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The Death Throes of the Irish Language? |
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Written by Anton Carroll
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Friday, 28 December 2007 |
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The Death Throes of the Irish Language?
Address to Mac Gill Summer School, July 19th 2006
by
Anton Carroll
Introduction
It is a pleasure to be here in Glenties addressing the Mac Gill Summer School.
It is appropriate that the topic for discussion this evening is the state of the Irish language. It is timely to reflect at this point on the state of well-being of the language as it is, in the view of many, past the point of rescue. It is, certainly, in serious decline as a vernacular of a people and that is cause for concern. The Irish language is key to so much in our lives that its demise would be an incalculable loss for our heritage and our culture.
Much of what we celebrate about Patrick Mac Gill and his gifts derived from the Irish language and its traditions. His story-telling skills, his narratives and insights were undoubtedly honed in the oral traditions which were so characteristic of Gaelic culture.
Perspective
I come to this forum with a view informed by observation of the teaching and learning of Irish. I would like to claim that I am objective and that my views are not influenced by any doctrinaire baggage or blinded fanaticism.
Appraisal of the Current State of the Language
The Irish language is a sophisticated language with a native literature that extends back further than most of the European languages with the exception of Greek. Irish was the language of Fiannaíocht, Ruraíocht, an tSeanchas Mhór, and Céitinns “Sceol ó Ardmhaigh Fáil”. Clearly, it is an inheritance to treasure and preserve. Unfortunately, our efforts at its preservation have been quite ineffective and its decline continues apace.
The decline of Irish is not really surprising considering the influential circumstance that surrounds its usage. Its linguistic rival is probably the world’s most prestigious and desired language. Irish does not enjoy the protection of isolation from other languages – it is essentially competing for primacy over English among a relatively small cohort of people who are fluent in both languages.
For the purpose of analogy, I want to suggest to you an image of Irish as a patient with a malaise or illness that is slowly draining the life out of the patient. To treat the sick patient, the first priority is to diagnose the illness. When diagnosis is concluded a course of medication or treatment is prescribed and administered. Progress is monitored and if the treatment is not working the diagnosis will be reviewed and an alternative treatment may be pursued!
But with Irish the approach is different! There is no objective diagnosis as to what has gone wrong. Why, after up to 12 years of daily lessons in Irish, are the majority of the population unable to construct a simple sentence in Irish? Surely there has been a failure of teaching. That, to any objective person, is not an unfair conclusion to draw.
Over the period since Independence, Irish governments have invested huge resources in the promotion of Irish. Upwards to 30% of school time at Primary level has been devoted to the teaching of Irish. Yet, only a small minority use the language competently. That statement may not accord with the views of some, but I challenge any organisation or individual to refute it on the basis of empirical research.
Part of the problem with Irish is that we have not established objectively and reliably what the state of the language is. For example, we indulge in a huge collective delusion that Gaeltachts are Irish-speaking enclaves, when the reality is that not a word of Irish is spoken in many of such designated Gaeltacht areas. Dungloe, a neighbouring town here in Donegal, is, I understand, declared by Donegal County Council as the capital of the Donegal Gaeltacht. This type of fanciful designation does not serve the Irish language; it merely confirms a cynical attachment to a national delusion.
The delusion is that all is well. Ask Foras na Gaeilge. They will cite statistical data from Census returns that will portray the country as virtually bi-lingual. I remember reading some statistical hyperbole that suggested that upwards to 90% of the people of Ashbourne, Co. Meath and Thurles, Co. Tipperary could speak Irish. Try doing business tré Ghaeilge in Ashbourne or Thurles!
But the delusion goes on. And challenges to that delusion can be put down. For example, in 2005 the Leaving Certificate results in Irish were so bad that they were suppressed. A new team of correctors was engaged with a dumbed down marking scheme to ensure that the grades achieved would follow the normal bell-curve that typifies mark distribution in any test administered to a large cohort of people.
So rather than submit to an objective diagnosis and the possibility of different treatment, we keep administering the same old medicine even though it is not proving efficacious.
Without doubt, the Irish language is in distress. Yet we are treating it like some primitive tribe might treat its dying chief; we go into denial about its decline. We call places like Achill Gaeltachtaí; we put up road-signs exclusively in Irish and we pretend the natives speak Irish! We insist that Clare, County Council spends €30,000 on translating its County Development Plan even though there is absolutely no public demand for the Irish version. Why do we treat Irish as we do?
Towards a More Realistic Strategy
Enda Kenny did us a service when he invited us to look critically at what current strategies are achieving. He questioned the doctrine of compulsion and he succeeded in forcing an evaluation of the norms of teaching and promotion that we’ve adhered to for many decades with diminishing returns and demoralising results.
For some years, my organisation, ACCS, has been concerned about the standard of Irish in our schools. We have been aware, anecdotally, of falling standards at intake from Primary Schools and we have been aware of a growing antagonism towards the language. The points race has forced students into choices and priorities in respect of subjects. For most students Irish is not regarded as likely to yield a rich harvest of points. Its imposed inclusion in their list of subjects is resented by many as they see it as a threat to their chances of garnering high quantities of points.
We have been considering this matter for some years and Mr. Kenny’s comments have given fresh impetus and renewed focus to our concerns. Perhaps our diagnosis of the ailment will not meet with general consensus but here it is:-
1. The standard of Irish of many Primary teachers is inadequate for the teaching of Irish. If the teaching of Irish is to be prioritised, there must be specialist teachers of Irish assigned to individual primary schools.
2. The emphasis in teaching Irish must be placed primarily on communicative linguistic competence.
3. The Leaving Certificate Irish programme should be divided into two separately examinable subjects: Irish language and, separately, Irish Literature and Cultural studies.
4. Irish language should be a required subject for entry into public service employment. The level of competence should be set in reference to a National Standardised set of tests. These tests should be modelled on concepts like the ECDL and modules could be taken at any time throughout schooling or afterwards. A set of levels such as are used in piano competence grading could be employed to certify different levels of competence in Irish.
5. There should be nationally approved self-tutoring aids such as CD’s and booklets to facilitate the acquisition of competence.
6. Such resources would equip anyone including non-nationals to acquire the entry threshold level appropriate to whatever public service job they aspired to.
7. Perhaps we could set levels of competence appropriate to Taoisigh and Ministers if we had such a national set of criteria!
8. Generous scholarships should be made available to encourage students to locate in the Gaeltacht for upwards to a year of secondary schooling.
9. Government should resource Gaeltacht and all-Irish schools with good quality text books and I.T. facilities to ensure high quality teaching through Irish of the full range of second level subjects. On a recent study trip to Wales we have seen a model for financing and monitoring such an initiative.
10. Government should set up a national strategic plan for the conservation of the Irish language.
That strategic plan should set out:
- What is the desired vision?
- What incremental steps are to be taken towards the attainment of that vision?
- Who is to complete each task?
- When is it to be done?
- What interim objectives are to be met along the way?
- What resources are needed?
- What monitoring mechanisms are to be used to measure and report progress?
To set out a realistic plan, the Government must engage dispassionate, objective expertise, preferably with an international profile. Such an expert panel charged with formulating a National Strategic Plan for Irish should include not just linguisists of the highest standing but also sociologists, economists and marketing experts.
We have endured for too long the afflictions imposed by well-meaning enthusiasts. We do not doubt the goodwill of the many enthusiasts but as in all aspects of life performance is judged by outcomes. The outcomes for the Irish language condemn past initiatives largely to failure. Therefore, a new approach is required. There may be elements and aspects of the current repertoire of initiatives that can be retained and expanded. One such element, in my view, is the Gaelscoileanna. They have been a remarkable success but there is at least one weakness that even the strongest proponents of Gaelscoileanna acknowledge; that is, that the linguistic purity and richness of Irish is considerably diluted in the Gaelscoileanna for lack of contact with, and immersion in, a truly Irish-speaking experience.
This gives rise to a fear among some that the Gaelscoileanna may act as an agent of mutation turning the spoken Irish language into a patois with a new construct and vocabulary that are largely borrowed from English.
If Gaelscoileanna are to be enriched and enabled in their mission they must be given the resources to link with truly Gaeltacht communities where their students can occasionally have total immersion experience of the Irish language.
On the recent study trip to Wales which I mentioned earlier, we found a thriving Welsh language schools sector. However, even their advocates and proponents conceded that their prevailing vernacular did not have the “blas” or the linguistic richness of native Welsh speaking areas. This problem, in my view, is but a relatively minor flaw in an essentially excellent project. What I am arguing though is that a Gaelscoil cannot replicate total immersion in an Irish speaking community. To be really effective the Gaelscoil must have the resources to link meaningfully with a host Gaeltacht.
There is one other area of major concern to us about the erosion of Gaeltachtaí. That is inward migration. Because of industrialisation in the Gaeltachtaí and the growth of affluence and tourism there have been considerable levels of inward migration of English speakers to the Gaeltachtaí – many of them of school going age.
Because they are usually monoglots and the Gaeltacht children are bi-lingual, the medium of communication becomes English. This might start out as a courtesy to the stranger, but it quickly becomes institutionalised as the norm. This experience has been conspicuously noticeable in Gaoth Dobhair. As you are aware, there has been very considerable industrialisation there in the past 30 years. A major down-side of this has been the decline of the Irish language. Although Irish is still the vernacular of the over-40’s, it is not the vernacular of their children in the school-yard or in social discourse.
This presents a huge dilemma to Údarás na Gaeltachta – on one hand, charged with preserving the Irish language, and on the other with developing sustainable communities where there is employment.
Perhaps we can take a lesson from Gwynedd in North-West Wales. Or perhaps we’re too late!
Anyhow, for what its worth, Gwynedd, a Welsh-speaking district, faced with the same problem of natives reverting to English in deference to newly arrived English-speaking migrants resorted to imposing a total immersion experience for all newly arrived non-Welsh speaking school-pupils. They set up special schools for inducting these new pupils into the Welsh-speaking schools and communities. Only when an adequate fluency in Welsh is attained are pupils allowed integrate into the Welsh-speaking schools.
In ranging over the problems of minority languages the recurring difficulties are similar. The positive influences are not only similar but virtually identical.
Undoubtedly, the most positive influence in increasing the use of a language is its social esteem. One example of this is French in Quebec. By raising consciousness of a distinctive French heritage, the esteem for the French language was raised and, consequently, it became a badge of pride to speak it.
If we are to arrest the decline of Irish we must tackle its lack of public esteem. We must not allow it be made the whipping boy upon which blame for academic or career failure is placed. We must rescue our language from the image that has bedevilled it, and the failing teaching methodologies that have left it in its current state.
Conclusion
No one, nowadays, seriously entertains deValera’s vision of revival of the Irish language. But we can preserve it and expand its usage. To do this, we must improve the competence of people to speak the language and we must improve the public’s disposition towards the language. However, we must firstly acknowledge failed strategies and replace them with expertly planned initiatives that are grounded in realistic appraisal of what is possible and what is attainable in encouraging increments.
Irish is a precious key to what we are and where we have come from. Another man, with strong links to Glenties, Brian Friel, illustrated that most beautifully, in his play, “Translations”. We should ponder the message of his play and give consideration to how translation can conceal. It may provoke us to consider the mutilations we are now perpetrating on place-names by re-Gaelifying some bad English translations of place-names into such absurd gobbledegook as Ráth Tó; Bré; Long Cogaidh; Lú etc. All this effort by Local Authorities does no service to the Irish language. It merely obfuscates and conceals meanings that enrich our appreciation of our heritage and history. The loss of Irish, or its emasculation, will mean we can no longer make sense of surnames and place-names. We will no longer be able to access the lyrical beauty of songs like “Fáth mo Bhuartha” or “Úir Chill an Chreagáin”.
The question posed for this evening’s deliberations is: Are we facing the imminent death of Irish? I’m afraid the answer is yes, but qualified!
Unquestionably, we’re losing the richness of the language. I believe the loss of quality Irish by abandonment in the Gaeltachts is not being compensated for by uptake in the Galltachts, and whatever uptake there is is hardly worth crowing about. Listen to T.G.4. Very often what is presented as Irish is what the Connemara man said was “Ní Gaeilge nó Béarla é ach big fata mór”. Not only is the base where Irish is used as a vernacular contracting, but the richness of the language is being systematically impoverished by official interventions, tinkerings and ill-advised policies.
If present decline of Irish continues unabated for another generation, its demise will be complete within two generations. As a patient, it is, unquestionably, seriously ill. I do not have confidence in its medical team and I don’t believe current treatment will prove efficacious. The prognosis is not good but the language, in my view, is not yet in the death throes. A restoration to moderately active life-style is still possible. But only just!
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Last Updated ( Friday, 28 December 2007 )
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Sunday, 25 March 2007 |
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