Irish.

[Parallo]

The Irish language. A simple Celtic language. Is it useless as a communication skill? Should it be thought in schools in Ireland? I think so. Why, I hear you ask.
Well I live in the Gealtacht. I use it to communicate every day.

Well now for the why nots as there is at least one other Irish person here that I know won't agree with me. emeraldfool, the floor is yours.

[Kemelud]

If it has been a significant language in irelands history, then sure. go for it. Yay National Pride!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Parallo]

It sure was! There was a time before Anglicisation when the only tongue spoken was Irish.

[emeraldfool]

It sure was! There was a time before Anglicisation when the only tongue spoken was Irish.

That doesn't necessarily make it any more relevant for our modern culture. A lot of people spoke Latin at a time when their culture was being formed, but once it died out their culture persisted as strong as ever. How many Italians speak Latin as a first language? Very few, anyway, but you can't say they're any less patriotic.

The thing about Irish is it isn't even as relevant as Latin or Greek or anything else. Even in Ireland, there's very few manuscripts written in Gaelic because we were mostly illiterate, so it's not like you'll need to be fluent to be a historian or study Irish history (most of the important stuff is written in Latin from the English's perspective, anyway).
The ONLY reason we keep it around is because the government is too afraid to let go of the past.
Being Irish isn't a conditional response to knowing how to confuse tourists with a weird language. Being Irish is about seeing the humour in any situation, and making sure others do too. 


(Hehe, a debate thread just for me... I feel special...)

[Parallo]

You think its good that Latin has died? Are you one of the people that find Shakespeare boring as well? Should the people that do speak Irish stop and learn English just to keep up with 'the times?'
By the way, I'm in no way refering to nationalism. I can't stand the idea that someone might think that one country is better than another... just because. It is in my view almost as bad as racism. Anyway back to the topic.

I know a few people that only speak Irish, nothing else. I appreciate Irish as a language because its our past. Why should we let it go? From the way your speaking its as though you don't want your cultural identity.

[Idoru]

My personal opinion is that if you lose your native language you are also losing a large part of your cultural history.

It does make me wonder whether you are both from Eire? Or is one of you from northern Ireland? Also, are you both from Catholic families? or are you Protestant

I only ask these questions because im well aware that many Cahtolic families from northern Ireland send their children to summer schools in Eire to learn Gaelic. The answers would help in people understanding your points of view.

[Parallo]

I'm from an atheist family in Donegal. In the past the family was catholic but that faded with time. Donegal, although in the north of the country, is according to political borders in the 'south.' Glad to see your interest by the way.

[Eagel]

I agree with Idoru... about losing your native language.
Here in Argentina, when the Spanish colonized this territory there were many tribes of natives, like: Quechuas, Diaguitas, Mocovies, Tehuelches..(if I remember well its about 28 different tribes)
All of them massacred by spanish people...
Today there are little communities that preserves their own languages and habits and they are respected (well,  :oops:sometimes not). Although they speaks spanish because they are Argentinians.

And Parallo, let me say that Saint Patrick School in Argentina has a very very very good Irish school dance, and they won the contest in the last Communities' Fair (a Fair every year with communities about all the world: Irish, Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, Irak, Iran, Serbia, Greek, Italy).
I liked very much the dances and the music... 

Why this fair in Argentina? Because here are many immigrants. My ancestor were from Italy.

[Parallo]

The music? Oh the music is nothing unless its live. I'm lucky enough to have the world Ullian pipes player as a neighbour. The differences county to county in the music is amazing too. The music looses something unless its played live in a noisy pub.

[Xordan]

I don't know if it's the same situation as Welsh, but in Wales kids are forced to learn it, most don't actually learn it and hate it. Everything is becoming pro-welsh (forced by the local government.. and it feels forced) and it's a load of crap It doesn't help that a good chunk of welsh is English because the language didn't keep up with the times, so it's a bit obsolete now.

[Idoru]

Personally I think its silly how its forced on kids, it  should be taken as an extra language if they want to do it. But I also think that should be the case in Northern Ireland, they cant learn it in schools so they have to go to summer schools if they want to. If your parents speak it you will have picked it up alongside english but it seems that  isnt enough for the assembly in Wales. which I think is the problem, you get extremely nationalist assembly members elected and they think its a great idea to force it on the kids while at school.

[bilbous]

I am just wondering how much difference there is between Irish and Scottish dialects of Gaelic and is Welsh something else entirely or is it related? In Canada there is a fair bit of Scottish and Irish tradition and a Gaelic College in Cape Breton N.S (St. Annes I think) which hosts a festival every year. Also there is a largish Highland Games in Maxville Ont. every year.

[Idoru]

The Irish version and Scottish version are similar but still different, the Welsh version and Cornish versions are even more different. When I say similar im meaning the way that french and english are similar

[bilbous]

I'm not sure I follow. English and French are not very similar as the structure of sentences are quite different and there is no concept of masculine or feminine nouns or verbs requiring different modifiers. Perhaps a better comparison would be between various romance languages or germanic ones. I am not a linguist and am mostly unfamilliar with other languages than English but I would think the differences between the Gaelic variants would be more similar to Spanish<->Portuguese or Austrian<->German<->Dutch or even Latin<->Italian

[Parallo]

Its similar in the way Dutch and German are similar. In retrospect I don't think Religion has a lot to do with the language as Douglas Hyde(1869-1949), The foremost figure of de-anglicisation, was a member of the Church OF Ireland(The localised Church of England.) He was in fact the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman. Here is a quote of his lecture to the National Literary Society:

Every Irish-feeling Irishman... should set himself to encourage the efforts which are being made to keep our once great national tongue. The losing of it is our greatest blow, and the sorest stroke that the rapid anglicisation has inflicted upon us.