En réponse à Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>:
>
> How on Earth can you tell people, that they have to change their
> language to
> make it more similar to another language? It just doesn't work that
> way;
> languages grow and evolve. And for what purpose? To have one dying
> language
> instead of two?
> Imposing upon the Irish some sort of artificial "Common Gaelic" (an
> IAL?) would
> be exactly what I think Ms. Gunn means by "cannibalising our
> language".
>
Very true, except that the Standard Irish is already a "Common Gaelic" imposed
upon three very diverging Irish traditions (which are at the edge of becoming
separate languages). Maybe it's part of the failure of Irish to grow up again
as a national language...
Languages with a large number of speakers and little to no competition in the
country where it's spoken can afford having a standard version taught at school
along with diverging dialects (basically the situation of Dutch for instance).
But such a situation is usually lethal for a minoritary language overwhelmed by
another language in its own territory...
Christophe.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.