Madam, - In response to Francis Spillane (December 4th), I agree that there are indeed many people who are fond of Irish simply for its own sake and that their interest enriches both themselves and their communities. And let me add: nobody advocates a cessation of the study of Irish in schools.
What is at issue is whether the study of Irish should be compulsory for all the years up to the Leaving Certificate. I think not, and I also think that the present good mood in relation to Irish is linked to the reduction of compulsion in real terms over the years.
But what of the results of the Official Languages Act, such as the basements packed full of Irish translations of the annual reports of 450 public bodies, or more signs in Irish on the walls of government offices? Do these have a linguistic impact? I doubt it.
All that these things show is that State officials have the power to print documents in a State language, and that they have the money to pay for it. There is no connection between all this display and the language spoken by the people. So when, as Anne Gallagher of the Language Centre NUI Maynooth desires, people see Irish as part of their "daily reality" (November 30th), the reality that they see does not relate to the use of language but to the use of power.
While all this is going on, another correspondent (Caoimhín Ó hIcí, December 2nd) gives examples of the way the language itself is deteriorating into a "patois", with official help from TG4.
I suggest to him that what has emerged is better described as "pidgin-Irish", rather than as a "patois". "Patois", I see in the dictionary, is given as "a provincial form of a language spoken in a restricted area and having no literary status", whereas "pidgin-English" is given as "the jargon, consisting chiefly of English words, often corrupted in pronunciation, and arranged according the Chinese idiom..." So, in our case, it's definitely "pidgin" not "patois". - Yours, etc,
DONAL FLYNN, Sandycove, Co Dublin.