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THERE HAS BEEN a lot of talk this week about the Irish language. Claire Byrne had a passionate debate on Monday night on RTÉ 1.
The Language Commissioner, Rónán Ó Domhnaill, declared on Tuesday that the system of Language Schemes, which started in 2004 and were to provide services in Irish, has failed. And, of course the census figures published yesterday show a slight reduction in the numbers who have Irish in the country.
It’s very apt, therefore, to have a look at some of the many myths surrounding the Irish language, some of them are centuries old while others have only developed recently. I am going to take a look at the most common of these “alternative facts”.
“Irish is a dead language”
Census figures from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland show that almost 2 million people have some knowledge of the Irish language. A Millward Brown survey from 2015 showed that 1.2 million people in Ireland are confident in their ability to speak Irish.
In terms of fluency, the Irish Language Survey carried out by Amárach Research in 2013 showed that almost 500,000 people across Ireland can have a conversation in Irish and another 150,000 have “native speaker fluency.” Even this figure would give Irish more fluent speakers than most languages in the world.
According to the linguistic project, Ethnologue, half of the world’s languages have 7,000 or less speakers. So by any rational definition, the Irish language is alive.
“Ireland would be poor if we spoke Irish”
Ireland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but some people think we would be poorer if we spoke Irish as we wouldn’t be able to trade with other nations.
If you believe this, just ask yourself a very basic question, are there any rich countries in the world that don’t speak English as their first language? Looking at a global list of national wealth (GNI) shows that there are many non-English speaking nations that are wealthy. Some of them are even richer than Ireland, like Denmark and Sweden.
They’ve also been richer than Ireland for generations, meaning that they haven’t had the massive problems of unemployment and emigration that Ireland has had. There is no reason Ireland couldn’t be wealthy and successful if more of us spoke Irish.
“Gaelscoileanna are elitist”
Over 50,000 children attend Irish-language schools (Gaelscoileanna) outside of Gaeltacht regions in Ireland. Some of these schools are located in middle class areas and for some reason this has been used by people to claim that Gaelscoileanna in general are somehow “elitist”.
However, children from every social class in Ireland attend Irish-medium schools. For example, over half of the primary level Gaelscoileanna in Dublin and Belfast are in working class areas.
In recent years some people have tried to explain the growth in Irish-medium education as a result of racism, that is parents not wanting their children to be in the same school as children whose parents come from abroad. While there may be some parents who have this motivation, to stereotype all Gaelscoil parents as racists because of the actions of a few is prejudiced in itself.
Irish-medium education is available and welcoming to children from all backgrounds.
“Irish shouldn’t be an official EU language”
Some people believe that the official status of Irish in the European Union is tokenism and a waste of money. However, since the Irish became an official language of the EU in 2007 more Irish has been spoken in the European Parliament than Estonian or Maltese.
In some years more Irish has been spoken than Latvian, which has over 2 million speakers, and Danish, which has over 5 million. Irish is a real, working language of the European Union.
The EU institutions employ translators and interpreters for all 24 of the EU’s official languages. They spend around €1.1 billion on language services every year (less than 1% of the total EU budget).
The cost of the entire language services works out at about €2.20 per year for each EU citizen – less than 5c a week, an even tinier fraction of which is spent on the Irish language.
“Irish isn’t compatible with modern technology”
Irish is one of the top 100 languages used on the internet. Gmail, Facebook, Linux, Joomla!, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Office are just some of the software resources and programmes available in Irish.
Twitter has only been translated to approximately 50 languages, and one of those is Irish. Over 2.3 million people from countries all around the world have downloaded the Duolingo app to learn Irish.
Samsung provide predictive text in Irish as well as an Irish-language option for their smartphones, while a huge variety of apps in Irish are available on Android and iPhone.
Kevin Scannell, Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at St Louis University in the US, led the original open source Irish localisation of Mozilla and has developed an Irish spell checker, grammar checker, and thesaurus, as well as dictionaries and translation engines that support Irish.
“We don’t have to speak Irish”
Having read the passages above you might be saying that, while it may all be true, we still don’t have to speak Irish. And you’d be right, we don’t have to speak Irish.
But then again, there are lots of things in life we do because we want to do them, and not because we have to.
So people in Ireland don’t follow the Irish rugby team because they have to, or because they’re the most successful or entertaining rugby team in the world, they follow them because they’re the Irish rugby team, and for no other reason. The Irish language is the same.
Colm Ó Broin is an Irish speaker from Clondalkin, Dublin and a member of Conradh na Gaeilge. He will be giving a series of talks around the country on myths about the Irish language.
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Level 4 & 5 shouldn’t even exist, it’s like looking at a leaked document from north Korea, people have to act responsibly and protect others, but the economy, Jobs and quality of life must also always be a top priority, where else will the HSE etc get funding from? And who wants to live a life being told to stay home every time the inevitable happens?
@David Lee: ok, but what do you recommend they do if it gets to a stage where the hospitals can’t function due to the level of seriously ill covid patients?
@David Lee: well can we blame those who object to and fail to abide by level 1 and level 2 measures for the necessity of and the introduction of level 3, level 4 or level 5 measures. Level 5 downwards are designed to protect life itself and not just quality of life. There us little point in some having a “high” quality of life if it means that others have no life at all.
@Lurfic: thats not the ordinary citizens fault, that is down to the government and how bad our healtchare system is, some countries haven’t locked down at all, yes they’ve had many cases and more deaths, but their hospitals functioned throughout.
@David Lee: well we’re not going to fix a health care system over night so only option is to go to those levels if hospitals can’t cope.
So level five you have to stay at home but kids can go to school so are they expected to walk to and from school by themselves ?
@Deirdre Meredith: seems that common sense is missing… Essential journeys are normally permitted. Many kids do not need parents to bring them to school. Some walk, some cycle, some go by public transport, some by private bus but some will need lifts, particularly those in primary school and I am sure some parents may want to keep their kids at home or maybe even their school or class will have a case and be closed. Keeping the schools open has to be a top priority after essential services so I hope common sense will prevail and people will not be too literal.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: I was been sarcastic
So can 50 people have a religious gathering in House? People who worship Beer for example
@Stephen Maher: here here
@Stephen Maher: That would be an ecumenical matter
@Stephen Maher: That would be an ecumenical matter
What do we get for beating the end of level boss ?
@Stephen East: Pandemic 2:electric boogaloo
@Stephen East: We get a bonus round in which we have to guess movie quotes for extra home visitors. The goid kind of visitors which is helping with the dishes
@Stephen East: you have to go back and find 3 large bonus coins in every level.
“No home visits
Up to six people at weddings
No indoor gatherings
Up to 15 people at outdoor gatherings”
Even this one small section goes to show how non sensicial any of this is
where is Level2.5? i don’t see it mentioned but he said Dublin was at that level?
@William O’ Connor: there are an infinite number of levels between level 2 and level 3. That is a mathematical fact although some mathematical numbers may be irrational
The epidemic is over. Read and understand the global statistics
@Eric Vdc: this is a pandemic, not an epidemic, maybe you should understand the definition of the words you’re using before worrying about the statistics.
@Trish: lol ok… maybe you will call the next winter flu a pandemic also since it is likely to spread across a large region.
@Eric Vdc: which epidemic is that. The Covid-19 case count currently has a 7 day average of nearly 275,000 new cases a day. This is the highest 7 day average recorded so far. So the global statistics show that the case rate is increasing as well as the case count.
The 7 day average death rate is 5100 deaths a day which is a slight fall in death rate which can be attributed better medical intervention, and, maybe, a different case age profile such as we have in Ireland.
These are the covid-19 stats
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: The daily count of people tested Covid positively is absolutely irrelevant. This can be easily explained by the # of tests performed worldwide. — What matters really is the # of death and people admitted in ICU. — All stats indicate that the virus is not as virulent as it was before June- as experts acknowledge there is not 1 but multiple (7?) virus strain and a large number of us are aready healthy carriers.
@Eric Vdc: True hardly any deaths in Spain even thought more cases than at height of crisis, it’s burning itself out. Wear masks and wash hands. Simple.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: Do you work for the Journal or do you just have plenty of time to have an opinion on absolutely everything? You’ve alot to say on every topic.
@Eric Vdc: please read this https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/09/health/coronavirus-brain.html
And from the start the 5 level plan has already an exception and is adding confusion for the future
(Otherwise at least a plan)
The term “wet pub” needs to fark off
?? Hahahahhaha funny buddy nobody can not tell me how many people can be in my house this is my property not government take this level 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and put in your …
“In Dublin, no more than six people from two households can gather”
Does this mean that if six people live in your house then you can’t have people over at all? Sorry if that’s a stupid question I’m just a bit confused
@A d d y o u r n a m e: it means if theres already more than six in the household you may start workin out your favourites
@Daimhín De Naois: you remind me of the advert where they have to downsize … And get rid of family members.
It is an interesting question though can have your own household ( which could be ten or more ) and six from one and six from another
I never thought of it that way before but it makes more sense..
@A d d y o u r n a m e: I think six people from two different households is twelve people in total. Is six people from Cork and six people from Donegal six people from two different counties or twelve people from two different counties. I think we are counting “people from different households” rather than “people” so six “people from two different households” means a maxinum of 12 people with no more than 6 from any one household. But I could be wrong – oh how I love the different interpretations of the same simple words.
@A d d y o u r n a m e: Do what you want. Everyone else will.
I will have as many people on my house as I choose. The pandemic has passed. Only fear and crass $tup|d|ty remaining……
@Paul Lanigan: who told you the pandemic has passed? We don’t have a vaccine and we still don’t know all there is to know about this virus yet. It doesn’t just affect the lungs, it also affects the brain. And possibly much more. It hasn’t even been on the planet for a year, strange you’d be so dismissive about it.
Stop playing golf and Country hopping!
I seriously hope there is a one page infographic for this!
@Brian McDonald: It will be a specially coloured in geography map…like what we had in primary school
No that the whole cabinet has to isolate will you all be on the covid payment of 350 per week hope so as that would be a big saving for the state
How can schools remain open at level 5?
And can we pass a law to remove the term “wet pubs” please!
Why is martin not in isolation until the results come back for the minister of health? He knows that minister has been sent forward for testing, he was in contact with him today martin should be in isolation. Better still permanent isolation for not putting the country first over his own needs and greed
Losing the will to live listening to this mumbo jumbo for the last six months, I’ve been working in a hospital all through this. I live in Dublin and do the mask and social distancing bit but…give over on the ridiculous mixed messages your losing credibility fast.
All I want is for my kids to be able to stay in school. So, please can we all do our part to not give it to someone who has children who will possibly pass it on to another child who will then shut down their pod, their class, or even their school? Online learning did not work on so many levels. I certainly do not want to be the reason why my son’s school is shut down.
If we all do our part it can actually make a difference rather than the government having to put us in lockdown.
have your say