petition

[the evil belly]

Following the accession in May, the EU shall have 20 official languages. Gaeilge (Irish) will not be included. Now whether you like the language or not, this is an insult to Ireland and an erosion of yet another part of our national identity. I encourage you all to sign this petition. We demand that the Irish language be declared an official working language of the European Union.

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?gaedhilg (http://64.4.14.250:80/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=b4bcaea7ac51a3f1dbdc1bda4d7e09f0&lat=1071324463&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2ePetitionOnline%2ecom%2fmod_perl%2fsigned%2ecgi%3fgaedhilg)

[happy joy joy]

that link wont work but with a bit of searching i found this:)

http://www.petitiononline.com/gaedhilg/petition.html

:wakko:

[the outlaw torn]

i agree that it would be good for irish to be included as an official language but does it qualify as one of the main european languages? i don't think it does, how many people have long full length conversations in irish everyday not just a cúpla focail every now and then.

most people i know including myself never ever speak irish, ever. english is our national language and it would be great for our national identity if it was irish but its not and signing a petition to get it included as a main language is the wrong thing to be doin.
gettin people interested in irish and to speak it all the time is what we should be doing, not organising petitions.

and anyway i'm sure the eu uses facts and figures like percentage of the popualtion that speak a certain language to get it registered as an official language.

[pablo]

hmmmmm. What are the 20 languages that are to be listed ?

I suppose if they were putting another minority language like welsh in there we would have some case. I think if it is an official language they have to have translators available to translate meetings and official documents. Seán Bán Breanach gave a speach to the EU parliment once in Irish.

[happy joy joy]

does any1 know where 1 can get this list?:wakko:

[Jinx]

I have no problem with Irish not being included. It is in no way an insult top the Irish at all. Languages like French & German will be on the list because the people living in these countries speak it ever hour of ever day. This simply isn't the case with our language.
English is our first language whether you like it or not.

[happy joy joy]

i have a few friends i have meet over the years and there 1st language is irish in there towns and they speak it ever hour of every day just like the french and germans

[Tree]

Not meaning to put down the lanuage or anything but it's such a relatively minior language i dont think it should be included above a more spoken language. Most of the ppl petitioning for it ot be included are doing it soley out of patriotismand not out of a love for the language, most can't speak more than ten words in the lanuage let alone wander into work and start talking it. If Irish became more widespread it should definitely be included. A change in the way Irish is taught may help, and trying ot speak Irish on a day to day basis like nuts like me.

[happy joy joy]

i know a fella friend of the fam. used to be a teacher in my school(b4 i started going there) he was an english teacher and used make them learn irish poem and so on.

whe ni see him around r he rings the house he makes me speak irish and only speaks english after he is satafised that i have made a good effert. :wakko:

[Unhygienix]

I personally have no problem with Irish not being included. It'd be pointless to represent ourselves as Gaelgoirs when the entire country is populated by fluent English speakers. Its a minority language which happens to be promoted through our education system, there is no good reason to learn Irish and there is no good reason to pretend that a language that almost nobody uses for anything constructive is somehow special. All my life I've heard about the perfidious Brits destroying our culture when they destroyed our language and its quite frankly a load of crap. The English were responsible for many atrocities in Irish history but the ability to speak the worlds most useful language fluently ought to be prized.

[Faith]

I can tell you, I HATE THE LANGUAGE. I spent 3 hours last night trying to learn a 2 page irish essay, and still failed the test on it. It's ridiculous. And it's ruining my school time!

[TrixieQt]

I dont have a prob with irish..i actually kinda like the accent most irish ppl have...so yea,i'm gonna sign.