REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF EUROPEAN YEAR OF LANGUAGES DAY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF EUROPEAN YEAR OF LANGUAGES DAY WEDNESDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER, 2001
Dia dhaoibh a bhuachaillí agus a chailiní go léir. Can I hear you say ‘Hello’ in another language?
Yes, I hear Bonjour, Guten Tag, Ola, Ciao, Hej – that’s very good!
And do I see someone greeting me in sign language?
Do any of you know sign language?
Isn’t it a wonderful way to communicate! I was lucky to grow up in a home where we used sign language thanks to my brother who was profoundly deaf. It was a great way to make plans or comments behind my mother’s back without being heard!
Today European Year of Languages Day makes us stop just for a moment or two and think a bit more deeply than usual about the importance of learning languages. Can you imagine for just a moment what it would be like in this room if there was no one else but you who could understand what you were saying, if no-one knew your language. It would be a lonely world wouldn’t it? Imagine in that world how you would let people know about yourself or about your country, or how you would get to know strangers and make friends? We use language for simple things and for complicated things, to ask for a drink, to find directions, to read a poem, to tell stories, to say how much we care, to explain how we feel, to give an opinion, to tell someone about Ireland, to ask questions.
Most days we just take this thing called language for granted but not today. Today we ask each other to remember that we are just one small part of the great family of European nations. Those nations speak many different languages and if they are to work well together in building a peaceful and prosperous Europe, they need to be able to communicate easily with each other. That means Europe’s future lies with young men and women who are prepared to work hard to understand each other, to learn how to talk in each other’s language and to break down the barriers we all feel when we are not understood.
In Ireland we have our own Irish language as well as English. Each of those languages opens doors to us- very different doors. Irish, is a much, much older language than English, so in its words lies the history of our people through the centuries. It gives us access to the world of our ancestors, to our culture, our poets and writers, to the past which helps us to understand the present, to the very heart of our identity as Irish people. It links us to the Gaelic speakers of Scotland, to the Celtic languages spoken in Wales and the Isle of Man. It links us to the people of Newfoundland and Cape Breton in Canada who still speak Gaelic today, to the people who gather at classes every night in New York, Washington, Chicago, Birmingham, Berlin and many other parts of the world, to learn this magnificent language and through it to reach that part of the story of Europe and of civilisation which can only be reached through Irish.
English, the tongue most of us learn from birth, gives us contact with many countries around the world where English is spoken countries like the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, parts of Africa, India. Because we speak a common language, we can do business together easily, travel in each others countries more easily, get jobs, appreciate each others poetry, literature, music, try each others food, expand the range of experiences we each draw from and which enrich our lives.
Sometimes because we live on an island and English is so widely spoken around us, we can too easily forget things that are on offer to us if we make the effort to learn another language. Even a few simple phrases can introduce us to a new friend on holidays and can make travel, more confident, more satisfying and it can open up our curiosity. Over thirty years ago, I started to learn Spanish and among the first poems I learnt was one by the famous Andalusian poet, Federico Garcia Lorca. The opening lines of the poem when translated into English are - Green, how I love you green. Verde que te quiero verde.
To an Irish person with our forty shades of green, the poem evokes many images but none of them is the green Lorca was writing of, the green of the olive, a tree we do not grow in Ireland. In that one sentence I was introduced to a culture of small farms where the staple crop was the olive, to the importance of the olive in Spanish life - as important as the potato in Ireland. Suddenly, with very little Spanish I had opened a door onto a whole new culture and way of life - only two hours flight from Ireland. Here were our European neighbours living very, very different lives and language, was and is, the key to entering those lives.
I’m delighted that many of you have those doors of language open to you. I know when you are learning the verbs and the tenses it can seem like hard work but it is a big investment in your own skills and it is very worthwhile. Sometimes like today it is fun, for today we have taken languages out of the classrooms all over Europe and we are joining friends in Denmark, Norway, Greece Portugal and many more countries to launch our balloons together as we celebrate the great adventure that learning a language offers. Here in Dublin Castle, we are joined by creative young people from Northern Ireland and the Basque country of Spain. They know in a special way that talking to each other really matters if we are to live in peace with each other.
A big thank you to the National Committee for European Languages, for all the work they do to help us understand just how much we are missing if we are not learning other languages. We thank them for this special day and we thank all those who supported their work – people like the Language Challenge celebrities, Marian Finucance, Stephen Rea, Gráinne Seoige, Dave Malone, and Olive Braiden, IBEC representatives, the Council of Europe, and the Department of Education and Science.
Now it is balloon launch time.
An bhfuil sibh réidh anois? Lets count down from ten in any language you like....... Ten, a naoi, ocho, sept, six, a cuig, cuatro, trei, two, a haon-.....