Posted: Mar 03, 2011 3:27 pm
dj357 wrote:What are your thoughts?
I don’t think it’s a good idea.
A huge amount has recently been spent in my local area making all the road signs bilingual in both English and Gaelic, which was ridiculous because many of the place-names are derived from Gaelic names anyway so both languages have the same name, spelt the same. On top of this, my local authority covers the entire Highlands and Islands, but Gaelic speakers were only traditionally native to the Hebrides and the West coast. People from the East and the Northern Isles tend to have more Scandinavian blood in them than Celtic, and in many areas Gaelic was never spoken.
I can understand why people want to learn their native Celtic languages, whether it be Irish, Welsh or Gaelic, and they should have the opportunity to do so. But changing the official first Language to something other than English? That seems to me like a step backwards. Being native English speakers allows us many opportunities as HughMcB has already outlined.
What would make much more sense would be keeping English as Ireland’s first language and learning Chinese as a second one.