The Irish Language

The Irish Language is sometimes called Gaelic but there are 3 Gaelic Languages all descending from a common Gaelic spoken long ago in Ireland. Linguists refer to the Gaelic of Ireland as Irish or Irish Gaelic, the Gaelic of Scotland as Scots Gaelic or Scottish Gaelic or just Gaelic and the Gaelic of the Isle of Mann as Manx or Manx Gaelic.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Jim Yates Responds to Padraig Óg Ó Ruairc's ‘If Maltese is a European language, why not Irish?' Below - I respond to that

Irish language was marginalised by history

YOUR correspondent, Padraig Óg Ó Ruairc (‘If Maltese is a European language, why not Irish?, Irish Examiner letters, June 22) seems to miss the point of my letter (‘Irish language will never be the talk of Europe, Irish Examiner, June 15).

The fanatics I referred to were those who were blind to the reality of the true status of Irish, not someone like Pádraig who has gone to the trouble of learning what should have been his natural inheritance if history had been kinder to Ireland.

If independence had been achieved say 100 years earlier, then the language might have stood a chance.

But history is history and can’t be changed, so, unfortunately, Irish became one of its many casualties.

For Irish to make a revival there has to be the will of the people behind it and the evidence is clear as day that the vast majority are not interested.




They don’t want to get rid of it, but they don’t want to speak it either. People like Pádraig are thin on the ground and get thinner by the year.

He’s right. I don’t object to Maltese as an EU working language because all citizens of Malta speak Maltese.

Irish, however, is not spoken by the vast majority of the Irish people, so his argument that more people speak Irish than Maltese is very weak.

Padraig, as an Irish speaker, chose to write his letter in English. Case closed.

Jim Yates
93 Cill Cais
Old Bawn
Dublin 24
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Actually Mr. Yates statement that all citizens of Malta speak Maltese is wrong. There are 3 main languages of Malta. Malta has two official languages, Maltese and English. The English language is a leftover of almost 160 years of British colonization of Malta. In addition Italian is spoken by a large number of Maltese citizens and used to be an official language of the island nation. More and more young people speak Italian due to Italian TV and radio broadcasts. The wealthier Maltese have raised their children to speak English as their first and primary language. This was the case in Ireland during nearly 800 years of British colonization. The number of Maltese people fluent in Maltese has been dropping for many years in favor of English, Italian or more often a mixed language (a Pidgin) having elements of the others. This is also true of Ireland where Hiberno-English is more often heard than the Standard English of Britain although Hiberno-English is considered a dialect rather than an actual Pidgin. Due to British colonization the Maltese language has broken up into several dialects that have presented difficulties for speakers of one region to understand those of another. This happened in Ireland too where three primary dialects arose during British colonization and suppression of Irish and is only now being address through intercommunication between the dialectical areas. So Mr. Yates Maltese argument strengthens the Irish language cause since the case of Maltese so closely parallels that of Irish.

Joe

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