Polish as Irelands Third Offical language?

There are some Ontario communities where there are some French traditions (e.g. Welland or Windsor) but they speak English, only sometimes French, and mostly at home.

To be honest, in Ontario it may be easier to communicate in Mandarin, Polish, Dutch, German or Spanish than it is in French.

I work for a local government office in Ontario. Out of about 100 employees NONE is conversant in French. I think I am the best French speaker here, and believe me, my French sucks big time.

I believe you. On the personal level I think that it is a pitty because I like French culture, yet there is so little of it in Ontario.

I don't have a problem with the French culture. My sister has been living in France since 1988, and I visited France a lot. I also think it is a very interesting phenomenon that the French language survived here, in the ocean of English. I like watching their TV channels cuz the quality of programming is much better than the usual English garbage. Many Quebecois can't even speak English.

One problem though is that in order to survive, they have very strict language laws in Quebec. They even have language police. People who run around towns and measure if English signs are sufficiently smaller than French ones. They actually use tape measures :) That causes a lot of resentment and most immigrants prefer to immigrate to English speaking parts of Canada. The reason is that an immigrant in Quebec must go to a French school. No ifs ands or buts. In the rest of Canada immigrants can go to any school they want.

I do that too, although I don't speak the language;(

Not a biggie while watching TV. All you do is listen, they can't hear you anyway. You could even sit naked in front of TV, and they wouldn't be able to see you. Honest! :)

yeh, it sounds weird to some people, he, he......
are you speaking from experiance;)?

Nooooo!!!! A friend told me :)

lucky me, I don't have friends like that;) and your comments are a bit creepy.
There is a differance between wit and sarcasm;)

This has to be the funniest things I have seen in ages... - I dont see Polish on the list and nor do I have expect to....this is not meant a slur to Polish people, I am merely pointing it out - So you can sleep well tonight in your beds in Ire knowing that when your kids go to school Polish will not be on the curriculum :)


Mandarin Chinese - 882 million
2. Spanish - 325 million
3. English - 312-380 million
4. Arabic - 206-422 million
5. Hindi - 181 million
6. Portuguese - 178 million
7. Bengali - 173 million
8. Russian - 146 million
9. Japanese - 128 million
10. German - 96 million

you forgot urdu which has around 150 million speakers worldwide simialr to hindi... i have a few colleagues speaking this


what you are forgetting is that the needs of ireland require polish to be spoken, there ar emany souls living there

mmm, I think it already is on the curriculum as an option :D
We were never any good at languages in the Irish schools. French and German were the main languages offered for a long time.

bottom line is that Polish is an everyday language here with English (to a lesser degree Irish).
Polish is available in the workplace, govt depts, schools already.

what the article wanted was to have it recognised as an offical language under the Irish Constitution, which is not required and as mentioned above, not even sought by the local Polish here, if it was sure no harm, it can go through the democratic process as all things.

As we are all in Europe anyway you see, it is redundant as English, Polish & Irish are official languages and as such, relevant depts are obliged by law to provide material etc that is required & requested by member citizens.

that sums it up nicely.. well said

Yup, certainly does.

My only gripe is that it's taking me ages to learn Polish! - I should have started when i was younger, say age 3 or so :D

yes definately before u knew the z -- zee sound not the many combinations we have

That England will have no English Born and Bred left in the next 50 years because a lot - just like me are thinking of moving out because we see a country that is being torn apart and ruined - just yesterday I read an article about black police officers being fast tracked only because they were black and there were not enough black officers at the top....didnt matter they didnt have the relevant qualifications or years in the job.....



Why?



Who pays for this relevant information and the cost of translating it?

you'll have to read the article to find out.
id imagine to legimise further the community as a new part of the national identity(?)
However, thats one of many possible intrepretations of the article.

I stand by post no.102



why, we all do - thats our taxes for you. the part our gov't pay to EU, this is part of the spend.
dont bother giving out about to me though, ive no say in that :)

its a needed function in a society with several languages though wouldnt you agree? (seeing as not everyone speaks English, French, German, Spanish, Itallan, Polish, Portugeuese, Czech, Slovak, etc etc till the cows come home.

google "offical EU languages" and you'll see how many.

Screw the language. Make them pay the special tax for us. We are poor.

Only if you learn how to speak Irish and sing all the songs the Cors ever released!

I know Kelly family. Does It count ?

You are always offensive so it should come quite naturally for you!

Ireland (Republic) has a population of 4m. This includes around 200000 Poles. I would imagine that next to English more people here would speak Polish than Irish. The number of Irish speakers is pretty small and, more or less, confined to small areas in the west of Ireland.

- And now the racist Polonophobic oinker pretending-to-be-English is playing the offended un. With its snout deep in muck.

You sure? Even the higher number of 380 million seems a bit on the low side to me.

60 Million in the UK. Plus Australia, Canada, South Africa, Zimbabwe, USA (close on 300 million alone there!) New Zealand, and not forgetting the penguins in the Falklands... or about a dozen other places that have English as a first language. I'd guess, and it is only a guess, that about 500 million speak English as their first language. Then there's things like Pilots, who use English. Or the Indian Civil Service, where English is used as a "lingua franca".

If it is 500 million, then 1/12 of the world speaks English. And with everyday that passes, more Poles here learn a bit more English.... neat! ;)

absolutely

But they only talk about fish.... boring sods really. :D

yah, I wonder what accent thay have.........

I m shocked, by this idea but I dont live in Ireland and I dont know reality there. Honestly I hope that this project will not influece negativly on our relationships

The majority of the 200,000 or so Polish folk here intend on staying temporarily. They are mainly here to make a better life for themselves by earning some money to go towards buying a home in Poland or setting up businesses. They will stay from anywhere from a few months up to about five years at most. I'm speaking from what Polish friends tell me, and what other Polish people i meet tell me, and from reading the Irish and Polish media.

It is not a permanent situation. Unless the majority of Polish folk settle here and have children with Polish/Irish/ or other foreign national partners, there will be no need to have Ireland list Polish as a third official language. People are not going to be here to care about it.

The Irish economy has come full circle since the 80's and now we are seeing the signs of a slow down; Ireland will no longer be as an attractive an option. With new government in Poland, change for progress (not retarding) for a country's prosperty is now possible. Why? Because prosperity of a nation is down to the mindset and emotion of its people. It is something that has not being cultivated in the right manner for some time. It is why so many left in the first place.

Time is changing, we will see. I for one, hope that most of the Poles stay in Dublin. I find it enriches and enhances our own culture by having the mix. Although, i do wish the Polish people here would integrate here like other foreign nationals. There are many Polish media outlets here that act as info points and support, and i feel it is a crutch that it is too easy lean on and be comfortable with. The Czech, Sloval, Lithuanian, Russian, Slovene folk for example don't have such resources, and whether they did or not, they seem quite happy living life and integrating without continuos contact their fellow countryman.

Many Polish here (Dublin) can spend their whole week speaking little English, as they work with/for, live with, and socialise with other Polish folk. There is not as much integration as i would like there to be. And, i always get funny looks of disbelief and suspicious question of 'why?' from Polish folk when i tell them i'm learning Polish.

Before i go off on a tangent, i'll finish by saying, that, as it is currently not a permanent situation, there will be no formal recognition of Polish as a 3rd language. It would be nice. But, there is Polish media here, people speak it freely and more than English; there is no need or mandate for it(?).

But, we will have to wait a few years and see. Will Poland be able to entice people back?

No, there are not three languages in Ireland as very few people speak Irish. In Wales their language is still strong with almost a million speakers but who speaks Irish? A few on the West Coast perhaps?