Posted: Oct 03, 2012 12:06 pm
Saim wrote:What percentage of Irish do you think would want to see a much more Irish-speaking future? Probably most of the 70-something percent that thing it's "central to their history and culture".
There you go again, putting in the word "their" when it doesn't appear in the study. You do realise that there are more Polish speaking people in Ireland than Irish, and that they, for eg, as minority language speakers, are quite likely to have answered that question in the same way, as might many other people who have no interest in Irish whatsoever? I agree that Shakespeare is quite central to English culture and history, but keep it the hell away from my kids, and don't ask me to go to the theatre to see it.
I think this is only going to be cleared up if we run across a study done amongst the most relevant group, namely high school kids. Parents, as per the Shakespeare example, are not the ones to ask, and while primary school may be the best time to introduce a 2nd language, the kids are too young to assess realistically what they want based on real world realities and how much effort is involved to gain a worthwhile competence in another language.
Teenage attitudes around the language will determine how long it survives.
Saim wrote:I think you are battling because you are the extremely common sort of person who belongs to a dominant colonial culture, and doesn't realize the value of other cultures because they've kept themselves in a bubble away from them (I could point out that you by your own admission don't know a word of the dominant language of your region, and don't even think indigenous people should learn through that medium let alone Anglos bother to integrate). Is my presumption correct, or is it as wrong as yours?
Your presumption is partially correct. Perhaps if you had more exposure to the Zulu culture you would not be so quick to judge my lack of involvement with it, involvement is extremely rare, and for good reasons not easily changed. I can assure you that my attitude to a dominant language would be quite different if it were the language used in daily life. In 28 years in S.A. I cannot recall ever having walked into a shop or business of any sort to be addressed in Zulu, and only a handful of times in Afrikaans, and even then only far away from home. There are plenty of Zulu language schools, but educated parents who care about the future of their childern push for English medium secondary education. Zulu is not a tertiary or academic language, nor does it have a history of literature. It takes 42 syllables to count up to 10 in Zulu, try that in any 1st world language, all the languages I can count to 10 in have 11 syllables (English, Afrikaans, French, German).
Saim wrote:Actual linguists say "endangered language", never "dying language". Your attitude towards minority languages may be based in some sort of liberalism or economic pragmatism rather than any actual bigotry, but when you use ignorant phrases like this it sets up red flags in the minds of those of us who are at all versed in sociolinguistics.
Ignorant? I am not presuming to speak as a linguist, nor do I think linguists are representative in any way. What matters in terms of the survival of a language is not what a linguist has to say, but the average teenager. Is Irish a dying language? Yes, if it survives it will not be because of practicality, but sentimentality in the face of reality, something teenagers are unlikely to embrace. Afrikaans may be an exception, teenagers are partially reclaiming it, but it has a high utility in some environments.
Saim wrote:If more people knew it, there would be more of a use for it.
Silly reasoning, like saying if more people drove American cars Detroit would be rebuilt. Reality is real. Detroit is a dying town; not endangered - dying, and for solid practical reasons that have nothing to do with sentimentality. Calling it endangered carries the implication that it is worth going to extremes to prop it up artificially, because you are personalising it, associating it with a danger, and a need for protection. Rot.
If you look at a ghost town, one built near a mine that has been stripped, for example, would you say it had been endangered, and that people should have realised, and protected or preserved it? Nonsense, people should have seen the writing on the wall and only invested in it what was appropriate for what it was worth, not repainted the town hall a week before the mines closure. Irish language education is everyone getting together and saying that if they all build new houses the mine will not close, and the builders will be happy, and the town will be preserved.