I love studying languages and think Irish is fascinating, but it has easily fewer than 100,000 people who actually use it and even fewer who use it every day. It's just about as necessary to learn for communication as Navajo or Sioux.
Political correctness is the pettiest form of casuistry.
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*
So the Irish government has basically imploded.
- 23/01/2011 04:47:10 PM
1626 Views
I am now confused
- 23/01/2011 05:34:31 PM
996 Views
You do realize Britain is pretty much the envy of the Western world at the moment?
- 23/01/2011 06:27:05 PM
1028 Views
Re: You do realize Britain is pretty much the envy of the Western world at the moment?
- 23/01/2011 06:34:47 PM
964 Views
I did. There was more violence than in ours, that's true (ours have none so far, knock on wood).
- 23/01/2011 06:41:34 PM
940 Views
Re: I did. There was more violence than in ours, that's true (ours have none so far, knock on wood).
- 23/01/2011 06:43:41 PM
881 Views
Those protests were only violent by British standards.
- 23/01/2011 11:54:15 PM
954 Views
What protests?
- 24/01/2011 07:26:49 PM
1007 Views
Re: What protests?
- 24/01/2011 07:28:40 PM
853 Views
Re: What protests?
- 25/01/2011 09:23:17 AM
986 Views
There's a new objection
- 25/01/2011 11:38:25 AM
921 Views
I didn't object...
- 25/01/2011 11:47:11 AM
806 Views
And Britain had to live with the Conservative Wilderness for 15 years before it could get there *NM*
- 24/01/2011 02:43:16 AM
468 Views
Should I start chiming in on Norwegian politics now that I'm here...? 
- 24/01/2011 12:42:03 AM
866 Views
- 24/01/2011 12:42:03 AM
866 Views
Why not?
- 24/01/2011 08:49:07 AM
948 Views
'Cos I doubt you'll like what I have to say, for one thing.
- 26/01/2011 01:55:13 AM
955 Views
That's been a while coming, hasn't it? Cowen seems to be losing it.
- 23/01/2011 05:48:30 PM
930 Views
Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 06:27:27 PM
1002 Views
Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 06:33:26 PM
942 Views
Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 07:19:03 PM
1039 Views
Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 07:57:05 PM
895 Views
Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 09:29:03 PM
997 Views
Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 09:46:20 PM
953 Views
I think Adams is an Irish citizen, and not a British one.
- 23/01/2011 11:45:34 PM
914 Views
I found out something else today which makes it even better.
- 24/01/2011 10:37:45 PM
1078 Views
I was reading your post and going "what about the Chiltern Hundreds"?
- 24/01/2011 10:44:32 PM
914 Views
Oh, alternatively we could elevate him to the House of Lords.
- 26/01/2011 11:08:44 PM
929 Views
Awesome idea. Something like "Baron Adams of Londonderry", I'm thinking. *NM*
- 27/01/2011 07:54:26 PM
452 Views
We made his arch-rival a Lord, after all, so it would only be fair.
- 28/01/2011 08:26:15 AM
863 Views
Here you go
- 25/01/2011 12:55:33 PM
1020 Views
well, the only interesting thing in swedish politics is a wikileaks document and the reactions...
- 23/01/2011 06:21:00 PM
985 Views
What is inappropriate about trying to keep out barbaric unskilled people?
- 23/01/2011 10:59:53 PM
954 Views
- 26/01/2011 07:46:19 PM
938 Views
The inappropriateness is the generalisation in the claim
- 23/01/2011 11:16:52 PM
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Generalizations are inappropriate when they are disproven by statistics, and appropriate when proven
- 24/01/2011 07:33:14 PM
878 Views
I've looked into the statistics a bit more.
- 24/01/2011 09:11:52 PM
895 Views
I take it you're talking about the Middle East in its most narrow sense here.
- 24/01/2011 09:56:22 PM
933 Views
... the fact that they are asylum seekers, and their skill certainly shouldn't matter in that case.
- 24/01/2011 07:08:14 PM
818 Views
- 26/01/2011 07:46:19 PM
938 Views
Hopefully they'll stop using Irish officially as a way to cut down on unnecessary costs.
- 23/01/2011 10:57:08 PM
874 Views
I'd support that
- 23/01/2011 11:26:20 PM
943 Views
Ironically, if you de-officialised Irish you could get EU money to help preserve it.
- 23/01/2011 11:48:14 PM
851 Views
But why, why?
- 24/01/2011 08:35:43 PM
838 Views
Because it's the only thing justifying their insistence they're not British?
- 24/01/2011 10:03:54 PM
892 Views
- 24/01/2011 10:03:54 PM
892 Views
But all language learning should be purely voluntary (after what parents teach their children).
- 25/01/2011 03:05:28 AM
868 Views
What, so you don't think students in high school should be taught foreign languages?
- 25/01/2011 06:34:21 PM
862 Views
Irish is the mother tongue of about 7,000-15,000 people at most.
- 26/01/2011 05:04:00 AM
906 Views
Wikipedia says it's more like 40k-80k.
- 26/01/2011 06:41:41 PM
1284 Views
And Elaine, Stephen, or any other Irish people here: do feel free to comment. *NM*
- 26/01/2011 06:42:36 PM
457 Views
*NM*
- 26/01/2011 06:42:36 PM
457 Views
More to the point, are YOU interested in learning Irish?
- 26/01/2011 05:15:18 AM
816 Views
Calling Ireland the new Sodom and Gomorrah, are you?
- 26/01/2011 06:02:05 PM
977 Views
- 26/01/2011 06:02:05 PM
977 Views
I don't think it's as fun as Sodom and Gomorrah, at least not post-crisis. 
- 26/01/2011 09:48:54 PM
939 Views
- 26/01/2011 09:48:54 PM
939 Views
Re: I don't think it's as fun as Sodom and Gomorrah, at least not post-crisis.
- 27/01/2011 08:42:21 PM
826 Views
- 27/01/2011 08:42:21 PM
826 Views
Presumably because they agree with J.R.R. Tolkien and Tómas Sæmundsson about language's importance.
- 24/01/2011 10:16:05 PM
982 Views
So Australians and New Zealanders are really English then? Austrians are just Germans?
- 25/01/2011 03:01:14 AM
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I never said I agreed 
.
- 25/01/2011 08:19:11 AM
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.
- 25/01/2011 08:19:11 AM
903 Views
I would suggest that a distinct dialect does the job just as well
- 25/01/2011 02:23:59 PM
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The thing is, people who feel really strongly about that usually insist it's a separate language.
- 28/01/2011 04:20:57 PM
788 Views
It's really more about having a unique silly costume to wear at Miss Universe pageants.
- 26/01/2011 05:09:10 AM
778 Views
You're confusing what we sell to gullible American tourists with what we actually value . *NM*
- 28/01/2011 04:15:01 PM
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. *NM*
- 28/01/2011 04:15:01 PM
404 Views
What the hell happened to the Celtic Tiger Country? *NM*
- 24/01/2011 05:47:12 AM
521 Views
The Celtic Tiger is dead, Ireland had a GDP contraction of 14% in the last two years.
- 24/01/2011 01:47:06 PM
889 Views
It's still there, but it aimed a bit too high and got a bit scorched.
- 24/01/2011 10:07:36 PM
766 Views