Linguistic thoughts on the visit of a Prime Minister.

It's a great headline in today's Irish Times, "Bromance blossoms as Fanboy Slim meets Justin Biebeau" and (as usual) Miriam Lord had nailed another success to her never to be missed regular articles.

Premier ministre du Canada

This writer was struck by certain things during this visit by Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of the officially bilingual Canada to our own country. As is usual I was struck by linguistic aspects. How Canada "does it!" As an inveterate tweeter I am inclined to use twitter as a guage or measure of how things are.

It is interesting here to see how the two countries and "establishments" spoke about the same events.

The current Prime Minister of Canada has one personal twitter account @JustinTrudeau. He appears to tweet religiously on this account in both official languages, French first and then English. Compare with the Taoiseach of our country. Enda Kenny, as far as I can see, never tweeted other than in English. The new boy, Leo Varadkar, is perhaps to new to the job but so far it's not looking so good for Irish.

The Canadian Prime Minister has in addition two official twitter accounts, one in French (@PMcanadien) and the other in English (@CanadianPM). The tweets are concurrent and in addition in the profile they have links to the other language.

Uachtarán na hÉireann

During this trip he tweeted reports on his progress on all accounts and in both languages. I find it revealing that none of the commentators, including our national broadcaster, seemed to advert to this fact.

Compare and Contrast
Although the accounts are handled in a different way here it is marked that neither the tweets from the Taoiseach's personal account or the official Merrion Street (Irish Government News Service) tweets were totally monolingual and they only retweeted the tweets in English from the Canadian Accounts.

The only tweet from Irish officialdom on this visit in the National Language, (and what is often referred as the First Official Language) was on the twitter Account of the President . This account which was opened some years ago and attracted some adverse comment because it used the English "President" rather than the Irish -and more constitutionally correct(?) - "Uachtarán,"  form for the office. Having said that the President is in fact the only person who shows some modicum of respect for the National Language on this medium.

There was an official dinner given by the Taoiseach for his guest in Dublin Castle. It was interesting to hear the Prime Minister use both  official languages of his country (He apparently avoided using the "cúpla focal," thus avoiding that usual cringemaking applause reserved for such appeasement!) I wonder how often, if ever a Taoiseach ever used our National Language at such an occasion abroad!

Canada of course has a long tradition in bilingual activity and not only in French & English but more recently in fostering the indigenous languages. I have a vivid memory the passionate and emotional contribution of Sandra Inutiq, the first Nunavut Language Commissioner at the International Conference on Language Rights held in Dublin in 2013.

People complain about the intransigence of some representatives of the Unionist community with regard to our language but perhaps people on this side of the border, including those who purport to be fighting for Irish Language Rights, should look at their own house.

How much Irish is on the Fine Gael website.

How much Irish is on the Sinn Féin website?

How much Irish is on any Irish Political Website?

One is tempted to the belief that the words a commission on state attitude towards the Irish speaking community way back in 1926 are still valid and active and that the "establishment" in Ireland are still "direct agents in the spreading and establishment of English..."*



Don't we have lessons to learn?

Monolingual Taoiseach Tweet!

Bilingual Trudeau Tweet!

* Commentary on Language Schemes April 2017

The fado & Protestant culture

There's an interesting article in today's (17 Aug 2010) Irish Times by Torlach Mac Con Midhe, Idir an Fado agus an cultúr Protastúnach (Irish) {Trans: Between the Fado and the Protestant culture}

An article by Alan Titley in the same paper started him thinking back to his youth when he travelled to Canada to study. Strangly enough his memory is not so much meeting and interacting with North Americans but with meeting those from South America, refugees from the fall of Allende in Chile, or from the "dirty war" in Argentina as well as Mexican, Venuzuelans, Columbians and Peruvians.

He found that these people enriched his experience far more than the dour North Americans. They were full of fun and energy. They were singing, dancing, eating, drinking, laughing (though the story at home was often tragic) and they played football. He found he could mix with them and that they respected him. He was able to sing "Ar an loing seo Phaidí Loingsigh" and recite "Tháinig long ó Valparaiso!" with out self consciousness. He could participate. He was welcomed.

One of the Argentinian girls, Rita, said to him, "You know, we have no friends among the Canadians! The only English-speaking friends we have are the Irish!" He notes that he had the same problem himself. There was no life or vigour to be found except in these exuberent Latins.

He reflects that in the recent past Irish emigrants have departed for the most part to the English speaking dominions and former colonies. However prior to that they went to the countries of Southern Europe. Though we are an Atlantic people rather than a Mediterranean, although we share that with the Portuguese, we have a "Catholic" tradition in common.

He muses that the empires sent colonists to their territories, and they either decimated the original populace leaving the descendants of the colonists in power. However in Ireland something else happened. The empire made colonists of the native people. They were gifted with the language and culture of the British. They were colonists in their own land. But at the same time it is impossible to deny that there are still "native traits" to be found in these colonists. For this reason they are a split, divided people in themselves.

He quotes Faust “Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust,” (Alas, Two souls reside in my breast!). We have the soul of the colonist and that of the Gael in our breast and they do not sit well with each other.

He concludes with a stark question. "I believe that this is sometimes realised by the Irish language community (lucht na Gaeilge) but I wonder is it appreciated by the English speakers!"
By the way the Fado, in the article title, is a type of music from Portugal, learned, understood and appreciated by the author, not a million miles away from our own Sean-Nós styles. (see pic)