DUBLIN
-- Gaelic -- or irish, as we call it
here -- is the first official
language of Ireland. (English is
second.) And 41% of the population
claim to speak it. But could that be
true? To put it to the test, I set
off across Ireland for three weeks
in the summer of 2006 with one
self-imposed handicap -- to never
utter a word of English.
I chose Dublin as a starting point.
The sales assistant in the first
shop I went to said, "Would you
speak English maybe?" I tried
repeating my request using the
simplest schoolroom Irish that he
must have learned during the 10
years of compulsory Irish that every
schoolchild undergoes. "Do you speak
English?" he asked again in a cold,
threatening tone. Sea
(pronounced "sha"), I affirmed, and
nodded meekly. "I'm not talking to
you any more," he said, covering his
ears. "Go away!"
I knew the journey was going to be
difficult, just not this difficult.
Language experts claim that the
figure of fluent Irish speakers is
closer to 3% than the aspirational
41% who tick the language box on the
census, and most of them are
concentrated on the western
seaboard, in remote, inaccessible
areas. What I had not factored for
was the animosity. Part of it, I
felt, stemmed from guilt. We feel
inadequate that we cannot speak our
own language.
|
"Should we stick a
do-not-resuscitate sign
around [the Irish
language's] neck and unplug
the machine, or else get
over our silly inferiority
complex and start using the
bloody thing?" |
 |
I decided to visit Dublin's tourist
office, which, presumably, was
accustomed to dealing with different
languages. The man at the counter
looked at me quizzically when I
inquired about a city tour. "Huh?"
he said, his eyes widening. I
repeated myself.
"You don't speak English, do you?"
he asked coldly. I was already
beginning to hate this moment -- the
point at which the fear and
frustration spread across a person's
face. I asked if there was any other
language I could use, and they
pointed to a list of seven flags on
the wall representing the languages
they dealt in. To be honest, I could
speak four of them, but I had
promised myself not to, not unless
it was absolutely necessary.
I might have been tempted to give up
the journey that first day had it
not been for some children who
called into a radio station I was on
that night in Dublin. They spoke
fluent Irish in a modern urban
dialect. They were outraged when I
suggested the language was dying.
These were 10- and 12-year-olds
reared on Irish versions of
"SpongeBob SquarePants" and
"Scooby-Doo" on Irish-language
television. They had Irish words for
Xbox and jackass and had molded the
2,500-year-old language to the
styles of Valley-girl slang.
For them, the Irish language is not
associated with poverty and
oppression. They are unburdened with
the sense of inferiority that
previous generations have felt since
the British labeled it "a backward,
barbarian tongue" and outlawed it in
our schools in the 19th century. The
Irish, or at least the half of the
population that survived the Famine,
realized that their only hope of
advancement was through English, and
they jettisoned the language in a
few decades.
 |
-The
Irish phrase for hello is:
Dia dhuit. (Pronounced: jee-ah
ghwich. Literally, it means:
God be with you.) |
I left Dublin with renewed hope.
Outside the capital, people were
more willing to listen to me, though
no more likely to understand me. I
was given the wrong directions,
served the wrong food and given the
wrong haircut, but I was rarely made
to feel foolish again. Even in
Northern Ireland, on Belfast's
staunchly British-loyalist Shankill
Road, I was treated with civility,
though warned that if I persisted in
speaking the language, I was liable
to end up in hospital. In Galway, I
went out busking on the streets,
singing the filthiest, most
debauched lyrics I could think of to
see if anyone would understand. No
one did. Old women smiled, tapping
their feet merrily as I serenaded
them with filth. In Killarney, I
stood outside a bank promising
passers-by huge sums of money if
they helped me rob it, but again no
one understood.
In January 2007, Irish became an
official working language of the
European Union, taking its place
alongside the 23 other official
languages. It was a huge vote of
confidence by our European
neighbors, and it seems appropriate
that Irish people should now decide,
once and for all, what we want to do
with our mother tongue. Should we
stick a do-not-resuscitate sign
around its neck and unplug the
machine, or else get over our silly
inferiority complex and start using
the bloody thing?
As the children might say: Cuir
uaibh an cacamas! -- say it kur
OO-uv un COCK-a-mus -- meaning,
"Just get over it!"
This story originally appeared on
the website of the LA Times and is
reposted here incase it is re/moved;
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-magan17mar17,0,869554.story
 |
Related links to earlier Astero
articles: |
