Poul Anderson, The Avatar, XV.
In this fictional future:
Gaelic is the main language of Eire, Ireland;
the capital city, Dublin, is called "Baile Atha Cliath," the Town of the Ford of the Hurdles, although "Dubh Linn" literally means "Black Pool";
Eire is part of the Canton of the Islands and of Europe and of the World Union;
the Irish population is low since the Troubles - which does not mean the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1960s.
Declaration of Interest
My mother was from the West of Ireland.
I was at secondary school and University in the Republic.
Sheila is from the North of Ireland.
She and I met at University in Dublin.
I wrote a fictional fragment referring to a Federation of Welsh, Irish, Scottish and English Republics. See here.
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And of course the Troubles referred to here was the period of chaos and anarchy preceding the rise of the World Union.
And I thought the efforts within Eire to revive Gaelic largely failed. My impression was that English was simply too dominant and convenient to be displaced by a language most people would find strange and difficult.
Sean
Sean,
Gaelic was compulsory in Irish schools in the 1960s. Those of us from elsewhere in the British Isles who had not had Gaelic at primary school (5-11) were at a distinct disadvantage when he started to attend secondary school (11-17) in the Republic which regarded Gaelic as its first national language even though very few spoke it. There was a successful campaign to remove Gaelic as a compulsory subject. PA obviously imagines a future revival of Gaelic in a depopulated Ireland.
I remember a few lines of poetry like: "Ta Tir no nOg ar cul an ti" = "The Land of the Young is at the back of the house..."
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
What you said fits in with what I recalled, that the attempt at reviving Gaelic largely failed. The fact it's no longer a mandatory course of study bears that out.
Sean
Sean,
Checking on Wiki: it seems that I was mistaken to think that the language is no longer compulsory. However, it is no longer obligatory to sit the examination! That makes a big difference.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That still sounds like, de facto, Gaelic study is no longer mandatory in any real sense if you are not being tested on how proficient you are in it.
Sean
Sean,
Precisely. I knew that something significant had changed.
Anyone who knows the language will spot a typing error in my quoted line of poetry above.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And the revival of Hebrew in Israel, before and after 1948, is almost the only modern example I can think of a dead language being "resurrected" and again becoming a living language used by every day people.
Sean
Paul:
I don't know the language, but I've seen enough references in fantasy fiction and mythology textbooks to believe the error to which you refer is "Tir no nOg" rather than "Tir na nOg."
David,
You are correct.
Paul.
Paul:
That time travel fragment, and the one it links to about Yossi, both seem to assume a fixed timeline as in "Corridors of Time" and "There Will be Time". Also using the mutant time traveller idea as in the latter novel.
Fascinating literary snippets. Did you ever make any attempt to extend either into longer stories?
Jim,
No. This exhausted my efforts at writing fiction.
Paul.
Jim,
I have emailed you a few other attempts.
Paul.
Kaor, Jim!
I know nothing solid about Gaelic so I can't comment.
Ad astra! Sean
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