Talk:Irish language: Difference between revisions

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*[[Talk:Irish language/Archive 1]] February 2003-August 2005

{{afd-merged-from|List of Irish counties by percentage of people with Irish language ability|List of Irish counties by percentage of people with Irish language ability|14 August 2009|date=November 2009}}

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== NPOV ==

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This article is like the proverbial curate's egg; very good in parts, POV drivel in other places. Whole chunks are so POV it beggars belief. Large chunks of it are written from an extreme Sinn Féin bias that is blatently OTT. It needs wholescale culling of its agenda to confirm to even elementary NPOV rules.

# [[/Archive 1|February 2003 – August 2005]]

# [[/Archive 2|September 2005 – March 2006]]

# [[/Archive 3|April 2006 – September 2006]]

# [[/Archive 4|October 2006 - July 2007]]

# [[/Archive 5|July 2007 - March 2008]]

# [[/Archive 6|March - October 2008]]

}}

For example

== Leinster Irish marked as extinct ==

''The government refused to implement the 1926 recommendations of the Gaeltacht Commission, which included restoring Irish as the language of administration in such areas. As the role of the state grew, it therefore exerted tremendous pressure on Irish-speakers to speak English. This was only partly offset by measures which were supposed to support the Irish language. For instance, the state was by far the largest employer. A qualification in Irish was required to apply for state jobs. However, this did not require a high level of fluency, and few public employees were ever required to use Irish in the course of their work. On the other hand, state employees had to have perfect command of English and had to use it constantly. Because most public employees had a poor command of Irish, it was impossible to deal with them in Irish.'' — '''editorialising and propagandising'''.

Hi there, I just noticed that Leinster Irish is marked on the page as extinct, but there are several distinct Leinster Irish dialects still alive such as those in Ring, Waterford or Rathcairn, Meath both of which are in Leinster?

There are preservation efforts in place for these as well. [[User:ParadauxIO|ParadauxIO]] ([[User talk:ParadauxIO|talk]]) 12:36, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

: Leinster Irish is indeed extinct. Last remnants were found in remote pockets of Wicklow and southern Dublin, parts of Offaly and Roscommon (there is a famous recording of Douglas Hyde, for example). The two areas you mention have some Irish now, but nothing to do with Leinster Irish. Rathcairn was not an Irish-speaking area when the Gaeltacht there was founded - families were brought from a coastal part of Connemara, and the Irish used there is a mix of Connacht Irish and the caighdean (the standardised written Irish form, the base of which is Connacht more than any other dialect). And Waterford is in Munster, and the Irish spoken, mostly up in the hills, and much faded since the 1940s/1950s, is very clearly a Munster form (I have heard it). [[User:SeoR|SeoR]] ([[User talk:SeoR|talk]]) 01:25, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

: I just checked my notes on this, and an old booklet, and there was also a small speaker base in County Louth into the 1950s, even the early 1960s. [[User:SeoR|SeoR]] ([[User talk:SeoR|talk]]) 01:31, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

== Irish/Gaelic ==

'' However, from the early 1960s onward the elite increasingly, and wrongly, blamed nationalist ideology, including the Irish language. In the 1970s and 1980s, after fighting broke out in Northern Ireland, the elite sought to distance the Republic of Ireland from the conflict and counter sympathy for the oppressed northern nationalists by launching a fanatical anti-nationalist onslaught. Although the language was not a primary target, many of those who sought to defend it from increasing attacks were hampered by repressive state measures such as official censorship. This banned many language activists from being interviewed or quoted in the broadcast media, even during election campaigns.'' — '''one of the POV OTT paragraphs anywhere on Wikipedia'''. (Now deleted.)

I think it is now time for another talk-page discussion on the inclusion of a certain word in the lead which is causing contention. Perhaps there should be a vote? 3 things should be pointed out:

''The justification offered was that, in making the English lettering large enough to be easily read by motorists from a distance, there was no space to include Irish. The use of the single Irish words left, 'An Lár' (meaning city centre) was criticised on the basis that no-one would know what it meant, even though it was a term used widely for decades on street signs.'' — '''blatant POV'''.

* Whether for right or wrong, the words ''Gaelic ''and ''Irish-Gaelic'' are frequently attested in reliable-sources (not just Britannica or Collins dictionary by the way) and are used in everyday speech (believe it or not, by a number of Irish people such as myself).

* The words ''Irish'' and ''Gaelic'' are both [[English language|English]] and derive from the same word: ''Gaeilge''. They are synonyms. Combining them as 'Irish-Gaelic' is a way to differentiate from [[Scottish Gaelic]].

* Wikipedia is not a platform for supporting any sort of 'movement' or subjective view. It is an objective encyclopaedia for facts. Therefore, we must not let our sentiments get in the way of this.

''Buíochas'', [[User:Gaelicbow|Gaelicbow]] ([[User talk:Gaelicbow|talk]]) 11:03, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

''Many see this as a deliberate attempt by anti-nationalist politicians to wipe out the language''. — '''an outrageous bit of POVing'''.

:Please see a couple of the later sections in the most recent talk page archive for background. [[User:Bastun|<span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">Bastun</span>]]^{[[User_talk:Bastun|Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!]]} 12:32, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

''These are supposed to ensure that the proportion of English speakers in the local population does not increase. But even this may be too little, too late, as many of those areas have a majority of English speakers, with all Irish speakers being bilingual, using English as their everyday language except among themselves.'' &mdash; '''blatant editorialising'''.

::Thanks, hadn't noticed that. But I am confused by your recent edits? Both the terms ''Gaelic ''and ''Irish Gaelic'' are in use in Ireland and by Irish scholars. Admittedly, the latter much less so in Ireland, but that's neither here nor there when it is in use outside of Ireland and by scholars. I don't think it should be explained in lead because it's a weebit involuted with this sort of prose (perhaps an EFN note?). [[User:Gaelicbow|Gaelicbow]] ([[User talk:Gaelicbow|talk]]) 13:20, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

:::I've never seen "Irish Gaelic" used in Ireland, except where it's used to distinguish between Irish and Scots Gaelic. From previous discussions, IIRC, it's been shown that "Gaelic" is used far more often than "Irish Gaelic". [[User:Bastun|<span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">Bastun</span>]]^{[[User_talk:Bastun|Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!]]} 13:55, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

''The main reason for the decline was the pressure the state put upon Irish-speakers to use English.'' &mdash; '''POV'''.

::::@[[User:Bastun|Bastun]] Alright, I understand. Still, I would suggest an EFN note on Irish Gaelic simply for the prose to flow better. And I think if we can agree that any IPs or whoever removing it from the lead should be reverted because this war on the use of the word Gaelic is getting so tiring.

::::Buíochas, [[User:Gaelicbow|Gaelicbow]] ([[User talk:Gaelicbow|talk]]) 14:28, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

: And it's back. Despite massive past discussion, a little of this old song plays again. Both "Gaelic" and "Irish Gaelic" as names for the language must be mentioned, we mostly agree, I think - but wording crept in lately which put special emphasis on Gaelic as being used in Ireland. And it really isn't much of a thing, neither among Gaeilgeori, nor Bearleori, nor the most of us with some retained skills. I've restored the wording which includes the two terms, but leaves out "Ireland" - as the only term used by most of Ireland is "Irish". Yes, some exceptions exist, and historically it was different, but as per State positions ("Irish: The Gaelic language in Ireland – Gaeilge, or Irish as it's known locally), or popular (language learner sites have statements like "Irish Gaelic is more specific than Gaelic. It refers specifically to the Irish language. This term is not used within Ireland.") or scholarly (most get a bit cross about it, seeing Gaelic as a generic term)... [[User:SeoR|SeoR]] ([[User talk:SeoR|talk]]) 19:57, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

''The Planning and Development Act (2000) attempted to address the latter issue, but the response is almost certainly inadequate.'' &mdash; '''editorialising.'''

== European Union period of derogation for the Irish Language ==

''Outward migration of Irish-speakers could be reduced if the state, which is the main employer in the Republic of Ireland, were to exercise its right to have certain jobs performed in Irish and relocated to the Gaeltacht. On 3rd December 2003 the Minister for Finance announced a new Decentralisation programme, moving over 10,000 civil and public service jobs to 53 locations in 25 other counties outside Dublin. The government explicitly said this was being done to boost the economy of outlying areas. None of these jobs were used to provide employment for native Irish-speakers in the Gaeltacht.'' &mdash; '''more editorialising'''

I'm writing a paper about language status in the EU, and this article says that Ireland itself requested Irish to be derogated in the EU. There is no source for this, and I'm having trouble finding a clear answer on the web. Anyone know what's up? [[User:JungleEntity|JungleEntity]] ([[User talk:JungleEntity|talk]]) 02:51, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

''Many republicans in the six counties, including Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, learnt Irish while in prison, a development known as the jailtacht''' &mdash; '''irrelevant and showing a political bias.'''

== What does "daily speakers" mean here? ==

What was once a reasonably good article has been turned into a joke by all the agenda-driven, POV editorialising and preaching. It needs massive culling and rewriting, or else the complete deletion of everything but the information on the linguistic structure of the language, etc followed by a whole new body of text to be added in. In its current form it is an embarrassment to Wikipedia. [[User:Jtdirl|<font color="#006666">'''Fear'''<font color="#FF6600">'''''ÉIREANN''''']][[Image:Ireland coa.png|15px]]\^{<font color=blue>[[user_talk:Jtdirl|(caint)}<font color=black>]] 01:21, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm very confused by the sentence "with an estimated 200,000–250,000 daily Canadian speakers of Irish in 1890.". What is "daily speakers" referring to? [[User:Theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything|Theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything]] ([[User talk:Theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything|talk]]) 21:30, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

:Mmm, agreed. Large portions of the text show bias. It is interesting that a number of these subjective statementes use the structure "many say...." or similar. This is a poor attempt at neutrality! I think a re-write is called for, particularly of the political section. [[User:7Munkys|7Munkys]] 13:08, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

== LUAS ==

::Agreed--[[User:ClemMcGann|ClemMcGann]] 11:23, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Next stop Domanick [[Special:Contributions/93.107.202.172|93.107.202.172]] ([[User talk:93.107.202.172|talk]]) 15:15, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

:::Jtdirl, I'll support any changes you feel need to be made. [[User:Bastique|<font size=+1>{{unicode|&#08492;}}</font>astique]]<font style="color:#FF72E3;">{{unicode|&#09660;}}</font>[[User talk:Bastique|'''^talk''']] 03:54, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

== [[Irish syntax]] ==

:I think alot of this can be saved, the first paragraph should be changed slightly, and the last bit on people learning it in jail is very interesting and there is no doubt it should be kept in. Maybe use "Northern Ireland" or something to make it less POV. Put it under Trivia maybe. The rest of the stuff raises good points, but needs to made less biased alright. - [[User:Dalta]]

Can somebody please find and add reliable sources to this article? Ten thousand thanks. [[User:Bearian|Bearian]] ([[User talk:Bearian|talk]]) 08:52, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

This article is fine as is all articles that I have seen on the encyclopedia. The author uses proper stats and sources. Anyone who has a problem with the article is clearly mis-reading something.

:With respect Jtdirl has a point too much of the article is blow-by-blow politics and commentary that Irish is been stamped out at every corner. Parts he has citied as been pov might better be served in other articles or not included at all in wikipedia. Too many off the point slots ruine the flow of the article. It needs restructuring and maybe even more subsiduary articles. [[User:Djegan|Djegan]] 18:52, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

:No one has done anything to address the NPOV situation, so I'm taking off the ugly tag now. --[[User:Angr|Angr]]/[[User_talk:Angr|_{{{IPA|tɔk tə mi}}}]] 18:05, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

==INTERESTING NOTE==

The Cambridge Encyclopedia,2004 edition,states under the "Irish Literature" entry that the Irish language was the LAST European Language to be written down.

This proves that history,as written in England about Ireland,really is "bunk".

:It proves either that (1) you misread and/or misunderstood what was written, or (2) the author of that article hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about. Irish was first written down in [[Ogham]] inscriptions in the fourth century A.D. and [[Old Irish language|Old Irish]] was first written down in the sixth century. [[Albanian language|Albanian]] and [[Finnish language|Finnish]], on the other hand, were first written down in the 16th century. --[[User:Angr|Angr]]/[[User_talk:Angr|_{{{IPA|tɔk tə mi}}}]] 13:31, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

== Irish and the Gardaí ==

Someone just added text about Irish no longer being a requirement for entry in the Gardaí. Is this the case? I understood the question was "under discussion". Was it decided? [[User:Evertype|Evertype]] 08:56, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

:The law has been changed to allow policemen from other forces to join the Gardaí, and they will not be required to have any Irish. The requirement remains for those joining ab initio. [[User:Lapsed Pacifist|Lapsed Pacifist]] 13:43, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

::Source? [[User:Evertype|Evertype]]

== Vicipéid??!! ==

I was looking at Wikipedia through Irish (Gaeilge) and I noticed that Wikipedia has been translated to 'Vicipéid'. However, there is no 'V' in the Irish language. Usually 'v' sounds in english are translated to 'fh' in Irish therefore making it 'Fhicipéid'. Correct???????

:Incorrect. ''Fh'' is silent in Irish and is only used when words beginning with the letter ''f'' undergo [[Irish initial mutations#Effects of lenition|lenition]]. ''V'' is used only in foreign words in Irish (and in the surname ''Ó Cuív''), but there are actually a fairly good number of foreign words in Irish beginning with ''v''. ''Foclóir Póca'' (a small Irish-English/English-Irish dictionary) lists over 50 words beginning with ''v'' in Irish, including (just to list the ones where Irish ''v'' corresponds to English ''w''):

:*'''vaigín''' - waggon

:*'''valbaí''' - wallaby

:*'''válcaeireacht''' - walking, strolling

:*'''vallait''' - wallet

:*'''válsa''' - waltz (noun) and '''válsáil''' - waltz (verb)

:*'''vardrús''' - wardrobe

:*'''vásta''' - waste (noun) and '''vástáil''' - waste (verb)

:*'''vástchóta''' - waistcoat

:*'''vata''' - watt and '''vatacht''' - wattage

:*'''vuinsciú''' - coping; wainscot

:So ''Vicipéid'' as the equivalent of Wikipedia is quite correct. --[[User:Angr|Angr]]/[[User_talk:Angr|_{{{IPA|tɔk tə mi}}}]] 11:53, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

::You'll note that every single one of those words is "made up", e.g. a created word, developed in the past 60 years or so. There -is no V- in the Irish language, along with another 7 letters that -just aren't there-. The correct spelling would, however, be Bhicipéid and not Vicipéid, as thats what makes the most similar sound. --[[User:Kiand|Kiand]] 15:28, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

:::And you'll note that ''Wikipedia'' is also a recently created word. As I said, words with ''v'' in Irish are all [[loanword]]s. If "there is no ''v''" in Irish just because it's used only in loanwords, then by the same reasoning there is no ''j'' or ''z'' in English, since all the words that have those letters are borrowed from other languages. Irish may not have had the letter V 60 or 100 years ago, but it does now. ''Bhicipéid'' could only exist as the lenited form of a word *''Bicipéid''. ''Vicipéid'' is the correct spelling since the word is a borrowed word. --[[User:Angr|Angr]]/[[User_talk:Angr|_{{{IPA|tɔk tə mi}}}]] 16:50, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

::::A "loanword" of Wikipedia would be... "Wikipedia". Not "Vicipéid". And I'd far prefer to mangle Irish grammar than add letters that aren't there to the language, meaning "Bhicipéid" as preferential to "Vicipéid". --[[User:Kiand|Kiand]] 17:08, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

:::::Yes, it would have been another option to adopt "Wikipedia" unaltered. That's what they did for the [[gd:|Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia]]. But since there's a tradition of using ''v'' in loanwords like the above in Irish, the creators of Irish Wikipedia decided to go with Vicipéid. Incidentally, ''p'' is also only used in loanwords in Irish; would you say that the letter ''p'' "isn't there" in Irish either? --[[User:Angr|Angr]]/[[User_talk:Angr|_{{{IPA|tɔk tə mi}}}]] 17:20, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

::::::The letter "p" is long since accepted as one of the 18 letters in Irish, the letter "v" isn't. Theres a major difference. Also, I don't think you're at all accurate about that, as I don't think words like "Priomh", "pé", etc are loanwords. My 1927 Irish Text Society dictionary, complete with non-latin characters, has 40 pages of words -beginning- with P. And none with V.

:::::::The only difference is in time. P was introduced to the Irish alphabet several centuries ago, V was introduced several decades ago. So what? They're both there now. I don't know the etymology of ''pé'' off the top of my head, but ''príomh'' is a loanword from Latin ''prīmus''. The 1927 dictionary has no words with V because it uses the uncial script, which indeed had no V. But the orthography of that dictionary is now obsolete. There was a spelling reform in 1948; the uncial script is no longer in use except decoratively, and the letter V is now part of the Irish alphabet. Read any scholarly non-fiction, or even a newspaper, written in Irish, and you'll encounter the letter V, and not just in names. If you don't like it, take it up with [[Foras na Gaeilge]]. We won't settle anything arguing about it on a Wikipedia talk page. --[[User:Angr|Angr]]/[[User_talk:Angr|_{{{IPA|tɔk tə mi}}}]] 17:56, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

The "loanword" vs. "genuine word" argument is completely redundant. If you would apply the same criteria of etymological purity to the vocabulary of the English language there wouldn't be any English language left. The usage of the letter V in written Irish goes back a long time. The Royal Irish Academy's Corpus na Gaeilge gives 28 examples of the word "véarsaí" in print in Irish texts between 1713 and 1850, and that's only one of the many words beginning with V in that corpus, never mind word containing the letter in non-initial position. The implicit rule has always been that words beginning with a v or w sound in their basic un-lenited form are spelled with v, whereas those in which the v or w sound only ocurres once the word is lenited are spelled with bh. There was a brief phase in the 1920s when self-styled language popes tried to purify the spelling along the lines of the arbitrary dogma proposed by an earlier contributor, that "there is no V in Irish". The infant civil service of the Irish Freestate was originally taken in by this fashionable aberration, but when the Caighdeán Oifigiúil was published in 1953 the V was reinstated.

: Just to stir things up a bit, a possible clean way of borrowing the word would be to spell it as ''Uicipéid''. There's longstanding precedents for this, like the name ''Uilliam'', of which ''Liam'' is simply an abbreviated form. --[[User:Kgaughan|Kgaughan]] 01:26, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

== First bible in Irish ==

I think the ref to Bedell in the Irish Language Movement section is incorrect: the first translation (NT, I recall) was in the late 16thC. by an Irish cleric. I don't have facts to hand - help anyone?[[User:Shtove|shtove]] 19:19, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

==No Monolinguial Irish Speckers==

I had assumed that the last monolinguial Irish speaker had died within the last twenty-thirty years; indeed, I knew and still know people for whom English is not a language they speck with ease. However, I have being delighted to learn that there are in fact ''still'' monolinguial Irish speckers. Best of all, they are not elderly folk, but children. Obviously this will change as they grow up, go to school, etc, but it is pleaseing that at least some families (those I speck of live in Tour Mhic Eadhigh) have enough confidence to raise their children in a purely Irish specking enviorment. It is stunning to think that there are children being raised in Ireland who don't know a word of English yet; wish I was as lucky! [[User:Fergananim|Fergananim]] 12:28, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

:I have met such children myself. I have also met children here in Germany who were growing up bilingual in Irish and German and didn't know a word of English. (Then they moved to Dublin and the situation changed). --[[User:Angr|Angr]]/[[User_talk:Angr|_{{{IPA|tɔk tə mi}}}]] 14:01, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

::I always thought all Irish speakers were bilingual in Irish and English. Wow, you learn something new every day. Are all Hiberno-English speakers bilingual to some degree? Regarding the bilingual Irish-German speakers, does that mean that at least one of their parents came from Irish speaking Ireland then moved to Germany. Mark 05:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

:::Their father came from Ireland, but not from the [[Gaeltacht]]. He grew up in Dublin; his parents were language-revivalist schoolteachers who spoke Irish fluently but not natively, and did so at home; he also went to [[Gaelscoil]]. Then he moved to Germany and married a German woman and had kids. He'd speak to them in Irish and she'd speak to them in German. Then they moved back to Dublin, put the kids in Gaelscoil, and got a series of German au-pairs so that the kids would have more exposure to German than just their mother. They figured the kids would just absorb English from the environment, but did notice one boy tended to settle arguments with his fists when he was unable to speak to other boys in the neighborhood.

:::As for bilingualism, yes, ''virtually'' all Irish speakers over the age of about 6 are bilingual with English. I would not say all Hiberno-English speakers are bilingual to some degree, but everyone who grew up in the Republic of Ireland has at least some knowledge of Irish (or has had some knowledge of it at some point in their life) because it's a required subject in school. --[[User:Angr|Angr]]/[[User_talk:Angr|_{{{IPA|tɔk tə mi}}}]] 06:31, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

== Inaccurate Map ==

''(The following is a duplicate of comments I made here: [[Talk:Scottish_English#Inaccurate_map]].)''

The following map has been applied to the [[English English]] page, and to [[Scottish English]]:

[[Image:Selected languages and accents of the british isles2 rjl.jpg|280px|thumb|Diagram showing the geographical locations of selected languages and dialects of the British Isles.]]

It appears to have one major flaw, and several quibbles:

*Where on earth is the [[Scots language]]? Its ommission seems particularly inappropriate considering the debt owed to Scots by [[Scottish English]]. Somewhat bizarrely, only one [[Scots_language#Dialects|dialect of Scots]] is included, and that is the tiny number of [[Ulster Scots]] speakers, only about 2% of all Scots-speakers! I know that the map is titled "Selected languages", but it is baffling why the only language the auther has ''"selected"'' not to include is Scots!

*Why on earth have two distinct languages, [[Scottish Gaelic language]] and [[Irish language]], been shown as a homogenous blob?

*[[Highland English]] is missing: another rather stark absence on this Scottish English page.

*Why are several subdivisions of English English shown, but only two of Scottish English? The differences between the [[Fife dialect]] and [[Aberdonian]] are just as big, if not bigger, than the differences between [[Brummie]] and [[Yorkshire dialect and accent|Yorkshire dialect]].

*Where on earth did [[Shetland]] go? A stunning ommission, considering that it is one of the most distictive linguistic groups in the entire [[British Isles]]?

Well to be fair, Scots Gaelic came out of an Irish invasion in the 5th century anyway, and even now, while the 2 languages are not mutually intelligible, they largely look identical in written form. So I guess lumping them together is ok. - Peter

I find it very depressing to hear that a German textbook publisher wants to use it in textbooks for 600 schools. No wonder many people grow up with a very strange perception of the language situation in the United Kingdom.--[[User:Mais oui!|Mais oui!]] 10:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

== Endangered language ==

Is irish really an [[Endangered language]] ot doesn't seem to be one according to the endangered language page and it is not on the [[List of endangered languages]]? [[User:Fabhcún|Fabhcún]] 01:20, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

:It depends on your definition of "endangered" and "language". See [[Talk:List of endangered languages#Irish]] for why Irish isn't on that list, although the explanation there leads one to wonder why Scottish Gaelic ''is'' on the list. I suppose as long as Irish is a required subject in schools in Ireland it's not in danger of running out of learners, but it is very much in danger of native speakers, especially ones who descend from an unbroken line of native speakers. --[[User:Angr|Angr]]/[[User_talk:Angr|_{{{IPA|tɔk tə mi}}}]] 01:26, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

::Does the fact that it could have no native speakers in 50 years (which i doubt) make it one, the main reason why i ask is because I had a look at the category of Endangered langs and to be Irish has too many speakers to be in that catagory. [[User:Fabhcún|Fabhcún]] 10:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

== Spelling reform of 1948 ==

The article refers exactly once to the "spelling reform of 1948". Does this deserve more elaboration? --[[User:P3d0|P3d0]] 18:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

==Education in Irish language==

I have raised the matter of the "compulsory" nature of the language in education in the Reoublic[[Talk:Republic_of_Ireland#Education_in_Irish_language]]. Any comments welcome. [[User:Djegan|Djegan]] 20:23, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

A opinion Poll conducted by IMS showed that the Irish Public were in favour of Irish being retained as a compulsory subject by an margin of 52% to 48%.

Moreover, both USI (the 3rd level students' Union) and USS (the Union of Secondary School Students) favour Irish being retained as a compulsory subject. {{unsigned2|00:00, 29 December 2005|194.145.135.227}}

=== Irish in Education ===

The section on Irish in education really needs be rewritten. It makes a number of unsubstansiated claims and indulges in generalisations. I tinkered with it a little, but that is not the solution to its obvious deficiencies both in fact and style.

--[[User:Dfcarolan|Dfcarolan]] 22:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

:Laregly your edits are accurate - the state can determine standards in schools in which it funds but can do little outside that system (indeed this is the case in all subjects). [[User:Djegan|Djegan]] 17:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

This section is in need of an urgent overhall. The main problem, as i see it, is that it makes no reference to gaelscoileanna. There are now 25,000 primrary and 6,000 secondary school students attending 158 such schools (as of the start of this academic year), and the number is growing each year. this will ensure the future of the language and goes against your generally negative outlook. Also it is inappropriate to suggest that Irish is derided by students. My experience is that, although many find it hard to speak it, they have a positive attitude towards those who do.

== want to learn ==

:There are number of sites offering online Irish lessons. [[b:Irish]], for example. But your best bet is to find a language school in the Gaeltacht and spend two or three weeks there in the summer. --[[User:Angr|Angr]] ([[User talk:Angr|<span title="Pronunciation in IPA" class="IPA">tɔk</span>]]) 06:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)