I would suggest that a distinct dialect does the job just as well
majander Send a noteboard - 25/01/2011 02:23:59 PM
Gaelic has never been the day to day language of Lowland Scots, but I would suggest that the wat we speak English gives us the same sense of belonging in a community as a distinct language would
So the Irish government has basically imploded.
- 23/01/2011 04:47:10 PM
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I am now confused
- 23/01/2011 05:34:31 PM
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You do realize Britain is pretty much the envy of the Western world at the moment?
- 23/01/2011 06:27:05 PM
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Re: You do realize Britain is pretty much the envy of the Western world at the moment?
- 23/01/2011 06:34:47 PM
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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
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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
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Those protests were only violent by British standards.
- 23/01/2011 11:54:15 PM
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What protests?
- 24/01/2011 07:26:49 PM
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Re: What protests?
- 24/01/2011 07:28:40 PM
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Re: What protests?
- 25/01/2011 09:23:17 AM
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There's a new objection
- 25/01/2011 11:38:25 AM
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I didn't object...
- 25/01/2011 11:47:11 AM
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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
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Should I start chiming in on Norwegian politics now that I'm here...? 
- 24/01/2011 12:42:03 AM
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- 24/01/2011 12:42:03 AM
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Why not?
- 24/01/2011 08:49:07 AM
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'Cos I doubt you'll like what I have to say, for one thing.
- 26/01/2011 01:55:13 AM
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That's been a while coming, hasn't it? Cowen seems to be losing it.
- 23/01/2011 05:48:30 PM
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Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 06:27:27 PM
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Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 06:33:26 PM
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Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 07:19:03 PM
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Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 07:57:05 PM
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Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 09:29:03 PM
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Re: Certainly. he's been on dodgy ground for a couple months.
- 23/01/2011 09:46:20 PM
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I think Adams is an Irish citizen, and not a British one.
- 23/01/2011 11:45:34 PM
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I found out something else today which makes it even better.
- 24/01/2011 10:37:45 PM
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I was reading your post and going "what about the Chiltern Hundreds"?
- 24/01/2011 10:44:32 PM
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Oh, alternatively we could elevate him to the House of Lords.
- 26/01/2011 11:08:44 PM
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Awesome idea. Something like "Baron Adams of Londonderry", I'm thinking. *NM*
- 27/01/2011 07:54:26 PM
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We made his arch-rival a Lord, after all, so it would only be fair.
- 28/01/2011 08:26:15 AM
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Here you go
- 25/01/2011 12:55:33 PM
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well, the only interesting thing in swedish politics is a wikileaks document and the reactions...
- 23/01/2011 06:21:00 PM
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What is inappropriate about trying to keep out barbaric unskilled people?
- 23/01/2011 10:59:53 PM
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- 26/01/2011 07:46:19 PM
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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
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I've looked into the statistics a bit more.
- 24/01/2011 09:11:52 PM
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I take it you're talking about the Middle East in its most narrow sense here.
- 24/01/2011 09:56:22 PM
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... the fact that they are asylum seekers, and their skill certainly shouldn't matter in that case.
- 24/01/2011 07:08:14 PM
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- 26/01/2011 07:46:19 PM
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Hopefully they'll stop using Irish officially as a way to cut down on unnecessary costs.
- 23/01/2011 10:57:08 PM
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I'd support that
- 23/01/2011 11:26:20 PM
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Ironically, if you de-officialised Irish you could get EU money to help preserve it.
- 23/01/2011 11:48:14 PM
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But why, why?
- 24/01/2011 08:35:43 PM
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Because it's the only thing justifying their insistence they're not British?
- 24/01/2011 10:03:54 PM
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- 24/01/2011 10:03:54 PM
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But all language learning should be purely voluntary (after what parents teach their children).
- 25/01/2011 03:05:28 AM
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What, so you don't think students in high school should be taught foreign languages?
- 25/01/2011 06:34:21 PM
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Irish is the mother tongue of about 7,000-15,000 people at most.
- 26/01/2011 05:04:00 AM
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Wikipedia says it's more like 40k-80k.
- 26/01/2011 06:41:41 PM
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And Elaine, Stephen, or any other Irish people here: do feel free to comment. *NM*
- 26/01/2011 06:42:36 PM
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*NM*
- 26/01/2011 06:42:36 PM
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More to the point, are YOU interested in learning Irish?
- 26/01/2011 05:15:18 AM
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Calling Ireland the new Sodom and Gomorrah, are you?
- 26/01/2011 06:02:05 PM
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- 26/01/2011 06:02:05 PM
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I don't think it's as fun as Sodom and Gomorrah, at least not post-crisis. 
- 26/01/2011 09:48:54 PM
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- 26/01/2011 09:48:54 PM
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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
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- 27/01/2011 08:42:21 PM
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Presumably because they agree with J.R.R. Tolkien and Tómas Sæmundsson about language's importance.
- 24/01/2011 10:16:05 PM
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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
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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
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It's really more about having a unique silly costume to wear at Miss Universe pageants.
- 26/01/2011 05:09:10 AM
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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
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What the hell happened to the Celtic Tiger Country? *NM*
- 24/01/2011 05:47:12 AM
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The Celtic Tiger is dead, Ireland had a GDP contraction of 14% in the last two years.
- 24/01/2011 01:47:06 PM
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It's still there, but it aimed a bit too high and got a bit scorched.
- 24/01/2011 10:07:36 PM
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