Written by Simon Lister, BBC News Magazine editor, on 28 January 2018 at 09:52:56An expert has warned that the language of the islands may be on the brink of extinction as a result of its recent rise in popularity.
Speaking at the Oxford Union, Professor Michael O’Connell from Oxford University said that the rise in Irish-speaking immigrants to the island is causing a rise in the number of Irish speakers.
Professor O’Connor said that while the islanders’ language was “not very well preserved”, he said it is “probably the most closely associated with the islander”.
“In a sense, the Irish language is still in the past,” he said.
“I think it is very much a part of the past and it’s something that people who come to the islands want to avoid.”
Professor O ‘Connell said that, while there is a strong link between Irish and the island, it was a very small one and, as such, there was “no point in trying to put the language on a pedestal”.
“It’s a very individual language.
It’s a dialect and there are different dialects, different words, different expressions, different dialect forms, different ways of writing and so on,” he added.”
But in the end, if you look at the islands history, the island language is very different from the English language, which is something that you would expect in the English world.”‘
Irish is dying’The islanders have long been known as “the last hurrah” for their enthusiastic support for the Irish freedom struggle in the early years of independence.
Irish language was considered a “sacred cow” in Ireland during the war and a number of famous poets, writers and musicians have all hailed from the island.
The island was the setting for some of the most famous movies of the 20th century, including A Clockwork Orange and A Raisin in the Sun.
Irish is a dialect spoken by some 5,000 people, mostly in the west of Ireland.
There are roughly 300 dialects in Ireland and the majority are in Northern Ireland, but the island has also been the scene of a number more localised dialects.
However, the popularity of the Irish-language TV series is believed to have contributed to a decline in the island’s Irish speakers and it is not yet clear whether the island will ever recover its popularity.
“It is clear that the Irish is dying,” Professor O’Conor said.
“I am a little bit of a pessimist but, as you might expect, it is hard to predict.”
Irish-Irish debate’A recent study carried out by the Institute for Social and Economic Research found that the number who speak the Irish dialect has dropped by nearly 10% in the last decade, as compared to the 2000s.
Professor Martin McKelvie from the Institute of Social and Political Science said that he believed the number speaking Irish has dropped because of a shift towards a more regionalised Irish culture.
“In the last 20 years, the majority of people who speak Irish say they have travelled to Ireland,” he told the BBC.
“They say they feel more connected to Ireland and Irish-Irish is more of a part, a part in their life now.”
“So what’s happening is that people are choosing not to travel to Ireland anymore and they don’t want to live in Ireland anymore,” he continued.
Professor McKelvis said the lack of Irish-English contact among young people is also contributing to the decline of the island languages.
“Young people are now learning English in school and they are learning English as their first language, so it’s probably the most important language they’re learning in school, but it’s not the only language they are studying in school,” he explained.
“If you’re a young person who is learning English you probably don’t care about the other languages, you don’t really care about Irish-French or Irish-Spanish.”
Irish language: the rise of the English-speaking minority