I’m an American but my family is originally from Ireland. When I went to study in England, my Grandma paid for me to have Irish Gaelic language classes. She told me that if I came back from my studies with an English accent that I wouldn’t be allowed in her house. I am proud of my ancestral linguistic heritage.
Irish people, DROP ENGLISH and speak your NATIONAL language!! In Québec, we're surrounded by 350 million English-speakers (USA + English Canada) but we all speak French as a 1st language. My grandmother is Irish Canadian and when her family arrived in Canada 150 years ago, they spoke only Irish, not English. Keep the language alive in Ireland!
***** yeah, from some video made by WASP supermacists. I'm not allowed to speak French in the rest of KKKnada but english-speaking KKKnadians want us to speak their disgusting language in Québec. In Canada, bilinguals = native French-speakers ; unilinguals = native english-speakers.
***** I don't think so. Bicultural/bilingual countries are doomed to failure. Czech Republic and Slovakia decided to separate. Why can't Quebec and Canada do the same thing? A peaceful divorce is the best solution on both sides.
As an englishman, I really hate how much our culture was forced upon celtic countries, such a shame that these languages are spoken among such a small percentage these days :(
I started working at an Irish pub two weeks ago and my bartender mates have been teaching me a bit of Irish and it's such a beautiful language, the history is so interesting, I love it.
I'm an Englishman but hope very much that the Irish language survives and continues to develop. Very important ;-) It can also only do that in a sovereign, independent and prosperous Ireland.
Thank you. Saddens me that an English person can see the importance of preserving our language and yet so many irish people seem to have such a negative attitude towards it. A lot of it seems to be about English being the language of the market place. But a language is so much more than that. You might find donal o'Healai's ted talk interesting. He talks about the language in terms of beauty.
The flowing, rhythmic beauty of Irish and the challenge of what it asks of you as you begin to learn it are what make it unique and so intrinsically valuable to the global community. It makes you see the world differently. Laibhraím Gaeilge leat!
Anyone who thinks that learning the Irish language is useless simply doesn't know what they are talking about. This goes for learning any language, the person learning it must decide on what use they will get out of it because that's all the use they will ever get. One may think that English is way more useful to learn than Irish is, however, if everybody thought like that and only learned English then we would only have one language left. Isn't more interesting to have more than one language? This is one use of the Irish language, to sound different to English and give the listener new sounds to listen to making life overall more exciting.
Well, it is an objective fact that English will give you international benefits no other language can. In this regard, I'm far more interested in being understood than learning several languages. That's just not practical. And yes, I would always trade my mother tongue for English. It is just national "pride" or idleness that keeps us apart.
You can't know more than one language? And no, knowing your own language is not just for pride or idleness as you so pathetically put it, it is a part of your national identity of which there is not another anywhere else in the entire world. Do you really think that you are so special that it is a thing to be snuffed at by you? Of course, it is very practical to know English. Though, it is also practical to know Irish as well, especially if it is your mother tongue because if the language died and we were left with only English we would be just adding to the bland side of life. Keeping Irish and as many other languages as we can alive keeps things exciting.
I just started learning it and have to agree. I think that's because Irish uses completely different grammatical order and that makes brain work differently, it's like workout for your brain. Love it!
@@jimogrady1131 None of those are in any way Irish. Blonde or red haired people are actually scandinavian in origin and one could make the argument that the Vikings brought those people to Ireland when they arrived here in the 10th century. You're more likely to see brunettes or brown haired people here in Ireland than red-haired people.
greetings from Arkansas USA have never been to Ireland only England would love to go one day God willing and of course to Scotland there's lots of videos hear about the Welsh language whales and all that is Irish like well she's at the same language just wondering it sounds the same God bless you and yours
From the Basque Country I only can support every effort made by the Irish people or any other linguistic minority to preserve their heritage. As a basque speaker myself -the only preindoeuropean language of Europe- hope that we will endure and keep alive our languages and cultures.
GO IRISH! it is possible! my first language is hebrew and it was considered as a "dead language" for more than 2 thousand years... not it is an official language of israel and first language for millions... the irish is not dead yet! so it is more than possible!
@@riverdonoghue9992 Found an ideological movement for Irish, speak Irish, Teach Irish, attract young people in the social media. well, the first Zionists were physically attacking people who spoke Yiddish instead of Hebrew... but that was 1940's... and not acceptable today...
Thank you for sharing this. I have been working in learning Irish and loved watching this. My family found it odd when I started learning it because Im not Irish at all so it was nice to see others that are not Irish leading it.m My Mom thought it was dead language and therefore a waist of time to learn any of it. I can't wait to send her a link to this page!
I'm speaking as leaving cert student who just graduated. I love Irish and I love my country but it has to be said that the way Irish is taught in schools is completely wrong. It fosters a hate for the language among young people because of the way it's forced upon us. Irish is a beautiful language and we should be encouraging conversation and love for it instead of forcing already fed up students to write three page long essays that are just learnt off and forgotten right after the exam. Imagine if instead of making teenagers sit for hours memorizing useless Sraith Pictiúrs that will just lead them to view Irish as a burden, we implemented a system where students look forward to Irish class & enjoy talking and having the craic in our native language. The whole system needs to change. I think the fact that after learning Irish for 14 years in school and most students still not being fluent speaks volumes. Dia duit, is cailín Éireannach 18 mbliana d’aois mé as Baile Átha Cliath. Is iad teangacha mo phaisean ach cuirim mo theanga dhúchais i gcónaí i bhfabhar na Gearmáine nó na Fraincise. Creidim gur chóir dúinn Gaeilge a labhairt le bród agus áthas. Ní mór dúinn an bealach a mhúintear teangacha sa tír seo a athrú nó ní fada go bhfaighidh an Ghaeilge bás. tír gan teanga tír gan anam!
This is really interesting! In the past the reason why i wanted to learn Irish is because of, get this, The Corrs ever since I heard their version of "Brid Og Ni Mhaille"! xp Irish is just music to my ears. So foreign! ♥
Why the fish i just found about this video now? This morning i just finished delivered an informative speech about irish language in my university in malaysia. This video would help me a lot. Dammmm.
I think that since most young people favour Irish now in 20 years Irish will be a main language and that would be great for me because I am a Brittany Celt and I want to emigrate to Cork
Nonsense, most young Irish people hate Irish Gaelic. The few who do like it don't even know the basics of pronunciation and pronounce it like English. The Irish government doesn't give a damn about the language and it's chasing away the native speakers from the Gaeltachtaí. At the end of this century Irish Gaelic will be a dead language, and all that's left will be the urban creole of Irish and English spoken by the new speakers.
is mise Labhrás Ó Fallamhain agus tá mé ag fóghlaim Gaeilge anois. Tá mé cúpla focal ach is meiriceannach mé :) Tá brón orm. I just have to practice a lot more. Slán!
This might be anecdotal but I've heard that Daniel O'Connell encouraged the Irish people to speak English instead of Gaelic to better themselves. O'Connell was fluent in Gaelic and the language was still widely spoken and understood during his time, but O'Connell chose to address the masses in English. This Anglicization of Ireland did a lot of damage to its culture. It's ironic how O'Connell fought so hard for independence from the Crown but helped facilitate the decline of Gaelic in favor of English.
I totally agree with that Russian girl, I only learned this when I lived in Greece and began to understand the language, a different style of thinking came with it. Since I have been home I have made it my goal to become a fluent gaeilgeoir.
actually the first extant texts in irish were written in the ogham script. some are about four centuries older than the first glosses in the roman alphabet
The sad fact is that the Gaeltacht areas are some of the poorest in the country. Irish will thrive if it can be seen as something that can be spoken as part of everyday life and you don’t suffer economically for it.
My beautiful and amazing Princess it’s there now. Just looked. They have also added Scottish Gaelic now. And Welsh has been there awhile. Now they need to add Manx and Breton.
In Ireland have they tried to put the advertising in Irish on the TV maybe it would help a little get the people to think in Irish, most people don't pay attention to adverts between programs but still we know them and remember them.
For anyone confused about the Celtic thing, it is like Germanic: not a term originally used by the people with similar languages and cultures, but applied to and later adopted by them. Romans came up with grouping people with similar languages and cultures in a certain region as "germanic." So, it applies just as well to we Irish, or you better fight the idea of Slavic and Germanic...
It's been proven lately by 2 Professors, John T. Koch of the department of Celtic Studies in the University of Wales and Barry Cunliff of the University of Oxford that the Atlantic Celts of Iberia began to develop the Celtic language which departed northward and eastward into Europe and "not" as assumed by other historians that the Celts migrated from the Russian steppes to the Atlantic coast. John T Koch and Barry Cunliffe are the authors of 3 books entitled "The Celts from the West". That explains why the Galician hillforts are much older than the hillforts in Hallstatt, Austria.
The Irish government does a real thing promoting Irish, I think. It's essential to keep Gaeilge alive along with Japanese or Lithuanian that are so distinct from all other.
"So, what is it, psychologically that is preventing the Irish people from making more use of their beautiful language? I out it down to a combination of apathy, inertia and laziness." All those, plus a few centuries of foreign cultural domination to a degree which not even the Chinese can imagine for all their experience with the British. No one in my family has spoken Gaelic for two centuries and a damned shame it is.
I shall answer your comment. The future of your language is in your hands. There must be some opportunities for you to learn and expose yourself to your OWN LANGUAGE? I have a Chinese friend who is married to an Irishman and she is now very confident in the language and insists that her daughter attends an Irish speaking school. Apathy is indeed the biggest problem.
Why has Ireland never succeeded in coming even close to the achievement of modern Israel, where a dead language (Hebrew) was turned into the everyday language of over 6 million people (and many outside, and increasing numbers of Arabs). Irish governments and associations have been pushing Irish education for over a century, with limited results. They should at least ask the Israelis about their ulpan schemes.
Thosaigh me a foghlaim Gaeilge a cupla bliain ó shin mar chuaigh mé go dtí ar scoil na hEireann agus tá sé deacair ach tá sé deas a fhoghlaim mo theanga dhúchais :)
Peterson Arkansas USA have never been to Ireland would love to go up into England it was an honor beautiful people both inside and out Santa beautiful country however I see a lot of videos about Welsh the language of Wales is this the same language it sure sounds like it sounds very similar just wondering God bless you and yours
How do you define "significant"? Also, if you mean to say we should throw away one of the largest aspects of our identity and history because English is more prevalent, English is only the third or fourth most prevalent language in the world, so why learn the third or fourth over the first or second?
Damn, I thought yall spoke English with a different dialect. Didn't know Irish people had an actually language of their own. Ireland is a stable country now with it's own sovereignty, why doesn't Irish become the official language instead of English?
The Irish language was the first European language to be written down outside the classical languages of Latin and Greek. Irish is the official first language but it's widespread use was damaged by English colonialism and the artificial famine and consequent psychological and economic factors.
im Irish and ive been asking the same question all my life! its so embarrassing that we dont uphold our native language, the whole nation could start speaking irish in a matter of months (even those who cant speak it) but we just dont, its such a shame, it makes us look like hypocritical clowns because we are very proud of our culture but we couldnt be bothered to speak our own language! of course im not referring to those who do speak Irish on a daily basis, i salute you people and thank god you exist otherwise the Irish language would have been extinct long ago, me personally i fully blame Irish media , newspapers television and radio broadcasting they seem to be hell bent on poking fun at Irish each and every time, and im sorry the Seachtain na Gaeilge is not enough, one week is not enough and during that week most news papers and broadcasters wont fully back it, they just say a few Irish words and think thats their job done and revert straight back to english for the rest of their shows, it a fucking joke! i know i sound like a dictator but it should be at least a month long and "all" media outlets should be in Irish only, a full blanket ban on broadcasters speaking english should be imposed, but they wont do it because they dont want to loose money and ratings, in short they are greedy cowards! anyway thats my rant, Slan.
I didn't like the map that shows the Celts coming across the Channel from France through England and Wales to Ireland and up through England to Scotland. Irish legend has always held that the Gaels were Celtiberians from Northern Spain (Galicia) some 2500 years ago, while it's historical fact that the Gaels of the Scottish Highlands came from Ulster in the Middle Ages.
@@g.h7657 Sorry, that's just a 16th-century myth, I'm afraid. Archaeological and linguistic evidence points firmly to the crossing of the North Sea from France and The Low Countries.
@@Jeroen1983 all of europe had celtics. France is next door to spain. The romans massacred them in france and switzerland. So yes many came from those parts as well. french language is literally a mix of roman and celtic.
@@g.h7657 Again, I have to disagree. The Celts had moved to the British Isles long before the Roman Empire was a thing by crossing the narrow Strait of Calais. Greek explorers made note of Celtic tribes in Ireland in the 4th and 3rd century BC. And French is a mix of Latin and Germanic. In fact, both France and French come from the Franks, a Germanic tribe whose descendants are, among others, the Dutch.
That's pretty normal when a country tries to rule another one. Sad but true. The Spaniards used to do the same with our Galician language until the mid 70's. Thankfully now it's not an important issue, but you can still feel the damages in some close minded people.
What a great dickhead you are. Learn your history and why the language died out.My family are from the gaeltacht in Donegal and I can assure you that the language is well and truly thriving
I find it really sad how most Irish people prefer English over their, original beautiful Irish language. Ironic too, considering that a lot of Irish people hate the British (especially the English) I get that Ireland was part of Britain for a long time but many countries out there have dropped the language of whatever country they used to be part of.
@The Hallowed One The Gaelic revival (Irish: Athbheochan na Gaeilge) was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language (also known as Gaelic). We did try. It is in no way our fault for having our own culture and language suppressed by a foreign power. There's plenty of free material on this you could go read.
I would much rather blame the English for actively stigmatising the Irish language back in the day. Of course, they don't do that anymore, but the effects are felt up to this day.
Learning Irish is wonderful, but what practical purpose does it serve today beyond symbolism? It would be understandable if people found it useful in 2024, but most aspects of daily life in Ireland now align closely with British influences, even if it’s not openly acknowledged. So, what’s the point of learning Irish at this stage, given its diminished relevance?
@dataman121 Most would argue that Proto-Indo-European was spoken in the Eurasian stepp north of Caucasus and spread with domestication of the horse and use of wagons.
am I just seeing it wrong or are they traicing Indo-European (irish language as well) back to East Anatolia (where I am from) and Caucasus. cool stuff :D
English, french, native languages and celtic languages are the heritage of Canada. Irish is a language to know if you are going to Newfoundland and Calgary's name is actually Scottish Callagerraidh.
Great video, very interesting. However the Russian steppes north of the Black Sea are a more plausible place of origin of the Indo-European languages than Anatolia.
Thank you, that bothered me as well. I think they went with Renfrew's ideas, even though he bases it solely on archaeological evidence and completely discounts linguistic objections.
Anatolia is a Greek name for what is now Turkey, it was called also Galatia by the Celts that inhabited that region. That's probably why the people who made that graph think Celtic languages come from there But in reality the Aryans (aka Indo-Europeans) have our original homeland most likely in the Russian stappes indeed, near the borders with Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and the Aral sea. That's according to the Kurgan hypothesis that is the most accept theory for the origin of the I.E ethnic group. From there the Aryans conquered/migrated to India, Middle East and Europe, reaching as far as China (there are archeological finding of Aryan settlements in China) The Aryan languages in the Middle East and Asia such as Hindi, Farsi, Pashto, Punjabi, etc, are related to the European languages, cause it's the same I.E. family, Sanskrit was the language spoken by the Vedas in North India and is one of the oldest forms of an Aryan languages, many roots and words in common with European languages
I agree! Lovely language to learn. Maybe not the easiest ever, but i find it great you still using your own language there in Ireland. It's a shame that here in Galicia we lost our Celtic language lots of centuries ago, surely against Latin when the Roman brought it here i guess. Surely it was close to Gaeilge and other Celtic languages that remain alive now a day, that's why i'd love to learn a lil bit of it. I feel i should do it 4 all the people who spoke it here thousands of years ago.
You can learn it from anywhere in the world. Moving to Ireland won't help you much if you aren't constantly reading, listening and studying anyway. Trust me, even if you go to one of the few tiny Irish speaking areas people will switch to English the moment they realise you are not from the area, unless you are on a paid course. And nobody is going to pay for you to do it.
The correct full linguistic term is Irish Gaelic, since there is also Scottish Gaelic spoken in Scotland. Gaelic by itself refers to both Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic) and Gaidhlig (Scottish Gaelic) as well as a third language: Manx. All three are descended from older forms of the Irish language, as Ireland is the place of origin of all Gaelic peoples, or as the Romans called them: Scoti.
Welsh dialect is still widely used today but is Manx, Scots Gaelic, Cornish and Breton languages still being used today. I'm half welsh if anyone's interested.
I see many videos about why and suggestions of how to preserve Irish, but I don’t see much discussion about why it is still a minority language of Ireland. Why for example is Welch spoken by almost 10 times the number of speakers of Irish? This is not a criticism of Ireland. Just a question. Is there possibly a difference in the way the languages are taught? Differences in the relative prestige of the languages? Possibly a difference in birth rate or wealth of the different speach communities. Is bilingualism denegrated? Suggestions?
When the suppression of the Welsh language decreased at the beginning of the 20th century, almost half of the Welsh population still spoke Welsh. When the Gaelic Revival in Ireland started at the end of the 19th century, only a fifth of the Irish population spoke Gaelic. The Irish Gaelic language revival just started too late. In addition, the Irish (Anglophone) government doesn't really care about the language, as an MP says in the documentary Gaeltacht 2020. Instead of focusing on providing Irish language education and economic support in the deprived regions where native speakers live, they waste millions on having incompetent people who don't even know the basics of pronunciation to teach the language in the rest of the country. By keeping the Gaeltacht regions poor and not giving planning permission to the inhabitants (while at the same time building lots of luxurious holiday homes there for English speakers!), they force the last native speakers to move to English speaking parts of the country, where they assimilate. What the Irish government does is essentially a continuation of British suppression of the language.
hello, I'm looking for some one who could either point me in the correct detraction or know of and willing to teach me how to speak, read and write in Gaelic or Oghams Alphabet I have a few books on the matter but I'm having trouble understanding it. I would really appreciate it,
Look up Conradh na gaelige. They have online classes. Its an organisation based in dublin that promotes the irish language. Also listening to songs in Irish can help with pronunciation. Its a very musical language and quite difficult to learn. But don't give up. Its a beautiful language and very connected to nature etc.
I have a curious question: Can Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic speakers understand each other? Kind of like Danish speakers can understand Norwegian and Swedish?
Jade Tiger mentions an interesting point on Irish. It appears, among ex-Soviet republics, the language situation in Belarus has the most similar parallel, with Russian a more prominent language, within that country, than Belarusian. Yet it seems that - while Georgian, Armenian, Azeri, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Tajik, Turkmen and Ukrainian are nowhere near in danger of dying (with >20 million people, within Ukraine alone, having at least an intermediate-level proficiency in Ukrainian) - Ireland (despite being independent for >90 years, vs fewer than 30 for any of the ex-Soviet republics) is seeing its locally-named Goidelic language die.
+martmart1 No, it is just that the Irish language education system here is atrocious, to say the least. I came out of secondary school with more proficiency in German and French then I did in Irish - despite being taught German and French for less than half the time than Irish.
It sure hasn't helped that Ireland's education ministry has failed to study how well Ukraine's education system teaches its local populace the language of Taras Shevchenko. Why else would over 1/2 of Ukrainian-born people living in that country speak the Slavic language, vs less than 1/4 (likely) of Irish-born people living in the Republic?
So is Ukrainian, although most Ukrainian-born people who learned Russian before T. Shevchenko's mother tongue can also speak his mother tongue. I have a feeling that, if Odessa Oblast Vice-Governor Maria Gaidar doesn't have a good command of Ukrainian, she will soon. After all, Ukrainian and her native Russian have many similarities, even if there are more similarities between those Slavic languages than between Irish Gaelic and Hiberno-English.
Georgian, Armenian, Mandarin, Korean and languages written in the Perso-Arabic script are hard to learn, too (at least writing those languages in the scripts their native speakers normally learn to speak them in, rather than in Pinyin or a local Latin romanization). Polish is hard to learn, too, even with the language being written in the Latin alphabet.
I wouldn't really say about the first three - after all they naturally evolved into other languages over the time, unlike irish, which is sort of fading because of the much wider usage of english in the world. I can agree about the Native American ones though :)
Arrows in that migration diagram are wrong at 01:16. Scots and their Gaelic came from Ireland not up from England. Likewise Manx. Although they got no arrow at all Bretons and Breizh came south to France from Britain.
I am trying to find out when the English or British (I don't know when it happened) banned the teaching of the Irish language and when that law was repealed. The equivalent law in Scotland was called the Act of Proscription and was introduced in 1746 and was most parts were repealed in 1782 (though state funds were not allowed to be used for teaching Scottish Gaelic until after the second world war and the funds didn't actually start flowing until 1985).
Hello, I am from Hong Kong and my husband is or Irish background. There is no way as a Chinese person that I WOULD NOT speak Cantonese. So, what is it, psychologically that is preventing the Irish people from making more use of their beautiful language? I out it down to a combination of apathy, inertia and laziness. I have tried to learn Irish and found the official books from the Irish government to be boring and old fashioned. New technology is the answer.
Keep an eye on childrens' schools. Are they not teaching Putonghua? The communists are forcing Putonghua all over. Within a few generations sadly the local regional languages will be mostly dead within China. I assume expat populations from China will keep Cantonese alive.
![Jack Harlow - Hello Miss Johnson [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q86_nlRoIGw/mqdefault.jpg)
I’m an American but my family is originally from Ireland. When I went to study in England, my Grandma paid for me to have Irish Gaelic language classes. She told me that if I came back from my studies with an English accent that I wouldn’t be allowed in her house. I am proud of my ancestral linguistic heritage.
@nick I feckin love ur granny.
Irish people, DROP ENGLISH and speak your NATIONAL language!! In Québec, we're surrounded by 350 million English-speakers (USA + English Canada) but we all speak French as a 1st language. My grandmother is Irish Canadian and when her family arrived in Canada 150 years ago, they spoke only Irish, not English. Keep the language alive in Ireland!
***** I guess you were brainswashed by WASP supremacists...
***** yeah, from some video made by WASP supermacists. I'm not allowed to speak French in the rest of KKKnada but english-speaking KKKnadians want us to speak their disgusting language in Québec.
In Canada, bilinguals = native French-speakers ; unilinguals = native english-speakers.
***** Just because I'm talking to you in english doesn't mean that this language is great.
***** I'm just Québecer. english-speaking Canadians call us "French Canadians" but I hate this expression.
***** I don't think so. Bicultural/bilingual countries are doomed to failure. Czech Republic and Slovakia decided to separate. Why can't Quebec and Canada do the same thing? A peaceful divorce is the best solution on both sides.
As an englishman, I really hate how much our culture was forced upon celtic countries, such a shame that these languages are spoken among such a small percentage these days :(
Aontaím.
Cha toil leam Sasainn agus Sasannach
Speaking English as a first language gives them a lot more job opportunities, academic advantages and financial gains though.
Just Celtic countries? Hhmm…
Ye yous rats
I started working at an Irish pub two weeks ago and my bartender mates have been teaching me a bit of Irish and it's such a beautiful language, the history is so interesting, I love it.
I'm an Englishman but hope very much that the Irish language survives and continues to develop. Very important ;-) It can also only do that in a sovereign, independent and prosperous Ireland.
Our government is useless and doesn't care though :(
The government only wants to sponge from the poor.
Thank you:)
An Ireland that is seen and respected for its ancient past.
Thank you. Saddens me that an English person can see the importance of preserving our language and yet so many irish people seem to have such a negative attitude towards it. A lot of it seems to be about English being the language of the market place. But a language is so much more than that. You might find donal o'Healai's ted talk interesting. He talks about the language in terms of beauty.
Irish is a beautiful language. I wish more people spoke it.
Ní theastaíonn uaim Béarla a labhair níos mó. Agus tá sí álainn :)
Uachtar reoite
Chuaigh mé go dtí an siopa agus cheannaigh mé bainne
The flowing, rhythmic beauty of Irish and the challenge of what it asks of you as you begin to learn it are what make it unique and so intrinsically valuable to the global community. It makes you see the world differently. Laibhraím Gaeilge leat!
Anyone who thinks that learning the Irish language is useless simply doesn't know what they are talking about. This goes for learning any language, the person learning it must decide on what use they will get out of it because that's all the use they will ever get. One may think that English is way more useful to learn than Irish is, however, if everybody thought like that and only learned English then we would only have one language left. Isn't more interesting to have more than one language? This is one use of the Irish language, to sound different to English and give the listener new sounds to listen to making life overall more exciting.
Well, it is an objective fact that English will give you international benefits no other language can. In this regard, I'm far more interested in being understood than learning several languages. That's just not practical.
And yes, I would always trade my mother tongue for English. It is just national "pride" or idleness that keeps us apart.
You can't know more than one language? And no, knowing your own language is not just for pride or idleness as you so pathetically put it, it is a part of your national identity of which there is not another anywhere else in the entire world. Do you really think that you are so special that it is a thing to be snuffed at by you? Of course, it is very practical to know English. Though, it is also practical to know Irish as well, especially if it is your mother tongue because if the language died and we were left with only English we would be just adding to the bland side of life. Keeping Irish and as many other languages as we can alive keeps things exciting.
Tá
There are some things English just cant do
I started learning Irish four days ago and I'm thrilled! Greetings from Germany! ☀️
I barely know this language, but learning the small amount that I have has given me such an intense boost in creativity....I was really surprised.
I just started learning it and have to agree. I think that's because Irish uses completely different grammatical order and that makes brain work differently, it's like workout for your brain. Love it!
I'm not Irish ... just a fan of the language/music/history and I am hopeful for a very good future for Ireland (land of my ancestors).
Old Gringo Its not just IRISH & SCOTTISH that get Freckles & Red Hair.
Cén t-am é
@@jimogrady1131 None of those are in any way Irish. Blonde or red haired people are actually scandinavian in origin and one could make the argument that the Vikings brought those people to Ireland when they arrived here in the 10th century. You're more likely to see brunettes or brown haired people here in Ireland than red-haired people.
"tír gan teanga tír gan anam" Pádraig Pearse
( a country without a language is a country without a soul)
"teanga" related to eng. "Tongue"??
greetings from Arkansas USA have never been to Ireland only England would love to go one day God willing and of course to Scotland there's lots of videos hear about the Welsh language whales and all that is Irish like well she's at the same language just wondering it sounds the same God bless you and yours
@@РусланЗаурбеков-з6е Yes, both words have a common ancestor - the Proto-Indo-European word dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s
Im irish i just started learing it again at 47 its hard but it so beautiful and expressive it needs more ambassidorship.
From the Basque Country I only can support every effort made by the Irish people or any other linguistic minority to preserve their heritage. As a basque speaker myself -the only preindoeuropean language of Europe- hope that we will endure and keep alive our languages and cultures.
I wish languages like these wouldn't die. They're so fascinating.
This should be in Irish with English subtitles.
Did u watch it. They do.
GO IRISH! it is possible!
my first language is hebrew and it was considered as a "dead language" for more than 2 thousand years... not it is an official language of israel and first language for millions...
the irish is not dead yet! so it is more than possible!
Any suggestions on how we could improve the status of Irish?
@@riverdonoghue9992 Found an ideological movement for Irish, speak Irish, Teach Irish, attract young people in the social media.
well, the first Zionists were physically attacking people who spoke Yiddish instead of Hebrew... but that was 1940's... and not acceptable today...
And it hopefully never will be. even if only a handful of us here in Ireland speak it it'll survive.
@@riverdonoghue9992 retake the status of English as official.
Preserve the tengai ceiltise. Welsh , Irish , Gaelic, Manx , Cornish - all of them
Yes were all part of the celtic family
Thank you for sharing this. I have been working in learning Irish and loved watching this. My family found it odd when I started learning it because Im not Irish at all so it was nice to see others that are not Irish leading it.m My Mom thought it was dead language and therefore a waist of time to learn any of it. I can't wait to send her a link to this page!
Always rooting for Irish and Scottish Gaelic's continued survival and prosperity
I'm speaking as leaving cert student who just graduated. I love Irish and I love my country but it has to be said that the way Irish is taught in schools is completely wrong. It fosters a hate for the language among young people because of the way it's forced upon us. Irish is a beautiful language and we should be encouraging conversation and love for it instead of forcing already fed up students to write three page long essays that are just learnt off and forgotten right after the exam. Imagine if instead of making teenagers sit for hours memorizing useless Sraith Pictiúrs that will just lead them to view Irish as a burden, we implemented a system where students look forward to Irish class & enjoy talking and having the craic in our native language. The whole system needs to change. I think the fact that after learning Irish for 14 years in school and most students still not being fluent speaks volumes.
Dia duit, is cailín Éireannach 18 mbliana d’aois mé as Baile Átha Cliath. Is iad teangacha mo phaisean ach cuirim mo theanga dhúchais i gcónaí i bhfabhar na Gearmáine nó na Fraincise. Creidim gur chóir dúinn Gaeilge a labhairt le bród agus áthas. Ní mór dúinn an bealach a mhúintear teangacha sa tír seo a athrú nó ní fada go bhfaighidh an Ghaeilge bás. tír gan teanga tír gan anam!
Well said LeCombat86 and thank you for your support. I wish we could convince more english-speaking Irish to adapt it. Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam.
I would like to go and live in Ireland, staying in the various Gaeltacht areas and becoming fluent in Gaeilge.
Ó Slatraigh
***** Been my name since I was born anyway.
***** Is as Chicago mé.
mo Sheanathair agus Mr Gannon mo múinteoir Stair ...scoil ard. I'm not fluent unfortunately.
Cool dude
This is really interesting! In the past the reason why i wanted to learn Irish is because of, get this, The Corrs ever since I heard their version of "Brid Og Ni Mhaille"! xp Irish is just music to my ears. So foreign! ♥
To hear people from Germany and Russia speaking As Gaeilge surprised me but in the best way put a smile on my face 💚
What a beautiful language.
It is important to preserve the Irish language, even if every one said hello or how are you in Irish it would keep the language alive.
There is (or was) a Gaelic college in Cape Breton,Nova Scotia at one time, 50 years ago. Chelidkh Trail.
Why the fish i just found about this video now? This morning i just finished delivered an informative speech about irish language in my university in malaysia. This video would help me a lot. Dammmm.
☘
I think that since most young people favour Irish now in 20 years Irish will be a main language and that would be great for me because I am a Brittany Celt and I want to emigrate to Cork
Just stay in brittany man
Nonsense, most young Irish people hate Irish Gaelic. The few who do like it don't even know the basics of pronunciation and pronounce it like English. The Irish government doesn't give a damn about the language and it's chasing away the native speakers from the Gaeltachtaí. At the end of this century Irish Gaelic will be a dead language, and all that's left will be the urban creole of Irish and English spoken by the new speakers.
@2:20 She and her hair are *GLORIOUS* 🤩😍
is mise Labhrás Ó Fallamhain agus tá mé ag fóghlaim Gaeilge anois. Tá mé cúpla focal ach is meiriceannach mé :) Tá brón orm. I just have to practice a lot more. Slán!
go n'éirí leat😀
Lean ort agus gheobhaidh tú é! :)
Ná chaill an misneach Labhras , beir bua
This might be anecdotal but I've heard that Daniel O'Connell encouraged the Irish people to speak English instead of Gaelic to better themselves. O'Connell was fluent in Gaelic and the language was still widely spoken and understood during his time, but O'Connell chose to address the masses in English. This Anglicization of Ireland did a lot of damage to its culture. It's ironic how O'Connell fought so hard for independence from the Crown but helped facilitate the decline of Gaelic in favor of English.
It was a crime to speak Irish in English-occupied Ireland.
I totally agree with that Russian girl, I only learned this when I lived in Greece and began to understand the language, a different style of thinking came with it. Since I have been home I have made it my goal to become a fluent gaeilgeoir.
Go raibh maith agat as seo a roinnt. Is breá liom muintir na hÉireann, a dteanga, a gcuid ceoil agus a gcultúr.
actually the first extant texts in irish were written in the ogham script. some are about four centuries older than the first glosses in the roman alphabet
The sad fact is that the Gaeltacht areas are some of the poorest in the country. Irish will thrive if it can be seen as something that can be spoken as part of everyday life and you don’t suffer economically for it.
hail friend . icelands got such a beautiful landscape . nothern lights are pretty cool . i was there a while ago such a magical place .
learn Irish on Duolingo app
They removed it
My beautiful and amazing Princess it’s there now. Just looked. They have also added Scottish Gaelic now. And Welsh has been there awhile. Now they need to add Manx and Breton.
@@MybeautifulandamazingPrincess they didn't
New Zealander, Irish maternal roots. 'Anh cat dubh' --- thanks U2 and Enya for Irish Gaelic exposure. Long may Irish Gaelic thrive.
Irish language must survive!
In Ireland have they tried to put the advertising in Irish on the TV maybe it would help a little get the people to think in Irish, most people don't pay attention to adverts between programs but still we know them and remember them.
we have a tv channel that broadcasts in Irish called TG4, and rte also has a channel in which they use irish
Is Meiriceánach Éireannach mé. Tá mé ag foghlaim na Gaeilge agus is breá liom é!
Tá mé ón nGearmáin agus déanaim iarracht cúpla focal a fhoghlaim. Tá sé deacair.
For anyone confused about the Celtic thing, it is like Germanic: not a term originally used by the people with similar languages and cultures, but applied to and later adopted by them. Romans came up with grouping people with similar languages and cultures in a certain region as "germanic." So, it applies just as well to we Irish, or you better fight the idea of Slavic and Germanic...
Are there any monolingual speakers of Irish left? I saw a clip with a monolingual storyteller from 1985, he passed away in 1998.
McKottfars I'm from a Gaeltacht and I haven't come across many if not none for that fact
I was monolingual till about 8.
Lots of them, but they're mostly young children in rural areas, they learn English when they go to school.
Yes, especially in the islands
It's been proven lately by 2 Professors, John T. Koch of the department of Celtic Studies in the University of Wales and Barry Cunliff of the University of Oxford that the Atlantic Celts of Iberia began to develop the Celtic language which departed northward and eastward into Europe and "not" as assumed by other historians that the Celts migrated from the Russian steppes to the Atlantic coast. John T Koch and Barry Cunliffe are the authors of 3 books entitled "The Celts from the West". That explains why the Galician hillforts are much older than the hillforts in Hallstatt, Austria.
The Irish government does a real thing promoting Irish, I think. It's essential to keep Gaeilge alive along with Japanese or Lithuanian that are so distinct from all other.
The russian girl has irish hairs yet
It is amazing that the Vikings were half Irish before thay were Vikings, through the shipping and all that!!!!
"So, what is it, psychologically that is preventing the Irish people from making more use of their beautiful language? I out it down to a combination of apathy, inertia and laziness."
All those, plus a few centuries of foreign cultural domination to a degree which not even the Chinese can imagine for all their experience with the British. No one in my family has spoken Gaelic for two centuries and a damned shame it is.
I shall answer your comment. The future of your language is in your hands. There must be some opportunities for you to learn and expose yourself to your OWN LANGUAGE? I have a Chinese friend who is married to an Irishman and she is now very confident in the language and insists that her daughter attends an Irish speaking school. Apathy is indeed the biggest problem.
ireland learn your mother and father tounge dont let english win the battle of saxon language spoken in english
hahaha cool my aunt actually works at that all irish radio station
Why has Ireland never succeeded in coming even close to the achievement of modern Israel, where a dead language (Hebrew) was turned into the everyday language of over 6 million people (and many outside, and increasing numbers of Arabs). Irish governments and associations have been pushing Irish education for over a century, with limited results. They should at least ask the Israelis about their ulpan schemes.
Thosaigh me a foghlaim Gaeilge a cupla bliain ó shin mar chuaigh mé go dtí ar scoil na hEireann agus tá sé deacair ach tá sé deas a fhoghlaim mo theanga dhúchais :)
Irish will come back to the home EVERYWHERE in Ireland. it is coming.
I have a question, do you speak Irish?🤔
Unfortunately, for a lot of people on this island, it will take losing the language for them to realise how much it matters to us.
Peterson Arkansas USA have never been to Ireland would love to go up into England it was an honor beautiful people both inside and out Santa beautiful country however I see a lot of videos about Welsh the language of Wales is this the same language it sure sounds like it sounds very similar just wondering God bless you and yours
How do you define "significant"? Also, if you mean to say we should throw away one of the largest aspects of our identity and history because English is more prevalent, English is only the third or fourth most prevalent language in the world, so why learn the third or fourth over the first or second?
English is about the 2nd dominant language in the world.
Damn, I thought yall spoke English with a different dialect. Didn't know Irish people had an actually language of their own.
Ireland is a stable country now with it's own sovereignty, why doesn't Irish become the official language instead of English?
it is, as well as english
The Irish language was the first European language to be written down outside the classical languages of Latin and Greek. Irish is the official first language but it's widespread use was damaged by English colonialism and the artificial famine and consequent psychological and economic factors.
im Irish and ive been asking the same question all my life!
its so embarrassing that we dont uphold our native language, the whole nation could start speaking irish in a matter of months (even those who cant speak it) but we just dont, its such a shame, it makes us look like hypocritical clowns because we are very proud of our culture but we couldnt be bothered to speak our own language!
of course im not referring to those who do speak Irish on a daily basis, i salute you people and thank god you exist otherwise the Irish language would have been extinct long ago, me personally i fully blame Irish media , newspapers television and radio broadcasting they seem to be hell bent on poking fun at Irish each and every time, and im sorry the Seachtain na Gaeilge is not enough, one week is not enough and during that week most news papers and broadcasters wont fully back it, they just say a few Irish words and think thats their job done and revert straight back to english for the rest of their shows, it a fucking joke! i know i sound like a dictator but it should be at least a month long and "all" media outlets should be in Irish only, a full blanket ban on broadcasters speaking english should be imposed, but they wont do it because they dont want to loose money and ratings, in short they are greedy cowards!
anyway thats my rant, Slan.
Talons of the Raven Learn Irish and unite the country
***** thats the spirit of Ned Kelly!
respect to you, ill do my best and hopefully be able to pass it on for preservation !
I didn't like the map that shows the Celts coming across the Channel from France through England and Wales to Ireland and up through England to Scotland. Irish legend has always held that the Gaels were Celtiberians from Northern Spain (Galicia) some 2500 years ago, while it's historical fact that the Gaels of the Scottish Highlands came from Ulster in the Middle Ages.
You need to read a bit more
@@lmtt123 no bud. You do. Irish are milesians from spain. The Scottish came from Ireland
@@g.h7657 Sorry, that's just a 16th-century myth, I'm afraid. Archaeological and linguistic evidence points firmly to the crossing of the North Sea from France and The Low Countries.
@@Jeroen1983 all of europe had celtics. France is next door to spain. The romans massacred them in france and switzerland. So yes many came from those parts as well. french language is literally a mix of roman and celtic.
@@g.h7657 Again, I have to disagree. The Celts had moved to the British Isles long before the Roman Empire was a thing by crossing the narrow Strait of Calais. Greek explorers made note of Celtic tribes in Ireland in the 4th and 3rd century BC.
And French is a mix of Latin and Germanic. In fact, both France and French come from the Franks, a Germanic tribe whose descendants are, among others, the Dutch.
That's pretty normal when a country tries to rule another one. Sad but true. The Spaniards used to do the same with our Galician language until the mid 70's. Thankfully now it's not an important issue, but you can still feel the damages in some close minded people.
How is this a history of the Irish Language?
Seems more like a mini-documentary about the Gaeltacht.
It's amazing that half of world used to speak the Gailic language thousands of years ago and that's it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
More Swahili speakers than Irish speakers in Dublin these days. The ceilidh is nearly up and the eejits refuse to see it.
What a great dickhead you are. Learn your history and why the language died out.My family are from the gaeltacht in Donegal and I can assure you that the language is well and truly thriving
@@bk1147Needs more somalis imo.
I find it really sad how most Irish people prefer English over their, original beautiful Irish language. Ironic too, considering that a lot of Irish people hate the British (especially the English) I get that Ireland was part of Britain for a long time but many countries out there have dropped the language of whatever country they used to be part of.
It's slightly more complicated as the language was opressed for 800 years meaning we were forced to learn English in order to rent land and so on
@The Hallowed One The Gaelic revival (Irish: Athbheochan na Gaeilge) was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language (also known as Gaelic).
We did try. It is in no way our fault for having our own culture and language suppressed by a foreign power. There's plenty of free material on this you could go read.
I would much rather blame the English for actively stigmatising the Irish language back in the day. Of course, they don't do that anymore, but the effects are felt up to this day.
Learning Irish is wonderful, but what practical purpose does it serve today beyond symbolism? It would be understandable if people found it useful in 2024, but most aspects of daily life in Ireland now align closely with British influences, even if it’s not openly acknowledged. So, what’s the point of learning Irish at this stage, given its diminished relevance?
How do you say that in Gaelic?
God Bless Éireann.☘🇮🇪 💚
I don't see the point of teaching an almost dead language to the people when within 20 years the majority of people won't be Irish but ethnic Chinese.
@dataman121 Most would argue that Proto-Indo-European was spoken in the Eurasian stepp north of Caucasus and spread with domestication of the horse and use of wagons.
am I just seeing it wrong or are they traicing Indo-European (irish language as well) back to East Anatolia (where I am from) and Caucasus. cool stuff :D
English, french, native languages and celtic languages are the heritage of Canada. Irish is a language to know if you are going to Newfoundland and Calgary's name is actually Scottish Callagerraidh.
SO was the language written before the roman letters?
Great video, very interesting. However the Russian steppes north of the Black Sea are a more plausible place of origin of the Indo-European languages than Anatolia.
Thank you, that bothered me as well. I think they went with Renfrew's ideas, even though he bases it solely on archaeological evidence and completely discounts linguistic objections.
Anatolia is a Greek name for what is now Turkey, it was called also Galatia by the Celts that inhabited that region. That's probably why the people who made that graph think Celtic languages come from there
But in reality the Aryans (aka Indo-Europeans) have our original homeland most likely in the Russian stappes indeed, near the borders with Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and the Aral sea. That's according to the Kurgan hypothesis that is the most accept theory for the origin of the I.E ethnic group. From there the Aryans conquered/migrated to India, Middle East and Europe, reaching as far as China (there are archeological finding of Aryan settlements in China)
The Aryan languages in the Middle East and Asia such as Hindi, Farsi, Pashto, Punjabi, etc, are related to the European languages, cause it's the same I.E. family, Sanskrit was the language spoken by the Vedas in North India and is one of the oldest forms of an Aryan languages, many roots and words in common with European languages
@ I know we are different races, Europeans are caucasoid while east Asians are Mongoloid, I was referring more to geography :)
@@MybeautifulandamazingPrincess no such thing as "races" ;Species is what i wrote.
I agree! Lovely language to learn. Maybe not the easiest ever, but i find it great you still using your own language there in Ireland.
It's a shame that here in Galicia we lost our Celtic language lots of centuries ago, surely against Latin when the Roman brought it here i guess. Surely it was close to Gaeilge and other Celtic languages that remain alive now a day, that's why i'd love to learn a lil bit of it.
I feel i should do it 4 all the people who spoke it here thousands of years ago.
Does anyone know the origins of the Maughon family in Ireland?
As long as my expenses are all paid for, I'd happily move to Ireland to become a fluent Irish speaker
You can learn it from anywhere in the world. Moving to Ireland won't help you much if you aren't constantly reading, listening and studying anyway.
Trust me, even if you go to one of the few tiny Irish speaking areas people will switch to English the moment they realise you are not from the area, unless you are on a paid course.
And nobody is going to pay for you to do it.
Go Irish!
The Irish government is supposed to respond to questions in English and Gaelige, this is not the case. English takes precidence.
The correct full linguistic term is Irish Gaelic, since there is also Scottish Gaelic spoken in Scotland. Gaelic by itself refers to both Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic) and Gaidhlig (Scottish Gaelic) as well as a third language: Manx. All three are descended from older forms of the Irish language, as Ireland is the place of origin of all Gaelic peoples, or as the Romans called them: Scoti.
Welsh dialect is still widely used today but is Manx, Scots Gaelic, Cornish and Breton languages still being used today. I'm half welsh if anyone's interested.
I see many videos about why and suggestions of how to preserve Irish, but I don’t see much discussion about why it is still a minority language of Ireland. Why for example is Welch spoken by almost 10 times the number of speakers of Irish? This is not a criticism of Ireland. Just a question. Is there possibly a difference in the way the languages are taught? Differences in the relative prestige of the languages? Possibly a difference in birth rate or wealth of the different speach communities. Is bilingualism denegrated? Suggestions?
The wars are the most reason Irish is not spoken openly, the Gaeltacht areas were set on civil war lines. Then they created a new Irish language.
When the suppression of the Welsh language decreased at the beginning of the 20th century, almost half of the Welsh population still spoke Welsh.
When the Gaelic Revival in Ireland started at the end of the 19th century, only a fifth of the Irish population spoke Gaelic.
The Irish Gaelic language revival just started too late.
In addition, the Irish (Anglophone) government doesn't really care about the language, as an MP says in the documentary Gaeltacht 2020.
Instead of focusing on providing Irish language education and economic support in the deprived regions where native speakers live, they waste millions on having incompetent people who don't even know the basics of pronunciation to teach the language in the rest of the country.
By keeping the Gaeltacht regions poor and not giving planning permission to the inhabitants (while at the same time building lots of luxurious holiday homes there for English speakers!), they force the last native speakers to move to English speaking parts of the country, where they assimilate.
What the Irish government does is essentially a continuation of British suppression of the language.
Anyone know what shows those clips were of in the beginning?
This reminds me of The Sims.
sharing this thank you
hello, I'm looking for some one who could either point me in the correct detraction or know of and willing to teach me how to speak, read and write in Gaelic or Oghams Alphabet I have a few books on the matter but I'm having trouble understanding it. I would really appreciate it,
Look up Conradh na gaelige. They have online classes. Its an organisation based in dublin that promotes the irish language. Also listening to songs in Irish can help with pronunciation. Its a very musical language and quite difficult to learn. But don't give up. Its a beautiful language and very connected to nature etc.
i though Gael was the welsh word for raider . we know that the Irish raided Walse . i could be wrong if i am correct me .thanks
I have a curious question: Can Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic speakers understand each other? Kind of like Danish speakers can understand Norwegian and Swedish?
A bit
Jade Tiger mentions an interesting point on Irish. It appears, among ex-Soviet republics, the language situation in Belarus has the most similar parallel, with Russian a more prominent language, within that country, than Belarusian. Yet it seems that - while Georgian, Armenian, Azeri, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Tajik, Turkmen and Ukrainian are nowhere near in danger of dying (with >20 million people, within Ukraine alone, having at least an intermediate-level proficiency in Ukrainian) - Ireland (despite being independent for >90 years, vs fewer than 30 for any of the ex-Soviet republics) is seeing its locally-named Goidelic language die.
+David W iRISH IS DIfficult.
+martmart1 No, it is just that the Irish language education system here is atrocious, to say the least. I came out of secondary school with more proficiency in German and French then I did in Irish - despite being taught German and French for less than half the time than Irish.
It sure hasn't helped that Ireland's education ministry has failed to study how well Ukraine's education system teaches its local populace the language of Taras Shevchenko. Why else would over 1/2 of Ukrainian-born people living in that country speak the Slavic language, vs less than 1/4 (likely) of Irish-born people living in the Republic?
So is Ukrainian, although most Ukrainian-born people who learned Russian before T. Shevchenko's mother tongue can also speak his mother tongue. I have a feeling that, if Odessa Oblast Vice-Governor Maria Gaidar doesn't have a good command of Ukrainian, she will soon. After all, Ukrainian and her native Russian have many similarities, even if there are more similarities between those Slavic languages than between Irish Gaelic and Hiberno-English.
Georgian, Armenian, Mandarin, Korean and languages written in the Perso-Arabic script are hard to learn, too (at least writing those languages in the scripts their native speakers normally learn to speak them in, rather than in Pinyin or a local Latin romanization). Polish is hard to learn, too, even with the language being written in the Latin alphabet.
I wouldn't really say about the first three - after all they naturally evolved into other languages over the time, unlike irish, which is sort of fading because of the much wider usage of english in the world. I can agree about the Native American ones though :)
Why not go to Amazon and check out some products, but nothing too heavy to start with..
Arrows in that migration diagram are wrong at 01:16. Scots and their Gaelic came from Ireland not up from England. Likewise Manx. Although they got no arrow at all Bretons and Breizh came south to France from Britain.
I am trying to find out when the English or British (I don't know when it happened) banned the teaching of the Irish language and when that law was repealed.
The equivalent law in Scotland was called the Act of Proscription and was introduced in 1746 and was most parts were repealed in 1782 (though state funds were not allowed to be used for teaching Scottish Gaelic until after the second world war and the funds didn't actually start flowing until 1985).
The problem in Eire, the free state rewriting the Gaelic, teaching it in the schools, now we have more versions.
Welsh isn't recognised by the EU?
Hello, I am from Hong Kong and my husband is or Irish background. There is no way as a Chinese person that I WOULD NOT speak Cantonese. So, what is it, psychologically that is preventing the Irish people from making more use of their beautiful language? I out it down to a combination of apathy, inertia and laziness. I have tried to learn Irish and found the official books from the Irish government to be boring and old fashioned. New technology is the answer.
Keep an eye on childrens' schools. Are they not teaching Putonghua? The communists are forcing Putonghua all over. Within a few generations sadly the local regional languages will be mostly dead within China. I assume expat populations from China will keep Cantonese alive.
Welsh also has an official status in the Uk.
As a Norwegian, Irish reminds me of Faroese
interesting to an irish-american.... i'd love to learn some phrases but im awful at second languages