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Rabhadh: fir ag obair
DANGER: MEN AT WORK
Answer honestly: which of the two sentences, above, did you notice first? Now imagine you were driving at 80 kph: from what distance would you notice each of them? Of the two ways in which this information is presented, which is more visible? Why?
Road signs are more than just road signs. In a supposedly bilingual Ireland, they are an ever-present reminder of official tokenism and a visible denial of equal language rights.
In Finland, the two official languages, Finnish and Swedish, are spoken by 90% and 5.4% of the population, respectively. Some parts of Finland are officially bilingual, and in these areas all official signs are in both languages and identical type of equal height, width and colour. In effect, each is equally legible by road users at safe distances.
The contrast with Ireland is striking: we too, have an officially bilingual country, but the design of road signs makes the text in English far more legible than the Irish. In Gaeltacht areas, where signs are only in Irish, all signs are barely legible.
Realistically, it must be admitted, the number of native Irish-speaking road users is very small, and practically all of them speak fluent English. It can be argued that they already have full access to route information and that the minority can use the majority’s language. But if this principle were reversed and English-speakers were forced to use Irish when dealing with the state, English-speakers would, rightly, feel their rights were not being honoured. If we believe people are equal, then we must also think of their languages as equal.
Unfortunately, language equality has never been independent Ireland’s strong point. Article 8 of the Constitution gives Irish official primacy over English, thus making language inequality official, but perversely the precise reverse of this has been implemented, with state bodies arguably being the strongest agents for Anglicisation in the Gaeltacht. Combined with this, the national debate and official policy around our languages has failed to differentiate between keeping Irish alive in the Gaeltacht (a realistic goal) and ‘reviving’ it from scratch in English-speaking areas, some of which have not had native Irish-speaking populations for centuries (an unrealistic one).
Fine examples of this contrast is the posting of gardaí with poor Irish to the Donegal Gaeltacht (as revealed by Language Commissioner Seán Ó Cuirreáin in his 2011 report), and the recent attempts to make Clondalkin in Dublin an official Gaeltacht. The former got far less media coverage than the latter. Lamentably, the concept of language rights has never been central to either public discussion or policy, and talk about the place of Irish has always been dominated by those whose native language is English.
This is why road signs are so important. They are, arguably, the element of official information used most often by speakers of both languages, and the one with the biggest impact on safety. Signs should be designed without bias towards either language. New signs would be a visible indication that central government is committed to language equality. They would be a constant reminder that our two official languages are equal, if not in size, than at least in status. This being Ireland, of course, this initial token should not be allowed to become tokenism: the concept of language equality must become the central principle of language policy, meaning anyone can access official information and services in their native language.
Critics will say that changing road signs will divert money away from more pressing needs. The cost, however, is not of replacing all road signs with new ones: only the text on them would be changed. This could be done on a phased basis to minimise costs. New text on road signs would help change the way people and policy makers think about our two languages: not as ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’, but as two equals, the speakers of which are both entitled to information and services. This is worth spending money on.
Since independence, the centralised Dublin government’s language policies have been muddled and had little regard for the rights of speakers of both languages. Equalising the text on road signs, preferably based on local consultation, would be one visible step towards a bilingual country with equal rights for the speakers of both languages, with neither exalted over the other.
Ian Mac Eochagáin is an English teacher and freelance translator living and working in Finland. His blog in English and Russian, is at maceochi.livejournal.com, and his business website, Maceochi Language Services, is at maceochi.com.
Results are released in September! Norma Foley needs to resign, between this and the school bus fiasco she is abysmal at her job!
@John Long: it’s the junior cert , it really doesn’t matter
@Ciaran: The kids put the effort in. Should that be dismissed?
@Ciaran: except to the kids who did the exams
@John Long: Get over yourself, it’s the junior cert, an exam of no importance of any description.
@Ciaran: you seem to have the same attitude as the rest of the government. It really doesn’t matter!
@Justin Gillespie: No.
@Justin Gillespie: it is important as it’s basic requirement for apprenticeships.
@Justin Gillespie: I think it’s you that needs to get over yourself not every wants to go on to leaving cert so junior cert is very important to those that want to go for an apprenticeship instead.
@Bernard Mc Grath: you might be going over his head here. I doubt he even knows what apprenticeships are let alone their relation to the JC
@John Long: This is the SEC, not the DES. So, no matter what you think of Norma, this isn’t her fault.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: Her position is minister of education!
We keep forgetting that exam fees are paid for a product that has not been delivered in time. Maybe the State Exam commission should refund for being in default of an undertaking.
@Irish big fellow: There has been no exam fees for the last three years nearly because of Covid
Clearly gave this zero priority. Money on offer vs hours and expertise expected not attracting numbers needed, payment for those that do the job takes months to come through. Corrections completed long ago and yet results delayed and delayed and delayed. Ball dropped.
Junior cert provides valuable experience for future state exams, it important the results are released in a prompt manner as people who decided to drop out and take up an apprenticeship need them as it is a requirement for apprenticeships.
I don’t think it can be overstated how completely worthless it is as a learning aid to receive exam results 5 and a half months after the exam.
Students will already be neck deep in a new curriculum by then and preparing for christmas tests on that. They won’t even remember what the questions were in an exam so long and will have already made subject choice or higher level decisions already.
The whole thing is just an insult to students. Forced to sit a state exam the state has seemingly little interest in correcting. It should be a resigning matter for the Education minister but it’s Ireland and we’re used to tolerating less.
Correct me if I’m wrong; Teachers are paid 12 months of the year, yet are paid extra for correcting papers. How is it not a mandatory part of the job??
@El Grogan: Do you want LC exams to be marked by people who don’t want to mark it and who don’t care? What do you do with those, who make a pig’s ear if it? Do you take them off the job and pay them less? So the people who remain marking thw state exams get paid more? Oh, wait…………………..
@El Grogan: I had a similar conversation regarding the leaving cert results. From my understanding of what I got in reply, normal teachers don’t mark state exams, professional exam markers do. My point at the time was that I found this strange as teachers are paid over the marking period yet this is not part of their job. In France, for example, it is. Not all teachers are needed but each teacher chosen, gets a mail detailing what marking centre they are required to attend to mark papers. Exams end in early July and results are published near the end of July, despite the student population being much larger.
@David Stapleton: You can efficiently and accurately mark 25 exams per day. At 5 days a week over 3 weeks that is about 350+ exams per corrector.
Best of luck to all
The results are typically released mid September
I think the junior cert is pointless unless the person wants to leave school afterwards and get an apprenticeship. It’s alot of unnecessary pressure to put on a teenager if they go to do their leaving certificate because when you get that then the junior cert is nothing
@Anthony Hilton: look up the reason
I remember my first day in 4th year. “The junior cert meant sod all lads….the leaving cert will be 10 times as hard and you’ll have less time to learn it all as this is a doss year”
Where did all the examiners go?! 1 in 3 disappeared?
Was it down to the post-covid travel bottleneck or something else?
@Rachel Ray: the problem at the moment comes from two sources: dumbing down of educational standards, accompanied by students’ sense of entitlement. Who would want to involve themselves in a situation where everybody demands that they do well and if they don’t, go for rechecks. A neighbour of mine is a teacher and according to her the economic imperative to get as many people through education right up to college standard has created chaos since she is caught between retaining her own integrity re marking and giving in to economics that insist everybody must do well and then pay for the next stage of their education
@Rachel Ray: They made the perfectly rational decision that time with their families was more important than money, maybe?
have your say