Irish Translation Forum

I was looking at the UNESCO website and it's Atlas thing about the Status of Languages.

The Irish Language is marked "Definitely Endangered" while Welsh is only marked "Vulnerable", Scottish Gaelic is also Marked "definetly Endangered".

I'm very confused. How is it Irish which has more Speakers than Welsh, be labeled "Definitely Endangered", which puts it on par with Scottish Gaelic.

http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00206

Well according to their figures, Welsh has 170,000 speakers while Irish only has 44,000 so there's a pretty big distinction unfortunately

Oh, is it based on Native Speakers? Well, that's kind of stupid.

Yeah, I agree. It's seems a bit misleading. From what the information says, they only took data from the Gaeltacht areas, whereas, as this website clearly shows, there are tonnes more speakers...

Do chainteoirí dhúchais traidisiúnta (mar shampla: Ghaeilge a thugtar ó ghlúin go glúin go nádúrtha) síltear níl ach 25,000 dhaoine ann.

So, where are they getting 44 000 from?

What's this about the debate over Welsh then? Are they trying to get it promoted more often?

Darra_Joyce wrote:

brianocuinn wrote:What's this about the debate over Welsh then? Are they trying to get it promoted more often?

Some people are, yes. It's a very active subject herein the UK just now.

Hi, here is the rub ,I think if a native Welsh speaker moves to England does that mean he/she becomes one less in the statistics of Welsh speakers , conversely if an Irish native speaker moves out side the Gaeltacht does he/she become one less speaker in the statistics.?
Christy.

Look at the figures for "b" speakers

and recheck the native speakers numbers..it's low but higher than you say

B speakers in ireland is unusually high. International speakers are higher than Welsh and Scottish too for various reasons

I thought they changed the languages status to "vunerable" a while back or am I just imagining things ?