The survival of Gaelic

      Gaelic  is the main language of 3% of the population of Ireland. Such information was showed in last year’s census which showed that 4, 581,269 Irish have a full knowledge of Gaelic.

      In the year 2001, there was a census in Northern Ireland which showed that around 10.4% of the population had some knowledge of Gaelic. This means that only one in three people in Ireland can understand the language to some extent. On the other hand, there are areas in which Gaelic still remains as a vernacular (local speech) where there are between 40,000 and 80,000 fully native speakers; this areas are referred to as the Gaeltacht areas. The areas in which English is the main language are referred to as "Galltacht".

      Unfortunately, though there are some attempts to preserve Gaelic as a language,  the number of Gaelic speakers is decreasing little by little. This may be the consequence, among other reasons,  of the migration from the rural areas to the big cities, where English is mostly Spoken as an international language in business, or the powerful influence of new technologies such as Internet or North American films and shows in television.

      A friend of mine who is doing her apprenticeship in a school in Galway has told me that, although children study Gaelic at primary school and high-school, they don’t actually dominate the language. Gaelic is, in fact, the subject with higher rates of failure. This is because out of the classrooms they don’t actually speak Gaelic with anybody else and when they finish their studies they forget the little Gaelic they have learned.

      Still in all, Gaelic is the first official language in Ireland along with English; In 2003 there was the Official Languages Act by which, officially, all legal documents passed by the government should be written both in Gaelic and English, or Gaelic alone, giving Gaelic an equal status and power. But from what I have been reading in internet forums this is not always the case, and many legal documents are only passed in English.

      Irish people want Gaelic to be recognized as the official language as it is, and they want to ensure that the government upholds the Official Languages Act to guarantee the survival of Gaelic. Also, they don’t want English to be an imposed language because it would give a negative connotation to English to those native speakers of Gaelic who don’t want their language to become extinct because of the imposition of another language.

      Language diversity is one of the richest elements that a country and its culture can have, and so I believe it is very important for Irish people to fight for the survival of their traditional language. I think that new technologies can be used in a positive way to increase the number of speakers of those languages which are in danger of extinction such as Gaelic. There are a lot of self-studying Gaelic web pages and dictionaries in the net for those who are interested in learning the language, and blogs like this one can make people all over the world know more about different countries like Ireland, the beauty of its landscapes and the importance of preserving the Gaelic language.