ASNJ

ireland is the only celtic state left in europe. its language is english, government is designed around london. is it a matter of time until ireland just turns into a celtic ruin or is something being done there to help encourage its dying language outside of some small hamlets?

Toltec

If you want a celtic language speaking state I'd look to wales, the welsh language is still spoken quite commonly there.

Celticguy

The state of the Irish language is more or less unchanged in the past 20 years. It really can't go any lower with around 15,000 native speakers. Of course it is a compulsary language that every irish school child must learn.

In the past number of years an Irish language television station has been established which helps, but it's very hard to make headway against the dominance of english.

It might be the only celtic independant state left in Europe, however Wales, Scotland, Cornwall in the UK and Britanny in France are all celtic regions.

There are over 600,000 welsh speakers in wales with about the same number of breton speakers in Brittany.

I don't think Ireland will become a celtic ruin anytime soon, an economic ruin maybe

Scipio

Haven't Irish nationalist MEPs managed to get Irish translation added to the European Parliament? It's a purely political decision - almost no one speaks Irish as a first language, especially not nationalist MEPs - but it suggests that at least a part of the Irish political establishment is committed to following the Welsh route of mass reintroduction of Irish through the curriculum.

I'm personally not sure whether these schemes to conserve the use of "indigenous" languages through compulsory teaching in school can ever be anything more than a sticking plaster, especially in Ireland where the canonical Irish writers wrote in English. As an Englishman, I'm not yet convinced that there is any particular merit to conserving the Irish language anyway.

Irish Toaster

I'd have to disagree mate. Many Irish people can't speak the language fluently this is true but there IS merit to conserving the Irish language. Many people are still proud of the language and though cannot speak it would certainly not want it to become extinct. It's a source of national pride.

Ri Fhionngaill

Yes, the only reason they're failing (Manx and Gaelic, that is) is because they subconsciously hate themselves or blame chauvinistic Lowlanders for their plight. If we put the vast diaspora to good use, we'd be unstoppable. The Bretons, who don't even officially exist, have seen a massive boom through their own perseverence and unity.

Sargon of Akkad

Language isn't something sacred. Its just a means of communication. If hardly anyone inside your country speaks the language (e.g Wales, 600,000 speakers in 3 million population) and nobody outside the country speaks it, what's the point of the language? Why bother having a separate language? So you can give your kids problems when they need to go outside your little nation?

Ri Fhionngaill

A language is the method of communicating, but much of this communication is particular to that culture or nation. That could include astrological, social, psychological, and even political ideas, and even an entire mindset, or knowledge of an entire way of life. There may have been a vaccine for AIDs in the tribal knowledge of sub-Saharan Africans, but, without their language, they've lost any idea of its existence. And think of what could have been lost with the languages of the civilisations of South America.

A language also represents the culture - by 'culture,' I don't mean dancing and singing, I mean the mindset. The attitudes and opinions that people have. If you take away the language, someone's entire system of belief - one that they will communicate to their families - and their opinions become marginalised or irrelevant.

If you take away the language, you have generations of people who don't have a clue who or what they are, or why they're there. Their mindset is at odds with the rest of their community, but you don't know why. They don't fit into their 'new' culture or their native one. I don't know if you know what that does to someone's psychology, but Gaelic-speaking Highlanders that I used to know who've decided to come back for a holiday are a lot unhappier than they were when they left.

Six hundred thousand speakers on the census. There's a problem with that, as many people can speak but they cannot read the language. They're taught to use Latin characters and the pronounciation of English in schools, and that sort of screws up their understanding of how to speak their own language. The governments in Wales or Scotland often send out documents in that native language to anyone who speaks it - so why say you speak it, if you can't read the documents?

Another problem with Gaelic - and Welsh to a lesser extent - is that there's an older generation of people (by 'older' I mean about fifty plus) who don't really care about the language. Or at least many of them that don't. They're the 'beaten at school for speaking it' crowd, and not many of them admit to being Gaelic-speakers. There's also those who speak it, but not natively, which is mostly a Scottish problem. In Ireland, it's the opposite - people who know a few words claim to speak it.

Efendi

If learning rune matters. They can have latin alphabet in a way that can be read as it is written. As it is in Turkish modern alphabet and Greek alphabet.

"No badi kuld spel it inkorrekli if tey nov törkiş letırs" Nobody could spell it incorrectly if they know turkish letters.

Ri Fhionngaill

Oh, they can read the Latin alphabet. It's just that the pronounciation of Celtic languages is (usually) very different to the pronounciation of Germanic or Romance ones. Gaelic (Gaidhlig) only has eighteen letters. So, some words are difficult to read, and others are nearly impossible to even imagine.

A few names that should prove the point:

Somhairle = Sorley
Diarmaid = Jeer-mut
Flaithbheartach = fly-yurch-tuch