My extended family can. I wouldn't say that it is dead as you can actually use it when in Ireland. Most call it Irish, not Gaelic. Myself, I'm American, don't know a word of it other than Nollaig Shona!
shareMe, and most of my family can speak fluent Gaeilge (Irish). Around half of my friends also have pretty good Gaeilge.
shareim in the process of learning my uncle can speak irish but he is a bigoted armchair IRA my other uncle could speak irish but he is now dead and he was an IRA man IT is not a dead language i wouldnt say its dying either but as it replacing english noo.... maybe you get areas apart from the gaeltachts that speak irish as in the Falls there are speakers dotted all over maybe in time if there is real effort it could be truthfully said it is going to strength again rather then hanging on at its fingertips its an important part of irish culture keeping it alive means Ireland wont become a West Britain just like cromwell always wanted.
one thing irish enthuiasts could do is change their names back to the original gaelic version
little known fact for people
During the 19th century the Catholic church made efforts to kill off the irish language, and it was prodestant presbyterians in the 18th century that embraced it and helped to keep it going strong untill An gorta mor and the subsequent mass emigrations
"they ar going going going and we cannot bid them stay"
Considering the fact that it is still taught in schools in Ireland, and there are still areas who speak it as a first language before English, I would not call it a dead language. There are many areas in the west where you will not find a street sign in English. Try the Dingle Peninsula, and the western parts of County Galway. These areas are called the Gaeltacht. There are other areas, these are just the big ones that stick out in my head.
shareLearned my irish out in south Donegal. But there are programs for adult learners all over the place. Hell they are even starting a gaeltacht in Canada. Not to mention the native speakers and all the school kids who have to take at least some of it
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Agus De Nuinseann is ainm dom.
But its in english for official things.
Irish is spoken more predominantly in the West of Ireland than the East. As far as the question of it being a dead language, you can see from this thread that it isn't dead. Of the 6 Celtic languages (the others being Scottish, Manx, Cornish, Breton and Welsh), Irish is the most widely spoken. I believe the number of speakers to be around 10,000 or so. Also, it is taught up to a certain age in Irish schools (not sure what age), so most people have at least SOME knowledge of it.
Hey can someone who has seen this movie please respond to my thread. It is titled "SPOILER ALERT, etc." and for that reason, I won't repeat the question here. I am dying to know, however, so please help me out.
IT's taught up to the last year in school in Ireland. You're about 17/18 or so then.
sharenot a dead language, I get some Irish radio stations speaking Gaelic all the time.
I want to all men!
The language is called "Gaeilge" and not gaelic.
I can speak as gaeilge in moderation. I'm not 100% fluent, due to not having someone to speak to everyday to maintain up my gaeilge since leaving school. In school I'd say I was 90% fluent.. I think this probably holds true for most people in Ireland.. By 6th year in secondary, they are pretty accomplished in Gaeilge - but after a few years, you forget alot. I finished school about 7 years ago and I've forgot so much, but I'm amazed that I remember so much also. Things are changing however, my friend's girlfriend is fluent and she's helping me brush back up - we speak as gaeilge every day. :)
If anybody is interested in keeping up their gaeilge, buy the turas teanga DVD and cd set. It's really great. Also, I'd recommend 2 or 3 weeks in a gaeltacht if they can over the summer.
An interesting question, imdb2-32, but maybe a better question would be "How many people use Gaelic fluently at least once a week?" Lots of Irish will say "I speak Gaelic" when it would be more accurate to say "I studied Gaelic for years in school and pretend to foreigners that I can speak it." Alas.
Ethnologue says that about 25% of people in the Irish Republic know Gaelic and only about 10% are fluent. Many of these fluent speakers will not use Gaelic as their primary language.
This is not meant as any disrespect for those who do use Gaelic. Quite the contrary. Gaelic needs as many speakers as it can get. Is Gaelic dead? Certainly not, but it's been in a state of massive numerical decline for more than a century. As some other posters have mentioned, there are many people who are interested in Gaelic, and it's easy to meet Irish who say they want to use it more often. But this is often rather like Americans who say they want to start exercising more: hoping is easier than doing.
Gaelic suffers from problems similar to that of other languages where most native speakers are bilingual and the non-heritage language offers more economic or international access. Think of Native American languages in almost every country in the Western Hemisphere. With bilingualism in a Native American language and then in one of the more common European languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese or French), there's strong pressure for each generation of parents to use the heritage language with their children less than in preceding generations.
"Ethnologue says that about 25% of people in the Irish Republic know Gaelic and only about 10% are fluent. Many of these fluent speakers will not use Gaelic as their primary language."
That's completely wrong! I would say 95-96% of Irish people know Gaeilge. Everyone I know can speak Gaeilge, whether it be a couple of lines or fluently. I don't know one Irish person who can't mutter a few lines of gaeilge. I don't know WHERE you are getting your numbers.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language will give stats on the number of people who speak irish. I'm fluent as is my brother. I'm just finished a degree in it and there are 80 people in my class. So i don't think its doing too badly! The gaelscoileanna (where all subjects are taught through irish) are booming and totally oversubscribed. I'd say its going good for irish. I can't tell you the amount of people i meet who tell me how lucky i am i can speak it and how they wish they could.
Slán go foill!
conas atá tú skankyhoe? :)
shareFirst, you need better manners.
Second, "to know" a language does not mean "mutter a few lines" in it. Ethnologue's figures reflect the percentage of people who "know a language" rather than "know a few phrases or words in a language." There's vagueness in what it means to "know a language" but, at the least, it means knowing more than a thousand words and being comfortable with all the basic grammar needed for ordinary conversation. And by these standards, the vast majority of people in the Irish Republic do not know Gaelic. I wish they did.
Let's set up a test with increasingly difficult questions. Ask the informant to translate the following into Gaelic (the commonly accepted Englsih word for Gaelige at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, and Dublin Universities). I would say, no one should claim "to know a language" unless they can function at least at a level of 5.
1. house
2. my house
3. My house is red.
4. I live with my parents in that red house.
5. Because I'm still in school, I live with my parents in that house the colour of beets.
6. Although I lived in that beet-coloured house with my parents while I was in primary school, we moved to another one further out of town.
7. Had there been a good university nearer my childhood home, I would have stayed there with my parents instead of relocating to the college dormitory where I lived over the course of my higher education.
I study Gaeilge and my ma knows it as well.
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1 . house
2. my house
3. My house is red.
4. I live with my parents in that red house.
5. Because I'm still in school, I live with my parents in that house the colour of beets.
6. Although I lived in that beet-coloured house with my parents while I was in primary school, we moved to another one further out of town.
7. Had there been a good university nearer my childhood home, I would have stayed there with my parents instead of relocating to the college dormitory where I lived over the course of my higher education.
I'll give it a shot.
1. teach
2. mo teach
3. tá mo teach dearg
4. bheith i mo chónaí in éineacht le mo thuismitheoirí ina teach dearg
5. mar táim ar scoil, bheith mé i mo chónaí in éineacht le mo thuismitheoirí (no idea what a beet is in english or gaeilge? do you mean like a beetroot?)
Although I admit to not being "fluent" in gaeilge.. I can have a basic conversation with anyone about many common topics. My grammar may be off somewhat.. But it's an effort!
I'm impressed! And I wish Ireland would find some way to give Gaelic the life and future it deserves. My guess is that increasingly it's being taught like Latin, and that's a terrible way to keep a language alive.
In Gaelic language classes in Ireland, how much time is spent with students doing fun things: talking, joking, playing language games. TV game show ideas often work very well in language classes: $64,000 Pyramid, The Weakest Link, etc.
And how much time is meant memorizing paradigms, doing paper work, etc? Do kids in these classes (for non-speakers of Gaelic) get a chance to write stories about things that interest themselves, or is it mostly just translation?
If you can have a conversatin about many common topics, I count that as "knowing" a lanuage. Maybe not at an advanced level, but certainly knowing.
BTW, I just saw Pari, je t'aime and in the final section there's an American woman describing her stay in Paris. She's got a terrible accent but has worked hard for 2 years to learn French. One of her big stumbles is when she tries to make the "past counerfactual" like in #5. That grammar is often the hardest point when learning a language.
"In Gaelic language classes in Ireland, how much time is spent with students doing fun things: talking, joking, playing language games. TV game show ideas often work very well in language classes: $64,000 Pyramid, The Weakest Link, etc."
None, that's the problem - For kids - it feels like a chore to study. There is no fun in it, and only when you are mature enough to respect your heritage, history and culture - by then, it's too late and your avenues for learner are much less, due to work constraints and what not.
"If you can have a conversatin about many common topics, I count that as "knowing" a lanuage. Maybe not at an advanced level, but certainly knowing."
Well, my friend's girlfriend is fluent in Gaeilge, so it helps. We have chats in gaeilge all the time, probably why mine is a little above the average irish person's grasp of the language. With that being said, I still have alot to learn and remember! I have a home-study course which I'm going through to try and help me. It's tough when you don't get to use it in everyday life, but with speech groups - you can really get on track to being fluent.
Ok for the last freakin time it is Gaeilge as Gaeilge and Irish in English why must you insist on calling it Gaelic noone here calls it that. and when you go to the colaistes for the summer they always have games for you there which really helps and in my old primary we had a teacher from connamara and she always played irish games with us.
And is being able to label the heart in irish count as muttering a few words and phrases.
Igotthelegs, you're a bit testy, aren't you?
"Ok for the last freakin time it is Gaeilge as Gaeilge and Irish in English why must you insist on calling it Gaelic noone here calls it that."
I'm not sure what you mean by "here" but in English, "Gaelic" is most certainly one of the terms used to describe both Celtic languages in general and the particular form of it spoken in Ireland. It's not just one of the terms, but the most frequently used of the trio Gaelic, Gaelige, Irish.
With some languages, there's relatively little dispute about the correct name, in English, for it. For example, French is called "French" in English but not "français". But with other languages the matter isn't so simple. People often say "Chinese", while academics will prefer to say "Mandarin" to distinguish this language from Cantonese, Wu, etc. And there's always the debate about whether it's "Farsi" or "Persian". Even with Spanish, there's some dispute about whether it should be "Spanish" or "Castillian".
And with Ireland, there's also more than one term used: "Gaelic", "Gaelige", and sometiems "Irish". Your claim that it simple "is" Gaelige is, in fact, not true. Both terms are used, but in the English-speaking world as a whole, "Gaelic" has wider currency that "Gaelige" as a term for the Celtic language of Ireland. I'm perfectly willing to accept that there might be more than one acceptable term for a language and wonder why you don't extend that same courtesy to others?
Even in Ireland, "Gaelic" is the most-often-used term to describe the language. My evidence? Well, let's just use one piece. It is the term used by the University of Dublin Library and by the most presitigious publishing houses. "Gaeilge" for the University of Dublin catalogue yields 31 hits. "Gaelic" in the same database yields 157.
If you wish to use "Gaelige", I have no problems with that and won't make insulting posts here to correct you...for something that in fact isn't a mistake. I wish you'd show the same magnamity to others who happen to use "Gaelic" or "Irish" to refer to this language.
Gaelic is what the Scottish speak. Irish is what the Irish speak. Gaelige is the name of the language in Irish.
To make it clearer to you. Portuguese is what they speak in Portugal. Spanish is what the Spanish speak. Español is the name of the language in Spanish.
Castillian is used to differentiate between Spanish spoken in Spain and Castilla-Leon, Castilla la Mancha y Madrid
Irish and Gaelic are similar, but not identical, languages.
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Okay, so let me get this straight... your little test-thingy is designed to assess how well Irish people speak Irish? That's a bit presumptuous, isn't it? Not to mention arrogant.
Anyway, it's only natural that Irish people speak English as a first language these days, even putting aside the turbulent history. For example, fluent Gaeilge is no longer a prerequisite for the majority of jobs, and speaking English as a first language helps us out economically.
I know it's unfortunate that Gaeilge seems less and less of interest to people nowadays but speaking English does have it's advantages. Besides, you might even say that Irish people speak a different type of English to people living in England. We have different terms and expressions, and even a different way of constructing a sentence. In my opinion, that's one of the reasons why so many Irish literary writers and poets were/are lauded as lyrical masters of their trades.
Gaps in the whitethorn admit me to this once and once only sunset.