Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The appearance of Ireland
- 2 Tennyson's Ireland
- 3 Revival
- 4 W. B. Yeats
- 5 Wild earth
- 6 The ends of Modernism: Kinsella and Irish experiment
- 7 Ireland's Empire
- 8 Seamus Heaney
- 9 Irsko po Polsku: poetry and translation
- 10 Feminism and Irish poetry
- 11 Out of Ireland: Muldoon and other émigrés
- 12 The disappearance of Ireland
- Notes
- Guide to further reading
- Index
9 - Irsko po Polsku: poetry and translation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The appearance of Ireland
- 2 Tennyson's Ireland
- 3 Revival
- 4 W. B. Yeats
- 5 Wild earth
- 6 The ends of Modernism: Kinsella and Irish experiment
- 7 Ireland's Empire
- 8 Seamus Heaney
- 9 Irsko po Polsku: poetry and translation
- 10 Feminism and Irish poetry
- 11 Out of Ireland: Muldoon and other émigrés
- 12 The disappearance of Ireland
- Notes
- Guide to further reading
- Index
Summary
On 10 August 2006, the Irish Times reported that there were now 147,659 Poles registered to work in Ireland, 40,237 Lithuanians, 20,312 Slovaks, 20,301 Latvians and 10,302 Czechs; along with the numbers from other nations, the total registered migrant workers was 251,032. It is a long time since so many languages have been spoken by large groups on the island. One would have to look back to the late Middle Ages when Irish, English and to a lesser extent French all flourished at the same time, along with a widespread scholarly knowledge of Latin. It is not the first time then that the island has been so polyglot, but it is the first time that Eastern European languages have established themselves. A further difference is that in the Middle Ages there was much overlap between linguistic communities (for Irish speakers could often translate into French or Latin), whereas now it is unlikely that many Irish citizens speak Polish or Lithuanian. If these immigrants remain in the country then most of their children, like those of immigrants to the United States, will only have a passive understanding of their parents' language, and their children's children will know nothing but a few phrases or the correct pronunciation of a name. So while there is much media noise about the recent linguistic and cultural diversity, the phenomenon is unlikely to endure.
Meanwhile the language that offers Ireland the greatest chance of multicultural diversity is still in difficulty.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry, 1800–2000 , pp. 143 - 160Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008