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Recently I saw a post that stated “as the language dies out.” Although I don’t have a great grasp of Irish, as a young American of Irish heritage, I do not think that the language is necessarily dying out. I believe that to be a pessimistic attitude. Let’s keep the forums positive and forward thinking! I can find numerous examples of the language revival. Look at the Gaelsceoleanna! In any case just wanted to post this, particularly due to St. Patrick’s day!
Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I just wanted to comment on this. Just as you say, many people are too pessimistic. What is more, many people seem to think that language change is something inevitable. It’s definitely not. Back home I have my great-great-grandfather’s encyclopedia, 24 volumes, from the late 19th century. Terribly fun to read. Well, in that encyclopedia languages like Breton and Occitan are still language spoken by millions, not at all seen as threatened. Unfortunately, both are in very vulnerable positions today. On the other hand, Lithuanian is said to be on the brink of extinction, only spoken in rural areas and likely to become extinct in a generation or two. Today Lithuanian is the national language of a country almost the size of Ireland, it’s the largest language in the Baltics and not at all threatened. 100 years ago not even 2% of the population of Vilnius were Lithunian speakers, today it is by far the largest language in the city. So even without mentioning the extraordinary revival of Hebrew (completely extinct by the time of this old encyclopedia), there are examples of languages claimed to be close to extinction that made spectacular returns.
The problems facing Irish should not be discounted, however, especially when one considers your two examples. In the case of Hebrew, as I understand, it returned to spoken use in large part because a new lingua franca was needed for a new nation. This is very different from the case of Irish, where everyone already has a lingua franca that the country has become very comfortable using. I am less familiar with the case of Lithuanian, however it’s geographic and historical position is a sort of cross-roads. The Baltics were and are a much more linguistically diverse environment than Ireland. You’re not wrong, overall, but I don’t feel either of those two language revivals serve as exact blueprints for the revival of Irish, which is, as I see it, largely a case of prying people away from their English complacence. That isn’t to say nothing can be learned from those cases either – in the case of Hebrew, I believe intentionally using it in the course of official proceedings was key to actually bringing about the shift, and I believe in that respect something can be learned from this and applied to Irish – I tend to doubt many government meetings are carried out in Irish.
The revival of Hebrew was not for the necessity of a “lingua franca”. Most of the immigrating Jews spoke several different languages and could have used English as the practical lingua franca as it has become the lingua franca of the world. The Jews sought to re-establish Hebrew because it was important to them. It was important to their identity as a people, as a nation , and as a living language in their own territory. Irish could be such a language if it were ideologically important to the greater majority of the people. The empirical evidence of the years since the Irish Free State seems to show it really isn’t that important to a critical mass of the Irish citizenry.
The revival of Hebrew was not for the necessity of a “lingua franca”. Most of the immigrating Jews spoke several different languages and could have used English as the practical lingua franca as it has become the lingua franca of the world.
but I guess most of them didn’t know English, while all of them had at least a little knowledge of Biblical Hebrew since it’s their liturgic language. They definitely needed a lingua franca and there were more reasons to choose Hebrew than any other language.
Irish could be such a language if it were ideologically important to the greater majority of the people. The empirical evidence of the years since the Irish Free State seems to show it really isn’t that important to a critical mass of the Irish citizenry.
Ireland already has a lingua franca, and it’s not easy to make a people change lingua franca, because most people are lazy, as far as languages are concerned — dictature, humiliation and propaganda can make a people abandon its own language. Actually I don’t see what could make the Irish people speak Irish again as their own main language… Maybe banning English everywhere, using only Irish all the time in official texts, advertisements, and making people believe that speaking English is not needed to have a normal life in Ireland (which would be hard to make believe!), and that English is sh*t. This works pretty well, it worked in many countries, including France, unfortunately, but it’s not a good idea 😀 Of course English isn’t endangered (it won’t disappear if the Irish people stop speaking it), but such policy has consequences in the people’s minds!
There’s also a common belief in many Western countries that there’s not enough room for more than 1 language in a brain, or that it’s “simpler” or “better” to use only 1 language in one’s daily life, than many languages (although in other countries, most people speak more than 1 language and there’s no problem with that, actually most human beings speak much more than 1 language in their daily life…)15,000 seems a bit low for the number of Native Irish speakers, just wondering what your basing that on.
The census gives a figure of 23,000 daily speakers in the Gaeltacht, an actual increase of some 600 people.
While im sure it includes non native but Daily speakers, there are plenty of Native speakers living outside the Gaeltacht, as well as those withing who speak it less regularly or not at all anymore.Personally i know a few people or families in each of those category’s.
Two points:
1) I seriously doubt if Lithuanian was ever at a point where just 15,000 native speakers spoke the language daily and where native speakers were greatly outnumbered by enthusiasts whose mother tongue was Russian or Polish.
You’re right to doubt it, and nobody even said it. I only pointed out that it’s usually very hard to predict the future of languages. 100 years ago many people predicted the immediate extinction of Lithuanian, yet it lived on. At the same time people seemed to think Breton was in a much safer position, yet it wasn’t.
What we probably can say is that Lithuanian and Irish were in quite similar positions 100 years ago, and both emerged as independent countries after WWI. That may suggest that more competent Irish leaders could have done much more for the language.
2) People keep coming on here and talking about English as though it were some sort of alien language in Ireland, like a bad habit which the lazy Irish must be weaned off of. It isn’t! It has been spoken natively in parts of Ireland for centuries. Please drop the patronising tone towards native speakers of Hiberno-English.I haven’t seen that, but I read the discussion quickly. I would be sad if English disappeared from Ireland. That’s a rather hypothetical question today, though. But I fully agree that English is a part of Irish identity. English has been spoken much much longer in Ireland than in North America or Australia.
2) People keep coming on here and talking about English as though it were some sort of alien language in Ireland, like a bad habit which the lazy Irish must be weaned off of. It isn’t! It has been spoken natively in parts of Ireland for centuries. Please drop the patronising tone towards native speakers of Hiberno-English.
I don’t think anyone’s doing that here. I think you may be misunderstanding something, if that’s your actual take on this discussion (at least since the recent bump). The reality is, even if Irish were to be completely revitalized, English isn’t going anywhere, and why should it? But when you are attempting (and the attempt is certainly being made) to revive a language that was marginalized by another one, it makes logical sense that you would have to scale back the usage of one if you are going to accommodate more usage of the other. No one’s saying that English speakers should be punished or that they should feel bad for speaking the language they’ve already spoken.
There are NO native speakers outside of the official Gaeltacht (with the possible exception of Clare, but I seriously doubt if any native speakers have survived in Clare). If you are talking about middle class southside Dubliners who go around calling themselves “native Irish speakers” because mummy and daddy spoke poorly-pronounced Anglicised Irish to them growing up, those people can not, in all seriousness, be counted as “native speakers”. To do so makes a mockery of the language and those Gaeltacht communities who still do use the language.
there are native speakers (Gaeltacht ones) outside the Gaeltacht though: those who moved to the Galltacht to find a job etc. There are Gaeltacht speakers in Dublin, in Belfast, in Letterkenny, in Galway etc… I don’t know how many of them keep using the language on a daily basis… how many forget it, etc.
2) The default mindset is that English is the evil language of the oppressor even though the Irish people themselves created Hiberno-English – nobody else.
Whoooaaa, easy there. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who think that, but I don’t think anyone here is suggesting anything of the sort. But English is the dominant language in Ireland. Regardless of the mechanism, intent, politics or whatever other aspect of the situation you examine, it has, by your own admission, tainted and encroached upon Irish. What puzzles me is why you then seem to be implying that there should be a completely benign relationship between the two languages.
1) You appeared to suggest that Irish will somehow come back to being the majority native language of Ireland but you haven’t shown how Lithuanian did this, if that is even what happened nor indeed what sort of Lithuanian came back. A Lithuanian which is nothing more than Russian or Polish in Lithuanian disguise with heavy Russian/Polish pronunciation?
I heard Russian and I heard Lithuanian (and learnt a bit of both) and obviously Lithuanian has nothing in common with Russian as far as pronunciation is concerned. For the rest, if we trust the Wikipedia article, there’s not much influence from Russian on Lithuanian.
Maybe the difference with ireland, is that I guess Lithuanians feel you can’t be Lithuanian if you don’t speak the language, while Irish people don’t think, in my opinion, that you need to speak Irish to be Irish. The English language has been spoken for a too long time in Ireland so it has become a part of the Irish culture too, even though it’s not as old as the “Gaelic” culture (if one can say that).Cupla bliain ó shoin d’úrt mé ‘n rud ceannann céarna (fá na cainteoirí dúchais srl) ar fhóram eile agus ‘s iomaí duine a thug masla domh… Is maith an rud é go bhfuil na daoiní níos ciúine anseo 🙂
Hiberno-English is essential to Irish culture and identity as French is to someone from Paris.
yeah but the difference is that people have always spoken French in Paris (well, they have for 1500 years anyway, since Gaulish disappeared there — Low Latin which became French replaced it), while Ireland has 2 languages, one “older” than the other in the country.
Depends on the region. Btw, many older people have learnt French at school because their first language was Breton, Alsacian, Languedocien, Corsican etc. In certain areas (West Indies, Polynesia…), many young people don’t speak French as their first language, but this doesn’t happen in Metropolitan France anymore because now 99,9999% of the parents speak French to their children, not a regional language even when they know one.
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