LL-L "Language politics" 2004.12.15 (06) [E]

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From: Ben.Bloomgren at asu.edu <Ben.Bloomgren at asu.edu>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.12.15 (02) [E]

> >How do you "remove dialect differences" from any language?

Well, we are doing it here in America by our media. Only the dialect spoken
by black/African Americans(?) is accepted as "cool." If somebody comes on
MTV who is from Boston, and he talks about wea he paaks his caa, they'll
laugh him off the set.

[Ben Bloomgren]

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.12.15 (04) [E]

Gavin Falconer wrote:
"Simultaneous translation actually is provided in the Houses of the
Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) for Irish, but, perhaps partly because of a
reluctance on the part of Members to admit to needing it, it is very rarely


used by them. In my experience most Members can speak Irish reasonably well
and many use it unscripted. There are also a few native speakers."

There is a bitter irony here, I think. If the Oireachtas chose to have
debates only in Irish - as was originally intended - a good 80 to 90 per
cent of members would, I think, have no problem, including perhaps ten per
cent who would in fact prefer that debates were in Irish because it is their
main language. Indeed, there are intermittent debates entirely in Irish in
the Dáil. But, as a friend of mine always hasten to add in this issue, the
Irish tend toward self-defeating pragmatism in cultural matters (led by our
own representatives), hence the vast majority of Oireachtas debates and
Government business being entirely in English and no-one having any great
qualms about it. They could just as easily be entirely in Irish with only
minor disadvantage to the minority of government employees who are
monolingual in English, as was the intention from 1919, reaffirmed in the
1937 Constitution which asserted Irish as the first and national language.

I think of our situation here in Ireland today of how not to go about
language revival for the most part (except with regard to Irish-medium
education, which I believe to be intensely effective), and should act as a
warning to others.

Go raibh maith agat,

Criostóir.

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.12.15 (02) [E]


Gary Taylor wrote:
"Being a tax payer within the European Union, I feel there are a lot more
things of greater importance within Europe that I'm willing to pay for [than
official status for the Irish language or others]."

There are two or three issues here.

Firstly, official status for any language is, I think, in the main pointless
in the European Union today, considering the only languages the body
actively uses on a day-to-day basis are English, French and, to a lesser
extent, German, and even French's hitherto unassailable privilege there has
been severely damaged by the monolingual advance of English by the
Commission especially.

Secondly, the issue of tax spend is a red herring. Translation and
interpretation expenditure in the European institutions is still miniscule -
the EU, I suspect, loses more money to corruption each year than it spends
on servicing linguistic diversity. So I believe people have their fiscal
priorities skewed a little here.

Thirdly, the increasingly disregarded guiding principle of the EU is meant
to be unity in diversity. People seem to like diversity while it is not
threatening their own languages, but raise hackles when the logical
conclusion of the diversity principle applies to Irish. Yes, Irish people
speak English as well. So do the Maltese. There are actually more speakers
of Irish than Maltese. Catalans speak Castillian as well as Spanish, as do
the Basques, Galicians, Valencians and so on. Why is Irish singled out for
remarks about wasting precious tax money? As I mentioned in my other
missive, Ireland's problem is it self-defeating pragmatism. We should have
secured the status of Irish back in 1973, but we were too busy trying to
appear to be good Europeans and not rock the boat. No we do raise the issue,
we're accused of getting a bit above our station.

Irish is a national language of an EU member state; because of that alone,
it deserves recognition and a lot more basic respect than it is getting.
That is aside from the other very good arguments one could make to support
official status. So, please, a little more thoughtfulness and a little less
panic about tax profligacy. Our languages are Europe's cultural treasure and
inheritance.

Go raibh maith agaibh,

Criostóir.

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