Linguae Europaeae

by Laura Ther It is commonly believed in Ireland that knowing a handful of words in Irish is enough to consider oneself fluent. There is a well-established cultural pretense that "a few words will do" and only a few basic pleasantries in Irish are needed. It seems that those few words are learned primarily in childhood, as the number of adult Irish speakers reporting to speak the language tends to decrease rather precipitously with age (Figure 1). Knowing no words in Irish at all can also condemn someone as a complete cultural outsider, which might bring us to conclude that the Irish language is of primary importance to its people. This assumption is correct, but it is not necessarily reflected in everyday practice. Everyday communication in Ireland has been conducted exclusively in English for at least two centuries, which led to the relative neglect of Irish. After generations of British interference, Irish had all but disappeared from public life. The events leading ...

by Soffia H. Kuehner Gray Soffia H. Kuehner Gray is a junior in Communication and French Studies at the University of Illinois. She is planning on attending law school and completing a Master’s degree in Communication. She wrote this blog text while enrolled in 418 ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ in the spring of 2015. La rivière Chicago est teinte verte pour la Saint Patrick [ Image Source ] Si on marche dans la rue dans une ville aux États-Unis dans le mois de mars, il se peut qu’on voie un étalage de trèfles, de lutins et de pots d’or. Tous ces bibelots sont affichés pour la Saint Patrick. Centaines de milliers de personnes vont aux défilés comme le Défilé des Irlandais dans le sud de Chicago pour honorer leur héritage irlandais. En fait, n’importe quand dans l’année, on peut acheter les anneaux de Claddagh, les pulls d’Aran et du thé irlandais. Alors que les bibelots et les festivals qui font partie de la culture irlandaise gagnent en popularité, la langue irlanda...

by Laís Kiehl Laís Kiehl is a Linguistics major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He composed this blog entry on Irish language teaching and language revival in the ‘Language and Minorities in Europe’ (LING 418) course in the spring of 2013. Image Source     As we all know, English is the vast majority language spoken in the Republic of Ireland. But did you know that Irish Gaelic, even being considered a minority language, is actively taught in schools?     Irish enjoys a prestige status in Ireland, as it is the national and first official language of the Nation. However, it is not the first language spoken by a long shot -- only 3% of the population, located in the Gaeltachtaí, an Irish language speech community, speak Irish as a first language (O Laoire, 2012).     Merely looking at that little percentage may cause you to think that Irish is a dead in the water language. You would be mistaken.     The ardent prote...