*There is an ongoing discussion on Politics.ie about this topic. I thought some here on ILF might find it interesting. Feel free to include your own proposals. I personally think some of the 'disengagement' proposals, if widely broadcast to the general Irish population, might stir up some feelings which could lead to a mini-resurgence for the language in Ireland...due to the idea of Irish losing status. If the language is to grow, fluent speakers must be created from within the Anglophone majority...*///


Isn't it well past time that there was a national conversation on the place that the Irish language should occupy in Irish national life? Although Irish can stir up feelings of excitement, patriotism and cultural pride, it can also cause feelings of resentment, alienation and, above all...indifference!

What role should Irish play in the education system? What services should be available to Irish-speaking citizens without exception? How should official bilingualism operate in practice? Should Irish retain its current status as the "national language" in the Constitution? Is too much spent on Irish by the government? Too little?

Below, I propose five fairly radical steps for language revitalisation in the Irish context, followed by five steps for official DISENGAGEMENT. If most people are content to let Irish fade away, then the government should act and stop the pretense about caring for Irish. It should do this by taking definitive action pertaining to the role of Irish in the State. Enough with the tokenism and the ideology of the cúpla focal.

If, on the other hand, there is widespread enthusiasm for genuine revitalisation and official bilingualism worthy of the name, the government should act decisively while there is still time...

Numerous studies published over the past decade provide conclusive evidence that Irish is under immense pressure as a native/first language passed on from generation to generation, with a chance that Irish may cease to be the main language of communication in all Gaeltacht districts within 10-15 years. This is not the same as language death (Irish is not endangered in the since of possibly losing all fluent Irish speakers and Irish-speaking households), but what is at stake are the communities needed to sustain a language indefinitely.

There is too much apathy and government inertia on this topic...it's time for a truly national dialogue on the issue of Irish and its place in the country.

5 Steps of State Disengagement from the Irish Language:


English as sole official language

- Government to propose an amendment to Article 8 of the Constitution and the removal of the following text:

1. The Irish language as the national language is the first official language.
2. The English language is recognised as a second official language.

[8.1 Ós í an Ghaeilge an teanga náisiúnta is í an phríomhtheanga oifigiúil í.
8.2 Glactar leis an Sacs-Bhéarla mar theanga oifigiúil eile.]

Replace with something along the lines of

8.1 The English language is the official language of the State.
8.2 The Irish language has equal status with English within geographically defined parts of the State which are designated bilingual (i.e. the Gaeltacht)

Make the study of Irish optional after the Junior Cert

- Remove the ‘compulsory’ status of Irish within the education system: henceforth the study of Irish shall be optional after the Junior Certficate.

Redraw the current boundaries of the Gaeltacht

- Re-define the Gaeltacht and redraw its boundaries. Any Electoral Division where less than 50% of residents speak Irish habitually/daily (as per the most recent Census data) shall lose Gaeltacht status permanently, by Ministerial Order.

Remove Irish as an official language of the European Union

- Initiate the process whereby the Irish State formally seeks to undue the status of Irish as an official language of the European Union. Encourage Irish language translators and interpreters to return to Ireland to seek employment in the remaining Gaeltacht districts.

Abolish the office of An Coimisinéir Teanga

- Abolish the office of An Coimisinéir Teanga and end funding for cross-border projects linked with Foras na Gaeilge.



5 Steps to Revitalise Irish

- Establish a stand-alone Department of the Gaeltacht within three months (but with considerably more funding than the Dept. that existed from 1956 to 1993). Require that all Ministers of this Department are fluently bilingual, without exception.

- Establish a stand-alone Department of Irish within three months. Require that all Ministers of this Department are fluently bilingual, without exception.

- Establish “Intensive Language Education Centres” on Inis Meáin, Oileán Thoraí and An Blascaod Mór (staffed by teachers from mainland villages such as Dún Chaoin and Baile na nGall). These centres would be where non-fluent civil servants based in the Gaeltacht would be required to go for six consecutive months in order to achieve full fluency in Irish. At the conclusion of the six month course, individuals would take the Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge (a certification exam endorsed by the Council of Europe). Those who fail to achieve a pass grade for Ardleibhéal 1 (C1) would be required to relocate outside the Gaeltacht.

- Segregate native Irish-speaking children under the age of 12 in Gaeltacht schools from their Anglophone counterparts in order to reduce the influence of English and encourage socialisation through Irish. In other words, ensure that certain Gaeltacht primary schools admit only children whose mother tongue/native language is Irish. No English to be included in lessons or interactions between staff and pupils for the first five years.

- Conduct a root-and-branch review of all schools located in the official Gaeltacht, as well as all State agencies, Public Bodies and offices which provide services in Gaeltacht areas in order to determine the following:

- The proportion of native Irish-speaking children in every school in all Electoral Divisions found within the Gaeltacht.

- The proportion of native Irish-speaking teachers and teaching/educational assistants in every Gaeltacht school

- The proportion of native Irish-speaking Gardaí stationed in Gaeltacht districts

- The proportion of State and semi-State employees who are native Irish speakers (administrators, HSE health care providers, etc.) based in the Gaeltacht.


FURTHER READING:

Death of Gaeltacht likely in next 10 years, warns expert

Death knell tolling for Irish as community language

Comment: The Gaeltacht must be broken and remade to save Irish

Early exposure to English is damaging the standard of Irish among Gaeltacht young

Bilingual approach 'destroys' Gaeltacht Irish

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Is foghlaimeoir mé. Is fearr liom Gaeilge Chonnacht. Corrections always appreciated.

the problem is that virtually all Irish citizens claim to be native speakers since Irish is the native language of Ireland. How will they make sure people are really native speakers (=Gaeltacht speakers)?
Technically, if you've been raised up through Irish by parents who speak crappy Irish (in The Galltacht), you're a native speaker too. But your Irish is terrible...

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

The reality is that most Irish people do not claim Irish is their "native language." You're far more likely to encounter someone who says they wish their Irish was better, or, conversely, how much their resented having to study the language for 14 years.

My impression is that there aren't enough fluently bilingual teachers to go around. I'm including both Irish-medium schools and State schools throughout the country here. But in terms of the Gaeltacht alone, I have yet to see any hard data on the proportion of teachers who are native speakers, or even secondary bilinguals.

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Is foghlaimeoir mé. Is fearr liom Gaeilge Chonnacht. Corrections always appreciated.

I think most people in the country consider Irish as an important part of the country's identity. When people say it's their native language, they don't mean that it's their first language, but that it's the native language of the country, and they probably don't know that "first language = native language".

However, Irish people (anglophones in general) are very lazy when it comes to learning a second language. In my first year of college I did the Dioplóma sa nGaeilge. Out of around 4,000 first years, less than 20 did the Dioplóma despite it being widely advertised. Even though most people "wish they could speak Irish better", they don't take any steps to do so. No amount of government intervention will help to revive the language when more people would rather fly to Spain for holidays, rather than go to the Acadamh or Oideas Gael.

Irish is also up against English, the language of the richest countries in the world, the language of commerce, diplomacy, the language of the internet, the language of television, cinema, radio etc. Those with Gaeilge ón gcliabhán are exposed to English from a very young age, and most of the media their parents consume is in English. This is impossible to counteract without becomming like North Korea. No matter how good Meain na Gaeilge are, they cannot compete with the English media.

I remember seeing a newspaper cartoon once, with an old man telling children a story and the children watching the TV. The seanfhear says something like "Bhí fear ann fadó agus... will ye listen!" For most young Gaeltacht people with Gaeilge ón gcliabhán, their written English is far superior to their written Irish, and I wouldn't be surprised if their spoken English is better too.

In my opinion, the only way to reverse the decline is for Béarlóirí to actively learn the language, not say "I wish I could speak it". But I'm not sure how to fix the decline in the Gaeltachtaí, especially since most people there learn English as a native language as well as Irish.

I'm not Irish nor of Irish descent nor have I ever been to Ireland except for a few days of tourism, so I certainly don't belong in a conversation about this.

That being said, has anyone read the "Red Mars" series by Kim Stanley Robinson? I think the best hope for Irish (as inspired by that book) would be the development and advancement of machine translation such that fully accurate simultaneous translation were ubiquitous between any and all languages. Only then would the overwhelming prestige and universality of English become moot and communities free to speak Irish monolingually (aka at all)

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ЯГОН ТОҶИК НЕСТ ИНҶО???

I think most Gaeltacht speakers don't write Irish properly, mainly because it's not properly taught and also because they aren't taught to write in their dialect, they say loads of things that don't exist in school Irish so they never see their own dialect written.

I also think most "young Gaeltacht speakers" speak a better and richer English than Irish, because they are exposed much more to English than to Irish. And they are also influenced by school Irish, that is often incorrect since most teachers aren't even native speakers in the Gaeltacht.
I think the teenagers of today, even in the strongest Gaeltachtaí, don't know 10% of what old seanchaithe know in Irish (I'm thinking of people like John Ghráinne). They are able to say everything in English, but not in Irish, because they don't speak Irish all the time about all kinds of subjects, and they don't hear older people speaking Irish all the time about all kinds of subjects.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

But is it not slightly the same in English? Most of us aren't taught in our own dialect. We're taught the "officialese". My Junior Cert English teacher used to give out to us for using Hiberno English such as "ye" and "I'm after lunch". I'd say it's worse again in England where there is a larger difference between the dialects. Most of us would never speak the way we write, or write the way we speak.
Though I know a lot of national school teachers (the majority) have very poor Irish, and I wouldn't be surprised if Gaeltacht children end up correcting them.

On a separate note, what would be people's reaction if a teacher from Gaoth Dobhair was teaching in an Ceathrú Rua or Corca Dhuibhne? I know people in my area wouldn't take kindly to a national school teacher with a strong Dublin or English accent corrupting the Mayo English of young children. Regional rivalry is very strong in the country.


Considering the dominance of the English language, not only in Ireland, but accros the world, this doesn't surprise me. Those teenagers will need fluent English to go to college, to get jobs, and if they want to leave the Gaeltacht. The joke going around college for why Conamara people say "Bhí mé happy" was that happiness was a foreign concept in Conamara.
Even Hiberno-English is becomimg very Americanised with the prevalence of American television and the internet. Sure the television raised most people my age. On top of that, English (and Irish) is changing as people no longer rely on the land or the sea as much. My grandparents knew all the different types of grass in the fields. I only knew "grass" until I did Ag. Science in secondary school.

Yeah ; at least people know how to write "ye" and "I'm after lunch"
Now, people should also learn standard English at school, not because it's better than another dialect, but because you're more likely to succeed in studies and to have a good job if you are able to speak standard English and not only your dialect. But of course, outside your classes or your job, you can always speak your dialect



but would a child dare to correct his/her teacher? Or would they believe the teacher is right (especially if he speaks standard Irish, which isn't the Irish Gaeltacht children speak, so they can think "the teacher doesn't speak like us because he's not from here").



I don't know, but in my opinion, this shouldn't happen at all, Donegal teachers should work in Donegal schools etc.
In Brittany, the regional education office (I dunno the English word) doesn't care about dialects of Breton, any teacher can be sent anywhere, maybe the office doesn't even know there are dialects.
So when a teacher speaks a dialect (or more or less a dialect, because very few teachers can speak a real dialect, it's more like crappy standard Breton with a few dialectal influences from time to time), he may be sent to work to an area where the local dialect is completely different. So even if the teachers were proficient in Breton and knew a dialect, it would be impossible to transmit the local dialect in a school simply because most teachers won't be from there. (But anyway, as I said, most teachers don't speak a dialect, most don't speak properly, most pupils never manage to speak properly either and they forget everything once they've finished school, so it's as if Breton weren't taught at all).



aye, there are words that are being forgot because they describe things that aren't mandatory to know/distinguish in nowadays' life. But there are also many words and idioms that would still be useful today, and that younger speakers don't know.
Have a look at John Ghráinne's book "Dea-chaint John Ghráinne agus a chairde", it's full of useful words and expressions that can be used in everyday life, but I think the young people of Rann na Feirste don't know a half of them. We're lucky Tom Hodgins collected all that from John before he died... Such books should be made in all Gaeltacht parishes so that we don't lose to much things. In a few decades, even Gaeltacht speakers will know maybe 10% (maybe less) of what older speakers like John Ghráinne knew.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Yeah, amongst English speakers, Standard English is accepted as "better" in certain circumstances. I'd get weird looks from my mother if I called her saying "I'm calling to enquire about the location of the keys". When to use formal or informal English is something Béarlóirí just know.
I know Irish is completly different. In my (limited) experience, the Gaeltacht dialects have more presteige amongst advanced learners. We were always told the Caighdeán was for beginners to get a hang on the language before they focus on the spoken language. I'd probably speak a mixture of Donegal, Conamara and Caighdeán Irish, depending on the situation.


Depends on the child, their parents, and on the teacher. Some cranky teachers can put the fear of God into a child, but I think any teacher worth their salt should know that native speakers may speak differently to them. I had a cousin (from Ireland) teaching in Scotland, and she said the students found her accent funny and would try to mock it.


I can see your point, but given the small size of the country a Donegal teacher could easily marry into a Conamara community and vice versa. Or a child could have one parent from Corca Dhuibhne, the other from Gaoth Dobhair, and be living in Galway. The preservation of the native dialects should be a priority, but native dialects influencing each other is far from the worst case scenario. Teachers with bad Irish teaching in Gaeltachtaí is obviously a much more serious problem, and Brittany makes Ireland look good in language teaching - that takes effort.

In my own (very) limited experience, there's not a huge difference between the dialects. I can understand all three (the odd bit of trouble with older Munster people), depending on the subject of conversation. I know the older speakers had a much richer language. I heard something on RnaG where a young speaker was saying that her parents could easily throw an "extravagant" word into a conversation. The older speakers could use the rich vocabulary to express them selves effortlessy without resorting to "foc" as the younger speakers do. (Although a lot Béarlóirí use the same word in every focan sentence).