Language death

Q1. Should Irish Gaelic be allowed to die?

"There are many factors which contribute to language death or endangerment one of the most obvious, which is highlighted by the above example, being lack of speakers.

Other factors which can lead to a language being jeopardized can include governmental repression or just lack of governmental support FIND E.G OF GOVERNMENTAL REPRESSION. Low prestige, the language may be poorly perceived by locals, this is shown in North west of Ireland where Irish is spoken by only a few thousand people who belong to the lowest socio-economic group, who believe that speaking Irish while everyone else has adopted English has left them in this disadvantageous position and feel there is no need to continue with this process. Many of Dublin's middle classes are fighting to revive the language never the less. (Dixon, 1997)".

Q2. Do you agree with this?

"Language death is nothing more than the loss of a language system."