Thursday 27 December 2007

Anglalingvo en la Irlandalingvujo


...de la BBC:

The Kerry Gaeltacht, or Irish-speaking area, is one of the few places left where Irish can be heard in the street.

But in the capital, Dingle, or in its official Irish title, Daingean Ui Chuis, English is widely used.

Two secondary schools recently merged into a new one, Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne.

But the school's policy of teaching all lessons through Irish has led to protests by some students who say they cannot understand what they are being taught.

Sam Spinn was one of the students who left classes to protest against the all-Irish policy.

"A lot of students can't learn through all Irish - there are some who can but a lot of them can't and it's just not acceptable that people have to go through school in which they don't understand the classes at all," he said.

"People just begin to hate a language if it's forced on them so it will flourish under encouragement, but if it's forced on people, people will just reject it and they'll go against it."

But speaking in Irish is fundamental to an Irish-speaking area.

Here, a group of fluent speakers meet to bring on others keen to improve.

Some who have come from outside or abroad say they have learned Irish out of respect for the Gaeltacht tradition and its people, and want their children to learn it too.

Lone Ui Raghallaigh comes from Denmark. Married and living in the Kerry Gaeltacht, she has learned to speak Irish.

"When we moved here we knew we were moving into a Gaeltacht and to me it is very important not to water down the beautiful language they have in this area," she said.

"So we are very conscious of trying to do the best ourselves to learn the language and of course we took it for granted that the children would be taught through Irish.

"It's part of living in a Gaeltacht."

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