Quote Originally Posted by Populus Romanus View Post
So I was reading up about the Irish language recently, and at first I thought it was rather sad that the language is disappearing from Ireland. However, on second thought, does anyone even care? Its an awful waste of time, from my perspective at least, because Irish seems to be pretty doomed and the dominance of English on the island is secure. Why do people get so worked up about these small languages? Is it nationalism or political correctness or multiculturalism that motivates people to "preserve" minority languages such as Irish, Occitan, Breton, Scots, Basque*, Catalan*, Welsh, etc.? And finally, is it worth all the effort?

*not sure if these really fit with the others as they seem to be doing fine on their own
Funny how the vast majority of those languages are either Brythonic or Gailic (Catalan is not a minority language).

A question for you - how do you propose to read Irish poetry without knowing any Irish?