ON 3 APRIL, the nation will collectively sit down to fill out their Census forms giving us a detailed picture of modern Ireland.
Among the many nuggets of information that will come from the Census will be an indication of how the Irish language is faring in 2022. This year saw Irish become one of the 23 official languages of the EU, so at first glance, we might assume the language is thriving.
But judging by the Census of 2016, the language needs to get out of survival mode before it can truly prosper. Some 40% of the population said that year they could speak as Gaeilge but only 4% speak it daily. The same year just 8,068 Irish language Census forms were completed.
Keeping in mind that Census data provides limited information on the extent to which people use the Irish language, analysis of a 2015 Irish Language Survey showed us that 57% of people in the Republic and 17% from Northern Ireland have either basic or advanced fluency in Irish.
Given the differences in Irish language education across the two jurisdictions, the level of Irish fluency is considerably higher in the Republic with 11% of people being able to conduct most conversations in Irish, compared to two per cent in Northern Ireland.
In Northern Ireland, Irish is only available in some schools and not before the start of post-primary schooling, unless the children attend one of the few gaelscoileanna. In the Republic, Irish is one of the core subjects and compulsory at school, unless the child is exempt from learning the language.
So why is daily usage and fluency not higher? Analysis of a Foras na Gaeilge survey by the ERSI found that attitudes to, and the use of, the Irish language are influenced by a combination of factors: the education system, attitudes and language behaviour at home as well as opportunities to speak the language outside the school context.
The research found that the cohort with the highest negative perception of the language was among primary and secondary schools students in the Republic of Ireland. Limited opportunities to speak Irish were also cited among respondents for reasons for not speaking the language more regularly.
The Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages aims to protect and promote regional and minority languages like Irish; however representative groups say the European Commission needs to do more, such as implementing the Citizens’ Initiative Minority Safepack which they say would tackle “linguistic and cultural impoverishment” in the Union for some 180 minority languages.
A broad range of government policies exists protecting the language and several initiatives promote its use but authors of the 2015 language survey noted, while attitudes towards the language among the general public are broadly positive, there is not yet a significant critical number of speakers to bring about a change in usage.
The Irish government’s 20-year strategy is underway to increase the number of people using Irish on a daily basis outside the education system to 250,000 by 2030 by acting across areas key areas to make the Irish language more immersive. As of 2016, just 73,803 persons spoke Irish daily.
So what does being an official language – both in the Irish Constitution and now in the EU – actually mean on a practical level? Is the funding ringfenced for an Ghaeilge being spent on the right things? And what can we learn from or teach our EU partners on protecting and promoting linguistic diversity?
Over the next few weeks, The Good Information Project will explore the future of the Irish language at home and abroad, and whether current initiatives are enough to help the language thrive or merely survive.
We’ll also be looking at other minority languages across the EU to see what’s being done to help preserve and boost them.
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This work is also co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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