my3freaks
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,206 
Location: NH girl living in Colorado
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Post by my3freaks on Oct 23, 2014 23:15:25 GMT
Do any of you speak Gaelic? If I could learn any language, no question, that's the one I would. I have always loved it. I've looked into online courses, but the ones I've found are very expensive.
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Deleted
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Aug 18, 2025 20:11:58 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2014 23:40:49 GMT
My father did but never taught us anything.
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Post by roundtwo on Oct 24, 2014 0:14:37 GMT
SO's father is from Scotland and spoke Gaelic. SO picked up a tiny amount and really wishes he could speak it fluently but it is a tough language to learn.
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Post by ktdoesntscrap on Oct 24, 2014 0:55:34 GMT
Do they call it Gaelic, my friends who were born and live in Ireland ... call it Irish.... and I think it is very different from Welsh or Scottish, I think they are all Gaelic in origin but I don't think people actually speak Gaelic anymore.
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Post by lesleyanne on Oct 24, 2014 0:59:15 GMT
Irish is not the same as Scottish Gaelic (or Manx for that matter).
My family is all Northern Irish protestant and none of us speak Irish. I know a isolated words and phrases but cannot converse. It was almost a dead language but Irish language societies have done an excellent job in reviving it, mostly through it's enforced requirement for public sector employment until the mid-70s and it's current compulsory study in schools receiving public funding. I'd love to teach in the Republic, but I cannot as I couldn't pass the language test.
It's a tricky language to learn but not impossible! I think Rosetta Stone has an Irish language learning software.
Edited to add: DD (pictured <---------) is taking her Irish dance Grade Exams and has to know Irish for parts of it. The lower grades are things like saying hello/goodbye and counting but I love that she has a chance to apply her skills in other cultural ways).
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Post by Linda on Oct 24, 2014 1:37:18 GMT
my grandfather spoke Scottish Gaelic - he first learnt English at school. Grandmother was English so Dad and his siblings grew up speaking English - I don't think he ever learnt Gaelic - he certainly never spoke it to us ... German was the second language used at home when I was growing up (we were primarily English speakers).
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my3freaks
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,206
Location: NH girl living in Colorado
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Post by my3freaks on Oct 24, 2014 3:07:27 GMT
I hate the thought of any languages dying out. I only speak English and know very, very limited Spanish. I've always wanted to learn to learn to speak Scottish Gaelic, and Irish too. I have relatives in the Cork area of Ireland, but have never been. I wasn't sure if Irish Gaelic was still spoken at all. I wish foreign languages were offered here in grade schools when it's easier to start learning them. My son took 4 or 5 years of Spanish, starting in 7th grade, 2 of them were Honors courses, and he still can't speak it conversationally.
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mimima
Drama Llama
Stay Gold, Ponyboy
Posts: 5,213
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Post by mimima on Oct 24, 2014 5:11:38 GMT
I took a bit of Irish Gaelic in college, but other than a few phrases and words here and there, it's all gone.
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wellway
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,203
Jun 25, 2014 20:50:09 GMT
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Post by wellway on Oct 24, 2014 6:07:44 GMT
Irish is not dying in Ireland. There has been a revival in interest and many schools have been set up to teach only in Irish. A Irish speaking school is called a Gaelscoil. The ones I know of are going from strength to strength.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelscoil
Part of the problem as that Irish wasn't taught as relevant, one of the required books for study in secondary school was a book called Peig. It was a laugh a minute - not. It was so dour and sombre and full of phrases that were old fashioned. Peig represented the past at a time when most Irish people were looking forward.
From Wiki
]Peig depicts the declining years of a traditional, Irish-speaking way of life characterised by poverty, devout Catholicism, and folk memory of the Famine and the Penal Laws. The often bleak tone of the book is established from its opening words:
“ I am an old woman now, with one foot in the grave and the other on its edge. I have experienced much ease and much hardship from the day I was born until this very day. Had I known in advance half, or even one-third, of what the future had in store for me, my heart wouldn't have been as gay or as courageous it was in the beginning of my days.
]The book was for a long time required reading in secondary schools in Ireland. As a book with arguably sombre themes (its latter half cataloguing a string of family misfortunes), its presence on the Irish syllabus was criticised for some years.
It led, for example, to this comment from Senator John Minihan in the Irish Senate in 2006 when discussing improvements to the curriculum:
“ No matter what our personal view of the book might be, there is a sense that one has only to mention the name Peig Sayers to a certain age group and one will see a dramatic rolling of the eyes, or worse. ”
—Seanad Éireann - Volume 183 - 5 April 2006[6]
ETA - Irish school children were reading Peig, or trying to read it, in Irish. There is an English translation available now.
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Post by lesley on Oct 24, 2014 11:57:07 GMT
I don't speak Gaelic at all, but my FIL is a respected scholar in the language, and has published both a grammar book, and a dictionary. He has also had several short stories published. He is self-taught too.
I remember when I first met him thirty years ago and he used to disappear constantly into his study, which was full of thousands of index cards!
Gaelic is mostly spoken in parts of the Highlands, and all over the Outer Hebrides. There has been a real push to promote it elsewhere though, and every local authority has a nursery and primary school (ages 3-12) where tuition is in Gaelic.
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Post by sarahyoo72 on Oct 24, 2014 12:00:15 GMT
I lived in the North of Scotland for 18 years, and the Gaelic language has certainly become more visible over the years. It is spoken more commonly in the Western Isles, and in the Highlands and Islands regions of the country.
When we took a trip to Inverness (30 miles from our house) all the road signs and most information signs were bilingual. So I saw the language quite frequently. BBC Scotland used to show kids programmed dubbed into Gaelic for "younger Gaelic viewers" every weekday morning. Sometimes if I was busy I'd forget to change channel, and DS would be quite happy to sit and watch "Padraig Post" (Postman Pat) and "Sam Smàlaidh" (Fireman Sam) even though he had no clue what they were saying.There are Gaelic schools, and kids can learn to speak it if they want to. The area we lived in didn't have that option, mainly because as it was a area full of military families, the majority of which were not Scottish so the heritage and desire to learn a traditional language was not there.
I have a couple of friends who can speak Gaelic. And also a couple of friends who speak Welsh. They are both beautiful languages to listen to, but both very difficult languages to learn. I loved listening to them converse, and it made me laugh when an English word was dropped into a sentence randomly, as there wasn't a word in their Gaelic/Welsh vocabulary to substitute.
I love languages, so I liked to watch the news bulletin in Gaelic, and so I did understand a few of the phrases - like "feasgar math" which is good afternoon. But that was about my limit lol.
Funny story - a friend of DH's fell asleep in front of the TV after a heavy night out drinking. He awoke the next morning confused, as the TV was on and he couldn't understand what was going on. It took about 5 minutes for him to realize that he hadn't lost the ability to understand English, but that it was the Gaelic kids program on the TV...
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Post by Jockscrap on Oct 24, 2014 12:05:54 GMT
Just for info as you are reading this thread, although the spelling is the same, Scottish Gaelic is pronounced 'gah-llick', and the Irish Gaelic is pronounces 'gay-lick'.
I'm going to be a bit controversial here perhaps!
This is a bit of a hot topic in Scotland just now, as the Scottish government is spending vast sums of money promoting Gaelic across Scotland, in areas where it has never traditionally been spoken. To most Scots, Gaelic is a foreign language - as foreign as French is to us. We now have the ridiculous situation where English road signs are being replaced with bilingual ones, with these cluttered and confusing signs causing chaos for foreign visitors and Scots alike.
Gaelic is spoken on the islands and west coast, but I doubt there is a single person (other than perhaps some very elderly) who do not speak English too, and yet there is a big government agenda to provide official documents in Gaelic, and promote Gaelic language broadcasting, all of which is only understood by a tiny number of Scots. My thoughts are that if a language is being spoken within a community, and continues to be spoken to the younger generations, then it will continue to exist, but virtually all these Scots also speak English, and it is up to these communities to keep their own language going, through using it, teaching it, writing it, singing songs in it etc. I don't have a problem with it being used in schools where it is traditionally spoken, and for some government resources to be used to produce learning material, but it shouldn't be nationwide. However, you'll hear plenty of folk from Gaelic speaking areas, saying their Granny spoke it, or their parents did, and they understand a bit but can't speak it much. If their own communities are failing to pass it on, I don't think it is the responsibility of the government to spend our taxes on doing so.
To me, I liken it to speaking Latin...if that's what you want to learn and read, then go ahead. I don't think government resources should be used to teach you to speak Latin, nor do I think the country's road signs should be in Latin, because you and a few others can read Latin  I can see the appeal for many to learn Gaelic as part of immersing themselves in certain areas of Scottish culture. It is a beautiful sounding language, but for the vast majority of Scots, it is not our language.
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Post by apmom on Oct 24, 2014 12:58:31 GMT
I'm Irish and can speak some Irish, I did 13 years of it in school yet I know more French than Irish. My kids all have to study it too, it's very difficult. DS aged 8 is learning about food this week, last week was school. So if I wanted to say the bread is on the table it would be 'Tá arán ar an mbord'. Bord is the word for table but when you put ar an before it you add the 'm' to say 'mordth'.
A lot of the families on my road went to a gaelscoil for both primary and secondary and then get extra marks in their state exams - terribly unfair as Irish is their first language and therefore no more difficult than my kids doing exams in English.
When abroad especially if most other people are English speakers we do like to use Irish so no one has a clue what we are saying. It can be quite funny trying to remember the words we need.
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BarbaraUK
Drama Llama
Surrounded by my yarn stash on the NE coast of England...............!! Refupea 1702
Posts: 5,961
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Jun 27, 2014 12:47:11 GMT
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Post by BarbaraUK on Oct 24, 2014 13:11:05 GMT
Jockscrap I hadn't realised that Scotland was going the bilingual route on road signs, like Wales has done already. I know Northern Ireland were thinking of going that route a while ago but am not sure whether it was ever adopted. As far as Scotland goes, after reading your thoughts on the various aspects of the subject, it sounds like a downright good common sense view of the thing to me. Thanks for explaining that - I would have been very confused otherwise when I saw one of those road signs.  However, I'm beginning to feel left out here in England though - maybe we should start asking for road signs to be dual signed in Anglo Saxon or Chaucer!!  
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Deleted
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Aug 18, 2025 20:11:58 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2014 13:41:02 GMT
All children in Southern Ireland are taught Irish, though the Irish people we know in their early twenties/thirties struggle with it. It's an incredibly difficult language as non of the words are recognisible as their English counterparts. We have regular news bulletins in Irish and a whole channel that is completely spoken in the language. The only word I can say is Failte which means welcome. There's a free introduction to the language here alison.com/alison.com/courses/Introduction-to-Irish-Language |
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Post by bc2ca on Oct 24, 2014 15:09:21 GMT
Gaelic is spoken on the islands and west coast, but I doubt there is a single person (other than perhaps some very elderly) who do not speak English too, and yet there is a big government agenda to provide official documents in Gaelic, and promote Gaelic language broadcasting, all of which is only understood by a tiny number of Scots. My thoughts are that if a language is being spoken within a community, and continues to be spoken to the younger generations, then it will continue to exist, but virtually all these Scots also speak English, and it is up to these communities to keep their own language going, through using it, teaching it, writing it, singing songs in it etc. I don't have a problem with it being used in schools where it is traditionally spoken, and for some government resources to be used to produce learning material, but it shouldn't be nationwide. However, you'll hear plenty of folk from Gaelic speaking areas, saying their Granny spoke it, or their parents did, and they understand a bit but can't speak it much. If their own communities are failing to pass it on, I don't think it is the responsibility of the government to spend our taxes on doing so.
My mom is from the Outer Hebrides (Harris) and Gaelic is her first language. She and her brothers did not learn English until they went to school. They did not have the option of going to a Gaelic language based school even in her small Gaelic speaking village, so it isn't always a matter of their own communities failing to pass it on if the government policy was to only provide education in English. I know in Canada, the First Nations kids were taken from their villages and sent to residential schools, forbidden to speak their native languages and given Anglicized names in an attempt to assimilate them to European Canadian cultural standards. There has been plenty of backlash and court challenges to the French language laws in Quebec, but there is no question they achieved the goal of strengthening French as the majority language in the province. I think there is a certain responsibility for the government to protect the cultural heritage of the country. |
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Post by Jockscrap on Oct 24, 2014 16:32:06 GMT
[/font][/quote]My mom is from the Outer Hebrides (Harris) and Gaelic is her first language. She and her brothers did not learn English until they went to school. They did not have the option of going to a Gaelic language based school even in her small Gaelic speaking village, so it isn't always a matter of their own communities failing to pass it on if the government policy was to only provide education in English.
I think there is a certain responsibility for the government to protect the cultural heritage of the country.
[/quote]
As I said in my post, I don't object to learning materials being produced for use in native Gaelic speaking communities. Your grandparents did pass on Gaelic to your mum and uncles, which is what should happen if there is a desire to maintain the language, and the native speakers of a language are the ones best placed to ensure it continues, by raising each generation bilingually.
I don't have a problem at all with some national resources being used to preserve the cultural heritage, but I do have a problem with the extent to which Gaelic is being promoted across the country. It is simply ludicrous to change road signs in an area where virtually no one can read them. 1% of the country speaks Gaelic to some extent, and that 1% resides almost exclusively in the Western Isles. Of BBC Scotland's entire programming budget, 30% is spent on Gaelic language programmes - that 99% of Scotland need subtitles to watch! That is absurd.
Personally, I am extremely hacked off that I can't listen to BBC Radio 2 after 5pm on Freeview because the government replaces it with BBC Alba.
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Post by Linda on Oct 24, 2014 17:50:38 GMT
Gaelic is spoken on the islands and west coast, but I doubt there is a single person (other than perhaps some very elderly) who do not speak English too, and yet there is a big government agenda to provide official documents in Gaelic, and promote Gaelic language broadcasting, all of which is only understood by a tiny number of Scots. My thoughts are that if a language is being spoken within a community, and continues to be spoken to the younger generations, then it will continue to exist, but virtually all these Scots also speak English, and it is up to these communities to keep their own language going, through using it, teaching it, writing it, singing songs in it etc. I don't have a problem with it being used in schools where it is traditionally spoken, and for some government resources to be used to produce learning material, but it shouldn't be nationwide. However, you'll hear plenty of folk from Gaelic speaking areas, saying their Granny spoke it, or their parents did, and they understand a bit but can't speak it much. If their own communities are failing to pass it on, I don't think it is the responsibility of the government to spend our taxes on doing so.
I think part of the push to restore Gaelic is that historically schooling was done in English and government records were kept in English and there was a big push to have the community speaking English - those older generations who learnt only Gaelic at home were forced to use only English at school and oftentimes punished if they lapsed into their mother tongue even as 5 and 6 year olds. And it's hard to continue (as a community) using a language when the children aren't being educated in it (can't read/write Gaelic and don't know the Gaelic terms for what they are learning at school) and when the Government doesn't function in that language. There was a wrong done to the Gaelic speaking peoples (and probably the Welch speakers as well although I'm not familiar with Welch history) and the push for Gaelic schools and signs and government materials is an attempt to redress that wrong. My grandfather was born in Glasgow to a family from Isle of Mull - his family were Gaelic speakers at home (although his parents also spoke/wrote English that they learnt at school). He didn't know any English until he started school and he remembered being caned for speaking Gaelic at school (this would probably have been primary school - I'm not sure how much education Gramps had but I know my Dad left school at 14 and I doubt his father had more schooling than he did and most likely less). I think if my grandfather had stayed in Scotland - as his cousins did - he would have passed on the Gaelic to his children but he joined the British Army and married an Englishwoman and my father and his siblings grew up in England and on Army bases speaking only English. I suspect that had my grandmother been Scottish, the children would have learnt at least some Gaelic but Granddad wasn't home much while they were small. (Dad was born in 1925 - siblings in 1921 and 1929) |
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Montannie
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,486
Location: Big Sky Country
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Post by Montannie on Oct 24, 2014 18:37:19 GMT
Irish is not dying in Ireland. There has been a revival in interest and many schools have been set up to teach only in Irish. A Irish speaking school is called a Gaelscoil. The ones I know of are going from strength to strength.
* * *
From Wiki
]Peig depicts the declining years of a traditional, Irish-speaking way of life characterised by poverty, devout Catholicism, and folk memory of the Famine and the Penal Laws. The often bleak tone of the book is established from its opening words:
“ I am an old woman now, with one foot in the grave and the other on its edge. I have experienced much ease and much hardship from the day I was born until this very day. Had I known in advance half, or even one-third, of what the future had in store for me, my heart wouldn't have been as gay or as courageous it was in the beginning of my days.
]The book was for a long time required reading in secondary schools in Ireland. As a book with arguably sombre themes (its latter half cataloguing a string of family misfortunes), its presence on the Irish syllabus was criticised for some years.
It led, for example, to this comment from Senator John Minihan in the Irish Senate in 2006 when discussing improvements to the curriculum:
“ No matter what our personal view of the book might be, there is a sense that one has only to mention the name Peig Sayers to a certain age group and one will see a dramatic rolling of the eyes, or worse. ”
—Seanad Éireann - Volume 183 - 5 April 2006[6]
ETA - Irish school children were reading Peig, or trying to read it, in Irish. There is an English translation available now.
Somber yes, but it so wonderfully captures the Irish sensibilities. At least, my Irish relatives' sensibilities! |
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Post by bc2ca on Oct 24, 2014 19:01:15 GMT
sorry my3freaks, I think we are going to hijack your OP into a completely different conversation Jockscrap I don't think you mean to be condescending, but the most important part of my post was There was no option for education in Gaelic, which is absolutely what my grandparents wanted and the English only option for schools effectively started Gaelic down the road to being "definitely endangered" by UNESCO (defined as children no longer learn the language as mother tongue in the home). UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
As linda said I don't know that Gaelic can really be revived, but just offering Gaelic language materials to those that already speak it is not going to save the language and I can understand why those that don't want to see it die out completely are pushing hard to have the language used and seen. I was a child when bilingual food labels became required in Canada and remember the backlash against that, especially living in a BC with a very low % of native French speakers. |
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my3freaks
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,206
Location: NH girl living in Colorado
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Post by my3freaks on Oct 24, 2014 19:36:23 GMT
Don't worry about hijacking. I am really enjoying the whole thread. It's been educational! I'm very interested in researching more Irish history since my Mother's family starting 2 generations back are almost exclusively from there. I would LOVE to learn to speak Irish. I find Scottish Gaelic so beautiful too. I'm not very confident in my ability to learn any new language, especially more difficult ones! I'm very American, and people can peg pretty much immediately that I'm from the Northeast, specifically Boston area. I grew up less than an hour north, in southern NH. I miss "home" Who knows, since people already seem to have trouble understanding me, maybe I'll have an advantage. |
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Post by Jockscrap on Oct 24, 2014 20:07:39 GMT
bc2ca - sorry, I can't have made my point clear. I was agreeing with you. It is totally appropriate to support Gaelic in schools, and wrong that it wasn't for your mum's generation, but I believe it is only appropriate in native Gaelic speaking areas, not nationally. In my part of the world, Doric is widely spoken; in Ayrshire, the Scots English language of Burns, is far removed from what we speak here. I think it is right and valuable for each part of Scotland to promote its own language, and that includes Gaelic in island schools, where clearly the previous English only policy made it difficult for Gaelic to be written and read, and has had a detrimental effect on the language.
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Post by Sam on Oct 24, 2014 20:12:13 GMT
Jockscrap I hadn't realised that Scotland was going the bilingual route on road signs, like Wales has done already. There are many areas in Scotland where this has happened for years - we see it often when we come up to the west coast. |
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BarbaraUK
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Surrounded by my yarn stash on the NE coast of England...............!! Refupea 1702
Posts: 5,961
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Jun 27, 2014 12:47:11 GMT
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Post by BarbaraUK on Oct 24, 2014 20:24:51 GMT
Jockscrap I hadn't realised that Scotland was going the bilingual route on road signs, like Wales has done already. There are many areas in Scotland where this has happened for years - we see it often when we come up to the west coast. We must have missed those areas or not been in those places since the signs were installed, as I don't recall seeing a road sign like that - or I just haven't remembered or noticed it! I'll take my Specsavers next time!!  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2014 20:38:43 GMT
Irish signs are also in both languages, I love it.  |
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Post by Jockscrap on Oct 24, 2014 20:53:10 GMT
Irish signs are also in both languages, I love it.
However, unlike in Scotland, the Irish names are smaller and less prominent than the English place name. Imagine driving along a twisty Highland road, trying to make out place names on a sign like this.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2014 21:00:24 GMT
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Post by bc2ca on Oct 25, 2014 3:01:26 GMT
bc2ca - sorry, I can't have made my point clear. I was agreeing with you. It is totally appropriate to support Gaelic in schools, and wrong that it wasn't for your mum's generation, but I believe it is only appropriate in native Gaelic speaking areas, not nationally. In my part of the world, Doric is widely spoken; in Ayrshire, the Scots English language of Burns, is far removed from what we speak here. I think it is right and valuable for each part of Scotland to promote its own language, and that includes Gaelic in island schools, where clearly the previous English only policy made it difficult for Gaelic to be written and read, and has had a detrimental effect on the language.
 I'm sorry I misread/misunderstood your point. Those direction signs are insanely hard to read, the different font sizes on the Irish signs make so much more sense. |
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I can see the appeal for many to learn Gaelic as part of immersing themselves in certain areas of Scottish culture. It is a beautiful sounding language, but for the vast majority of Scots, it is not our language.
I'm sorry I misread/misunderstood your point.