EU Foreign ministers decided today in Luxembourg to recognise Irish as an official language of the European Union. Why, oh why? I won’t rehearse last year’s arguments for how pathetic and grasping this makes us look. But I will ask; how many of our MEPs now plan to change from using English to Irish in the European Parliament?
The only sensible part of the Fine Gael press release – which mostly gloated that a concession made by Fianna Fail in 1972 had been won back – was the following; “We must not be deflected from the challenges and difficulties facing the Irish language, as indicated by recent surveys and reports, and regardless of its status at EU level, preserving the language has to begin at home.”
Pity they didn’t think of that before chomping rudely into this piece of overdone pork.
{ 23 comments }
P ONeill 06.13.05 at 9:40 am
Besides the translators, there’s another clear beneficiary from all this:
On a practical level, Irish citizens applying for jobs with EU institutions, where two or more official EU languages are required, will be able to put down Irish from January 2007.
There’s a message in there somewhere about how EU policy decisions reflect the preferences of bureaucrats, the only doubt being which ones.
Jake 06.13.05 at 10:02 am
Also, Irish politicians will be able to address their continental and British fellows in EU-related matters with the traditional greeting ‘Pogue mahone.’
Russell Arben Fox 06.13.05 at 10:13 am
Why not Welsh? That’s a language much more vibrant and widely spoken than Irish, and–at the risk of starting a distinctly Gaelic flame war–one much more central to the cultural continuity of an existing European population that Irish has been for, what, a couple of centuries?
Mrs Tilton 06.13.05 at 10:21 am
a distinctly Gaelic flame war
A somewhat indistinctly Gaelic flame war, surely, our Welsh cousins being Brythonic (“p”) rather than Gaelic (“q”) Celts.
dsquared 06.13.05 at 11:25 am
Why not Welsh?
We are still digesting the massive chunk of pork thrown at us with the creation of the Assembly. If y Gymraeg was to be recognised as a iaith swyddogol Ewropiaidd, there would quite literally be a shortage of qualified speakers. There won’t be a serious pitch for official status until there is a new generation needing “jobs for the boys”.
Cryptic Ned 06.13.05 at 12:04 pm
EU Foreign ministers decided today in Luxembourg to recognise Irish as an official language of the European Union.
Ironically, Luxemburgish is not an official language of the European Union.
Wait…is it?
(shudder)
jan 06.13.05 at 1:05 pm
And how about frisian?
Daniel 06.13.05 at 2:28 pm
Frisian is a working language but not an official one, like Welsh.
Chris 06.13.05 at 5:22 pm
What about Cockney rhyming slang?
Jayanne 06.13.05 at 6:25 pm
(DSquared is Welsh?) At the moment, the Assembly provides enough jobs for the boys, but I’d have thought Irish being recognised would bring a call for Welsh to be, too.
“a language much more vibrant and widely spoken than Irish,”
yes
“—one much more central to the cultural continuity of an existing European population”
oh I suppose so… I’d like more money to be spent on the NHS etc. than on bilingual everything; and there’s a strong English-language Welsh culture too.
Billings 06.13.05 at 8:53 pm
The time has come when Esperanto must be made compulsory.
George Bush 06.14.05 at 1:45 am
You forgot Poland!
jan 06.14.05 at 2:00 am
well sorry to say daniel
but frisian is the language which is used by all official correspondence in friesland, thought at schools there, etc. etc.
jan
Matt McGrattan 06.14.05 at 2:22 am
“What about Cockney rhyming slang?”
Every time this issue comes up I always mention Scots (the germanic one, not the gaelic one) — which is spoken in one form or another by many more people than Scots Gaelic or Irish and yet which just about gets recognized as a ‘minority language’ under the European Charter if it’s lucky.
Although interestingly, and to its credit, the Scottish Parliament has started producing a small amount of information in Scots: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/language/scots/index.htm, or, more interestingly, this report on minority languages that’s actually presented *in* Scots.
Nevertheless, it still seems crazy to grant Irish, or any other ‘minority’ language official status rather than, say, providing targeted financial support — i.e. not ‘pork’ — to minority languages *within* a particular country.
Maria 06.14.05 at 2:47 am
Nope, Luxemburgish isn’t an official language, even though pretty much everyone there actually speaks it every day….
In answer to my semi-rhetorical question, I imagine Sean O Neachtain will probably speak Irish in the Parliament from time to time. There’s value for money.
dsquared 06.14.05 at 5:01 am
Jan: yep, like Welsh which is used in Wales but it’s not an Official Language of the EU.
jan 06.14.05 at 5:12 am
No Frisian isn’t, yet….
Matt McGrattan 06.14.05 at 7:05 am
“What about Cockney rhyming slang?â€
Every time this issue comes up I always mention Scots — which is spoken in one form or another by many more people than Scots Gaelic or Irish and yet which just about gets recognized as a ‘minority language’ under the European Charter if it’s lucky.
Although interestingly, and to its credit, the Scottish Parliament has started producing a small amount of information in Scots: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/language/scots/index.htm, or, more interestingly, this report on minority languages that’s actually presented *in* Scots.
Nevertheless, it still seems crazy to grant Irish, or any other ‘minority’ language, including Scots, official status rather than, say, providing targeted financial support—i.e. not ‘pork’— to minority languages *within* a particular country.
[posted again as previous one hasn’t appeared]
Matt McGrattan 06.14.05 at 7:06 am
This report I mean:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/historic/education/reports-03/edr03-02-vol01-scots.pdf
chris y 06.14.05 at 7:20 am
but frisian is the language which is used by all official correspondence in friesland, thought at schools there, etc. etc.
Thought but not spoken? Britain should support the claims of Frisian as the closest related language to English after Scots. After all, back scratching is the EU way…
Matt McGrattan 06.14.05 at 7:47 am
sorry for the double post…
Kristian Järventaus 06.15.05 at 7:13 am
I welcome this. Yet another step away from the insufferable language-hegemony of the accursed Germanic and Romance speakers. Celtic is still IE, but at least it’s not saturating *everything*.
And about Esperanto: Polish is already an official language of the EU.
Diarmid Logan 06.15.05 at 8:54 am
Why the anti-Irish language sentiment? You act as if people are going to be forced to speak it. It just means that the European Union is recognizing that many Irish people prefer to use their own language rather than that of their British enemies.
Comments on this entry are closed.