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Article: Irish language enjoying renaissance.
- Article from:
- Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)
- Article date:
- December 3, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Chicago Tribune. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Tom Hundley
DUBLIN _ From George Bernard Shaw to Samuel Beckett, from William Butler Yeats to James Joyce, the Irish have long been masters of the English language. It's the Irish language that has them stammering.
English has been on a 700-year march across Ireland, relentlessly pushing the Irish language, or Gaeilge, toward oblivion. These days, Irish survives as an everyday language mainly in a half-dozen scattered regions on Ireland's sparsely populated western edge.
Yet statistically speaking, the Irish language is in good shape. It may even be undergoing a renaissance of sorts.
According to the Irish government's 2002 ...