Irish language recognised by EU

BBC News ^ | June 13, 2005

[Servant of the 9]

English, as a language, is only dominant in Ireland due to policies of the British crown to stamp out "Irishness" in Ireland throughout its occupation of the isle. These policies were enforced by force, at times lethal force. This is not an attempt to foist off acceptance of a language of incoming immigrants as a working language of the people, but a recognition of a language which had been spoken there, by native inhabitants for numerous millenia. Surely you can see the difference...

No, I don't.

Whatever the reason, it is a dead language, or at least on life support. It makes no more sense than recognizing Welsh, or Cornish or any of the dozens of other archaic languages of europe. You can bet that Brittany, and the Basque and Catalan will be agitating for their languages acceptance next.

So9

[keat]

It's not just an inconsequential recognition of the language, now every document, speech, minute, every conceivable written document that the EU produces will have to be simultaneously cross-translated to Gaelic. So, if a minister gives a short speech in some other obscure language, the EU has to have qualified translators at the ready. 13 language combinations means a whole lot of translators and some strange combinations.

It's a jobs program really.

Not to mention the several languages will be added each year.

All this because the French opposed a common language (English) to which all documents could be cross translated.

[Servant of the 9]

Basque and Catalan are recognized by the EU.

More proof of the EU's irrelevance to the real world.

So9

[Central Scrutiniser]

I have it via my grandmother, born in Ireland, but she was born before independence. Anyway, it takes forever.

[Dinsdale]

I got no dog in this race.

But I do have a question for future reference.

What will they call 'Bushmills' after the change?

[Servant of the 9]

I agree that the EU's irrelevant, but not because its members speak more languages than you're comfortable with.

One reason the EU is irrelevant is that they never realized that unifying communication was more important than unifying currency or cheese making regulations.
They started with half a dozen languages and their plan should have been to eventually narrow down to one, English, because everyone already speaks it as a first of second language, and it was, and is, already the world's language of science and commerce.

So9

[AzSteven]

I recall an Irish buddy of mine telling me that the Gaelic in NW Ireland was quite different from that in SW Ireland, but I was not sure if he meant the language was totally different, or if regional dialect or accent made things relatively unintelligable across the two areas.

[Jack Black]

I lived in (the Republic of) Ireland for a year in the mid eighties. Most of the people I met were strongly opposed to having the North join the Republic. None of them were British.

[untenured]

13 language combinations means a whole lot of translators and some strange combinations.

1+2..+13=78 potential combinations. How many people can there be who can translate Gaelic into Latvian?

[AuH2ORepublican]

"Surely you can see the difference..."

---

Of course I can see the difference, but will the EU when Dutch Muslims claim in 2010 that 20% of the residents of Holland speak Arabic, and that's twice the percentage as Gaelic speakers in Ireland? The EU apparatchiks aren't as reasonable as you and me.

One can blame the English oppressors until the cows come home for stamping out Gaelic in the 19th century (I am currently reading James Joyce's Ulysses, set in the early 20th Century, in which the eternal debate among the characters was whether the Irish language should be brought back), but the fact remains that English is the common language spoken by Ireland's 4 million citizens. I think its fine and dandy for the government of the Republic of Ireland to adopt Gaelic as a co-official language, but it is still spoken by a small minority of the citizens of a relatively small member of the EU, and thus the EU should not have adopted it as one of its 31 official languages.

BTW, the same arguments you used in favor of recognizing Irish Gaelic can be used by Native Hawaiians, or Cherokee, or Spanish speakers from Northern New Mexico, or many other groups who saw their language "stamped out." If Hawaii and Oklahoma and New Mexico wish to adopt those languages as co-official languages, that's fine with me, but the federal government shouldn't be forced to adopt them as co-official languages.

[Servant of the 9]

America should learn this lesson. Once you open the door to multicultural recognition of one group, every other group is going to demand it as well.

Absolutely. We NEED an "English as Official Language" constitutional ammendment.

[untenured]

1+2..+13=78 potential combinations.

Actually, there are 21 languages so they need 231 different combinations.

[Rushgrrl]

can't beat the best