I think the Irish Language is Dead. In Ireland, we waste so much time as kids in school learning a language we never use! The Irish Language is not useful in this modern world, especially the way it is taught and used in the real world.
It would be so much better if Irish children could be taught something like French that they would actually use, after all, French is the official language of the EU. If you look at the people who come over to Ireland from Poland or the Czech Republic, their English is actually very good. I’m sure they can converse in English better than most Irish people could converse in French. WHY? Because in Ireland from the age of 4 to 12, Irish is drilled into kids, instead of a language they would actually use. It is at this age that children find it easier to learn a language – so why expect them to start learning French at the age of 13 when they start secondary school? It’s too late for them to be actually fluent – start them learning from a young age.
Irish – What a Terrible Language
Let’s look at some of the crap you learn as a child.
| English | Irish | |
| Car | Carr | Just add an R So is “Computer”= An Computer in Irish? |
| Taxi | Tacsaí | Just spell it phonetically A Cop out! |
| Drugs | Druggaí | Follow a similar rule for Tacsaí Does this mean that take for example Guns in Irish are Gunnaí and Matches are Matchaí? I just looked up guns – and it IS Gunnaí … F**k sake! |
| Coloured Man | Fear Gorm | Literal Meaning “Blue Man” – Gorm is Blue and Fear is Man. What happened? Was Ireland overrun by Smurfs at some point? |
| The Devil | Fear Dubh | Literal Meaning “Black Man” – Dubh is Black and Fear is Man A Bit insulting! |
I left school with an Irish Vocabulary of about 10 words which included such classics as;
|
Fear on Phoist Gortaithe |
Ar Nos na Gaoithe Múinteoir |
Timpiste Scoil |
Smeara Dubha Otharcarr |
Also, what’s the story with this?
Take for example the phrase “Comhartha ar an mbus” – MBUS … is this some sort of Hanson song. MBus???
What sort of crappy language puts an M before a B ?? But I do jest in a way, I know many languages such as French add a letter in front of words to make them more pronounceable, but I find that this is not explained in schools. Thereby making Irish of no interest to students and without interest there is no longevity. Compare this with French, I loved French because on holidays you could use it. You can’t do that with Irish without going to a few square miles in Ring or Connemara where people speak it.
Irish, a Dead Language
I think they should get rid of the language and get the children of Ireland to speak a European language rather than a dead language. Nobody speaks it – unless you want to get rid of the kids and shove them off to an island for 3 months during the summer.
I wish we had a language we could be proud to use day to day, but we don’t, nobody really uses it! So stop hooking it up to a life support machine and leave it so that the children in Irish schools leave with a language they can really use. I know there are Gaelscoils but really at this stage nobody on the streets or in business is speaking Irish, so despite all the hatred this post has received from those who do want to speak it, I think it is too little too late. The education system failed us and now the Irish Language is Dead for all but a few. It is a shame, but it could have been prevented if the educators took some pride in the language and not had use learning poems which we didn’t even understand what we were saying.
Irish is such a waste of time.
Funnily enough, English took Carr from Irish, not the other way around. Taxi is a German Nobleman’s name, and Drugs is a Dutch Word.
Perhaps you need to get out more.
Actually Car comes from the Latin – carrus or carrum the Gaelic word came later.
My points about Taxi and Drugs was the way the Irish word was spelt.
The main issue in the post was not about the “words” but about how Irish is taught and about how futile it is in Europe to teach a dead language to the children of Ireland.
Perhaps you should read the actual post more and not make sweeping comments about issues which were never raised. 😉
To call a language which 10,000 people speak daily “dead” is pushing it somewhat. And the spellings are perfectly logical – far more logical than English spelling, which is so illogical that fish could also be spelled ghoti.
That the teaching could be improved is beyond dispute. But what makes you think the strictly anglophone would learn any other language any better? Irish speakers I know are far more likely to speak a third or a fourth language than English speakers I know speak a second.
And carra came into latin from Celtic:
1350–1400; ME carre < AF < LL carra (fem. sing.), L carra, neut. pl. of carrum, var. of carrus < Celt.; cf. OIr carr wheeled vehicle
I’m sorry to inform you both that the origin of the word car, is not latin or gaelic. Think about it, cars have been around only 100 years. It comes from the english word carriage, which, if my almost completely forgotten Irish is correct, is iompar in Irish. I agree wholeheartedly with Shane on this one, not only is irish forced down our throats but the State Exams are biased against those of us who didnt want to splash out on private Gaelscoils or go out of our way to go to one, I’m talking of course, about that ridicluous bonus you get in the leaving cert for answering through Irish, it’s disgusting that our own government could screw us over like that, that bonus could be the difference between two equally qualified people, one of whom is more adept at medicine but hasnt answered his/her papers through Irish, that decides which one gets into medicine.
Andrew, and just where does the English word CARRiage come from?
Shane, I don’t think kids would come out of school speaking French any better than Irish. Blame the teaching methods and individual motivation, not the language.
Look. Irish is a hobby, not a language. End of. Irish speakers…also speak English. (forced to learn at gunpoint, by Cromwell’s bastard offspring) So all you “110% Real Pure Irish” keep up your hobby. Us “Plastic Paddy’s” want to learn an actual “language”. Cop on. , Logically, how can Irish be a Language???. A language allows people to communicate. Kapow – I give you a riddle….If you end up in “an dinglean-o-gill , (recently rebranded, and paid using tax collected from plastic paddy’s like me, at the bargain price of €544,99873,837653. Jesus wept) and you need to communicate? How do you do it???? Easy. Grab your nose, turn you ganzi inside out and twirl 3 times, vigoriously… Nope, sure tam-ent-i only messin wit ya. The correct answer is..wait for it…. speak English. German is usefull too, or French or even spanish. Conclusion – Irish is useless, everywhere. If you REALLY WEALLY want to rediscover your roots get yoursellf a tiny cottage, fill it with children, pigs and wear rags. Eat dem spuds, wash dem down with buttermilk.
PLEASE – enjoy your little hobby. Slainte (go on, go on, go on. Why not correct my spelling. I know you want to. OCD is a terrible auld thing)
Heem. The fact that you left school with only some 10 phrases in Irish is reason for the state to discontinue its teaching? That’s a bit selfish. Maybe because kids don’t like learning it. I didn’t like maths and English in school either. Maybe we should get rid of them. My geography teacher was terrible and I did badly in the leaving and I have never needed any geography knowledge since that exam some 7 years ago. I vote to get rid of that.
Never mind the fact that Irish is a language spoken all over the country (north and south) by natives and learners alike. It is sister langauges are also spoken in Man and Scotland. Irish and Gaelic also made their way to the US and Canada. Never mind the fact that people read in Irish, watch TV in Irish, listen to the radio in Irish, raise kids through Irish and generally lead a very good life. Sure, all adult speakers also speak English. What’s wrong with being bilingual? The fact that you promote English-French bilingualism at the start of your post while at the same time saying Irish-English bilingualism is a waste of time is strange.
But maybe we should just import another foreign language into our education system. I mean, surely all the kids would come out of French lessons fluent and go on to all be English-French bilinguals. Why bother cultivating our own heritage? I guess you think it’s too much hassle.
Jaysus boy the feckin culchies love their precious Irish.
Where the fuck are you supposed to speak this lousy language ?
If you go into a shop in Dublin and say “tabhair ríomhaire dom” or what ever it is … I don’t think you would get a computer handed to you, they would just look sideways at ye!
Irish is Dead – Admit it … a “real language” is something you can use day to day.
The Irish language is dead in the same way that the League of Ireland soccer is dead, its in a shabby state but is still loved by many and still has great potential
.
Most soccer fans in this country wouldn’t look out the window to watch a LOI game yet slavishly follow the English game. I’d rather see a bad Bohs game than invest my time in a club hundreds of miles away. Don’t bag others who have a bit of pride in their own language/ culture.
For any Irish learners out there there is a free app for the iphone and I think they have it working on other phones as well – getthefocal.com worth checking out
I agree – the Irish Language is Dead and is a stupid waste of our kids time in school. It has no use at all.
Teach our children European languages, something which will help them get a job in the future.
Conas a bloody ta tu – I don’t think so. Irish people are an embarrassment when on holiday . I recently saw, what I thought were quite well educated people, on holiday and they would not even try speak French when traveling in French.
Irish people need to see Europe and not try hide behind the Irish Language. I agree with one of the posters above who said that it is a hobby ! It is !
Irish is 200th in the table of Languages down with Japanese Sign Language and Luxembourgish.
I don’t think that Irish is at all a waste of time. Learn one language, and it is thus become easier to learn another language. I am an American who is of Irish decent, I live outside the city of Philadelphia I speak enough Irish to carry on a small conversation, and I relish the idea of learning more Irish. In fact, I would argue that learning the small amount of Irish that I have has helped me a great deal with my study of Spanish.
Looking at Henry’s and Corcaig’s reply to this blog post – I think you make valid points however I agree with this post. I don’t think Irish is a bad language but is taught very very poorly in Irish schools and as a result students hate it and don’t use it.
If Irish taught better perhaps we might have a language worth saving !
Man, you only remembered 10 words of Irish post finishing school.
You must be pretty stupid.
In chromatic order of your “reasons” to abolish a national language.
– English has just as much tendency to add superfluous letter (favourite, colour)
– A lot of languages take our pronunciation of ‘new technology’ words and simply apply it to their own phonetic system.
Japanese is an excellent example of this.
-I don’t know enough of the -aí theory of plurals to reply
-neither do I know the origins of “fear gorm” and “fear dubh”
– Of course “mbus” is going to sound silly if you pronounce it ‘mu-bus’, but that’s because you probably don’t understand the gaelic phonetic sytem.
-Sure, Irish seems unpopular the further you live in east-Ireland, but most Connaught residents speak it fluently.
So yea dude, tu es plein de merde.
Oooh it’s like poking an angry bear.
Don’t say anything about our national language. The fella above is comical trying to poke fun in bad French.
Nice post mate! I agree, Irish is shite and should not be taught to children as a compulsory language.
Whats the big deal about an old language that never really caught on much with people. In the next 1000 years every other language (except english spanish chinese and hindi) is going to die a ‘natural’ death. Lets move on and focus on the real issues, namely climate change, poverty, etc.
look the only reason you think irish is a waste of time is that your too lazy to learn it
it one of the only things that we have and my option it great if you want to annoy the eu lol
I disagree with the accusation of being lazy. I have actually very good French and have basic Spanish, Czech, German, plus a smattering of Russian and Chinese.
So no I’m not lazy when it comes to language – I just don’t agree with it being forced on us when it is of little use.
Culturally it is great to have as a piece of history – yes, it is our national language – but it is of no use to us in a modern world.
There have been a lot of argument, debate, even a few insults in the discussions on this post, and I am delighted to see this. I think if more people were this passionate about the Irish language, the way the Pro-Irish commenters on this website, we might have a language worth using – HOWEVER, I think we need to change the approach our educators use when teaching Irish. Too much emphasis is on poems, prose and learning off stuff, where-as I think the focus should be more on the spoken word, conversational Irish.
We could then use that and perhaps recover a Phoenix from the ashes of the still-burning Irish Language.