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Conference tallis::celt

Title:Celt Notefile
Moderator:TALLIS::DARCY
Created:Wed Feb 19 1986
Last Modified:Tue Jun 03 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1632
Total number of notes:20523

1462.0. "Anti-Gaelic article" by XSTACY::JLUNDON (http://xagony.ilo.dec.com/~jlundon :-)) Mon Mar 13 1995 04:27

I've just discovered CELTIC-L and am pleasantly suprised at the range
and breadth of topics discussed.  If you've nothing better to do then
you could do worse than subscribe?

                        James.

++

From:	XSTACY::VBORMC::"[email protected]" "CELTIC-L - The Celtic
Culture List." 12-MAR-1995 15:00:10.75
To:	Multiple recipients of list CELTIC-L <[email protected]>
CC:	
Subj:	Anti-Gaelic racism alive and well

The Scotsman, March 11 1995
  Peter Clark, "Who needs the Gaelic?"

 "...it can safely be ignored and left to be an object of
  rarified study.
    ...We feign respect for its antiquity and its poetry.  Yet
  Gaelic is a literary and orthographic zone of incompetence.
  The Gaels were the last European language to publish the
  Bible, if you discount Esperanto.  As none of us can judge
  its poetry without idiomatic knowledge of it we can only
  scratch our heads and have faith that Sorley MacLean and
  the other sages are not just bluffing...
    There is nothing in Gaelic that is worth passing on to the
  rest of mankind.  In the history of ideas or of invention
  Gaeldom is a desert.   No philosopher, no insight, not even
  any joke illuminates us non-Gaels from the body of Gaelic
  literature...
    My point is day to day vernacular Gaelic is a low level
  peasantish sort of debris that we need not be in the least
  reverential about...
    Generation after generation of Gaels has spoken nonsense
  to each other.  It is as though an entire culture never got
  above the golf course level of sensibility...
    I can agree it is magnificently odd that the islands of
  Britain can have given the world its universal language
  while the quite alien languages of Cymric and Erse survive
  on the margins of the territory.
    So let us try a weapon barely ever used against the Gaeltacht -
  laughter.  Is searbh a ghloir nach fhaodar eisdeachd - Harsh
  is the language that cannot be listened to.  Do not bother
  to brush up on your Erse."

[BE]
    This is the kind of racist rubbish based on ignorance and
prejudice that no one could possibly say, and get away with,
against any other ethnic group in Britain, yet someone who is
a paid journalist can get a platform to slur Gaels in this way
in Scotland.  Not only is this pure and simple racism, it is
factually incorrect, and is a reflect of his ignorance of
Gaelic history and literature.
  Let it be known too that Peter Clarke will be standing for
election as a Ulster Unionist in the Perth-Kinross by-election
in Scotland (yes, that's right).  So he has a vested interest,
you see, in smearing Gaelic, since that by implication asserts
the cultural and political primacy of English.

[GA]
  Ged nach do sgri\obh mi an a\iste air fad an seo, air m' fhacal,
tha co\rr is an a\ite cho aineo\lach 's gorach ris a' chuid seo,
agus cha chreid mi nach eil coir aig na Ga\idheal, agus luch-taic
na Ga\idheal, gearan a dhe\anamh, fiu 's dhan Race Relations
Board, neo buidheann mar seo, a thaobh a' dhearg amadain.

[BE]
  If the appearance of this racist propoganda incenses you as much
as myself, please complain to the Scotsman that they give space
and money to people to publish racism (and factually incorrect
racism at that) in their newspaper:

  The Scotsman
  20 North Bridge
  Edinburgh  EH1 1YT
    SCOTLAND
  FAX: 0131-226-7420

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% Subject:      Anti-Gaelic racism alive and well
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T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
1462.1TERRI::SIMONSemper in excernereMon Mar 13 1995 06:513
Gaelic shouldn't dropped as a language, laguages shouldn't be allowed to die.

Simon
1462.2Mae iaith Cymru yn fyw!!!PEKING::SULLIVANDNot gauche, just sinisterMon Mar 13 1995 09:458
    There's a WELSH-L also. Welsh is by no means as moribund as the idiot
    who wrote that garbage in .0 implies.
    
    Note: the Welsh for "condoms" is "sannau serch", which means "stockings
    of love". Isn't that poetical ?               :-)  :-)
    
    Dave
    ====
1462.3HLDE01::STRETCH_MMon Mar 13 1995 10:178
    Re .2. No, you've got that wrong. "sannau serch" means "stomachs of
    love". Because, as I understand it, the early condoms were made from the
    sensitive inner lining of the sheep's stomach.
    
    Or am I confused with Haggis?
    
    rgds
    Mark
1462.4Serch party required...PEKING::SULLIVANDNot gauche, just sinisterMon Mar 13 1995 11:0824
    We're digressing a bit here, but...
    
    "Sannau" is the plural of "hosan", meaning a stocking or sock. The
    actual formal-language plural is "hosannau", but as it's accented on
    the middle syllable the first bit's been elided away. (Actually there
    may be only one "n" in it). I suppose it's the same as the Anglo Saxon
    word that has given rise to the English "hose".
    
    Re the sensitivity of primitive condoms: While I cannot comment
    personally on the sensitivity or otherwise of the sensations produced
    by wearing the lining of a sheep's stomach, Boswell calls wearing one
    of these "in armour", which doesn't seem very sensitive to me. However,
    when he didn't use one (I think he was bonking a whore on Westminster
    Bridge in the dark) he got a dose. I'm sure there's a moral there
    somewhere for us all...
    
    "Mi bryna'i yn Iwerddon SANAU sidan..."
    
    
    So now you know what Hosanna _really_ means. Hosanna in excelsis
    actually means "socks of the highest". Change them more often !!
    
    Dave
    ====
1462.5COSME3::HEDLEYCLager LoutMon Mar 13 1995 11:234
Hmm... so that's why kids always sing `While Sheperds Washed Their Socks'
at carol concerts...

Chris.
1462.6Stitch that, JimmyPEKING::SULLIVANDNot gauche, just sinisterTue Mar 14 1995 04:133
    I believe there's something in alt.sex.sheep.guts.yuk for those of an
    enquiring disposition...        :-)
     
1462.7WELSH-LBLKPUD::WILLIAMSHFlat tank Sunbeam riderFri Mar 17 1995 06:3618
Hi,

If you want to subscribe to the welsh mailing list,  send a vaxmail to 
VBORMC::"[email protected]"   

with the first line of your mail containing the words:

SUBSCRIBE WELSH-L

This should then get you onto the list, it works for me. I get about ten
mails a day, and most of the messages are in welsh with no 
translations. The only english allowed is linguistic questions from 
welsh learners.

Huw.

O.N. the point about 'sannau' = socks is correct. 
     Love stomachs would come out as 'stumogau serch', not very romantic!
1462.8I'm condominiuming 'em, mumPEKING::SULLIVANDNot gauche, just sinisterFri Mar 17 1995 11:288
    A St Patrick's Day note !
    
    The more traditional name for condoms in Wales is "sachau dyrnu".
    "Sachau", as might be expected, means "sacks"; "dyrnu" means "to
    thresh" or "to thump". 
    
    This note is sponsored by the Romantic Celtic Twilight Society.
                                                                   
1462.9MEANSCOIL WINS 100,000 GRANTKOALA::HOLOHANWed Mar 29 1995 09:5280

from The Irish People
March 28, 1995





                        MEANSCOIL WINS  100,000 GRANT

Yielding to a high-profile campaign, the British government has grudgingly
announced 100,000-a-year funding for Belfast's only Irish-language secondary
school, Meanscoil Feirste. Principal Fergus O'Hare said it would ensure the
school would continue to survive. An additional grant of 50,000 a year will
go to other Irish-language schools in the Belfast area.

Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, hit out at the "back-door" way in which
Meanscoil Feirste is to be funded. Direct ruler Pat Mayhew had announced
that the school would be funded through Making Belfast Work and the
Ultach Trust, which was set up to widen appreciation of the Irish language
and culture.

 Adams pointed out that the decision to fund the schools through Making
Belfast Work and the Ultach Trust continued the "second-class treatment"
of Irish-language education in the North. "It falls far short of the
proper recognition and funding required to run these schools on an
equal basis," he said.

 Mayhew admitted that parents and other supporters of the Meanscoil, many
from areas of marked disadvantage, were bearing a heavy personal burden,
both financial and physical, in keeping the school going. Said he, "I
was impressed by this, by the educational standards being attained, and
particularly by the desirability of an option of children leaving primary
schools to continue their education in the Irish language in Belfast."

 He added, "Bearing in mind the wider social and cultural benefits which
the school brings to disadvantaged areas in West Belfast, I have accepted
that special support for the school should be channelled from the Making
Belfast Work initiative."

 The move follows a campaign by the school and supporters to have the
British government provide financial support. Last November, the Department
of Education refused funding, on the excuse that the school had fewer than
300 pupils. The school, which started with nine children four years ago,
currently has around 100 pupils.

 Mr. O'Hare called on the Department of Education to give full recognition
to the school, pointing out that the 100,000 represents only around half
of what the school would be entitled to under full grant-aided status.

 He noted, however, that "The 100,000 that the Secretary of State has
announced will ensure that the school will continue to survive and will
continue to maintain the excellent educational standards. We feel that it
is a poor reflection on the Department of Education that it took the direct
intervention of the Secretary of State to produce this package."

 The move was welcomed by West Belfast MP Joe Hendron, who said he was
"delighted" at the funding announcement.
---------

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