Irish Language: from Gaeltacht to the dream of bilingualism
Autor: Márcio Sena | Publicado: 2011-10-17T11:44:00-07:00


The Irish
Language is probably the most traditional Celtic language. The oldest records
of a Celtic language are Irish – Inscriptions in stone using the Ogham alphabet. The Celtic literary
tradition also has its origins in Ireland, first with the comments of Christian
monks, later with the compilations of heroic deeds (as the Ulster Cycle) among others.




Ogham alphabet

(Source: Wikipedia)




The Irish (Gaeilge) remained the main language of Ireland for
many Centuries, despite the British ruling that started as soon as the Norman
invasions. Situation begun to change during the invasions leaded by Oliver
Cromwell, when the British forces retook control of Ireland by the most violent
ways and established a colonization plan.
Cromwell’s Parliamentary government maintained a openly anti-Celt attitude, not
only against Irish, but also against Scots, Welsh and inhabitants of Cornwall (cf.
Stoyle, 2000&nbsp;or alternative&nbsp;link). The Irish
language progressively lost territory and nowadays is spoken as native language
roughly by 60 thousand persons that lives in an area known as Gaeltacht. Only
in the Gaeltacht Irish is the everyday life language.







Gaeltacht Area (source: planetware.com)




Is there
the possibility of some day the whole Ireland become Gaeltacht again? The Irish
Estate has a plan that is just a little less bold than that: to achieve a full
bilingual society at the year 2026 (cf. Official Languages Act). Government policies will probably
reach some success because the Irish population sees the Irish language as an
important part of national identity, even it being spoken just by a few
persons. For instance, the editors of this blog found out about the
bilingualism goal through an article (Campbell, Bennet &amp; Stephens, 2009 or alternative link) written neither by linguists nor
political scientists, but by Marketing Researchers. They were studying the
positive impact of brands that chose to use the Irish language.


In a short
but very clarifying article McDermott (2011,&nbsp;alternative&nbsp;link) explains the history of Irish language from past to modern
times, emphasizing its dissemination policies. For instance, he discourses on
what was considered the three central themes of the Language Policy in Ireland
since its independence from UK: Pressure, Preferment and Projection. The
Pressure comprehends the mandatory study of the language at a basic level in
schools. Preferment refers to the condition of first official language of the
Irish and how Irish speakers are preferred to occupy some civil servant
functions. (To some functions, such as primary teacher, to know Irish language
is mandatory). Projection deals with establishing contact between the language
and the everyday life of Irish people, translating transit signs, money, administrative
buildings signs, etc. 


According to the author (Op. cit.,
p. 3) all these themes affect primarily the public administration, not having a
deep impact at individual level. He points out that Gaelic revival depends on
two main points: support to its use at a community level rather than by
nationwide policies and a focus on urban areas rather than on the current
Gaeltacht. As an example to follow, he mentions the Hebrew revival on Israel.




Gaeilge
use graphic





&nbsp;EXTRA MATERIAL


- On Language and Occupational Status (alternative link),&nbsp;Borooah, Dineen &amp; Linch (2009)&nbsp;explain
about Preferment and access to public fuctions;

- Yu Ming is Ainm Dom is a movie about
a Chinese man who learns Gaeilge in order to get a job at Ireland, but when
trying to speak it in Dublin some persons think he is speaking Chinese. It
intends to show how the Irish language is something detached from life in the
big cities;

-&nbsp; Teaching and learning Irish in primary school (Harris
&amp; Murtagh, 1999, alternative link) collects three studies of Irish taught to young children; one that aims to portrait the current&nbsp;Irish teaching, one about developing tools for the teachers and one about classes of arts and science taught in Irish;

- Retention of Irish skills (Murtagh &amp; Silk,
2004, alternative link) is about retention of Irish language as second language by school leavers
and indicates positive results.