The Persistence of the Irish Language
As some of you may know, I have been learning the Irish language off and on for a few years now. I had a year streak on Duolingo in high school and then took a break during undergrad. I picked it up again during my master's, and at the time of this post, I have a 591-day streak on Duolingo. I began learning Irish long before I knew that I'd be living in Ireland, and it has been extremely gratifying to be able to understand street signs and place names in their original Irish.
Connemara road signs.
A lot of people would wonder what the point of learning a language like Irish is. Irish people learn Irish in schools as children and often leave school without fluency, similar to how Americans are required to "learn" Spanish or French or German. Outside of Irish-speaking areas called Gaeltachts, Irish is generally not the everyday language in use in Ireland. The reason for this is about 1,000 years of English oppression and it is a long and complicated issue, but the language has seen a resurgence in recent years as young people are gaining interest and apps such as Duolingo make the language more accessible.
So why did I, an American, begin learning Irish that isn't even spoken daily in Ireland?
For me, it was a way to connect to previous generations of my family who did speak Irish. My great grandparents spoke Irish, however upon arrival in the United States, dropped the language almost completely. My grandmother says that she really only remembered them praying in Irish. When they arrived in America, Irish people were generally considered to be some of the lowest members of society and they had to do anything that they could to assimilate in order to survive. That meant ceasing to use a language that would make them stand out. As I stumble through basic vocabulary and butcher pronunciation, I get one step closer to getting back what they had to leave behind.
I'm sure you're all quite curious as to what "dún do bhéal" translates to. Maybe some beautiful Irish proverb about green grass or blue skies? The endurance of the Irish people? Well, sorry to disappoint, but you can use "dún do bhéal" next time you're talking to someone and you get fed up with them. Dún do bhéal translates to "shut your mouth!" Dún=shut or close, do=your, bhéal=mouth. Doon-doe-vail. uld tell that they were speaking Irish, however I couldn't make out many words at all (I always eavesdrop when I hear Irish being spoken to try to practice my comprehension). Then, when one of the women must have said something particularly interesting, the other replied, "dún do bhéal!" In that moment, it was as if I'd entered a time machine and been thrown back in a time warp to being a young child. It was a phrase that I'd heard many times from my grandmother and my mother all throughout my childhood. Being young, I never really thought about the fact that it wasn't English. I'm not even sure that I understood that it wasn't English; it just was what it was. I hadn't heard the phrase in probably 10 or 15 years until I heard it again a couple of weeks ago, and I was over the moon to have recognized it.
I'm sure you're all quite curious as to what "dún do bhéal" translates to. Maybe some beautiful Irish proverb about green grass or blue skies? The endurance of the Irish people? Well, sorry to disappoint, but you can use "dún do bhéal" next time you're talking to someone and you get fed up with them. Dún do bhéal translate to "shut your mouth!" Dún=shut or close, do=your, bhéal=mouth. Doon-doe-vail.
So while I may not be a native Irish speaker as I desperately wish that I was, a small bit of the language still managed to make it to me even 100 years after our family left this country. It survived oppression, stock market crashes, depressions, moves across the country, and so many other life-altering events. Even if it is just a little flippant remark, it's a phrase that I'll hold onto forever more.
Dún do bhéal!
Bernadette
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