Digital media and Irish

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iguanamon
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Digital media and Irish

Postby iguanamon » Thu May 26, 2022 1:34 pm

This came to me via twitter today: How Digital Media Is Bringing Ireland's Ancient Language Online.
Kate Phelan- The Culture Trip wrote:Irish has sometimes been viewed as a forgotten language, irrelevant to modern life; however, new media such as podcasts, Twitter accounts and online magazines are proving this assumption wrong. ...
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As someone who has learned a dying language with no country of its own, Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol, I see a parallel with the online renaissance of Ladino. There's an excitement and vibrancy going on online. Now, with the internet and online resources, publishing and broadcasting no longer require expensive infrastructure- state or private.

As broadcast media is becoming increasingly irrelevant over time, the future for endangered languages like Ladino and Irish is online.

galaxyrocker wrote:Looking forward to see what galaxyrocker can add to this, as I'm sure he knows more about this.
Last edited by iguanamon on Thu May 26, 2022 4:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Digital media breathes new life into Irish

Postby galaxyrocker » Thu May 26, 2022 2:33 pm

Interesting article. I'm not a fan. It's 100% overly optimistic, quoting the whole "40% speak it!" statistic, which is beyond meaningless (at least it does mention that not that many speak it daily).

Also apart from the one poet mentioned at the beginning, none of the people mentioned are native speakers (it's also weird she uses Gaeilge when she's from Donegal, where the language would be Gaeilic, but likely due to standardisation stuff), and I'd wager their Irish really isn't that good. Raidió RíRá was mentioned, and if you want traditional Irish, it's basically a joke, giving you what is essentially coded English. But, outside of arguments about quality Irish, I think there are some issues.

The main thing I think so many people misunderstand about minority languages, is that online use is not a language community, at least in the sense that is needed for continued survival of the language. Languages need a place where they're spoken in the physical world, they need a community in the physical world to pass it on (research indicates roughly 67% of daily speakers outside the educational system; for Irish, there's only a handful of places that meet this criteria, on the electoral district level). Languages are inherently a spoken thing, and, at least with Irish, they're inherently embodied in the landscape of certain areas (I'd argue it's the same for most minority languages with specific traditional areas that speak them too). I think this is way too often overlooked by people, who see the number of people using 'Irish' (of whatever quality) online. (1) Most of these people are native speakers and (2) most of them are outside the communities that use Irish. To me, this does nothing to help the language (I'm sure they'll all disagree, but, well, that's another story) as they don't contribute to the community in any way. And most are based in Dublin where English is the dominant language and has been for centuries (though there's evidence Irish was spoken natively in the county until the mid 19th century -- quite fun stories about that too; I'll share one Sunday if I remember) and that's unlikely to change. What'll happen is, even if these people all raise their kids with Irish, their kids will raise theirs with English. Especially if they emigrate, which is still a huge problem in Ireland.

Basically: It's nice to see Irish getting exposure online, even if most is of dubious quality. I even use most of my Irish thanks to online means like Discord or Telegram. But, to say that's saving the language or 'breath[ing] new life' into it fundamentally misunderstands what a language is (spoken) and what it needs to survive (a physical community of people speaking it and passing it down). The Irish census does its part to obscure this as well, but the Gaeltachtaí have never been weaker, and once they're gone the language is also gone, regardless of how many L2 learners use it online (or claim it's their "native" language simply because they're Irish). A community of L2 learners does not a living language make (see Latin)
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iguanamon
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Re: Digital media breathes new life into Irish

Postby iguanamon » Thu May 26, 2022 4:20 pm

galaxyrocker wrote:Interesting article. I'm not a fan. It's 100% overly optimistic,...The main thing I think so many people misunderstand about minority languages, is that online use is not a language community, at least in the sense that is needed for continued survival of the language. Languages need a place where they're spoken in the physical world, they need a community in the physical world to pass it on (research indicates roughly 67% of daily speakers outside the educational system; for Irish, there's only a handful of places that meet this criteria, on the electoral district level). Languages are inherently a spoken thing, and, at least with Irish, they're inherently embodied in the landscape of certain areas (I'd argue it's the same for most minority languages with specific traditional areas that speak them too). I think this is way too often overlooked by people, who see the number of people using 'Irish' (of whatever quality) online. ... The Irish census does its part to obscure this as well, but the Gaeltachtaí have never been weaker, and once they're gone the language is also gone, regardless of how many L2 learners use it online (or claim it's their "native" language simply because they're Irish). A community of L2 learners does not a living language make (see Latin)

Yes, I agree. Ladino is almost gone from its traditional homeland in Greece, Turkey and the Balkans. The current online renovation is exciting in that it can help preserve the language for posterity but it can never live again after its native-speakers pass on.

Ireland is different than the Sephardic Ladino-speaking population which never had a country of its own. Djudeo-espanyol became a language in the Ottoman Empire diaspora. The unique conditions that created the language and sustained it, no longer exist and cannot be recreated. What I find exciting about the current online renaissance is that it's bringing native-speaking people to a wider exposure than was ever the case before. The "Enkontros en Alhad" (Sunday Meetings/Gatherings) have brought life to those native-speakers and their stories. The internet made this possible.

It seems to me (I may be wrong) Irish is in a similar, though rather different situation to Ladino. I don't know if there is any hope to revive it as a true, functioning authentic language or if its fate is to follow Ladino into preservation.
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Re: Digital media breathes new life into Irish

Postby galaxyrocker » Thu May 26, 2022 5:49 pm

iguanamon wrote:
... What I find exciting about the current online renaissance is that it's bringing native-speaking people to a wider exposure than was ever the case before. The "Enkontros en Alhad" (Sunday Meetings/Gatherings) have brought life to those native-speakers and their stories. The internet made this possible. ...

It seems to me (I may be wrong) Irish is in a similar, though rather different situation to Ladino. I don't know if there is any hope to revive it as a true, functioning authentic language or if its fate is to follow Ladino into preservation.



The major difference I see with Irish is that most the Irish on the internet comes from non-natives, who often have a poor grasp of grammar and phonetics. The two biggest YouTube learning channels, for instance, Gaeilge i mo Chroí and Learn Irish (with Dayne), are both horrible. Their pronunciation is thoroughly anglicised, as is their idiom. The former is better, though, as she does try to get native speakers on there, but it just serves to highlight the difference. The same is true with Raidió Rí-Rá mentioned in the article above, and Twitter. I can actually only think of one really active Twitter user who is a native of traditional Irish.

So, while it does get it exposure, it's not getting the exposure to native speakers simply because learners vastly outnumber them due to the way education Ireland works. In fact, there's many learners who'd claim they're fluent, and are raising kids in 'Irish', who can't understand native speakers from the Gaeltacht. And if you mention that, you get called 'elitist' or a 'gatekeeper' (I had both thrown at me just a few weekends ago!) That's the big issue with Irish, and it's actually a big issue for most the Celtic languages (except for Welsh, where the problem is only incipient but quickly growing), as I'm sure cainntear can attest to with Gaelic (See the Scottish Affairs journal recently). So while there's more Irish on digital media, it's not, in my opinion, 'Irish' but something closer to a coded English or creole type language.

That's part of why I'm trying to correct with my blog, dedicated to preserving some old stories that showcase the dialect and rich traditional Irish. It's just a shame it'll likely never take off in the grand scheme of things because most people don't care about Irish as language and more as a way to show they're not English, even if their Irish is essentially English.

As for hopes of reviving it, I'm pessimistic. I think there are ways it could be done, but I'm not sure if it'd be legal under EU law (in particular, it would require language-based housing discrimination and employment discrimination in certain areas) even if there was political will to do something about it. And given the myriad other problems in Ireland right now, I don't think anything'll happen. They'll throw another €500k at Irish in Dublin and call it good.


All my pessimism aside, the internet is great for Irish if you seek out good Irish. Raidió na Gaeltachta is streaming, and have podcasts up, so you can easily get more exposure to native Irish than you ever would have in the past. It does make it easier for people like me who live in Dublin to get access to it, as well as those abroad. It's just drowned out most places by learners' Irish.
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Re: Digital media and Irish

Postby zgriptsuroica » Tue May 31, 2022 5:23 am

I sounds like a lot of the Irish-language internet is still operating under the same idea I had as a kid about languages prior to actually learning one, galaxyrocker. I basically imagined languages functioned sort of like a cryptoquip puzzle, where everything was just a simple substitution cypher. In my mind, sentence structure and word order would stay the same, you just had to make a 1:1 change of the English word for the equivalent in the other language and you were done. I was pretty quickly disabused of this notion once I started to seriously study French, though.
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Re: Digital media and Irish

Postby galaxyrocker » Tue May 31, 2022 4:49 pm

zgriptsuroica wrote:I sounds like a lot of the Irish-language internet is still operating under the same idea I had as a kid about languages prior to actually learning one, galaxyrocker. I basically imagined languages functioned sort of like a cryptoquip puzzle, where everything was just a simple substitution cypher. In my mind, sentence structure and word order would stay the same, you just had to make a 1:1 change of the English word for the equivalent in the other language and you were done. I was pretty quickly disabused of this notion once I started to seriously study French, though.


It's not the Irish-language internet, but the vast majority of Irish-language learners, unfortunately. It's because they're often taught it's their native language, and the number of L2 speakers vastly outnumbers the number of L1 speakers, which means they don't get exposure to good Irish. The issue I have with Irish-language internet is that they think it's an acceptable alternative to a physical speech community, when it's nothing of the sort.
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Re: Digital media breathes new life into Irish

Postby lichtrausch » Mon Jun 06, 2022 1:16 am

galaxyrocker wrote:As for hopes of reviving it, I'm pessimistic. I think there are ways it could be done, but I'm not sure if it'd be legal under EU law (in particular, it would require language-based housing discrimination and employment discrimination in certain areas) even if there was political will to do something about it. And given the myriad other problems in Ireland right now, I don't think anything'll happen. They'll throw another €500k at Irish in Dublin and call it good.

How about targeted attempts to expand the existing Gaeltachtai? For example prioritizing resources and native speaker teachers for English-speaking towns adjacent to Irish-speaking towns. Has that been tried?
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Re: Digital media breathes new life into Irish

Postby galaxyrocker » Mon Jun 06, 2022 1:44 am

lichtrausch wrote:
How about targeted attempts to expand the existing Gaeltachtai? For example prioritizing resources and native speaker teachers for English-speaking towns adjacent to Irish-speaking towns. Has that been tried?


As far as I'm aware, not really, apart from a very little during the Gaeltacht economic boom of the 70s...which just attracted English speakers. However, I'm absolutely in favour of the proposal with teachers, and have been discussing something similar for a few years now. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll happen for various reasons (hiring discrimination being only one of them), but it's what, in my opinion, should happen. Make it easier for them to get housing at home, then work in Irish-only schools in closeby areas...and then slowly expand from there.
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Re: Digital media breathes new life into Irish

Postby Cainntear » Mon Jun 06, 2022 6:51 pm

galaxyrocker wrote:The major difference I see with Irish is that most the Irish on the internet comes from non-natives, who often have a poor grasp of grammar and phonetics. The two biggest YouTube learning channels, for instance, Gaeilge i mo Chroí and Learn Irish (with Dayne), are both horrible. Their pronunciation is thoroughly anglicised, as is their idiom. The former is better, though, as she does try to get native speakers on there, but it just serves to highlight the difference. The same is true with Raidió Rí-Rá mentioned in the article above, and Twitter. I can actually only think of one really active Twitter user who is a native of traditional Irish.

Yup, similar in Gaelic.

There's never going to be much of an audience for it, so it's going to always need to be enthusiasts, and enthusiasts are usually learners. "None so zealous as the convert," as they say.

So, while it does get it exposure, it's not getting the exposure to native speakers simply because learners vastly outnumber them due to the way education Ireland works. In fact, there's many learners who'd claim they're fluent, and are raising kids in 'Irish', who can't understand native speakers from the Gaeltacht. And if you mention that, you get called 'elitist' or a 'gatekeeper' (I had both thrown at me just a few weekends ago!)

"It's not my fault I was denied my native language as a child!" :roll:

I think it's uncontroversial to say that a hell of a lot of language learners are misfits -- people who look to find an identity greater than the small corner of the world they grew up in, but never felt quite at home in.

Minority languages are particularly appealing to that mindset, because there's an obvious "outsider" group that the learner can identify with.

It's appropriative, though. Learners often pour their identity into it without real respect for the living, diverse range of identities that are already there.

No-one would expect to "become Spanish" or "become French" by learning the language, but people expect to be considered as Gaels and no different from a native speaker. "It's my language too." Bollocks it is. We're guests in someone else's house, and I can't imagine much more offensive than walking into someone else's living room, making a mess of the carpet and declaring "what a wonderful house this house of mine is!"
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