Irish Language: from Gaeltacht to the dream of bilingualism

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 or alternative 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 & 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, alternative 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

 EXTRA MATERIAL

- On Language and Occupational Status (alternative link), Borooah, Dineen & Linch (2009) 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;

-  Teaching and learning Irish in primary school (Harris & Murtagh, 1999, alternative link) collects three studies of Irish taught to young children; one that aims to portrait the current 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 & Silk, 2004, alternative link) is about retention of Irish language as second language by school leavers and indicates positive results.