The changing Irish language demographic
The changing Irish language demographic
Brian Ó Broin, William Paterson University
MultiLingual #135, April/May 2013
Summary of Article
While Irish is obviously losing ground in its
traditional rural territories on the coast of Western Ireland, there is some
evidence that reverse language shift is occurring in the towns and cities. The
schoolroom Pidgin spoken by second-language speakers of Irish is gradually
coming into community and family use as an urban Creole, and this may develop
into a new dialect of Irish.
There has been a rise in competent L2 speakers
of Irish, mostly because of Gaelscoileanna, and this community is having a huge
influence on the language and issues surrounding it.
Ongoing government recognition of
Irish-speaking areas ("An Ghaeltacht") has damaged Irish as a
national language, as people living outside the Gaeltacht then consider
themselves to be living in English-speaking areas. Furthermore, popular
perceptions of the Gaeltacht follow an erroneous post-colonial script that
portrays the Gaeltacht as noble, Celtic, rural, old-fashioned, and inevitably
moribund, and the rest of Ireland as practical, urban, modern, and
English-speaking.
Government action in recent years has greatly
raised the status of the Irish language at national and European levels, most
obviously in the establishment of a Language Commissioner and in giving Irish
working-language status in the European Union. There has also been a
significant improvement in Irish-language media services.
Labels: Éire, gaeilge, Gaeltacht, Ireland, irish, Irish language, irish studies, L1, L2, language, linguistics, sociolinguistics
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