I’ll let you read for yourselves…they said it would never happen in a million years, but is ea, do chum glóire Dé agus ónora na hÉireann…so to speak…
… about frickin’ time!
and now if they don’t use it to the max they’re fools. every representitive needs to make every speech and proposal in irish. translation needs to be requested at every meeting and of every document.
all those guys have to be fluent in order to have the position in the first place, so it’s a matter of using it…they have a year and a half to brush up…
this decision needs to not be something that they frame over the mantle and pat themselves on the back for.
now there’s a foreign benefit to studying it in school instead of just a domestic one (civil service, etc).
the brief mentions that workers who speak at least two of the EUs offical languages. I imagine that English plus one other language would qualify. So if I were to apply for an EU posiition, would I have to speak at least one other language fluently other than english?
that was how i understood it, it’s an organization of countries that practically each one brings its own langauge to the table…it makes sense to have a workforce that is as versitile as possible.
but now Irish and English would count, and since you’re required to learn Irish in school (there) if you apply yourself you will have your two without any extra courseload
Have you any idea what cost will be incurred? The EU has a habit of churning out enormous amounts of paper that all needs to be translated in all official languages (my father was an MEP during the 1970s and we had all that stuff mailed out to us, often by special delivery). And a team of translators will have to be on stand-by for all official business of the EU.
Considering that proceedings in the national parlement, Dail Eirreann, are generally carried out through English, a point could be made that the purpose would have been better served had the money been spent on improving the educational system in the State.
To survive, Irish needs to become a language of the media and entertainment. The opportunity to translate mountains of legal documents that nobody reads anyway is not going to make young boys and girls reach for their gaelic textbooks. Although having Irish as a career option is a step forward, I don’t think it will have a huge impact on the language in Ireland.
It is a great shame, but I think Irish will be lucky to survive as a living language into the next century.
Mukade
they will have to hire the team regardless, according to what I’ve read…and they already do it for many other languages…if they’re paying for it already they might as well get something out of it.
Have you any idea what cost will be incurred?
3 million euro per annum - probably one tenth of the annual cost of subsidising the price of a cup of coffee in the Brussells and Strasbourg EU staff cafeterias.
I was just over there this past week and was rather encouraged by the out-of-gaeltacht usage i found. pair that with the increasing popularity of the gaelscoileanna and that they’re adding more higher level gaelscoileanna and things are improving.
part of the problem is that figuring out the best way to teach it has been a trial and error process. they still haven’t gotten it completely right but it’s 1000 times better than it was.
attitudes take awhile to change, but my point is that language increase cannot be measured with any statistics prior to the 1990s, as a marked positive change in methods and approach occurred there.
since then, the shrinkage has stopped getting worse, and is even getting a wee bit better (reacquision or increased usage) in some of the border gaeltacht areas that were weak from the start. Except for a few die hards that would love to kill the langauge with their bare hands, the general attitude towards it among the english speaking population is no longer that the language is a backward rural vestige worthy of ridicule.
I found people 18-45 eager and actually proud to use what Irish they had…and now the argument that knowledge of it will do one no good outside of domestic (Irish) civil service holds no water. Now it can be a path to a real cherry position, and not just as a translator. Besides, the unanimous decision by the EU to adopt it shows that they take the idea seriously…they know the status of english in Ireland and yet this move made perfect sense.
The situation between Ireland and Israel is different enough that to liken the Irish revival is not a fair comparision to the resurrection of Hebrew, but I would love to see 50-100 years down the road a situation like the Netherlands. One could argue that Dutch is not of much use outside of the Nethlands and with English as almost-universally known as it is there, that for the Dutch to simply use english would be more “efficient” (or whatever you want to call it)…but they don’t, because Dutch is theirs. So they use Dutch among themselves and English when dealing with the rest of the world (or French). The Irish could use Irish among themselves and English for foreigners. It is a looooong road to that, but I don’t think it is impossible given three, four or five generations…
Well, congratulations. Attitudes towards Welsh have changed a great deal in the last twenty years, and I suppose it’s the succesful Welsh language rock bands that have really influenced youngsters and given them a positive view of Welsh.
Andrew
welsh even played a role in the recent Dr. Who? episodes, and from what I understand, to commemorate it the entire Dr. Who site was up in welsh for a week
not to mention Ros na Rún’s (Irish langauge soap opera) ratings are through the roof over there, and it was even picked up (in irish) by a philadelphia tv station here (where it is also doing well)
That’s a ridiculous comparison. Dutch is the sole language spoken in the country (we’ll ignore the Frisians for simplicity), a rough 16 million people (excluding the Flemish). The state of the English spoken by the majority of the dutch leaves a bit to be desired before it can be called ‘universally-known’. :roll:
English is the daily language in the largest part of Ireland, most of the children attending the local gaelscoil here do not speak Irish at home or in their daily lives (outside school) unless their parents do (which, here in Clare, is seldom the case). It will require a lot of incentive to change that situation.
FWIW, my twelve year old son is fluent in both English and Dutch and has whatever Irish taught in NS. He finds less use for his Irish than for his Dutch(and he doesn’t use that a lot either).
There is one more unforseen barrier for the Irish language - immigration into Ireland.
Immigration has been on the increase for several years mainly due to Ireland’s stronger economy and membership of the EU.
I can only see this increasing more in the coming years.
Mukade
I just read at lunchtime that the EU will have to hire 30 additional translators to accomodate the addition of Gaelic, at an expected cost of approximately 4 million USD. The total annual translation costs to the EU are expected to exceed 1 billion USD by 2007.
Good thing they started planting those money trees a few years back in all of the future member states.
They did, didn’t they?
The central statistics office made a prediction a few weeks ago that by 2020 750.000 more non nationals will have arrived in Ireland at that point being responsible for more than 60% of the total population growth.
more here</a](http://www.migrationinformation.org/Profiles/display.cfm?ID=260">here</a)>
What I heard is that only 10000 people speak Irish as a first language.
in the gaeltacht, the Irish language locations,
like the Aran Islands
JOBS FOR THE BOYS!!! 
All statistics (from the latest census of 2002) with regards to irish speakers can be found here: