swisscheese wrote:
Cad í staid na Gaeilge i Meiriceá? Tá a fhios agam go bhfuil sí ag feabhsú ach conas atá sí ag feabhsú? An bhfuil sí ag cur fáis ar chultúr gaelach níos mó nó an Gaeilge níos mó?
It is taught in some universities and there are one or two places where parents have organized small
bunscoileanna, but fluent speakers are pretty much scattered about. There are an increasing number of interested learners, though (like me and others on this forum).
There were once fairly strong Irish-speaking communities in some big cities, especially in parts of Brooklyn, New York, and in South Boston ("Southie"), but also in some comparatively out-of-the way places such as Butte, Montana, where a significant number of native speakers from Kerry worked in the mines (there was a community of elderly people speaking the language there into at least the 1930's, in fact). The University of Montana is one of those which have Irish-language programs, including a summer immersion course (which I've attended twice).
I'm not aware of any such communities which survive as such. Wherever there's a community with significant numbers of Irish-born residents, though, there are usually some who can speak Irish, and a number of them teach courses from time to time.
It's very hard for another language community to survive more than a generation or two in America, because of the overwhelming power and pervasiveness of English. There were once very strong, enduring German-speaking communities in many places in America, but they succumbed to both urbanization and the negative reaction to German in World War I and II (one irony of the World War II era is that General Eisenhower's parents were the last generation in his Midwestern community to speak German at home, since they had to give it up during World War I). Even Spanish-speaking communities succumb eventually, except for some with a constant inflow of new native speakers, and some Native American languages which had strong native speaker numbers are succumbing rather suddenly in the latest generation.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
