than that of native Gaeltacht speakers and in any event few Gaeltacht natives live in any of the towns and cities where most learners live. These are problems that we have all encountered; myself included. Now, how would making Irish optional make such a situation any worse? Would we not have the same sorts of people gravitating towards Irish anyway, so making it optional wouldn't change that, would it?

Now, looking at it from the opposite viewpoint: what are the implications of making one of the three compulsory Leaving Cert subjects optional while leaving the other two - English and Maths - unchanged? Those who are against compulsory Irish often say that Irish is unnecessary and of no practical benefit once you leave school - and for most people that turns out to be true, but most of the current English and Maths curriculum, it could be argued, is similarly unnecessary and of no real material benefit once you leave school. One could also argue that education should not be judged solely on a vulgar capitalist basis, where material gain is the only consideration; that education is not the same as job training and the focus is on developing the student's critical faculties and overall awareness of the world around them and that Irish forms a part of that, being a different language and different way of seeing the world. Now in light of that one could argue that it would be very strange indeed to make Irish optional but not the other two core subjects.

quote:

It will be extremely difficult to maintain even the weak existing support for the Gaeltacht if Irish is seen only as a pastime for the elite.



As I said above, Irish is already the language of a small majority, so making it optional won't change that, will it? As for the Gaeltacht, it has been gradually receding year after year since the State was founded and Irish was given compulsory status in all state schools. It looks likely that Irish will disappear as a community language entirely before the end of this century. What exactly has compulsory Irish in Anglophone urban centres like Dundalk and Dublin done to stem the decline of the Gaeltacht and even reverse it?

quote:

And the economic consequences of there being no more Gaeltacht courses for students, because they confer no benefit in schooling, would be very severe.



True, but are Gaeltacht people only speaking their language in order to profit from courses given to Anglophone school children? If so, what does that tell us about the current status of the language in the Gaeltacht? Why not take the hundreds of millions spent every year on native Anglophone teachers teaching Irish to native Anglophone kids most of whom despise it and plough it efficiently into the Gaeltacht, which is after all where the native speakers of the language live and whose future is under seevre threat?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 11187
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 04:51 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

The consequences of making Irish optional are eloquently discussed in the essay I have linked to several times before - based on concrete evidence from the UK.

I believe the other study was/is available online; I read it at the time.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 11188
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 04:55 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

http://www.esr.ie/Vol40_4/Borooah.pdf



People will not continue to speak a language perceived to be a disadvantage to them; that is what is driving the decline in the Gaeltacht, and that is what must be stemmed.

I believe relinquishing the goal of spreading some knowledge of Irish outside the Gaeltacht would significantly weaken efforts to stem the loss in the Gaeltacht.

Certainly, the current system is badly broken but there is a danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1048
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 05:16 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

The consequences of making Irish optional are eloquently discussed in the essay I have linked to several times before - based on concrete evidence from the UK.

I believe the other study was/is available online; I read it at the time.



Sorry, Aonghus, can you provide those links again please? I presume the evidence from the UK is based on the situation of Welsh and Scottish Gaelic in the education system there.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1049
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 06:03 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

People will not continue to speak a language perceived to be a disadvantage to them; that is what is driving the decline in the Gaeltacht, and that is what must be stemmed.



Absolutely. But how exactly would Irish being compulsory or otherwise for all Anglophone school children in places like Dublin and Wexford, for example, affect the status of the language in practical terms on the ground in the Gaeltacht areas?

quote:

I believe relinquishing the goal of spreading some knowledge of Irish outside the Gaeltacht would significantly weaken efforts to stem the loss in the Gaeltacht.



How so? In the Scottish Gàidhealtachd, Scottish Gaelic until very recently had no official status at all in law and the authorities were openly hostile toward it and to the native speaker communities there and yet despite all of those years of compulsory Irish and first language status in Ireland and open hostility to Gaelic in Scotland by the British state, the figures for daily speakers in the Gaeltacht and Gàidhealtachd are remarkably similar: somewhere in or around 15,000 - 17,000 in both cases and the future of Irish as a native spoken language is scarcely more secure than that of Scottish Gaelic.

quote:

Certainly, the current system is badly broken but there is a danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.



I believe that while people in Dublin and other urban centres are tearing their hair out over the possibility that Irish might become an optional school subject for mother tongue English-speaking school children in Anglophone Ireland, they are turning a blind eye to the very real probability that Irish will disappear as a native spoken community language in Ireland by the end of this century. Such people, I believe, are effectively fiddling while Rome burns.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1050
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 06:39 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Anyway, I seriously doubt that Fine Gael will actually go the whole hog and make Irish optional for the Leaving Cert. It's just pre-election bluster. They'll slash and burn things like carers' allowance and disibility pension down to the root and cut services in the hospitals but they won't lay a finger on stuff like compulsory Irish for the Leaving Cert.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 681
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 06:50 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

People will not continue to speak a language perceived to be a disadvantage to them



And why should they?

It is not the business of the state to make them do something against their interests.

No one can make the people of the Gaeltacht keep their Irish, and no one can make the people of Ireland become bilingual.

On the other hand, it is a reasonable proposition that an educated person should have a knowledge of his heritage and culture, and that would include Irish, and in fact Latin too.

It is as questionable that someone in Ireland could call himself an educated person if he had no knowledge of Irish as it is questionable for anyone in Europe to claim to have had a good education with no Latin.

Yet Latin classes don't aim to make people bilingual, do they? If you have managed to get through a chunk of the Aeneid and Caesar's De Bello Gallico, then you have done what you set out to do in Latin, whether you know the Latin word for "fridge" or not. Eventually, when the Gaeltacht runs out, it will make more sense for Irish to be viewed as a part of Ireland's historical heritage, along the lines of Latin, with classes aimed at appreciating PUL's Mo Sgéal Féin or something by Máirtín Ó Cadhain or the Grianna brothers, as a language that is read rather than spoken.

By viewing Late Traditional Irish as a way of examining and appreciating Irish culture 1650-1950, just as Latin is used to appreciate Roman culture of the Golden and Silver Ages, the study of Irish will then be correctly refocused on the last stages of the traditional dialects.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Liam_n
Member
Username: Liam_n

Post Number: 15
Registered: 08-2009
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 07:46 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

I have to say i have a level of sympathy for the idea of non-compulsory irish for schools. The amount of people that leave school with virtually no irish tells you that they system is not working...pass Irish for leaving certificate is a bit of a joke (assuming it is still as it was when i left school, some 18 years ago)... and we have had 90 years to perfect the system. Would we lose people studying irish if it weren't compulsory..yes definetly but as i think Carmanach has suggested how many of those ever use irish again anyway?

There seems to be more good feeling toward the language in the North that the South where it is compulsary. Less resentment prehaps by people that didn't want to study it in the first place.

Redirect the money towards providing a daily newspaper, employing a full time period to fill up the pages of Vicipéid, make it so that Irish speakers can truly live in a world where it is possible to do all throught the medium of irish. Just a thought.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Taidhgín
Member
Username: Taidhgín

Post Number: 1139
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 08:18 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

Now, if we were to make Irish optional, surely we would have the same sorts of people choosing to study it as would then go on to use it in their private or professional lives after they leave school? The very same sorts of people - they are a small minority under the situation as it stands at present with compulsory Irish, would they not also be an equally small minority if Irish were to be made an optional subject? It could be argued that the group which are at present in the driving seat of the Irish language movement in the Galltacht are already an "élite" of sorts. How would making Irish optional make them any less of an "élite"? Also how would making Irish optional stop those who want to study it from doing so? Optional means having the choice, does it not?


Just to take this one point alone. Making Irish optional at Leaving Cert will soon be followed by making it entirely optional at post-primary level. Some parents living far from a Gaelscoil but having an interest in Irish already lament the lack of Irish in the local primary school where the young primary teachers are trying their best but are no better than Carmanach has described above. Some are interested in Art, others in Maths, most find English easy to teach, and all are delighted when the end of lessons bell rings.

At present post-primary schools with an intake from a number of primary schools can see immediately which schools devoted time and effort to Irish and which did not bother -- or were unable to.

Even in a large urban area full of desirable residences, nice leafy avenues, good public transport, golf clubs, theatres, art galleries, night classes, and sports facilities, music, elocution lessons and university education for the children, clinics, hospitals, and medical care of every kind, and a host of supermarkets vying with each other for custom, where educated people might wish to live, it is difficult to find gifted motivated teachers to teach any subject. Good teachers are not as plentiful as we might imagine. Children hate some of their teachers regardless of the subject. Teaching is not an easy occupation.

Imagine then a subject such as Irish competing for space on an urban school curriculum. The consumer society has no time for any subject that will not lead to a "good job" so there are numerous "compulsory subjects" which are deemed essential by society. English, obviously, Maths, Science, PE, French or another modern European language, Civics / Ethics / Morality in some guise, probably Religion, PE, History, Geography, Business Studies / Accounting / Economics, Practical subjects: Technical Drawing, Metalwork, Woodwork, and the computer-based studies.

With such a crowded curriculum it would be very easy to forget about Irish altogether. After all the other ex-colonies don't bother with the autochthonous languages very much: who learns Maori in New Zealand, who learns Abbo in Australia, who learns Apache or any other "Red Indian" language in the US, who wants to learn Kiluo or Kikuyu in Kenya? No one. Who learns Gaidhlig in Scotland?

My point is that unless the Government makes Irish the Number One objective and as compulsory as society will bear at all levels it will vanish like Latin, Greek, or Music. There will be numerous schools unable to offer it in any class because there will be no teachers never mind "gifted" teachers. (I was once offered a job in the Hebridies because I knew "Gaelic" -- the teacher who had the post was from London.)

Some schools may be able to limp along for five or six years until "poor Paddy the Gaeilgeoir," retires. When he does he will not be replaced.

In any case the time allocated to him to teach Irish will be reduced little by little until it becomes insignificant.

Even the content of the syllabus will be lightened. Does anyone remember the vote passed at an august assembly of learned teachers, i.e. the INTO, to get rid of the séimhiú, urú, and tuisil in Irish. It was too hard -- for the children. Mar dhóigh dhe.

That's in the urban areas.

What of the rural areas where it is hard to recruit qualified teachers, harder still to get them to stay, and where the small number of pupils further restricts the number of subjects that can be offered.

Parents will have no choice if the local school doesn't even offer a limited number of places in "optional Irish". What if a school wants to offer it but the number of pupils wishing to take it is too small to justify the employment of a teacher?

To my mind, Fine Gael in 1972 did enormous damage to the status of Irish in education, in the Gaeltacht, and in the Civil Service.

If they carry out their present proposals they will finish it off.

As for the Gaeltacht, bilingual parents will not bother. I hope even at this late stage that Enda Kenny and his followers will have a change of heart.

Caitlín Maude wrote the poem "Treall" in response to such a situation. It is easier to destroy than to build.

There was a time when some Irish people had a sense of national pride and loved Irish for its symbolic representation of our identity. Our parents used Irish words when speaking English. The "cúpla focal" showed your heart was in the right place and that you were in favour of "the language". We valued our traditions, our folklore, our music and songs, our historyy, our distinctiveness. Are we to be ashamed of them again?

What is the harm in the superficial symbolic use of Irish? Why are people like me, who were not reared by monoglot Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht, but who love the language and use it as much as possible, constantly subjected to "put downs" and criticism? I don't understand that attitude. Surely there must be very few places in the world where so many people have achieved "near native fluency" in a lesser-used language. Constant criticism will quickly diminish their enthusiasm and their numbers. The economic effect on the Gaeltacht will be significant.

We were the only one of the Celtic nations remaining that had control of a budget that allowed us to preserve and promote the ancient language of which we are custodians.

My parents wanted me to learn Irish and speak it and I did. I do. Will my children and grandchildren find themselves in a hostile environment where there is no time for the soul or the spirit but only for the bought merchandise promoted by advertising? Gaming? Manchester United? Symbols of our society?

I'm old now and I've had so many reminders of my mortality that relatively soon it will not matter to me but it saddens me that we fight here over trivialities, bubbles on the surface of the water when Enda Kenny and his followers are about to pull the stopper.

Who referred to the Irish as "an dream bocht scaoilte nárbh fhéidir leo tarraingt le chéile"? (or some such words.)

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 682
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 09:03 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Taidhgín, I'm not Irish, so I don't have the right to a view, but the introduction of the CO complicates the issue of the survival of Irish for me. I would not like to see Irish trundle on in an inauthentic form after traditional Irish dies out. For me, it is the Gaeltacht, and then nothing. So from that point of view, the withdrawal of lessons in the CO from schools in the Galltacht is neither here nor there to me - or even a boon if it hampers the CO. I hope Enda Kenny proceeds with his plans.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 11189
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 04:24 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

https://cnag.ie/campaign/1282559635stadas_na_gaeilge_san_ardteistimeireacht__na_ reasuin_leis_lunasa_2010.pdf



Táimid ag dul thart sa sean chiorcal arís feictear dom.

Tá a bhfuil le rá agam ráite.

Ní raibh uaim ach fianaise a chuir in bhur láthair: cead ag cách a thuairim fhéin a mhúnlú air.

I mó thuairim ní ceist Gaeltacht nó Galltacht atá ann, ach Gaeltacht agus Galltacht.

Agus i gcead do David, bíonn tionchar ag an Stáit bealach amháin nó bealach eile - dearfach nó diúltach. Níl agus ní raibh an Stáit neodrach ar cheist ar bith riamh. Ní gá gurbh ionann, gan amhras, an méid a maíonn an Stáit agus an méid a níonn an Stáit.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Sineadw
Member
Username: Sineadw

Post Number: 593
Registered: 06-2009
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 06:07 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

We need political will for Irish to succeed and regardless of the crookedness and all else it is something FF did do well and that can't be taken from them. Éamon Ó Cuív deserves a lot of credit. God forgive me but I'd almost favour a FF/SF government next time if Labour don't manage to be in control of this portfolio. The fact that Enda Kenny would make such a proposal without proposing any changes to how Irish is taught at primary school level shows his ignorant and lazy attitude and how this man puts his lust for power ahead of doing right by this country. He will do anything to get in. Worse still if it is representative of his overall attitude to managing the Irish language issue then God help us. FG need to be opposed on this, they need to see anger, resentment and hostility from us. At least in time to come there won't have a been a silence over what he has said, that means something.

It's just a heartbreaking and bloody disgrace in this day and age that this is what we are left with as the potential next Taoiseach, leader of this country. Where are we going? As someone said, tá an Ghaeilge ag dul abhaile. I'm moving with it. Backwards is forwards.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1051
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 06:10 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

Making Irish optional at Leaving Cert will soon be followed by making it entirely optional at post-primary level.



So?

quote:

Some parents living far from a Gaelscoil but having an interest in Irish already lament the lack of Irish in the local primary school where the young primary teachers are trying their best but are no better than Carmanach has described above. Some are interested in Art, others in Maths, most find English easy to teach, and all are delighted when the end of lessons bell rings.



I used to teach Irish to B.Ed. students training to be primary school teachers. Like the students they would end up teaching, most had litte interest or enthusiasm or aptitude for Irish but some did. Make Irish optional for both teachers and students and you'll get people who genuinely are interested in Irish being taught by people who have an equal level of enthusiasm for it. One thing I remember well about B.Ed. students: the sheer volume of work they had to plough through each week. Let teachers and students alike choose those subjects for which they have a genuine interest and passion; the quality of Irish being spoken and written overall will improve.

quote:

At present post-primary schools with an intake from a number of primary schools can see immediately which schools devoted time and effort to Irish and which did not bother -- or were unable to.



As a direct result of people who have no interest in Irish at all or open hostility toward it or having no aptitude to teach it properly being compelled to do so anyway by the system.

quote:

Even in a large urban area full of desirable residences, nice leafy avenues, good public transport, golf clubs, theatres, art galleries, night classes, and sports facilities, music, elocution lessons and university education for the children, clinics, hospitals, and medical care of every kind,



"Elocution lessons"?! God, shoot me now, please, somebody . . .

quote:

Good teachers are not as plentiful as we might imagine. Children hate some of their teachers regardless of the subject. Teaching is not an easy occupation.



Only a small percentage of the population have either an interest in or aptitude for Irish as the situation stands at present. Therefore only a small number of teachers is required to teach such a minority. Making Irish optional won't change that. No, teaching is not an easy occupation, something I can attest to myself. It's all the harder when you're teaching something that you yourself can't teach properly to people who either can't or won't learn it properly.

quote:

Imagine then a subject such as Irish competing for space on an urban school curriculum.



Irish is already competing for valuable time and space from people most of whom hate/have no interest in/no aptitude for Irish teaching it to others who similarly hate/have no interest in/no aptitude for it.

quote:

With such a crowded curriculum it would be very easy to forget about Irish altogether. After all the other ex-colonies don't bother with the autochthonous languages very much: who learns Maori in New Zealand, who learns Abbo in Australia, who learns Apache or any other "Red Indian" language in the US, who wants to learn Kiluo or Kikuyu in Kenya? No one. Who learns Gaidhlig in Scotland?



Those with a genuine interest in Irish will gravitate towards it anyway as is already the situation. "No one" wants to learn Maori/Scottish Gaelic etc? Not true. Those who really want to are learning those languages. The fact is that people like yourself, native Anglophone learners, and the whole Galltacht movement in general are obsessed with figures and statistics. What good are figures and statastics if most of the Irish learners speak such woeful Irish with Anglophone phonology? Quality not quantity should be the key to any education policy.

quote:

My point is that unless the Government makes Irish the Number One objective and as compulsory as society will bear at all levels it will vanish like Latin, Greek, or Music. There will be numerous schools unable to offer it in any class because there will be no teachers never mind "gifted" teachers. (I was once offered a job in the Hebridies because I knew "Gaelic" -- the teacher who had the post was from London.)



Is it not up to each citizen of the state to decide which language he or she wishes to converse in? A lack of suitably trained teachers is a direct result of a failure of the State to provide the proper resources and to use them correctly to that end. Which is better - the status quo with poor teachers teaching poor Irish to largely uninterested students or motivated teachers teaching Irish properly to students with a geniune interest in and aptitude for the language?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 11190
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 06:34 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Ceist agam ort, a Charmanaigh.

Cad a chéad spreag do shuim-se sa Ghaeilge? Conas arbh eol duit í a bheith fós ann?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1052
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 07:13 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

Some schools may be able to limp along for five or six years until "poor Paddy the Gaeilgeoir," retires. When he does he will not be replaced.



Again, an organisational issue relating to how funding is allocated and used on the ground in training and providing teachers to schools. He will be replaced if enough people genuinely want to study Irish. If not and if nobody at all chooses to study Irish or no teachers choose to teach it then the current situation with compulsory Irish is already a farce. I find it hard to believe that nobody will choose to teach or study Irish.

quote:

In any case the time allocated to him to teach Irish will be reduced little by little until it becomes insignificant.



See my point above.

quote:

Even the content of the syllabus will be lightened. Does anyone remember the vote passed at an august assembly of learned teachers, i.e. the INTO, to get rid of the séimhiú, urú, and tuisil in Irish. It was too hard -- for the children. Mar dhóigh dhe.



Er, can you not see with your own eyes why there are such demands to have the syllabus watered down? Because they are indeed too hard for children who either can't or don't want to learn Irish properly by teachers who are often poor learners themselves. The overall standard of Irish has and is suffering as a result.

quote:

What of the rural areas where it is hard to recruit qualified teachers, harder still to get them to stay, and where the small number of pupils further restricts the number of subjects that can be offered.



Making Irish optional will change none of that. Again, take the money spent on teaching Irish by bad teachers to unwilling students and poor students and spend it on those who do genuinely want to learn.

quote:

Parents will have no choice if the local school doesn't even offer a limited number of places in "optional Irish". What if a school wants to offer it but the number of pupils wishing to take it is too small to justify the employment of a teacher?



Well, would that be such of a problem if all of that money spent on the unwilling and the unable were directed instead toward the willing and the able?

quote:

As for the Gaeltacht, bilingual parents will not bother.



How do you know that? And how would that differ from the status quo?

quote:

Caitlín Maude wrote the poem "Treall" in response to such a situation. It is easier to destroy than to build.



Who's talking about destroying anything? Irish is not being banished from the schools, you know.

quote:

There was a time when some Irish people had a sense of national pride and loved Irish for its symbolic representation of our identity. Our parents used Irish words when speaking English. The "cúpla focal" showed your heart was in the right place and that you were in favour of "the language". We valued our traditions, our folklore, our music and songs, our historyy, our distinctiveness. Are we to be ashamed of them again?



So, people who choose not to study or speak Irish or have no interest in it, are, in your opinion, lacking in "national pride" and "ashamed" of our national "distinctiveness"? Give me a break . . .

quote:

What is the harm in the superficial symbolic use of Irish?



Forcing bad teachers to teach bad Irish to bad students so we can show how "patriotic" we all are - how exactly has that helped the Irish language? Is Irish something to be taken seriously like any other modern European language or a mere "superficial symbol" for flag-waving romantic nationalists? Such tokenism is an insult to the language.

quote:

Surely there must be very few places in the world where so many people have achieved "near native fluency" in a lesser-used language.



You're kidding, right? You're pulling our legs, aren't you? Where are all these masses who have acheived "near native fluency"? Where are they all hiding? Gwon, Taidhgín, don't leave us sitting in suspense. Spill the beans.

quote:

My parents wanted me to learn Irish and speak it and I did. I do. Will my children and grandchildren find themselves in a hostile environment where there is no time for the soul or the spirit but only for the bought merchandise promoted by advertising? Gaming? Manchester United? Symbols of our society?



. . . and optional Irish for the Leaving Cert will change that how precisely??

quote:

I'm old now and I've had so many reminders of my mortality that relatively soon it will not matter to me but it saddens me that we fight here over trivialities, bubbles on the surface of the water when Enda Kenny and his followers are about to pull the stopper.



Yes, the native Anglophones will continue to squabble endlessly among themselves about native Anglophone teachers teaching badly pronounced and spoken Irish with a thick Anglophone accent to Anglophone school children while the Gaeltacht and the language with it go down the toilet. Brilliant.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Sineadw
Member
Username: Sineadw

Post Number: 594
Registered: 06-2009
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 07:33 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Quote Carmanach: "Make Irish optional for both teachers and students and you'll get people who genuinely are interested in Irish being taught by people who have an equal level of enthusiasm for it. One thing I remember well about B.Ed. students: the sheer volume of work they had to plough through each week"

They should bloody well have a sheer volume of work to get through. They will be teaching our children- young, growing brains willing to absorb and learn who are currently put in the hands of average or below average primary school teachers.These B-ed students go on to enjoy short working days, huge pay packets, permanent jobs, etc. in return for just a few years in college. Why would you express sympathy for them? They should be spending a year in INTENSIVE Irish classes and programs and if they are not up to it, out with them! Get quality all-rounder trainee teachers. The country is loaded with people going into teaching for the pay and security- this would be a way to weed these people out. Irish is one of the key subjects in primary school after all.

Whoever is responsible for formulating the Irish teaching part of this B-ed curriculum should be ashamed of themelves. I would love to know who they are and what they are costing the Irish people.

(Message edited by sineadw on January 14, 2011)

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1053
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 09:21 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

They should bloody well have a sheer volume of work to get through. They will be teaching our children- young, growing brains willing to absorb and learn who are currently put in the hands of average or below average primary school teachers.



Agreed but it's a vicious circle, Sinéad. Since all primary teachers have to study Irish for the B.Ed. those who are poor learners and speakers themselves end up teaching Irish to kids in schools. Even the better ones I've encountered have a limited amount of time to spend studying the language properly themselves; they must divide their time between Irish and everything else and as we all know here studying a language properly can be a full time job in itself. Anyway, it would be unfair to say that all primary school teachers are either average or below average. A sizable percentage may be, but not all. Anyway, it doesn't help that many if not most of those entering B.Ed. programmes have been taught mediocre Irish by mediocre teachers - the logical result of a system that does not differentiate the unwilling and the unable from the willing and the able. It makes attempting to teach Irish at third level standard an even more difficult prospect, something I have first hand knowledge of.

quote:

These B-ed students go on to enjoy short working days, huge pay packets, permanent jobs, etc. in return for just a few years in college. Why would you express sympathy for them?



Have you first hand experience yourself of B.Ed. students, Sinéad? Perhaps you might share it with us all, if it's not too much trouble. I spent two years teaching Irish grammar and conversation skills in a teacher training college. Of the students in my classes, almost all seemed to be running endlessly hither and thither trying to keep up with their assignments. It was all very different from my days as a BA student in UCD! No sitting in the bar. No sitting in Hilper's. No getting out of bed at twelve in the day! Now, I was a quite tough tutor; I demanded a lot and expected a lot from my students. I remember one day in particular the pressure broke; I listened while the girls (they were almost all women) told me that they fully appreciated what I was trying to do and they loved the language but simply could not find the time to finish yet another task that I had set them to do while trying to stay on top of the mountain of other things they had to get through each week. And they were just the best students in the class!!

quote:

They should be spending a year in INTENSIVE Irish classes and programs and if they are not up to it, out with them! Get quality all-rounder trainee teachers.



Agreed, but how would you integrate that into the current system whereby students have many other subjects to get through as well? What we have at the moment are supposed all-rounder trainee teachers but the teaching of Irish in schools is poor for the most part.

quote:

The country is loaded with people going into teaching for the pay and security- this would be a way to weed these people out. Irish is one of the key subjects in primary school after all.



Perhaps so but the only real way of tackling that is to make sure that poor speakers and learners of Irish don't end up teaching bad Irish to school children by removing the compulsion whereby people who neither are particularly enamoured with Irish or have any skill in speaking it properly end up teaching kids Irish anyway - because neither they nor the students have a choice in the matter. Also, vetting and rigourous assessment of those who do choose to teach Irish under any new system would be essential.

quote:

Whoever is responsible for formulating the Irish teaching part of this B-ed curriculum should be ashamed of themelves. I would love to know who they are and what they are costing the Irish people.



Agreed.

As a final point, I've heard a rumour that a certain lecturer in a certain university has had no other option but to give part of his lecture in English to first year students as most of his students coming out of school can't understand what he's saying. And that is under the current system!

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 11191
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 09:54 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

There is something to be said for dedicated language teachers in all schools.

To get a smaller cohort of teachers fluent would be far superior and easier to do. It would also permit language classes to be similar to immersion - since that teacher would only speak the language to the children.

This applies to any language.
It ought also apply to the teaching of English in Gaelscoileanna, to maximise the benefit of immersion in Irish there by having a different teacher for English.


(Bring back the Coláistí Ullmhúcháin!)

But I believe all children at primary level need to be exposed to Irish since otherwise they are unlikely to get a fell for it and become the enthusiasts that Carmanach is staking his bets on.

Then a transition to optional Irish at second cycle level might work. But I remain implacably opposed to a sudden change in the essential character of Irish at second level.

http://www.beo.ie/alt-litir-oscailte-chuig-enda-kenny-td.aspx

I like Donncha's suggestion:

quote:

Seo an rud a mholfainn: an 25 pointe breise a bheith le fáil as Mata ag Ardleibhéal go mbeadh an dúthracht chéanna le fáil as an nGaeilge agus as an mBéarla chomh maith, ar an mbonn

* (i) go mbíonn i bhfad níos mó oibre i gceist leis na trí ábhar sin agus
* (ii) mar go bhfuil sé ríthábhachtach don tír go mbeadh sciar maith daoine ag tíocht amach as an gcóras meánscoile le hinniúlacht i mBéarla agus le hinniúlacht i nGaeilge chomh maith le hinniúlacht i Matamaitic.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Taidhgín
Member
Username: Taidhgín

Post Number: 1140
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 11:22 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Carmanach, thank you for reading my post written late last night and - almost inadvertantly - sent to the forum. I often just copy them over to a file and then, having got them off my chest, press cancel. Someone else can press delete when I am gone.

It occurs to me you must have little to do when you consider it worthwhile to copy almost every sentence I wrote and attempt to refute it.

I do not intend to follow suit but rather to refer to the following:
quote:

quote:Surely there must be very few places in the world where so many people have achieved "near native fluency" in a lesser-used language.


You're kidding, right? You're pulling our legs, aren't you? Where are all these masses who have acheived "near native fluency"? Where are they all hiding? Gwon, Taidhgín, don't leave us sitting in suspense. Spill the beans.



Why do you go to such extremes? I said nothing about "masses". I was thinking about my own neighbourhood. There are three or four native speakers from each of the big Gaeltacht areas living nearby with whom we converse at Mass or at the shops etc. There are perhaps a dozen others who also speak Irish to us and with whom we talk regularly. We are involved in the local Gaelscoil and regularly meet new people who have learnt Irish and can converse very comfortably in Irish.

Why are you so obsessed with "good" and "bad" Irish? Are you so judgemental that you will only speak Irish to those who know it better than you and from whom you will secure some advantage? Did you display any kindness or empathy to your students? God forbid you should sully your pristine knowledge with ordinary discussion of ordinary topics unrelated to the language on the "Irish Only" side of this forum. I am going to try and write a little scéilín there based on the word "undrach". If you like you can give me a mark out of ten based on the Carmanach scale of perfection.

As for those who have achieved "near-native fluency" I am certain of one family: my own.

In the 1920s there were no Irish speakers good, bad, or indifferent in "our extended family". Now there are at least nine. Nine people willing and fluent enough to converse comfortably in Irish on many topics. That's success and I'm proud of it. If other families could achieve as much in the next generations there would be no need to worry about the future of Irish.

Before you launch into your predictable frenzied response consider this graphic The weather is fine outside. Enjoy it.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Taidhgín
Member
Username: Taidhgín

Post Number: 1142
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 11:55 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Corkirish, do you think Irish belongs in the past, or to particular people in a particular area? It does not. It belongs to us all, especially those of us who know it and use it.

I hear what you say about the CO but I disagree with you. That's OK, however. You don't need my approval to learn and use whatever Irish you wish, however archaic.

The more people involved the better whatever their motivation. We can live happily as neighbours without giving offence to each other. It would be a dull world if everyone was of one mind on everything. Guím séan is sonas ort.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 683
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 12:01 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

>>Corkirish, do you think Irish belongs in the past, or to particular people in a particular area? It does not. It belongs to us all, especially those of us who know it and use it.
-------------------------------------

Irish as a language of monoglots belongs in the past - that's just a statement of fact - and so, it is likely/certain that the language will die out eventually, as fully as Latin has. I am afraid the language does not "belong" to non-native speakers. I speak Mandarin Chinese, but not at a native level, and I would not dream of telling the Chinese the language belongs to me because I know it and use it. It is this mentality, that the language "belongs" to all the Irish, who are therefore all "native" speakers of Irish, even if they know no Irish, that lies behind a lot of fallacies surrounding the issue.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Taidhgín
Member
Username: Taidhgín

Post Number: 1143
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 01:43 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

What of Hiberno-English? Does that belong to us?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1054
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 02:15 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

Carmanach, thank you for reading my post written late last night and - almost inadvertantly - sent to the forum. I often just copy them over to a file and then, having got them off my chest, press cancel. Someone else can press delete when I am gone.



So why didn't just you do us all a favour and press cancel? If you post such a long drawn out message here - as you did - don't be surprised if I or someone else responds to it.

quote:

It occurs to me you must have little to do when you consider it worthwhile to copy almost every sentence I wrote and attempt to refute it.



It's called the art of debating and discussion, Taidhgín. Here's how it works: you make claim A, I respond with point B and give a reason for my argument. You make counterclaim C to which I respond with counterargument D. Goddit? Now, the choice is always there for you to not respond to my posts and equally for me not to respond to yours. No one is holding a gun to either your head or mine. What is more, I worry that anyone might come on here and actually take what you say here seriously.

quote:

Why do you go to such extremes? I said nothing about "masses".



You said: "where so many people have achieved "near native fluency" in a lesser-used language". "so many" would appear to indicate that a large number of people have "near native fluency" in Irish in the Galltacht. That is patently false.

quote:

I was thinking about my own neighbourhood. There are three or four native speakers from each of the big Gaeltacht areas living nearby with whom we converse at Mass or at the shops etc. There are perhaps a dozen others who also speak Irish to us and with whom we talk regularly. We are involved in the local Gaelscoil and regularly meet new people who have learnt Irish and can converse very comfortably in Irish.



I'm touched, Taidhgín, I really am. You're a swell guy, but remind me what all of that has to do with the state of spoken Irish throughout the Galltacht as a whole? How many learners speak Irish with "near native fluency" countrywide?

quote:

Why are you so obsessed with "good" and "bad" Irish?



I'm only obsessed with one kind of Irish, Taidhgín: the Irish of good native Gaeltacht speakers and no other. I also speak Italian as my girlfriend is Italian. I'm equally obsessed with the Italian of first language Italophones. I couldn't give a monkey's how or even if Biddy or Nora or Patsy or Dick speak Italian to each other outside mass in your own leafy neighbourhood of a Sunday morning.

quote:

Are you so judgemental that you will only speak Irish to those who know it better than you and from whom you will secure some advantage?



No. I will speak Irish to anyone who wishes to speak it. Anyone who knows me will attest to that.

quote:

Did you display any kindness or empathy to your students?



Yes. A number of my students are still in contact with me. One on an almost daily basis. I'm also still in touch with some of the adult learners to whom I've taught Irish over the years. No one has ever made a complaint against me.

quote:

God forbid you should sully your pristine knowledge with ordinary discussion of ordinary topics unrelated to the language on the "Irish Only" side of this forum.



Ah, yes, that old chestnut once again. Now Taidhgín, if you wouldn't mind just popping on your reading specs for a moment and taking a look up at the top of this page. Right up at the top. Can you see it yet?? That's right, Taidhgín, get in nice and close to the screen so you can make it out. What does it read? It reads this: "General Discussion (Irish and English)". Now sit back and think about what that might mean. Give those brain cells a workout.

I must have been asleep or something these past few weeks. Taidhgín, are you the new site administator telling people what to post on here and where? I heard nothing about that.

And tell us this, Taidhgín. The Daltaí na Gaeilge forum is designed to actually help people learn Irish, is it not? What exactly has your contribution to helping people with their Irish been, Taidhgín? Go on, fill us in. All you seem to do on here is hurl muck at me and give us some more of your antediliuvian remembrances of yesteryear when you pranced gaily as a fresh-faced youth through the meadows of Mayo or something. I'm trying really really hard to think back to the last time you actually chipped in with something constructive like answering some of the grammar or terminology questions that people have - stuff that actually will help people learn and improve their Irish.

quote:

I am going to try and write a little scéilín there based on the word "undrach". If you like you can give me a mark out of ten based on the Carmanach scale of perfection.



Well, if it keeps you in off the streets, then it's all to the good, I say.

quote:

In the 1920s there were no Irish speakers good, bad, or indifferent in "our extended family". Now there are at least nine. Nine people willing and fluent enough to converse comfortably in Irish on many topics. That's success and I'm proud of it. If other families could achieve as much in the next generations there would be no need to worry about the future of Irish.



You're bringing a tear to my eye, Taidhgín. It's good to see that through the tireless efforts of you and yours that Irish as a native spoken community language has a bright future ahead of it in Machaire Rabhartaigh, Carna and Dún Chaoin.

quote:

Before you launch into your predictable frenzied response consider this graphic



So, it looks like you're not actually going to respond to any of the points I raised above regarding the teaching of Irish. "Play the ball and not the man" - remember that, Taidhgín? Who's constantly on here playing the man and not the ball?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1055
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 02:36 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

I am afraid the language does not "belong" to non-native speakers. I speak Mandarin Chinese, but not at a native level, and I would not dream of telling the Chinese the language belongs to me because I know it and use it. It is this mentality, that the language "belongs" to all the Irish, who are therefore all "native" speakers of Irish, even if they know no Irish, that lies behind a lot of fallacies surrounding the issue.



Amen.

quote:

What of Hiberno-English? Does that belong to us?



No, that belongs to the Inuit of Greenland, Taidhgín.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Sam2000
Member
Username: Sam2000

Post Number: 4
Registered: 03-2010
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 04:45 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

I have read most of these exchanges with interest, I'm afraid I didn't read all of them.

First of all. Whoever said "teaching is a difficult profession" made me laugh. I am currently training to be a science teacher and I am doing my primary school placement and yes, it is difficult but I enjoy it (thus far!). In my application for teacher training I wrote that I was interested in Celtic and Nordic languages. The interviewer immediately assumed I was either Welsh or Irish. When I went for my interview and said I was English she was so surprised. I have studied a fair amount of Faroese as research for a short story (in truth my career interest is to become a writer rather than a teacher) as well as Irish (not even remotely competent at using it yet). I really had to defend my case of learning Irish when I could learn French or German.

I have a lot of Irish and Welsh friends, a few native speakers of their respective languages. It is interesting talking to them about it. My native-Welsh speaking friends are obsessive about it and are dedicated to the promotion and use of Welsh. My Irish friends less so, there is little enthusiasm. One friend did her Leaving Cert. and is reasonably proficient, I speak to her in Irish (up to the point when I run out of vocabulary). When I ask; "are you going to pursue it further?" the response is; "maybe one day", which basically means "no". Why is there a distinct lack of enthusiasm in Ireland?

I also don't understand why the Gaeltacht are decreasing. If Irish is anything like Welsh, and the stats given at the beginning of the topic suggest that it is, then Irish competency should be something very significant to have on your CV. I know Welshmen who are non-native speakers of Welsh who are determined to master the language to progress in their careers. Surely Irish being a "middle-class pursuit" is a good thing for the language?

I cannot imagine any native speaker would not pass on Irish to their children. Surely? Simple demographics should show that the language should be growing if parents pass it on to their children (assuming parents have more than two, I'm not sure what the growth rate is in Ireland).

Is the language really a disadvantage as someone wrote earlier on in the topic? I'm quite simply confused about this issue because what has been said on this topic appears contradictory to my English eyes.

I think Corkirish makes a good point with his comments regarding who a language "belongs to". Nevertheless, I'm not entirely convinced a language can belong to anyone. It's an esoteric concept, not something material. Language is a tool like any other.

Sorry about the long post here. I am genuinely very interested in perceptions of the language in Ireland.

Just for final, final clarification for my benefit:

Do you honestly think that by the end of the century the language will cease to be spoken by natives and/or just exist as an academic pursuit such as Latin is now in much of Europe?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1056
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 05:47 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

First of all. Whoever said "teaching is a difficult profession" made me laugh.



Yes but perhaps they meant that keeping a class of kids under control requires the patience of Job. My only direct experience of teaching school children is three weeks I spent working in a summer college in Conamara twelve years ago. Not for me I'm afraid!

quote:

I have a lot of Irish and Welsh friends, a few native speakers of their respective languages.



Are they proper native speakers from Gaeltacht areas or "neo-natives" from Dublin and other cities? I imagine each would have a different perspective.

quote:

Why is there a distinct lack of enthusiasm in Ireland?



You must remember that Welsh has many times the number of native speakers who speak the language daily than Irish does. The number of daily native Welsh speakers runs into the hundreds of thousands. In Ireland only around 17,000 native speakers speak the language daily. Outside of the Gaeltacht pockets along the west and south coast, Irish is largely a hobby language for small numbers of middle class Anglophones. Outside of those circles, Irish is rarely heard or used in any natural setting in the towns and cities. The lack of enthusiasm may be attributable to the weak status of Irish as a native spoken language.

quote:

I also don't understand why the Gaeltacht are decreasing.



The language has been in retreat for centuries. The reasons are many and complex but that decline has never been successfully stopped just slowed down. Economic reasons have always been a driver of language change as English is seen to have more prestige value. British colonial authorities officially discouraged Irish in dealings with the state. Gaeltacht areas are all in remote areas heavily reliant on state aid. Historically, the Gaeltachtaí were among those hit hardest by the famine and decades of emigration. Today, the official population of the Gaeltacht is just over 90,000 of which only around 17,000 use the language daily. The Gaeltacht also occurs in scattered pockets often considerable distances from other Gaeltacht areas.

quote:

If Irish is anything like Welsh, and the stats given at the beginning of the topic suggest that it is, then Irish competency should be something very significant to have on your CV. I know Welshmen who are non-native speakers of Welsh who are determined to master the language to progress in their careers. Surely Irish being a "middle-class pursuit" is a good thing for the language?



Irish is something significant to have on one's CV but only if you're actually going to work with Irish. Apart from that, it's of little practical use in terms of employment prospects. The problem with Irish being a "middle-class pursuit" is that these people are all native English speakers speaking Irish with a thick Hiberno-English accent and pronunciation. Very few indeed speak Irish to the same standard as good Gaeltacht speakers or can speak it as fully and as competently as they would English. They form the majority of Irish speakers however and control the language movement as a whole.

quote:

I cannot imagine any native speaker would not pass on Irish to their children. Surely? Simple demographics should show that the language should be growing if parents pass it on to their children (assuming parents have more than two, I'm not sure what the growth rate is in Ireland).



There are many native speakers who are not speaking Irish to their children. I don't have the exact figures but you'll find a lot of information in this document: http://www.pobail.ie/ie/AnGhaeilge/Straiteis/Staid%C3%A9ar%20Cuimsitheach%20Tean geola%C3%ADoch%20ar%20%C3%9As%C3%A1id%20na%20Gaeilge%20sa%20Ghaeltacht%20(achoimre).pdf

quote:

Is the language really a disadvantage as someone wrote earlier on in the topic? I'm quite simply confused about this issue because what has been said on this topic appears contradictory to my English eyes.



No Irish is not a disadvantage but it's only really an advantage if you choose to work specifically with the language. Otherwise, nobody has to have Irish. It's not absolutely essential for living a full life in Ireland.

quote:

Nevertheless, I'm not entirely convinced a language can belong to anyone. It's an esoteric concept, not something material. Language is a tool like any other.



True, no one has the title deeds to the Irish language in their possession but surely communities which have been speaking native spoken Irish fully and competently for countless generations without a break should have more say in where the language is going than native Anglophones in the cities and towns who only speak Irish for ideological or political reasons and speak it imperfectly? In the case of almost all other languages, it is the native speakers of those languages which naturally take precedence over learners who are native speakers of some other language.

quote:

Do you honestly think that by the end of the century the language will cease to be spoken by natives and/or just exist as an academic pursuit such as Latin is now in much of Europe?



Yes if current trends continue. Irish will continue as Manx or Cornish or Esperanto does at present and will only be spoken by native Anglophone enthusiasts.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 684
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 06:20 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

>>British colonial authorities officially discouraged Irish in dealings with the state.
-------------------

A bit of propaganda there from what you call the "green knickers brigade", Carmanach. [Lucht na bhfo-éadaí uaithne?] True, the British state did not rule Ireland through Irish, but the British state spend less than 7% of GDP in the late 19th century, and much of this was on defence. Spending in Ireland by the British state was probably even less. There was little state to deal with. It was not like today where the government is half the economy, with social security, health, education and all sorts of other systems. There was almost no state in 19th century Ireland, and little need to deal with the authorities at all, in any language, for the average land farmer, who probably had dealings with his landlord and church mainly.

Given there was no need to learn English to "deal with the state", what did the advantage in learning English consist of? Irish probably survived so long as there was little advantage to a peasant, one of 16 children living on half-an-acre whether he spoke English or not. But he could move to English-speaking cities in Ireland (and to England) and try his luck. There was nothing in the way of state education until very late - what schools there were were set up by the RC Church, which insisted on English... and even after completing those schools, there was almost zero chance of going to university for the average peasant.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1057
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 06:36 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

So Corkirish, are you claiming that the British state in Ireland had no hand whatsoever in the demise of the language across the country?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Sam2000
Member
Username: Sam2000

Post Number: 5
Registered: 03-2010
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 06:59 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Thank you for the replies!

The Irish-speaking person (just the one) is from the Dingle Gaeltacht, if that is what it's called, but now lives in Dublin half of the year and Sussex, England (where I am from) for the other half. She thinks I am wasting my time. Part of the difficulty for me is the language-learning resources I have are either Standard Irish or West Munster/Cork, but the native speaker I know uses the Kerry dialect. My family are from Kerry, Dublin and Belfast and I go to Dublin reasonably regularly (twice a year) but rarely the other places, been to Belfast twice in my life and Kerry three times. My great aunt died a few months ago now and she was the last native speaker of Irish, which is what stimulated me to learn in the first place.

I didn't realise the percentage of Irish speakers even in the Gaeltacht was so low. I simply assumed that it would be higher than that. Of the Irish folk I know certainly emigration is a big factor in the decline in the speaking of the language. My grandfather was born (I think) in Tralee and does not speak any Irish and emigrated to London, my great grandfather did speak Irish but did not pass it on. My great grandmother was from Scotland and spoke Gaelic and emigrated to Northern Ireland but again, did not pass it onto my grandmother. Her family emigrated to London as missionaries (bizarrely), which is why I am now stuck in this country.

I asked my grandmother why her mother didn't speak Gaelic to her as a child was 1) my great grandfather was an Anglophone priest and 2) because Celtic languages in general were seen as being the language of the in-bred/backwards country folk. The perception was that the use of the language wouldn't be seen as "kosher" in modern society; it would be frowned upon and my great grandfather wouldn't have progressed in his ministry (he became a bishop eventually).

Sorry to bore you with bits of my family history but I guess this does agree with what you both said.

But that was a long time ago now. Since then the amount of promotion of the language has risen, whether it is working or not is a different matter but what I am failing to understand is if the stigma of the language has gone, i.e. speaking it is no longer something to me ashamed of, then why are native-speaking parents still not passing it on? I'd be furious now if either of my parents fluently spoke any language and didn't teach me. The link you sent didn't work I'm afraid but I'd be interested to read it.

I agree with you regarding who takes precedence over the language. I guess that is part of the thing which is difficult learning it is because my language skills even after years of practice will be far from perfect, even if I move to a Gaeltacht (and further dilute that percentage) and speak it daily it won't be perfect. Though in England with English the perception at the moment is that standard form of spelling and grammar is a waste of time. Which, much as I hate to say it, has a lot to do with immigration to the country.

My girlfriend (hopefully soon-to-be fiancé) speaks German (non-native) as she studies Physics with German. She gives her language skills as intermediate, so far from fluent. One of the things we are both determined about is any future children (!) are to be bilingual, preferably trilingual as we both see it as being the biggest disadvantage we had in life. I certainly haven't had a disadvantaged upbringing, but if I could change one thing about it then I would be bilingual via whatever method. The difficulty then is that if she taught German to our children and I, by some miracle, managed to learn sufficient Irish to be able to teach the basics at least to our children then they will have English accents in their foreign languages.

Which as you have been saying is part of the problem and I don't want to contribute to that. But clearly something has got to be done about it?

Do you see it as a bad thing that there are lots of Anglophone people attempting to learn the language resulting in things like the creation of Standard Irish and other corruptions of the natural form? If Anglophones become at least reasonably competent in the language and passed their version of it on to their children would that be bad, or would it be the lesser of two evils? Obviously this board exists to help Anglophones learn but for the future of the language, is it a bad thing?

Another long post...I apologise.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 685
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 07:06 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Actually, the presence of the Anglo-Irish probably did it - but yes, it is propaganda of the worst kind to say that the British state caused the demise of Irish. The British provided an English-speaking ruling class - but with minimal state structures they were not in a position to set about destroying the Irish language as such. They created an elite culture in the cities that was English-speaking (although elite culture was not participated in by more than 1% of the population).

The fact that the RC Church was staffed by bishops anxious to become part of the Anglo-Irish elite and with their own theological objections to church services and the Bible in the vernacular - was that Britain's fault?

Who stopped the grain from being exported during the famine? The Anglo-Irish (ie, Irishmen themselves).

As far as I know RC priests dined in sumptuous luxury as their parishioners were dying of famine. How many priests died in the famine? Is it zero? Why didn't they organise food distribution? Did they deny the Holy Communion to anyone who refused to co-operate with food distribution in order to save the dying?

Why does PUL in his Mo Sgéal Féin record that the priests at Maynooth laughed at him for taking interest in Irish?

Why was Gladstone passing land reform laws that the Anglo-Irish (ie, Irishmen themselves) on the ground were refusing to implement? And why does PUL in his Mo Sgéal Féin, in the very passage that mentions Michael Davitt's Land League, not mention that the landlord that Michael Davitt was organising against was the Roman Catholic Canon Burke? You would assume from his book that it must have been some absentee English landlord.

Why did Daniel O'Connell tell the Irish peasants to abandon Irish? Was he working for the English?

So much better to say that the English did it all! I think you will find you will fail in any attempt to garner detailed historical information on Ireland in the 19th century. I certainly have! It is convenient for the Irish authorities to blame everything on England, and discourage historical research into the 19th century.

It is always more comfortable to play the victim role, but the modern world has been exceptionally kind to Ireland, which has been transformed into one of the richest countries in the world. The Anglo-Irish are/were Irishmen - I am not sure how that can be denied - and nearly everyone who played a role in the demise of Irish was...IRISH. True, the Anglo-Irish were only there because of the English conquest, but to tell the truth Carmanach, no one in England gave a damn what language the Irish peasants were speaking!

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Ormondo
Member
Username: Ormondo

Post Number: 708
Registered: 04-2008
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 07:08 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

http://www.rte.ie/podcasts/2009/pc/pod-v-300509-12m02s-scealaeireann.mp3

It might be worthwhile to listen to above podcast.

There were several causes involved in the loss of the Irish language.

In the broad sweep, it is hard not to identify the lack of administration through Irish as the main underlying factor up to the independence of the 26-county part of the island, even though the aspect discussed in the podcast might have provided the decisive coup de grâce in the end insofar as it caused a reduction in the number of native speakers to a level which was below the critical mass of viability.

After 90 years of independence, however, the active and relevant issue has long since been language revival and/or the failure thereof.

Insofar, the past is irrelevant in this respect.

(Message edited by ormondo on January 14, 2011)

Is geal leis an bhfiach dubh a ghearrcach féin.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 686
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 07:10 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Sam2000, there is a textbook of Kerry Irish, An Ghaeilge by Aidan Doyle. You can buy it from litriocht.com . The book is all in Polish.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Sam2000
Member
Username: Sam2000

Post Number: 6
Registered: 03-2010
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 07:18 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

I saw the Kerry Irish textbook and I am thinking of getting it. I could probably understand more Polish at the moment than Irish because I have spent a lot of time in Slavic countries...

Thank you for the link, I'll have a look at that tomorrow morning, getting on a bit now!

(Message edited by sam2000 on January 14, 2011)

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 687
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 07:20 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Well, you may not need to actually read the book. You can just look at the word lists and the texts and go from there?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Danny2007
Member
Username: Danny2007

Post Number: 612
Registered: 12-2007


Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 07:40 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Lots of defeatism here. Show of hands...who here thinks Irish is moribund?

If you do, why bother learning the language?

I don't see why the extinction of the Gaeltacht should be viewed as an inevitability, but apparently some do view it that way.

When writing your messages, please use the same courtesy that you would show when speaking face-to-face with someone.
- Daltaí.com

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1060
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 08:11 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Corkirish, I'm not into the business of "Brit-bashing". I'm fully aware that the death of the language cannot be solely blamed on the British state nor can the famine be solely attibuted to the British state either. I'm fully aware of the role of the Vatican and its agents and abettors in the spread of English and the persecution of Irish and their collaboration with the British state - I've already said as much on this forum. Indeed, Rome ran the national schools on behalf of the British state and employed such wonderful and enlightened educational tools as "an bata scóir". One of the cleverest strokes the Vatican has ever pulled is having itself identified with "Irishness" and "Gaelicness" so that if you're not Roman Catholic, you're somehow less Irish, or a second-rate Irish person. That sort of mindset can still be found here today. I remember a woman in a pub one night claiming that Ireland is "a Catholic state". When I countered this by asking if that therefore meant that a non-Roman Catholic was therefore not a real Irish person and could not be a proper citizen, she hadn't a word to say for herself! The fact is that Rome sides with whoever will afford it the greatest gain and can cut a sharp deal with it; see Mussolini and other tin pot dictators around the world, Latin America in particular.

Your point about the Anglo-Irish being Irish and having a large share of responsibility is a valid one. Your point about grinding poverty forcing people to look to England and America and the English-speaking towns for survival and so abandoning Irish is also valid but are you claiming that the presence of the British state in Ireland - British rule here - can be completely exonerated of any responsibilty for the death of the language? Yes, the people did abandon their own language, but how did circumstances come to exist wherein the people felt that they had little choice but to do so? People don't change the language they speak on a whim! Even less so entire communities and a whole country. As I say, I don't believe in Anglophobia but moving on from the past means acknowledging what happened in the past and accepting it, does it not?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Remember
Member
Username: Remember

Post Number: 9
Registered: 06-2010
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 08:19 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Sam2000,

If you do go ahead and try to raise your future child in a trilingual environment be reassured that, as long as you make sure that you and your girlfriend aren't the only points of reference, he or she will most likely have no problems picking up more standard accents. How many people have made great efforts to talk to their children in their best English only to be horrified/ amused to hear them suddenly start speaking exactly like that unruly child next-door or like some meth-addled American teenager (let's face it, the Highschool Musical bunch obviously are).


I don't see why people are hung up on this issue of people speaking Irish with an Anglophone accent. Who cares? Maybe it's nice to aim for an idealised accent and be able to "pass for a native" but really, trying to halt the development of non-gaeltacht accents would be like telling everyone outside of Oxford that they don't speak English properly. One might not care to copy the accent of a non-native speaker, but once that accent becomes that of native speakers it's simple snobbery to treat it as inferior.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1061
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 08:22 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

I don't see why the extinction of the Gaeltacht should be viewed as an inevitability, but apparently some do view it that way.



"The unambiguous conclusion of the survey on young people is that, without a major change to language-use patterns, Irish is unlikely to remain the predominant community and family language in those areas with the most widespread and inclusive Irish-speaking networks (i.e. Category A Gaeltacht districts) for more than another fifteen to twenty years. By the time the young people surveyed for this study become parents, the networks of active speakers will not be widespread enough to reproduce another generation of Irish speakers unless a supportive sociolinguistic environment can be established in the interim. The medium-term prognosis for Gaeltacht districts in Category A is that there will be little difference in the future between their sociolinguistic profiles and the current sociolinguistic profiles of Categories B and C. In other words, Category A Gaeltacht districts will become language communities based on social networks, rather than a language community in which Irish is the main family and community language; the networks based on Irish will relate to the oldest age cohorts of the community, to a limited number of families raising their children through the medium of Irish and to educational and other community institutions."

http://www.pobail.ie/en/AnGhaeltacht/LinguisticStudyoftheGaeltacht/file,8677,en. pdf

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1062
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 08:38 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

How many people have made great efforts to talk to their children in their best English only to be horrified/ amused to hear them suddenly start speaking exactly like that unruly child next-door or like some meth-addled American teenager (let's face it, the Highschool Musical bunch obviously are).



It really is heartwarming to hear such profuse respect and tolerance for how other native English speakers speak their own native tongue. The obligatory Yank-bashing too is just what we need in this dicussion.

quote:

I don't see why people are hung up on this issue of people speaking Irish with an Anglophone accent. Who cares? Maybe it's nice to aim for an idealised accent and be able to "pass for a native" but really, trying to halt the development of non-gaeltacht accents would be like telling everyone outside of Oxford that they don't speak English properly. One might not care to copy the accent of a non-native speaker, but once that accent becomes that of native speakers it's simple snobbery to treat it as inferior.



[sigh . . .] What is with the people on this forum?! The people both in Oxford and outside of Oxford are all MOTHER TONGUE ENGLISH SPEAKERS SPEAKING NATIVE ENGLISH. THE NATIVE LANGUAGE OF THE INHABITANTS OF RANELAGH AND RATHFARNHAM IS HIBERNO-ENGLISH NOT IRISH. I mean, is it really that difficult for people to get their heads around? The only snobbery going on here is this ludicrous notion that Irish spoken with English phonology by native Anglophones should be placed on the same level of acceptability as Irish spoken with indigenous Irish phonology. That is the height of arrogance. And how on earth could a non-native accent become that of native speakers? What are you on about?

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Remember
Member
Username: Remember

Post Number: 10
Registered: 06-2010
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 02:12 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

It really is heartwarming to hear such profuse respect and tolerance for how other native English speakers speak their own native tongue. The obligatory Yank-bashing too is just what we need in this discussion.

Hold that thought, then re-read the second part of the post. The example I took is perfectly apt and a simple fact of life - most Irish children have far more exposure to American accents than say, South African accents. Excuse the small measure of levity in what is apparently a VERY SERIOUS DISCUSSION.


What is with the people on this forum?! The people both in Oxford and outside of Oxford are all MOTHER TONGUE ENGLISH SPEAKERS SPEAKING NATIVE ENGLISH.

As are the accents of though who were raised speaking Irish by their non-native parents.
THE NATIVE LANGUAGE OF THE INHABITANTS OF RANELAGH AND RATHFARNHAM IS HIBERNO-ENGLISH NOT IRISH.
I mean, is it really that difficult for people to get their heads around? It certainly is, but the way Irish people speak English has been and is affected by the the fact that, once upon a time, Irish people learned English as a second language. Or have I been misreading my history books as this time?



The only snobbery going on here is this ludicrous notion that Irish spoken with English phonology by native Anglophones should be placed on the same level of acceptability as Irish spoken with indigenous Irish phonology. That is the height of arrogance. And how on earth could a non-native accent become that of native speakers? What are you on about?

I'm "on about" is when non-natives learn, in significant numbers, a language and pass that language onto their children, the effect is that traces of that accent remain, even in what is later considered a native speaking population. The same thing has happened in many countries which have significant Anglophone populations. If ever the number of native Irish native speakers increases, it won't be a case of the residents of the Gaeltachtai somehow out-breeding the Anglophones, it will be through the efforts of English speakers in learning a language and passing it on to their children. Demonising their "non-native" accent is pointless, because, if the language is to survive, it will doubtless incorporate some elements of English phonology.

My example of Oxford English is simply to illustrate that the standards for a "good" accent are necessarily arbitrary. Like saying that the only Americans who speak proper Englsih are those whose descendants came from England

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 694
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 02:25 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Personally, I deplore bad English. Of course, I know that much of what I regard as bad English is "native" English, but it reflects a complete abandonment of standards.

quote:

Like saying that the only Americans who speak proper Englsih are those whose descendants came from England



The only Americans who speak proper English are those who know it was their ANCESTORS who came from England, and not their descendants.

I refuse to engage in any way with native speakers of English with poor linguistic standards. I spent years as an English language subeditor, so I can hardly be expected to take part in the linguistic race to the bottom. So I can't answer any more of Remember's posts.

A brilliant article about why "dumbing down" matters can be found at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1225885/QUENTIN-LETTS-Its-time-rise-re volt-dumbed-Britain.html .

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Remember
Member
Username: Remember

Post Number: 11
Registered: 06-2010
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 04:32 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

What can I say, once you see "Englsih" you should stop reading. Although refusing to "engage" with me for a slip of the fingers is rather childish and reveals a lack of decent arguments with which to respond.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Paploo
Member
Username: Paploo

Post Number: 109
Registered: 06-2009
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 09:45 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post



(Message edited by paploo on January 15, 2011)

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Sam2000
Member
Username: Sam2000

Post Number: 8
Registered: 03-2010
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 07:57 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Thank you for the paper Carmanach, I'll give it a read post-exams and dissertation hand in (February cannot come fast enough).

I really dislike Quentin Letts and most stuff published in the Daily Mail. What irritates me is when people forget how English evolved as a language. The language is a complete mess and I love it because of that. People start complaining that we are using words in new ways (e.g. gay for homosexual, wicked for cool etc.) and new words getting introduced to the language when the biggest culprit for doing this was Shakespeare who had a tendency to invent words, much like rappers do now. Why is it okay if it happened in the past but not okay if it happens now?

What annoys me most about this article is that Letts pulls out all the stops with his vocabulary so he can come across as the paradigm of the English language. Compare it to some of his other articles where he is decidedly less flowery.

I don't like slouthenly speech. My mum teaches elocution for children of the nouveau-riche who pay her to tell them not to drop their t's and learn how to pronounce a th.

Using English as an analogy where we have had influence from everywhere...Celtic, German, Scandinavian...French and even Spanish and African languages. In more recent years we can add Slavic and Asian tongues. An Asian emigrant to Britain who speaks English as a second, probably a third language but teaches his children English as their first language and his children learn English in school, off the box etc. but still speak with an Asian accent. Is that okay? Or more to the point, is it their native tongue? Do they get a say about English grammar? Can their accent or dialect be put on a par with David Cameron's?

Likewise with folk such as John Sentamu, Archbishop of York and Yorkshireman of the Year, who speak with an African accent. I'm not sure what his mother tongue is but his medium of study at university in Uganda was English.

The only reason English exists as a language and why it is so dissimilar to anything else, even Frisian, is that it has incorporated numerous other languages and accents etc. from quite literally all over the world. I'll bet even Native American languages have had at least some influence on American English, they certainly have in place names and states.

If it is okay for it to happen to English then can the same be said for Irish? If Anglophone parents both learnt Irish and taught it to their children as their mother tongue but their children still spoke with an Anglophone accent (even just a slight one) then can it still be called their native?

On my fathers side English has been the mother tongue for approximately five generations (before that it was a combination of Norwegian, French and Faroese). On my mothers side it is only two. I am a native speaker...I sound pretty English but with a somewhat strange accent that changes depending on who I speak to. At what time did it become my families native tongue? Since it is my native tongue but I'm only a third generation speaker (on my mothers side) with a slight Irish and Yorkshire accent can I be put on the same level as someone who has lived in England for a lot longer than my family has? An American whose family has been there for 400 years and has been speaking English longer than my family has do they have more or less of a right than me?

English was under threat and it may even have become extinct after the conquest of the Normans who introduced French as the language of the aristocracy. The reason it survived but severely changed is because we ended up moving away from our Saxon to incorporating millions of Romance words. If we didn't, English would have died out. With regards to Irish is it a lesser of two evils to perhaps accept and allow the fact that it will change as has happened with English (and continues to do so)?

When you say that the only Americans who speak proper English are those who KNOW that their ancestors came from England do you mean to say that those who know they have Russian heritage don't speak it properly? Or that those who are ignorant of their heritage can speak it properly, even if they are in reality Ukrainian-Navajo? I had a friend from Australia stay for a few days who is second-generation Australian with Dutch ancestry. Does she speak it properly? She is certainly well-spoken and educated and doesn't speak a lot of Dutch.

The above doesn't necessarily reflect my own opinions. I just come at it as a linguistics enthusiast who wants to learn.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Taidhgín
Member
Username: Taidhgín

Post Number: 1144
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 09:00 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

this ludicrous notion that Irish spoken with English phonology by native Anglophones should be placed on the same level of acceptability as Irish spoken with indigenous Irish phonology.

Who is claiming that? Not me. Not anyone who "knows" Irish.

quote:

Irish spoken with indigenous Irish phonology.

Surely Irish indigenous phonology (which I take to mean good pronunciation - and idiom) is the ultimate objective of everyone who is trying to learn Irish. That is why we go to the Gaeltacht as often as possible, listen to Radio na Gaeltachta, come here to this nice friendly Irish-language forum, Daltai, and so on. That is why we, and the 26 County Government, allow tax-payer's money be spent on preserving the Gaeltacht and encouraging the use of Irish there. We even accord Irish such status that we pay to have all Acts of Parliament translated to Irish. They seem to have lapsed occasionally there however and may now be playing catch-up.

I find myself wondering whether the argumentative device used by the "new controllers" of the other animals' lives in George Orwell's famous book, "Animal Farm," is not in use here -- perhaps due to the inevitable misunderstandings that can arise on a forum such as this -- "Do you want Farmer Jones (?) to come back?" The unhappy animals had no choice but to respond "No, but ..." to which their tormentors reply "Well, then, obey us."

I will admit that I do not like the unnecessarily confrontational style of argument used here by one contributor but I know also that when the last native-speaker of Irish in the various Gaeltacht areas of today follows Anraí de Bláca, Cill Bheathach, Co Clare; Johnny McAleer, Tyrone, Seán Éamuinn Ruaidhrí Mhag Uidhir, Legnagrow, Glangevlin, Co Cavan, and so many other "last native speakers of Irish" into their eternal reward, there will still be Irish spoken by semi-native speakers, neo-native speakers, wannabe-native speakers, gaelscoilis-speakers, learners at all levels, and other enthusiasts.

Two points I would like to make before leaving this discussion:
Point 1:
Reducing the status of Irish from a compulsory Leaving Certificat subject and/or a subject required for entry to third-level colleges will deal a fatal blow to the learning of Irish. Even Gaeltacht people will have the existing message reinforced: concentrate on English.

It will reduce the number of jobs available to Irish-speakers. It will reduce the availability of Irish as a subject in schools and in large areas of the country. It will reduce the income of the Gaeltacht colleges industry and remove the small home-earnings of so many of the best Gaeltacht families who try to keep Irish going as a living language, the mothers especially. It will reduce the popularity of Irish-medium schools. It will affect the publication of books and the provision of Radio and Television in Irish. It will be a disaster for everyone who likes - uses - speaks - reads - writes - translates - wants to hear - wants to learn - Irish. To use the image beloved of oponents of the promotion of Irish "we will be flogging a dead horse."

Point 2:
Money will not be saved. The time formerly allocated to Irish will be allocated to other subjects many of which are much more expensive to teach than Irish, the sciences and the practical subjects especially. Even those schools that decide to offer it will be forced to reduce the time allocated to Irish in order to compete with the "better" schools who give more time to other subjects.

Years ago when that additional tax on the poor and unwary, The Lotto, was introduced, supposedly to provide funding for the Irish language among other things, Government departments simply hived off their Irish language commitments to the Lotto and left the language at the mercy of people's desire to gamble.

Even if there were money available from the change it would not be spent on the aim of re-creating monoglot Irish-speakers. That is not something the Gaeltacht people want. They have too much experience of emigration. Professor Máirtín Ó Murchú introduced the idea of Diglossia or Débhéascna to us long ago. It means stable bilingualism as opposed to transitional bilingualism. I think that is the best that can be hoped for in the Category A Gaeltacht areas. It would be wonderful if the other categories could be persuaded, with support, to rise to that level over time.

It would be even more wonderful if the Government could lend a hand in establishing satelite Gaeltachtaí in more prosperous areas of the country, each with its own dialect by all means. They did it once in Rath Cairn, Baile Gib, and other unrecognised areas. There are people trying to do it themselves in Belfast Gaeltacht Quarter and I don't know if the Gleann Maghair project in Cork was successful.

I hope Fine Gael and whoever else puts them in power will have a change of heart and strengthen the position of Irish in education and in all areas where the Government has influence.

(Message edited by taidhgín on January 16, 2011)

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1073
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 11:29 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

It certainly is, but the way Irish people speak English has been and is affected by the the fact that, once upon a time, Irish people learned English as a second language. Or have I been misreading my history books as this time?



Yes, but the phonology of the English spoken in modern day Ranelagh and Rathfarnham bears little similarity indeed to native Irish phonology. That's also the situation over most of Ireland. That is why native Anglophone learners of Irish often cannot - and often will not because of the mindset that all Irish people are native Irish speakers purely by being born here anyway - pronounce Irish properly, can't differentiate slender from broad consonants, cannot say /x/, can't pronounce the Irish r's, cannot or will not pronounce /ɣ/ etc. etc. etc. I believe that most learners of Irish have not studied the phonology of any of the dialects in the Gaeltacht and are therefore rather ignorant of them. Go off and read a book like the Irish of Cois Fhairrge, Co Galway or The Irish of West Muskerry and then listen to real life examples in the Gaeltacht - compare what you find there with the sound system of the typical inhabitant of Santry or Swords or Stillorgan.

quote:

The same thing has happened in many countries which have significant Anglophone populations.



Can you give us some examples? You don't seriously believe that the miniscule number of daily Irish speakers in the Galltacht will lead in the future to it being more than just the hobby languge that it is at present? Remember we've had over ninety years to "revive" the language in the Galltacht. How far have we gotten exactly in those ninety years? You might have some point in what you say about non-native phonology becoming the new native phonology if there were ever a possibility that Irish could be revived as a community language but is that any more possible now than it was ninety years ago?

quote:

Demonising their "non-native" accent is pointless, because, if the language is to survive, it will doubtless incorporate some elements of English phonology.



But what's the point of speaking Irish with English language phonology? Why not just speak English instead? As for the language surviving, that train left town a long time ago. The report on the state of the Gaeltacht makes for sobering reading indeed. Since all of the native speakers of Irish are in the Gaeltacht and the Gaeltacht is dying, that means that the language itself is dying as a native spoken community language. "Community" is one of those words that is much abused. We often hear about the "Irish language community" in Dublin for example in reference to private individuals - all native English speakers - from widely scattered locations speaking Irish as a pastime, myself included. The Gaeltacht is the only place left where Irish is not a hobby or a political ideology but a normal everyday language. However noble the study of Irish by learners is, it is native speaker communities that keep languages alive.

quote:

My example of Oxford English is simply to illustrate that the standards for a "good" accent are necessarily arbitrary. Like saying that the only Americans who speak proper Englsih are those whose descendants came from England



As I've said countless times before, comparing standard and non-standard varieties of native spoken English to the Irish of L1 vs L2 speakers and expecting some sort of equivalence in value is a futile exercise.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1074
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 11:42 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

Personally, I deplore bad English. Of course, I know that much of what I regard as bad English is "native" English, but it reflects a complete abandonment of standards.



What I deplore is the labelling of non-standard native English as "bad". That sort of class snobbery has nothing to do with science.

quote:

A brilliant article about why "dumbing down" matters can be found at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1225885/QUENTIN-LETTS-Its-time-rise-re volt-dumbed-Britain.html .



Again, the ordinary man in the street can't speak his own native language and can be sneered at by the élite. The ignorant grunts that make up the common herd cannot be left to their own devices and must be spoken down to by their betters. Give me a break, please!

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1075
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 12:13 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

Thank you for the paper Carmanach, I'll give it a read post-exams and dissertation hand in (February cannot come fast enough).



That was Corkirish, not me. You won't find me reading the Daily Mail!

quote:

If it is okay for it to happen to English then can the same be said for Irish? If Anglophone parents both learnt Irish and taught it to their children as their mother tongue but their children still spoke with an Anglophone accent (even just a slight one) then can it still be called their native?



You might have a point if stable communities of neo-natives were established outside of the Gaeltacht and that neo-native English-influenced Irish were allowed to develop into a language that could be used to communicate fully and competently with other members of the same community, but the simple fact of the matter is that such communities have never been formed and such a language could not evolve naturally because at present non-native Irish speakers are private individuals who speak Irish with other non-native enthusiasts in social networks in widely scattered localities. English is the dominant language of the society in which they have grown up and the Irish they speak is not their mother tongue and their own knowledge of it is for most learners much less than that of their mother English. If they raise children together, the language they pass on to their neo-native children will be deficient in many respects and without a community around it to evolve naturally will remain stunted in its development. The sort of Irish spoken by non-natives and neo-natives alike in Dublin, for example, simply lacks most of the vocaulary and idioms to express the full range of human experience. Very few learners and neo-natives indeed can express themselves as fully as they can in English.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1076
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 01:00 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

Who is claiming that? Not me. Not anyone who "knows" Irish.



So, you're now doing a complete u-turn, Taidhgín. Out the window goes everything you've been bleating on about here endlessly these past few months. What's this, a new strategy of yours or something? Interesting. So will we be seeing you beating some other dead horse from now on?

quote:

Surely Irish indigenous phonology (which I take to mean good pronunciation - and idiom) is the ultimate objective of everyone who is trying to learn Irish.



Well, yes, you would think so, wouldn't you? But that's not what's happening. Most learners in the Galltacht either cannot pronounce Irish using indigenous phonology or openly refuse to do so: "I'm not from the Gwayl-tocked! Why should I have to talk like them!! How dare you say my Irish is not as good as that of Ross Muck or Doon Queen or Gee Dore!!! You absolute cad, you!! You're a bigot, so you are and I'm gonna tell my mammy on you, so there!!! Boo hoo hoo!!" etc etc etc

quote:

I will admit that I do not like the unnecessarily confrontational style of argument used here by one contributor



. . . and I really dislike being compared to a nasty little bigot like Mary Ellen Synon or being told that the Irish I speak or write is "gibberish from God know's where". I have not resorted to ad hominem slurs on others when I'm not getting my own way in the discussion.

quote:

It will reduce the number of jobs available to Irish-speakers. It will reduce the availability of Irish as a subject in schools and in large areas of the country. It will reduce the income of the Gaeltacht colleges industry and remove the small home-earnings of so many of the best Gaeltacht families who try to keep Irish going as a living language, the mothers especially. It will reduce the popularity of Irish-medium schools. It will affect the publication of books and the provision of Radio and Television in Irish. It will be a disaster for everyone who likes - uses - speaks - reads - writes - translates - wants to hear - wants to learn - Irish. To use the image beloved of oponents of the promotion of Irish "we will be flogging a dead horse."



You forgot to mention that giant balls of fire will rain down from the heavens above on top of all our heads, that the seas shall boil away and that the land shall be left void and lifeless.

quote:

I think that is the best that can be hoped for in the Category A Gaeltacht areas. It would be wonderful if the other categories could be persuaded, with support, to rise to that level over time.



Er, that's already happening in those areas with the logical result that Irish eventually disappears. There's nothing "stable" about bilingualism.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Taidhgín
Member
Username: Taidhgín

Post Number: 1145
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 01:54 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

There is obviously no point in my discussing anything with you, a Charmanaigh. My point has always been that there is a continuum or a spectrum of spoken Irish ranging from good (monoglot native-speaker Irish) down to that of the absolute beginner. It never would have occurred to me that anyone would think otherwise. It is self-evident. It would not need labouring were it not that you have a thing about those of us who have learnt Irish and imagine that all of us are at the same level. Obviously, we are not. Despite your recognising that there are no longer any monoglot speakers left in the Gaeltacht and that it is in terminal decline you seem to resent the fact that within and outside the Gaeltacht there are learners of varying degrees of fluency. I have no desire to argue further. Fágaim slán agus beannacht agat féin agus ag comhluadar Daltaí.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Guevara
Member
Username: Guevara

Post Number: 102
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 02:53 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Carmanach refers to native English speakers - from widely scattered locations speaking Irish as a pastime.

Well most of us here are learners of Irish however within this group some of us actually want to speak Irish as our daily first language rather than a pastime something I achieved when securing a bilingual English /Irish job and half of my friends are Irisk speakers.I have made Irish my joint first language in the Galltacht. Others have done the same in Dublin and other cities and Dublin has over 200 Irish speaking families so that to me would constitute an Irish language community not an Irish speaking community.



Regarding neo native communities never being formed West Belfast certainly has a stable community of neo native Irish speakers indeed many families are three generations Irish speaking from granny to grandchild so your statement that they have never been formed therefore is incorrect.

As Taidhgín has pointed out we all have different levels of Irish and I would not belittle any Galltacht Irish speakers Irish on the basis of Irish phonology and idiom or lack of but praise their dedication.

The main problem for the Irish language as I see it is people in the Galltacht who are happy to have learnt Irish and yet who see Irish as a hobby rather then a modern everyday language, to be spoken only in the Gaeltacht on their weekend/week stays and courses and then they go home and speak little Irish until the next trip and wonder why their Irish has not improved.I've seen this with my own Irish class. Lazy Irish speakers are as much a hindrance to the spread of the Irish language as Gaeilge bashing anglophones imo.

(Message edited by Guevara on January 16, 2011)

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 700
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 03:46 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

I have made Irish my joint first language in the Galltacht.



Guevara, there is no such thing as a "joint first language" I'm afraid. You will be a first-language speaker of Sacs-Bhéarla all your life! You don't get to change your first language later in life!

quote:

Regarding neo native communities never being formed West Belfast certainly has a stable community of neo native Irish speakers indeed many families are three generations Irish speaking from granny to grandchild so your statement that they have never been formed therefore is incorrect.



No one is saying there are no neo-natives in West Belfast. That there is a small community of neo-natives is remarkable - a testament to their enthusiasm - but logically it would be unlikely that their language was the same as a Gaeltacht dialect of Irish. I don't know how much research has been done into the Irish of the Shaws Road, but comments on the Internet by people whose knowledge has been garnered from who knows where imply that the copula has been dropped by the youngest generation there etc.

I am not in favour of communities of neo-natives for this reason. You could ask, "well, how will Irish be revived otherwise?" Good point, but Irish will never be the language of the whole of Ireland again. To the extent that the Irish language is spread, it should be done by native speakers. All TG4 and RnG presenters should be Gaeltacht native speakers, and the same for Raidió Lífe and any others. All journalists on all Irish language newspapers should be native speakers (recalling my bad experience with Gaelscéal, which employs weak writers of the language). And all teachers in Gaelscoileanna and Gaeltacht schools should be Gaeltacht native speakers too. To the extent that the language is propagated and begins to spread out slightly, it ought to be done solely by Gaeltacht native speakers. That way, neo-natives would at least be basing themselves on strong role models. But that is not the case nowadays. Dans le royaume des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois! [I ríocht na ndall, na daoine ar leathshúil atá 'na ríthibh!]

quote:

As Taidhgín has pointed out we all have different levels of Irish and I would not belittle any Galltacht Irish speakers Irish on the basis of Irish phonology and idiom or lack of but praise their dedication.



Why does the point need to be made over and over again, neither Carmanach nor anyone else is belittling learners. He does in fact praise their dedication, I believe - as long as they are dedicated to imitating native Irish.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1081
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 03:59 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

Why does the point need to be made over and over again, neither Carmanach nor anyone else is belittling learners. He does in fact praise their dedication, I believe - as long as they are dedicated to imitating native Irish.



Precisely. Thank you, Corkirish.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 704
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 04:30 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

I am delighted by the fact that we, as a forum, can agree to disagree on controversial matters, and still help each other learn Irish! We are keeping our eyes on the main reason for Daltaí.

I have modernised 10 of the 35 chapters of Niamh I have done into the Muskerry house style, so I will eventually be coming back with more queries on Niamh - and hope forum members will be around to help with that!

So if there are fewer meater queries to deal with, it could be that controversy reins! So we need people to post more real queries on Irish. Please, people, post your questions!

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Aonghus
Member
Username: Aonghus

Post Number: 11197
Registered: 08-2004


Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 04:52 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

controversy reins



Cry Havoc, and let slips the dogs of War...

quote:

Please, people, post your questions!



Seconded.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Carmanach
Member
Username: Carmanach

Post Number: 1082
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 05:06 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

quote:

So if there are fewer meater queries to deal with, it could be that controversy reins! So we need people to post more real queries on Irish. Please, people, post your questions!



I agree. I think it's sad though that we all seem to be going around in circles month after month arguing over the same old things that don't really have any connection with learning the nuts and bolts of the language itself. I would rather spend my time helping people with questions about grammar, vocabulary and dialectal forms. That's why I joined this forum. That's how I see it anyway.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Rob (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
Posted From:
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 09:45 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Dia dhaoibh, a chairde,

Corkirish, Aonghus and Carmanach have touched on something so, *so* important at the end of what has been another pretty frustrating and off-putting thread of discussion. I'm not sure if you all realise how many learners are put off by Daltai.com for this very reason, and I'm speaking with the authority of someone who has heard learners from Ireland, continental Europe and Australia all saying the same thing - they often find this forum unpleasant and unwelcoming. And it's sad because I'm sure you are all decent folk, and I know you all wish to lend your time and expertise.

If I see this site becoming a place where learners can discuss things without fear of negotiating massive threads of often-unfriendly discussion, or of being attacked by people taking your own comments on wild tangents (which happened to me several times here before I myself gave up), I'll rejoin immediately.

I have lots of questions for you all! :D

Beir bua,
Rob :)

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Corkirish
Member
Username: Corkirish

Post Number: 705
Registered: 10-2010
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 10:17 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Rob, you commented at length that you find Daltaí unfriendly and said you have lots of questions, BUT YOU DID NOT POST ANY OF THOSE QUESTIONS.

People posting, claiming to have lots of good grammatical questions to post, amach anso, at some time in the future, if and when we become good boys and girls and stop posting on controversial issues, while taking the time to attack us - what are they doing other than prolonging the controversy and, in fact, trolling?

There are some good controversial issues surrounding Irish that are, for sure, of intense interest to everyone here, and I wouldn't like all comment on them to be banned. Living in free societies, we should be open to the idea that others disagree with us and will continue to do so. A certain amount of controversy, conducted politely, is good. But by the same token, all the controversial subjects have been done to death.

Rob, if you have good linguistic questions, post them. I cannot claim to be an expert on Irish, but I would certainly reply if it were within my capabilities of doing so.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Caoimhín
Board Administrator
Username: Caoimhín

Post Number: 185
Registered: 01-1999


Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 10:22 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit PostPrint Post

Attack? Trolling? Hardly.

Caoimhín

Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam.



©Daltaí na Gaeilge