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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: We don't speak no Irish (was Re: Vanishing languages
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Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 18:45:20 GMT
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In article <bmoore-2302950829210001@bmoore.qualcomm.com>,
Holoholona <bmoore@qualcomm.com> wrote:
>
>i've taken a stab at learning irish gaelic too, but again, with no one to
>practice with, it's hard to keep up.  i know lots of irish people, but it
>seems that the irish will do anything to preserve gaelic except force
>their lips to speak it.  too bad.  fun language!!  

Irish is a textbook case of how *not* to revive a language.  My Irish 
friends have nothing good to say about learning it; one called it "the
bane of your life."  The problem is, it's a required subject for some-
thing like eleven years and if you don't learn it, you don't advance.
We all know how kids react to being forced to learn something.  This 
wouldn't be such a problem if they did more to make Irish fun, but what 
my friends told me of their methods sounded very outdated.

One complained that, if the government wanted Irish to be used, they 
should teach business Irish and stop concentrating so much on older
literature.  He also complained about Irish language television, saying
that they only seemed to televise inteviews with old man from the Gaeltacht
"with about three teeth left and you wouldn't be able to understand
him even if you could figure out what he was saying because his Irish is
so different from yours."

The worse example of the government is killing Irish under the guise of
helping it is the sending of young students to the Gaeltacht to learn 
to speak the language from the natives.  Most of them know it so poorly,
that they end up having to speak English to the natives, further encou-
raging them to abandon Irish.

Ironically, the only Irishman I knew who was actually actively and
interestedly learning Irish was from Armagh in the North! 

I hope things have gotten better in the past few years.  

Dohmnall mac Liaim
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
