Recent Debate

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  • #36348
    Séril Báicéir
    Participant

    Dia daoibh go léir,

    A friend of mine and I had gotten into a discussion and the Irish language came up. She said that it was classified as a “Dead Language” and I countered that “No, it wasn’t Dead, it was just on a list of Endangered languages.” She argued that the Encyclopedia Britanica was her source for the listing as a Dead Language, and she compared Gaeilge to Latin by saying, “People still speak Latin but that doesn’t make it a living language.”

    I know that Latin was a language that is taught only on an academic level or a priestly level because it was the language that scholars wrote in and that the priests and monks of the past wrote in, but no one knows how it was really pronounced (so I have been told) so any spoken Latin is a fabrication of modern day and not really how it was when the Language was truly used by common people in communities.

    I know that Gaeilge does not compare to Latin in that way, but I am at a loss for resources that are “official” on the status of Gaeilge. Does anyone know of an impeccable source for that?

    Go raibh maith agaibh!
    Séril

    #42474
    Lughaidh
    Participant

    A friend of mine and I had gotten into a discussion and the Irish language came up. She said that it was classified as a “Dead Language” and I countered that “No, it wasn’t Dead, it was just on a list of Endangered languages.” She argued that the Encyclopedia Britanica was her source for the listing as a Dead Language, and she compared Gaeilge to Latin by saying, “People still speak Latin but that doesn’t make it a living language.”

    I know that Latin was a language that is taught only on an academic level or a priestly level because it was the language that scholars wrote in and that the priests and monks of the past wrote in, but no one knows how it was really pronounced (so I have been told) so any spoken Latin is a fabrication of modern day and not really how it was when the Language was truly used by common people in communities.

    a language that has always been spoken till today without any interruption in history is not a dead language.
    Latin hasn’t had native speakers for centuries. It is spoken by some people but they have learnt it, nobody speaks it as his/her mothertongue, and nobody has spoken it as his/her mothertongue for centuries.

    I know that Gaeilge does not compare to Latin in that way, but I am at a loss for resources that are “official” on the status of Gaeilge. Does anyone know of an impeccable source for that?

    what kind of status are you talking about?
    If you want to give an evidence it’s not a dead language, just find a definition of what a dead language is, and see what Irish is.
    Your friend, obviously, doesn’t know what a dead language is, or she doesn’t know what’s the situation of Irish (does she believe that Irish is only spoken by schoolchildren who’ve learnt it at school?), or both. Or does she believe Irish is dead because when she went to Ireland she didn’t hear anybody speaking it?
    It’s easy to see there are native speakers of Irish… go to any Gaeltacht. Even on the web, check on Wikipedia or Sil.org
    http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gle

    It’s quite surprising to hear someone saying that a language is dead while obviously she doesn’t know anything about it…

    #42475
    Séril Báicéir
    Participant

    I believe her definition of a “Dead Language” is not correct. She thinks that since it’s not an internationally known language that makes it “Dead”. And she hasn’t been to Ireland that I know of, and I have not looked in Encyclopedia Britanica to see if her reference is really there. I did explain to her that there were still people raised speaking it as their mother tongue and whole communities that speak it as their only language on a day to day basis, but this did not sway her. It may be a case of stubbornness on her part, but if I had a credible source on par with Encyclopedia Britanica to show her, it might convince her to look further or at least not call it “dead” anymore.

    It’s quite surprising to hear someone saying that a language is dead while obviously she doesn’t know anything about it…

    Yes, but this is what happens when someone has a stubborn streak and is convinced they have seen the fact in a notable source before… I can only try to prove differently.

    I will check out the site you linked to.

    Go raibh maith agat, a Lughaidh.

    #42476
    Séril Báicéir
    Participant

    This is what I found on Encyclopedia Britanica Online search:

    Irish language
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    Irish language, also called Erse, or Gaelic, Irish Gaeilge, a member of the Goidelic group of Celtic languages, spoken in Ireland. As one of the national languages of the Republic of Ireland, Irish is taught in the public schools and is required for certain civil-service posts.

    Grammatically, Irish still has a case system, like Latin or German, with four cases to show differing functions of nouns and pronouns in a sentence. In phonology it exhibits initial sandhi, in which the first consonant of a word is modified according to the prehistoric final sound of the previous word in the phrase (e.g., an tobar “the well,” mo thobar “my well”).

    Records in the Irish language date back to the ogham inscriptions, written in sets of strokes or notches, of the 5th century ad; the Latin alphabet began to be used shortly thereafter. Irish literature dates from the 8th century. See also ogham writing; Celtic languages.

    I didn’t see anything about it being “dead”…hmm…

    #42477
    Lughaidh
    Participant

    I believe her definition of a “Dead Language” is not correct. She thinks that since it’s not an internationally known language that makes it “Dead”.

    Nonsense. And anyway, Irish is internationally known… It is taught in many countries (in universities etc), and all the people who ever went to Ireland, or who are interested in Irish culture, know Irish is spoken in Ireland.
    And Latin is internationally known and taught (much more than Irish!). And so are Old Greek, Biblical Hebrew, etc. And they are dead languages.

    Yes, but this is what happens when someone has a stubborn streak and is convinced they have seen the fact in a notable source before… I can only try to prove differently.

    no notable source would say anything that stupid…
    Btw, make her listen to RnaG, maybe hearing living people speaking Irish will make her understand that Irish isn’t dead? (if it’s not enough, I dunno what will be)

    Irish language, also called Erse, or Gaelic, Irish Gaeilge, a member of the Goidelic group of Celtic languages, spoken in Ireland. As one of the national languages of the Republic of Ireland, Irish is taught in the public schools and is required for certain civil-service posts.

    Grammatically, Irish still has a case system, like Latin or German, with four cases to show differing functions of nouns and pronouns in a sentence. In phonology it exhibits initial sandhi, in which the first consonant of a word is modified according to the prehistoric final sound of the previous word in the phrase (e.g., an tobar “the well,” mo thobar “my well”).

    Records in the Irish language date back to the ogham inscriptions, written in sets of strokes or notches, of the 5th century ad; the Latin alphabet began to be used shortly thereafter. Irish literature dates from the 8th century. See also ogham writing; Celtic languages.

    I didn’t see anything about it being “dead”…hmm…

    of course… the authors of encyclopedias normally try not to write wrong things in their encyclopedias 😀

    #42479
    Héilics Órbhuí
    Participant

    Wow, yeah, that is a crazy argument to make. If people grow up speaking a language as their first language, it’s not dead. Clearly Irish is still alive.

    #42488
    Séril Báicéir
    Participant

    Yeah, this discussion happened I think because I work for a branch of BMW and she thought I should learn German. I mentioned that I’m already learning a language: Gaeilge, and thus the banter began. My other two friends quickly got the subject changed beore it could turn into a true argument. But if it ever comes up again, I’ll definitely have more than a few good points to lob back at her and try to show that it is still a very live language. Little does she know that people right here in our city speak it, but they simply speak English to those around them unless they know that other person knows Gaeilge.

    But I think her lack of interest probably makes trying to convince her null and void. I’m better spending my energies talking about Gaeilge to those who express interest. I still get smiles of surprise when someone sees me studying my “Teach Yourself Irish” book at work, and they ask, “Irish? I thought Irish people spoke English?” And I don’t mind the question because then I get to tell them that, no, Irish people speak Irish/Gaeilge even though many do speak English as well. Most are very enthusiastic about that interesting fact, and I usually give them the link to this site in case they ever want to delve into learning the language or simply researching more about what might be an ancestral thing to them.

    Go raibh maith agaibh, a Héilics Orbhuí agus a Lughaidh.

    #42489
    Lughaidh
    Participant

    she thought I should learn German

    but German is a dead language, it’s only spoken in Germany, Switzerland and Austria 😆

    #42490
    Séril Báicéir
    Participant

    but German is a dead language, it’s only spoken in Germany, Switzerland and Austria

    Tá sé sin go hiontach! 🙂

    #42491
    Héilics Órbhuí
    Participant

    Yeah, for better or for worse, you can’t make someone see the light. Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to make them smarter 😉

    It’s cool that you have people in your area who actually speak it. There might be people around here that do, but I don’t know any. I speak German as well and I run into people every now and then who speak that, but no Irish. I do enjoy wearing my “Aire! Gaeilgeoir Istigh” t-shirt, which sparks some conversation. Unfortunately, those conversations are always in English 🙁

    #42492
    Barra
    Participant


    I know that Gaeilge does not compare to Latin in that way, but I am at a loss for resources that are “official” on the status of Gaeilge. Does anyone know of an impeccable source for that?

    Hi Séril

    If you’re looking for official sources that you can refer your friend to, then Article 8 of the Irish Constitution (Bunreacht na hÉireann), is pretty clear on the status of the Irish language:

    As Gaeilge:

    Airteagal 8

    1. Ós í an Ghaeilge an teanga náisiúnta is í an phríomhtheanga oifigiúil í.
    2. Glactar leis an Sacs-Bhéarla mar theanga oifigiúil eile.

    In English:

    Article 8

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

    Bunreacht na hÉireann is available from the Irish government website for the Department of the Taoiseach:

    [url=http://bit.ly/PtPJ83]Bunreacht na hÉireann (Irish)[/url]

    [url=http://bit.ly/aW4G8m]Constitution of Ireland (English)[/url]

    As a second official source, the Irish Central Statistics Office produced a report based on the findings of the 2011 Census of Ireland, stating that in the 2011 census, 1.77 million people in Ireland indicated they could speak Irish and 77,185 said they speak Irish daily outside the education system – that second figure is incorrect actually, as I myself was in Italy at the time the census was taken, and as I speak Irish daily outside the education system, the correct number is 77,186 🙂

    The CSO report also found that the numbers speaking Irish on a daily basis outside the education system had increased since the previous census. Here’s [url=http://bit.ly/H3pljW]a link to the CSO report[/url] for your friend. The relevent information is on page 40.

    If the Irish Constitution and 2011 Census of Ireland aren’t enough to convince your friend that the Irish language is not dead, then you can send her to the [email=http://www.rte.ie/rnag/]RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta website[/email] where she can listen to today’s news in three different dialects of Irish or, if radio isn’t her thing, there’s the [url=http://www.tg4.ie/ie/tg4-player/tg4-player.html]TG4 (Irish language TV station)[/url], where she can watch Spongebob Squarepants in Irish, although personally, I prefer Fraggle Rock or Inis Cúil 🙂

    If she still insists that the Irish language is dead, I’m afraid there’s not much more I can do, except say that we didn’t get the memo here in Ireland…

    Perhaps what your friend means is that the Irish language is not so much dead but may be of limited practical or material use when compared to languages that people typically choose to study, like French, German, Spanish or Chinese. That may be true enough depending on geography, circumstance and opportunity, but it would be a poor and miserable life if we only ever did things because they were of practical and material use. The wealth and beauty of the language, the poetry of Máire Mhac an tSaoi and Máirtín Ó Direáin, the stories of Liam Ó Flaithearta and those of contemporary writers like Joe Steve Ó Neachtain and Micheál Ó Conghaile, the songs of Joe Éinniú; these are all reason enough to study Irish, and I wish you well with it.

    Slán, agus go n-éiri leat!
    Barra

    #42510
    Antaine
    Participant

    It’s also an official working language of the EU, which makes it about as “international” as you can get (kinda stupid thing to try to define anyway). You can refer her to the EU website:

    http://ec.europa.eu/languages/languages-of-europe/eu-languages_en.htm
    “The European Union has 23 official and working languages. They are: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish.”

    So Irish is at least as alive as all those others. It’s also the 76th most spoken language in the US:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States#Irish
    “Up to 37 million Americans have Irish ancestry, many of whose ancestors would have spoken Irish. According to the 2000 census, 25,661 people speak Irish at home. As of 2008 it was the 76th most spoken language in the USA, with 22,279 speakers.”
    (Source: US Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/language/data/other/detailed-lang-tables.xls )

    Antaine

    #42511
    Héilics Órbhuí
    Participant

    Not that I am arguing your overall point that Irish is a living language but…

    I tend to doubt there are that many actual speakers of Irish in the U.S. I tend to think those are probably people who have some knowledge of Irish but are probably nowhere near fluent. Considering most reliable estimates I’ve seen for the number of native Irish speakers in Ireland are about 30,000 I doubt there are more than several thousand fluent speakers in the U.S. But I could be wrong..

    #42513
    aonghus
    Participant

    Considering the heavy emigration to the US from Gaeltacht areas, that figure (although based on self reporting) of 26,000 could well be accurate.

    Not sure there is any benefit to people fibbing on the US census.

    #42514
    Héilics Órbhuí
    Participant

    Not sure there is any benefit to people fibbing on the US census.

    I can think of at least one. In my experience, Americans (and I say this as an American who’s lived in America his whole life) love to feel more cultured than they actually are. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met someone who claims to “speak” a language, but if you actually engage them in that language, it quickly becomes obvious they don’t actually have much functional ability in it. I don’t know if this is a phenomenon that is so common outside of the U.S., but I suspect it is because most people who really only speak English want to believe they aren’t just monolingual even if that is the inconvenient truth.

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