Táim go maith agus tú féin?Graineag wrote:Dia dhuit, a Ghaeilgeoir. Conas atá tú?
Gabhaidh mo leisgeul, a h-uile duine, ach tha mi a' sgriobhadh 'sa Bheurla cuideachd...
First off, it's indisputable that Irish is in a much healthier position than Scottish Gaelic is at the moment. Whereas 30 years ago, there was doubt about whether Irish would survive far into the 21st century as a community language, I think it's safe to say that while it's still in horrible shape, it's not going to be dying out any time soon. Ireland boasts several sources of Irish language radio (RnaG, Raidió na Life, plus programming on BBC NI in the North...Gaeilgeoir mentioned six stations. What are the other ones?) and Irish language TV (TG4 and a bit on BBC NI in the North). There's a daily newspaper in Irish, Lá Nua, published in Belfast, and I think the Irish Times does a weekly column. Most importantly, people are clamoring to get their kids into Gaeilscoileanna all over the country.
Scotland, by comparison, has about 60,000 speakers serviced by Radio nan Gàidheal, a bit of programming on the BBC and STV, and regular Gaelic columns in the Scotsman (I think...I haven't been to Scotland in a number of years...Are all of the columns that appear on the website also published in the print editions?). There are only three entirely Gaelic medium schools in the country (and one of those is questionable as it continues to operate an English-medium unit).
All that said, Irish in Ireland still seems to survive in spite of, rather than because of, the benefits of official recognition. Compared with the recognition and respect languages like Welsh and even Romansch in Switzerland receive, Irish is in seriously bad shape. Those who have checked out the wonderful new nós magazine will notice that in issue 1, there is an interview with Manchán Magan, the host of TG4's excellent "No Béarla" program. If you haven't seen it, you can find the entire first series on YouTube and the second series can be seen online at http://www.tg4.ie (click on "Siamsaíocht--Cartlann" and scroll to the bottom). It's a pretty damning indictment of the official and unofficial neglect the language and its speakers have to put up with. For all its talk of creating a bilingual society , the Irish government still spends more of its annual budget on office supplies than it does on Irish. TG4 does do some excellent shows and some of them do have decent viewership, but many of TG4's viewers tune in just to watch sports or late night movies in English (or other languages...I recall watching an exquisitely bad Argentinian horror flick on TG4 when I was last in Ireland). The one daily Irish language newspaper is published in Belfast, not Dublin.
The other crucial problem in Ireland is that Irish speakers have lately been priced out of living in the Gaeltachtaí and English speakers have been moving in (something that natives of the Highlands and Islands can relate to, I'm sure). I spent three months living in Dingle/Daingean Ui Chúis, which is technically in Gaeltacht Chorca Dhuibhne, although you might not know it because you're almost as likely to hear a Dingle resident speaking English with an English or American accent as you are to hear them speak in Kerry Irish. An old friend of mine who grew up near Dingle is a native Irish speaker currently working for BBC Northern Ireland in Belfast doing writing and editing for Irish language programming. She says that she can't imagine ever moving back to Dingle--not so much because she wouldn't like to, but because it's getting too expensive to live there. I've heard that the Dept. of Gaeltacht Affairs has been trying to address this issue and maintain a balance of Irish speakers to English speakers buying property within Gaeltacht regions, but it still seems a bit of a mess.
As for some of the recommendations that have been discussed, I'm all for them. Some Scottish newspapers like the Scotsman and the West Highland Free Press do carry regular Gaelic columns already. More cross-cultural/linguistic ventures like Tim Armstrong's column in nós would be a great idea. Perhaps Colmcille could throw in a few pounds/euros to support that.
I hadn't heard that the former CEO of TG4 (who? Cathal Goan?) had been brought in to help with the new Gaelic station. That's great news. Any links to info online about that?
Hopefully BBC Alba will continue to function as a complement to the programming on the new station--and hopefully Nìall Iain Dòmhnallach will cook up some good, new youth-centric programming for both.
Most importantly, though, for both Ireland and Scotland, is the need for more Irish/Gaelic-medium schools and funding for extra-curricular programs to encourage students to use the language after the schoolday is over. Gaelic Medium Education will not save Gaelic by itself, but the language is positively doomed without it. It's great that there will probably be new GME schools in Portree and Ft. William by 2011, but it's shocking that at this point, there isn't a single entirely GM school in the Western Isles. More young people speaking the language competently and confidently means more potential consumers of Gaelic-medium books, radio, TV, movies, pop music, and mobile phones from Samsung.
Whew. Apologies for the long screed. My master's thesis is due next week and I'm trying to find all possible means of procrastinating...
Sorry for the late reply but here it goes. To answer your questions:
Here is a list of Irish and Gaelic language media on Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ce ... uage_media
Please feel free to add to it if ye wish
There are technically 6 Irish radio stations: RnaG(national), Raidió na Life in Dublin, Radió Fáilte in Belfast, Raidió-Rí-Rá(new youth chart music station) broadcasting on internet, there's another online internet radio station, and AnochtFM(on same frequency as RnaG). Apart from that there's another 40 radio stations with at least an hour of Irish lang. programming a week.