Should we rescue endangered languages?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Cé nach bhfuil aon rud cearr bunúsach le teangacha a chaomhnú, ní a lán de phointe oiread. Go leor nó an chuid is mó teangacha a bhfuil dóthain litríochta mar a dhéanamh ar iarrachtaí ar leith a chaomhnú moot orthu.

Is í an Ghaeilge ar an mbealach chun bheith ina teanga marbh, ach níl neart scríofa marthain ársa agus lár na hÉireann a chaomhnú cad is gá a bheith.


Boru

Preserving it by making sure we still have a dictionary and a grammar so the literature can still be read is a no brainer, but academics will do this anyway.

What I don't think we should do is to spend money trying to raise new native speakers of a dying language or even bi-lingual ones. Languages have been coming and going since man first opened his mouth and spoke. And all languages change. Anyone read this with ease?

"Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon
hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon." Beowulf

Should we try to raise a few native Englishmen who sound like that? Or perhaps we should raise Danes to to say, "wé Gárdena."

This is easier but still hardly modern English:

"WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke." Canturbury Tales, Chaucer.

Any volunteers to keep Old English alive?

This was largely my point. Irish is dying (a map of the Gaeltacht show that quite clearly), but there is a sufficiency of Irish literature (both ancient and middle) available for anyone who wants to learn Irish. The only reason to make a concerted effort to restore Irish as a living language is as a poke on the eye to the English. But the efforts to eradicate Irish failed utterly and completely, and I don't see any purpose to be served by posting road signs in Irish, publishing textbooks in Irish, etc.

Boru